Mental Health CME: A Brief History of Bastards
Hmmm… Interesting title, you say. Yes indeed! Not everyday you read about bastards in the Science Section of the New York Times. That, of course, is why readers have to come to alternative news sources like the Drug Safety and Health News Blog to find information on more uncomfortable topics in the realm of medicine and mental health.
Anyhoo, the topic comes up because my beloved mother, who died when I was almost five years old, was adopted at birth, and a couple of years ago I had the adoption records opened and found out that she had been born out of wedlock. I was able to track down some of her family, but others I wasn’t sure if they wanted to know that their father had had a child (her) out of wedlock, but when the time came for us to have a belated memorial for her last fall, I decided that they should know about her. So I called someone who was her half sister, who didn’t know about her, and the conversation went something like this:
ME: I am calling to let you know that you had a half sister. She died in 1966. She was my mother.
HALF AUNT: How I am I supposed to believe you? [after receiving various pieces of information that I might be correct]. I am proud of you for your research. [awkward pause]
ME: Well I don’t want to butt into your life or anything, I just thought you should know.
HALF AUNT: I am proud of you for that as well. [awkward pause #2]
Click. I sent her a bunch of pictures and things about our wonderful families and all, with my phone number, but never heard back from her. Recently, I had another lost cousin contact me (yeah, the one from Eastern Washington with the guns and the stogies). I had tried to contact him earlier and thought maybe he didn’t want to be found, but in fact he did. So I thought I would contact the children of this woman, since maybe they wanted to know and she shouldn’t be the only keeper of family secrets. When I said that to another of my newly found cousins, she said I was being a bully and had “ambushed” the half-aunt. That was then that I realized that half-aunt was actually ashamed of the fact that her half-sister was born out of wedlock. I had thought that such stigma against kids born out of wedlock was long gone, but maybe not. That got me to thinking, was Mommy a bastard? or was there another word for girls? That was why I was glad that one of my favorite things on the web, Yahoo! answers [a program that lets you ask a question and let a bunch of people answer, and then vote on the best answer], had asked “Can a female be a bastard?” had come back with the answer that she is a “bastard child”. Not a bitch, that would be a female dog.
Phew!
Anyhoo I couldn’t believe that people would still be prejudiced against people born out of wedlock. I mean we have an African American president now for Christ’s sake! Saying that half-aunt was born in the 30s and we should understand her views is like saying that we should go along with people who are racist against blacks cuz they were born in an earlier time!
BTW my genetic analysis showed that I am 4% black, and that is not “Black Norwegian” as the Bremners used to say about my Mom! That is Sub-saharan African!
Anyhoo all this reflection on bastards made me start reading about it. Turns out the term “illegitimite” refers to the fact that children born out of wedlock were literally not “legitimate”, i.e. had no legal status as human beings, up until the laws were changed (in Britain at least) in the 1940s. Seems like the government was trying to punish people who had kids outside of marriage by depriving their kids of any legal right to exist. It was common practice to lie and say that the kid was actually the child of the grand parents (with the mother being the sibling) or the child of a second man, or any number of things. These kids were often put up for adoption (as was my Mom). They were also extremely vulnerable to abuse and neglect, and were very insecure about themselves. Someone made the comment that it is morally dubious, at best, to blame the children for the actions of their parents.
The corporate staff at the Drug News and Health Safety Blog couldn’t agree more.
That is why we have declared the week of Feb. 2 2009:
Be kind to a bastard week. 
.
18 Comments
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By Gianna, January 30, 2009 @ 10:08 pm
for a heartbreaking but beautifully written book that is a memoir that includes the memories of the child’s mother repeatedly going to the courthouse to try to get the bright read stamp of “illegitimate” off her daughter’s birth certificate read “Bastard out of Carolina.” by Dorothy Allison
Incredible, beautiful, haunting and painful book but one of my all time favorites.
By Therapy Patient, January 30, 2009 @ 10:18 pm
I’m sorry you lost your mom at such a young age. How awful! How disheartening to have “half-aunt” “disown” you after all the effort it took to find her.
One of my childhood playmates was thought to have been born to her “sister” and raised by her grandparents. It was the neighborhood scandal (in the 50’s). How did you get a genetic analysis done? 4% black! How exciting to have such information. I think my ancestors all came from the same European country, but it would be fun to find out. There are 2 sets of stories about my paternal grandfather that radically differ, though I am not sure genetic analysis would solve that mystery.
