THE WOMEN’S writer Joyce Maynard, who has made a career of writing about her personal life since the age of 18 and believes there is no ugly side of the modern family that cannot serve as grist in a writer’s workshop, announced to her readers yesterday, after a long period of conspicuous and uncharacteristic silence, that she gave up the two girls whom she adopted from Ethiopia three years ago at the age of 56.

She did not reveal any details of why exactly she decided to find a family elsewhere for the two girls, ages six and 11 at the time of the adoption. Instead, she spoke of her need for “healing,” of the therapist she visited, of the nights she did not sleep and the people who had harshly judged her. That the idea of adopting two children of a different race and culture and melding them into the life of a middle-aged white divorcee who writes novels and runs women’s writing workshops in California might have been fatally flawed and selfish is not something she admits.

The photo above, with the two girls standing on a table, the child-like Maynard at their feet and the multicultural decor, speaks volumes. Maynard became famous years ago for her precocity as a teenager, as well as for her affair with the writer J.D. Salinger. She now conveys an advanced case of immaturity. Perhaps precocity inevitably leads to regression.

I wrote about her silence on the absence of her adopted daughters last year. Maynard, who has never remarried and is a cult figure to aspiring women writers despite – or perhaps because of – her divorce, wrote yesterday:

I will not speak here of all that transpired between that happy, hopeful day I first brought the girls home to where I sit now, writing this. I will simply say here that though there was no shortage of love or care–and despite some very happy and good times–the adoption failed.

I have never in my life tried harder to make something work than I did, to make a good home for the girls. I was not able to give them what they needed.

All has worked out for the best. She writes:

What is most important here is that they are doing well. As much as I struggled with my decision over the many months it took to make it–months when I barely slept–I have not for one moment questioned that I made the right choice for them.

I have been severely judged in some quarters for what happened. I used to be a far more judging person than I am now, myself. Until I walk in someone else’s shoes, I try not to suppose I know her story. Nobody who didn’t live in this house with the three of us over those fourteen months can know ours.

She said she will not answer any further questions about the adoption.

For Maynard, who has three grown children, the refusal to speak about “all that has transpired” is serious. One can only wonder how the maladjustment of these children expressed itself.

Given the fad of vanity international adoptions, it is not surprising that Maynard does not question publicly the wisdom of having taken two older Ethiopian children who were well into childhood from the country where they had a father, three brothers and extended family.

Though it took almost two years to announce what had become of the girls in her writings, Maynard was eager to write about the adoption soon after it occurred. She wrote about it for More magazine in 2010. (The article has mysteriously disappeared from More archives.)  She had said at the time, “I didn’t do this to be noble. I was a mother in need of some children.”

Indeed it wasn’t a noble thing to do. The pursuit of global utopianism in one’s own home is selfish. The international adoption industry is rife with abuses. If Joyce Maynard was a poor American child who had lost her mother, would she want to be taken thousands of miles from her relatives to live with a black family in Ethiopia? If these two girls had behavioral problems, which is almost certain, it is no wonder.

In a previous post on Maynard, I wrote:

[M]aternal desire is like other human desires, such as the drive for sex or money or love. It can be good but it can also be greedy and promiscuous.

I also wrote:

[I]n trumpeting the fatherless, pick-me-up, transracial family that centers around feminine feeling, she diminishes the prospects of other children, if not of these two displaced girls, on whose chaotic existence a warped vision of global harmony rests. This is not maternal love.

When she was 18 years old, in 1972, Maynard’s essay “An Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back” was published in The New York Times magazine. It was hailed as an important statement from the baby boomer generation. And the essay is indeed a classic of our era, turning as it does to the personal for meaning, holding out the possibility that in talking about oneself, everything can be explained.

The piece contained many perceptive observations. Maynard wrote:

The fact that we set such a premium on being cool reveals a lot about my generation; the idea is not to care. You can hear it in the speech of college students today: cultivated monotones, low volume, punctuated with four-letter words that come off sounding only bland. I feel it most of all on Saturday morning, when the sun is shining and the crocuses are about to bloom and, walking through the corridors of my dorm, I see there isn’t anyone awake.

Too much has been said about the baby boomer generation and not enough about the decadence of the “Greatest Generation.” One suspects that parents of that age were charmed by Maynard’s precocity and ability to express herself, which perhaps confirmed what they were secretly thinking: “Adolescents don’t need us. Let them handle their own affairs.” Maynard flattered their permissiveness.

“A Eighteen-Year-Old Looks Back,” launched a frutiful career of autobiography for a very intelligent young woman. She wrote a book based on the essay a short time later. She dropped out of Yale to write the book and at that time had an affair with the writer J.D. Salinger, another personal experience she would later use in her writings. She would later face the charge of exploiting the affair when she sold his letters to her.

