The first bond a baby has is with its mother.
Her heartbeat, her voice, her warmth—
our bond formed before I even opened my eyes to the world.
Long ago, people thought babies were blank.
That we felt nothing, remembered nothing,
as if we were clone bodies waiting for the world to shape us.
But this is not true.
Babies feel.
Babies know.
Babies remember in ways that live inside the body and brain.
Once hit by the train and taken from my mother,
Stress began.
trauma began.
In a baby’s body, stress grows into trauma—
and once it starts, it does not stop easily.
The longer it goes, the louder it lives inside the brain.
Babies are soft, but they are not empty.
They know when their world shifts.
They know when safety is gone.
There was a study done by, wolf and Spitz, who experimented with mother infant bonds
long ago in the early 1900s.
Babies left with comfort, love, food, and care pulled back into themselves.
Three months of emptiness was enough.
If the mother returned, the child would return too.
If not, the emptiness stayed.
In those years,
so many children went missing from India.
So many trafficked away.
Almost all—sold for the highest dollar.
Names changed.
Birthdays rewritten.
Medical records lost or made up.
Nationality, disability, birthplace;
all bent to fit the perfect story of adoption.
The one polished and passed along for decades,
shiny enough to hide the cracks beneath,
and often in the fog of unknowing.
There was a bond between the Church and the Missionaries of Charity. At the time Indias orphanage export laws were loosely enforced - there was no CARA, no central authority and foreign adoptions often happened quietly through private or religious channels. Even now, enforcement is questionable and CARA doesnt care once the child is adopted. Help for adoptees to find original paperwork or first families is nonexistent. Think of the danger for the mother, but do we think of the danger to the child that will grow to adulthood. Both sides should be safe and there's no reason it cant be that way. Think of the mothers safety is a cop out, and a way to dismiss hundreds of thousands of children.
Money flowed like water in that bond betweem the Catholic church and MoC
Money that came for orphans, the sick, the leapors, and the dying.
Money that came from rich Westerners who gave because pity and guilt asked them to, a preformative sympathy, as the gift was also a photo op.
Mother Teresa would take money from anyone.
And, I agree
it does not matter where money comes from,
only that it is used to keep people alive and protected.
Was it used well?
That is not for me to judge.
I can only say she and the Sisters kept me alive,
and for that, I cannot curse her name, nor would I.
Bonding takes many shapes.
I bonded with the nuns who fed me.
I bonded with the other babies pressed near.
And then I was moved.
From one orphanage to another.
And then across the world.
I was handed to a Dutch woman and a man from New York.
They had two boys already.
They did not smell like me
They did not look like me.
They did not seem normal.
The food, the air, the voices;
nothing felt the same.
That broke the bond to my first country,
the bond to my people,
the bond to my heritage.
I was no longer to grow as an Indian child,
but as something else.
Something rewritten.
a Frankenstein of modern medicine and culture. I was raised as a Dutch child in American.
My adoptive mother had learned the American tongue quickly,
even dropped her accent fast,
but she did not love the culture around her.
She was not curious about it.
Not eager to belong to it.
She was controlling.
Harsh.
A housewife.
My other guardian worked as a psychiatrist. He was much easier to be around.
Her will was the strongest bond in our home. A forced control that would eventually be it’s end.