By Dan, January 30, 2009 @ 10:32 pm
At least you got the CME over with, Doug. 20 hours or so a year of CME is too much to ask for anyone.
As painful as this CME event may have been for you, it was certainly more volatile than the CME credits you have apathetically acquired over the years as demanded by you from the non medical authorties. These authorites could be considered much like those family members that vex you the most. It’s their way of saying to you, “Doug- your patient care quality sucks, and will continue to suck unless you do your 20 hours of CME.
This quality problem you have, of course, will improve if you do your damn 20 hours a year of entirely worthless academic crap without taking into consideration that you already spent at least one third of your life in such an academic setting.
You should feel more confident in your compentence now as a doctor,as you have acquired new and developing areas in your specialized field. Even though you know more about the KOLs who developed this annotative maneur because you havent’ been bought.
Furthermore, any knowledge gaps that you may have been in possession with in the past are now are occupied after your enriching CME session. This encounter in which you have beautifully described in this post shows that the CME provider was clearly a top knotch one at that- as shown by their novel innovation, focus on evidence based mediciene, as well as assuring verything contained in the CME event was most certainly clinically relevant. While this occured, the sales pitch from the CME provider, you know damn well that the material gladly given to you to complete your CME was and is in fact not worth shit due to the pharma sponsors of this CME company fabricating anything illustrating new and developing areas in the field of psychiatry to you that you know more of than those who are trying to say they are teachig you valuable clinical skills. As you know this, your anger was overt and free during your CME encounter. And this is how it should be related to your CME disposition,
Dan
Dan
By Gina Pera, January 31, 2009 @ 12:21 am
Okay, I read that twice, Dr. B, but I’m still not sure I understand why you concluded your aunt was ashamed that her sister was born out of wedlock and, moreover, ashamed of her sister for being born out of wedlock (speaking of terminology, think about that “wedlock”….rather ominous, isn’t it?).
She said she was proud of you for doing your research and proud of you for contacting her.
Okay, so she didn’t follow up. But you did sort of ambush her, you know? Maybe a letter might have been a better introduction than the phone? I mean, if somebody called me out of the blue and said I had a long-lost sibling, it would sort of scramble my neural pathways.
Here’s another possibility: She’s ashamed that her family never knew your mother and that one of her family members ostensibly cut off that possibility. That’s a lot of unpleasantness to face. And how does one make amends when the person has passed on? Food for thought.
Your memorial to your mother is inspiring. I’ve been meaning to do the same for my mother.
g
By Cousin in Eastern Washington, January 31, 2009 @ 12:59 am
I guess that’s why I am, the way I am. The son of a bastard son, of a bastard son!! But he was the hero of my whole world. My Dad is the brother of Doug’s Mom! Doug, having the chance to know my Dad, only reassures my that your Mom would have been the hero of your whole world also. I am quite proud to have you as a member of our family, and look forward to helping you find all the answers to your questions, as you are also doing for me! I think it is good “therapy” if you will. Heck,!! (that’s one of our redneck words) I even think Steve is a great guy! ( just strangely opinionated, haa,haa) I look forward to getting to know each and every one of you!! Our other cousins will come around too, once they know were out here!! I do like your posts, send me more if you want a hick opinion!
By Gina Pera, January 31, 2009 @ 2:08 am
Aren’t we all at least 4% black?
By Dave Affinito, January 31, 2009 @ 7:36 am
Doug, you gotta stop saying “anyhoo”.
By Marilyn Mann, January 31, 2009 @ 8:44 am
My sister-in-law’s sister gave a child up for adoption when she was in her early 20s. Recently, he contacted her and she was overjoyed to welcome him into the family, as were all her family members!
Family secrets can be very difficult. My daughter, husband and mother-in-law have a genetic disease called heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. MIL’s brother died of a heart attack at age 40, so we assume he had it. I wanted to contact his daughter to tell her why her father died so young, and also to advise her to get checked to see if she (and potentially her children) inherited the disease. MIL hit the roof, did not want me to give her niece the information.