Maynard bought property in New Hampshire with her earnings from the book and then married an artist after working as a reporter at the New York Times. She had three children and supported the family with her writings, a fact which apparently embittered her. She wrote a popular “Domestic Affairs” column for Mademoiselle magazine about marriage, home and motherhood. The column was ended by the magazine when she divorced her husband in her 30s after he had had an affair with a babysitter.

In a fairly recent essay on her divorce, Maynard admitted that after years of saying the marriage broke down because of her husband’s affair with a babysitter, she had had an affair before he did with one of his college friends. As More magazine put it, “For 17 years, when Joyce Maynard told the story of her divorce, she always made her ex the bad guy. But as she neared 50, she was finally able to admit her own part in the marriage’s demise.”

She almost comes to terms with her full part in her marriage’s destruction and this is refreshing. It would be even more refreshing if she truly admitted to lying for so many years to those with whom she talked about the divorce and if she did not conclude that she and her husband had equal blame in the marriage’s collapse.

After her children were grown, Maynard moved to California. She has written a number of novels, one of which was made into a movie and, in addition to her home in Mill Valley, purchased a vacation home in Guatemala, which became another subject she pursued for her readers.

Today, Maynard is midwife to women writers, to whom she offers workshops and therapeutic get-aways. In the world of women writers, one always comes out on top in the end, wiser and better for one’s mistakes. They can always be turned into novels. The messiness of the modern family is good. It creates endless material.

 

— Comments —

Karen I. writes:

Joyce Maynard is far from the only parent to run into severe problems with international adoption. I am not saying that to defend her by any means. She certainly had the ability to research the issue before adopting. One problem that is not uncommon in international adoption cases is adopted children suffering from Reactive Attachment Disorder, which stems from severe problems like abuse and neglect early in a child’s life. Adoption agencies lie about children’s backgrounds and parents are often desperate because they cannot have children of their own. An online ABC news article says that international adoption failures (“displacements”), are as high as 10-25%. It also tells a sad story about an American couple who adopted children internationally and later found that two of them suffered from very serious problems, including autism, low IQ, RAD, post-traumatic stress disorder and more. The adoptive parents sued the adoption agency and they are quoted as saying:

“We are doing everything in our power not to return them,” Mike Mulligan said. “We didn’t set out to do this [adoption] to just, you know, simply exchange them or give them back.I didn’t want perfect children,” his wife said. “But I didn’t want a child that was going to hurt me. I didn’t want a child that was going to disrupt my family and disrupt my marriage and make my relatives turn against me. I didn’t want children that would make us feel like outcasts in our own neighborhood, isolate us and make us feel humiliated.”

Sadly, children with RAD and other severe problems like those seen in a sizeable minority of international adoptions are at high risk of abuse from frustrated, poorly equipped caregivers who were expecting something totally different than what they got. There are countless stories of abuse of internationally adopted children, including those found at the website Pound Pup Legacy, which can be found here. I will warn you ahead of time that the site features gut-wrenching stories of abuse. But, they are stories that need to be told so the world can see the dark side of the sunny portrayals of international adoptions.

One story of a failed international adoption that made the international news is that of Artyom Savelyev, a seven year old boy what was adopted by American single mother Torry Hansen. Hansen put the child back on a plane to Russia alone with a one-way ticket after she concluded she could no longer handle him. Hansen received widespread condemnation for her actions in Russia and America, with Russia suspending international adoptions. I wonder if Joyce Maynard put her adopted children on a plane the way Hansen did, and if so, why she isn’t facing the same public outrage.

 Laura writes:

No, Maynard did not send the children back to Ethiopia. She found an American family that was reportedly happy to have them.

Jane S. writes:

As an adult adoptee, I can tell you that just hearing the word “adoption” causes many people to go instantly into a state of deep denial.

Trixie writes:

I don’t know much about international adoption, but here in South Africa it’s quite trendy for gay (male) couples to adopt so-called HIV orphans. I wonder what happens when the novelty of caring for a special needs baby (they are often born with severe immune deficiency issues) wears off. It so happens that I have encountered such a couple and their baby, and concluded that men just cannot see to the little details like clipping fingernails and cleaning ears. They also complained about being woken at night.

If-It-Was-Easy-Everyone-Would-Do-It writes:

Hey why not? She tried a “trial marriage” and then she tried a “trial family” and What the hey?! “It just didn’t work out the way I wanted it to be. No hard feelings, right? We can still be friends. I mean that. Really.”

Jane S. writes:

I once attended an international adoption open house, hosted by a local adoption agency.

The MC for the evening was a guy who had adopted a girl from China. He referred to his “partner” but not his “wife,” so it’s safe to assume that it was a same-sex couple adoption.