By carolyn, January 31, 2009 @ 10:03 am
the concept of “legitimacy” only exists where property is passed through the male line. all children born of a woman are legitimately hers, while they might be the issue of various fathers. in societies where women are disenfranchished, it becomes necessary for men, who are naturally interested in making sure that their inheritance passes only to their genetic offspring and is not shared by the children of rival males, to certify somehow that the children born of their wives belong exclussively to them.
any and all children born of a specific woman are legitimately hers. we can be sure of that. however, until a child is old enough to bear a resemblance to his father, dads have had to rely on chastity belts, draconian standards of fidelity and the mother’s word that her children are also legitimately his
By Doug Bremner, January 31, 2009 @ 11:31 am
Gosh, alot to respond to. Dan: You make a good point that my jest about Mental Health CME has an undercurrent about how most CME is financed by pharma and that it represent infomercials for prescription medications. I plan to publish more Alt CME to educate my fellow physicians and hopefully shame them from stopping this practise. Here I’ll give a plug for a non pharma funded CME site since whenever he criticizes the pharma funded swill he gets attacked by trolls for self promotion.
http://www.thecarlatreport.com/
Cousin: Your father wasn’t technically a bastard although his mother died young and his father abandoned him so it was sort of the same thing. And yes this is therapy, outing all is the best antidote for shame, I don’t believe in keeping family secrets, so Marilyn I think your MIL is wrong, especially when there is a health risk.
Dave: I didn’t know you were reading this. LOL! Anyhoo is what Grandma B. used to say. She used to write these long letters about how many apples they had that year, how the cows were doing, carbon copies with 35 copies sent to all the kids and grandkids.
Other comments: I was told that half aunt was upset that granddad wasn’t such as great guy as she thought. I don’t know, I am a history buff and I just like to find out what really happened.
And yes legitimacy is from male dominated cultures. And honestly women’s libbers may rant and yell but folks what is different now is that women can and do have their own kids and get their own jobs and unlike 50 years ago they really don’t need men anymore. And with DNA testing it is easy to find out who the dad is. $79 and you can do it all online.
4% African: It is a myth that we are all 4% African (I researched this topic of course). Maybe 1% of “whites” in the US are. It means that somewhere
in the past I had a pure black ancestor (probably slave), don’t know which side of the family, as brother Steve said, if we were living in Louisiana in 1890 we would be technically “coloureds”
Brother Steve, btw, is the FB hero of the left wing liberals. DNA testing: I used http://www.dnaprintgenomics.com, you can find out your distribution and
also do the x chromosome test and find out where your original “mom” or “eve” came from. Can be very useful.
By Viola, January 31, 2009 @ 5:01 pm
yes please stop saying anyhoo and also cuz and LOL and so forth.
By Doug Bremner, January 31, 2009 @ 5:02 pm
Yes, Mrs. Bremner. LOL! (oops! sorry)
By Therapy Patient, February 2, 2009 @ 3:33 am
I am glad to see Mrs. Bremner has a sense of humor!(I am assuming!). It would be a pity if your humor were lost on somebody who is dour. I LIKE the “anyhoo”, “cuz”, “LOL, “btw”’s you interject. There’s nothing about LOL and btw that are any worse than the older etc. and i.e. Keep up the good work.
By Doug Bremner, February 2, 2009 @ 8:46 am
Yes, she does have a sense of humor, although perhaps she doesn’t joke around as much as I do. One of the jokes is that she doesn’t have the same last name as me, and she named our daughter with a hyphenated last name, and she is also a doctor, so I think it is pretty funny to call her Mrs. Bremner. And I am not planning on changing the language. Readers can always cancel their corporate subscriptions to the “Drug News and Health Safety Blog”. LOL!
By Gina Pera, February 7, 2009 @ 4:04 pm
Anyhoo, Doug…. in New Orleans circa 1890, I think you’d be called a quadroon or perhaps an octaroon or even a quintroon. By now, though, you’re probably just a hexadecaroon.
By susan, July 18, 2009 @ 3:45 am
Doug, thank you for pointing this story out to me. I too have a horror story about my birth mother- and my adoption- and the time between my adoption, which was the best thing that ever happened to me- and my birth and time in the NYC foster web.
I’ve written about it , just not published. I am not ready to talk about it yet, it’s way too painful. Kudos to you for having the strength of your deamons to write this story.
By Gina, March 9, 2010 @ 6:24 pm
This is why I like http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com. Stunning posts.