He went on and on about how much he adored this little girl. He showed us many proud daddy pictures. He was so sensitized to their racial differences and the effect it might have on her, that he bought a house in a predominantly Chinese neighborhood, and enrolled her in a Chinese-language school, and went out of his way to take her to Chinese restaurants and other places where she could be around other Chinese.

I finally asked him if he had obtained identifying information about the birthmother, in case the girl wants to locate her one day. He gave me a totally blank look. I explained to him that sooner or later, the girl will learn where babies come from and she might want to know the facts about her birth, specifically from the woman who was present. The thought had never occurred to him. He acted like he had never heard the word “mother” before.

That’s how it is with adoptive parents a lot of times. Really tuned in in some ways, totally clueless in others.

Laura writes:

I highly recommend Barbara Demick’s 2009 Los Angeles Times series on adoption in China, which I discussed here and here.

Daniel (of The Orthosphere) writes:

I noticed that Mrs. Maynard, in the sections you quote on your blog, uses the active voice when she wants to highlight her own nobility and uses the passive voice when she wants to gloss over her failings.

“I will not speak here of all that transpired between that happy, hopeful day I first brought the girls home.” In this short quote, Maynard refers to the difficult times as “all that transpired” as if some impersonal force was at work, even as she claims the active, first-person voice for the “happy, hopeful day” that she did her supposedly noble deed. when she first brought the girls home.

Again, later: “I have been severely judged in some quarters for what happened.” Here’s how someone who is truly sorry for her misdeeds would put it (even leaving in the obvious pity-yank “I have been severely judged…”): “I have been severely judged in some quarters for what I did.” But no, for her, it’s just “what happened.” She apparently had no agency whatsoever.

These are just two small examples, and they don’t add up to a complete indictment of Maynard in and of themselves. But if those of us who read such “confessions” wonder why they ring so hollow, the English major in me wants to point out her varying use of the active and passive voices. As Mrs. Maynard is a rather accomplished writer herself, I’m sure she understand the frank difference it makes.

For instance, you, Mrs. Wood, could say, “It is regrettable to find myself put in the situation where I am forced by measures beyond my control to acknowledge the disliking of Maynard’s philosophy which is thrust upon me.” Or else you could say: “I think Maynard is wrong.”

A person who is still trying to avoid paying the piper speaks in the former manner. Someone with courage and conviction speaks more bluntly. I don’t know the details of Maynard’s adoption and later de-adoption of these two girls, so I can’t tell if she is lying or being honest or “massaging” the truth in some manner. All I know is that she writes with the shifting voice of djinn who wishes to bewitch her audience. The girls are just another prop in her self-seeking saga.

Laura writes:

She does shift to the active voice in describing her decision to give the girls to another family and the trip to the city where they would live, but she does not tell us what led to this decision. She then writes:

I have been severely judged in some quarters for what happened. I used to be a far more judging person than I am now, myself. Until I walk in someone else’s shoes, I try not to suppose I know her story. Nobody who didn’t live in this house with the three of us over those fourteen months can know ours.

But Joyce Maynard herself had informed us what went on in that house shortly after she adopted the girls. She write in More magazine:

My house is often a mess. When friends speak of trips they’re taking, I know I won’t be traveling for a long time, if ever. I don’t go shopping either; it’s easier to just live in T-shirts and black yoga pants. Harder to deal with is the knowledge that I am not as available as I once was to visit my three older kids. But the truth is, they had me when they needed me—the same as their new sisters (which is how my older kids refer to them) do now. Most of the time, the older ones are off living their own lives, but every now and then they blow through, and for however long they stick around, there’s hip-hop dancing in the kitchen and love all around. By the time Almaz and Birtukan leave, I’ll be closing in on age 70—at which point I expect to be totally cured of my child-raising addiction.

What happened to this idyll of “hip-hop dancing in the kitchen and love all around?” Maynard invited the world into her home and then slammed the door. Now, I know she would argue that this was necesary for the privacy of the girls. However, an admission that she had done wrong in drawing readers in and publicizing the adoption is then in order.

James P. writes:

Trixie wrote,

“It so happens that I have encountered such a couple and their baby, and concluded that men just cannot see to the little details like clipping fingernails and cleaning ears. They also complained about being woken at night.”

Maybe that is true for gay men with adopted children, but I take care of such “little details” for my own children all the time.

Maynard seems like a hopelessly self-obsessed narcissist. She is best known for… writing about herself! She wrote a memoir at an early age before she’d even done anything. (Gee, who does that sound like?)

Jeff W. writes:

Joyce Maynard must have a good publicist.  Maynard describes herself as an independent woman, constantly thinking great thoughts and doing great things, but I have to believe that she would never have gotten anywhere without the press notice that was procured by an  agent.  If I am right, it means that she is largely the creation of a publicity agent.

Laura writes:

Maynard became a celebrity at the age of 18 and her celebrity status increased with her affair with J.D. Salinger. (She was criticized for later selling his letters to her.) I don’t think she needed a publicist. She is an industrious writer and has appeared in major publications often. For instance, The New York Times featured a highly flattering article about her a few years ago about her house in Guatemala, which she had made into her own writerly retreat. She is smart enought to be her own publicist.

Her story is popular, I believe, because it is a divorce fantasy, as well as a writer’s fantasy. A divorced woman can be domestic and feminine and constantly remake her life. It never gets boring. The possibilities are limitless. One can even have more children at the age of 56.

Modern women get divorced not simply because they are fleeing husbands they dislike or despise. They are fulfilling a vision too. They are seeking something positive. Joyce embodies that liberation.

I suspect Joyce herself knows it is an empty fantasy, but will not let on to her readers.

Jeff W. writes:

I agree with you that Joyce Maynard has exceptional skill for getting publicity and for understanding her reading audience. Her affair with J.D. Salinger was a publicist’s dream. But I do not think that skill developed in a vacuum. Nor am I saying that she has necessarily ever had a paid publicist.

I am old enough to remember her debut at age 18. I remember reading an article (in Newsweek, if I remember correctly) that described her as a “gamine” or “gamine-like,” and I remember having to look up that word in a dictionary. I also remember the puzzlement I felt, after reading some of her thoughts, as to what the fuss was about. She was supposedly the voice of the rising new generation of liberated women, and she was also gifted with remarkable spiritual qualities.

Despite her seeming innate talent for getting publicity, I still do not believe that she could have engineered the deluge of over-the-top publicity that she received at age 18 without some adult help.

I also view her adoption of the two Ethiopian girls as another publicity stunt that she abandoned when it stopped working.

When thinking about Joyce Maynard, I am reminded of H.L. Mencken, who wrote, “I have always been interested in frauds.” Joyce Maynard has always been interesting to me in that way.

Paul writes:

Ms. Maynard did not act on guidance from Jesus. Mating to have children is an obligation rather than a choice. Mankind will come to an end if the obligation is not fulfilled. God’s edict is to be fruitful and multiply. Those that do not fulfill the obligation are not engaging in evil as long as they live righteous lives and support God’s children through other means: warriors, teachers, or physicians, for example. Just think of the 300 male Spartans who saved the West, as it turned out, for Christ.

Ms. Maynard had the opportunity to be a doting grandmother to help her children multiply. She could have been there to help her children fulfill their obligation. But no, Ms. Maynard was selfish. She wanted toys.

Oh yes, Ms. Maynard and most of us would love to have toys: sweet, normal children to cuddle and to show all the marvels of the world. But for how long would this feeling last, and through how much tribulation would this feeling last? You are not fulfilling God’s edict when you neglect your grandchildren and abandon your children, all of whom require care. Most people who have only godchildren would never abandon them, even if the relationship is not close. You obligated yourself. “Thou shalt not lie.”

Doting is important, and I did not dote. My brother’s sweet, pretty godchild hung herself in the last year though she was a brilliant Berkley graduate, had a good husband, and had two smart athletic children sought after by major college football teams. We had no idea, and I feel guilty because I did not keep in touch (I was in New Orleans and she was in Rye, NY), knowing her awful upbringing. Her parents, one of whom was a first cousin, were terrible; my parents clothed her, and I used to take her swimming on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. We both spoke at our cousin’s wedding. That was near the last time I saw her.

Ms. Maynard would like to spin abandoning her children to others as absolution. The fact remains that she abandoned them, violating one of Jesus’ commandments. The possibility that her children landed in the hands of righteous people does not absolve her from her sin: “Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s goods.”

Laura writes:

I agree with Jeff that the publicity Maynard has received is extraordinary. He may be right that someone influential was behind it.

I would like to emphasize two points made by Paul. One, Maynard abandoned her own children. Even though they were young adults, they still needed her to guide them toward marriage and childbearing.

Second, she took something that rightfully belonged to others. She took children from their home country, far from their own relatives with whom they most certainly would have connected with later in life. What justification did she have for doing this even if they were in an orphanage? To say the material goods of life in the United States are more important than one’s own family and home country is arrogant and demeaning to the children, who like all children, need as a basic matter of psychological survival a cultural identity and a sense of kinship and belonging.

Obviously adoption authorities in Ethiopia and the United States, as well as the girls’ own families colluded with this arrangement, so Maynard is not at all entirely to blame for taking them so far away.