The definition of culture: The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively. In other words, our backgrounds, our experiences, and the values our parents raised us with are all things that shape our brains, which determines how we perceive the world and everything in it. Culture is very powerful. It can be something to be proud of, but unfortunately it can also drives shame for anyone who dares to go against it. It has created shame for people who believe love is blind to gender, it created shame for people who were anything but white Americans, and it created an entire generation of women who felt such an extreme amount of shame that it caused them to give up their babies. People can be so cruel to those that are different or don’t follow cultural “rules”. Culture drove many adoptions and shaped the adoption industry. In the 60’s and 70’s, adoptions were as secret as the inner workings of the CIA. To adopt a child in that day and age, you had to meet in alleyways or cemeteries in the dead of night so that the birth mother could not possibly know to whom the child went. It’s cruel. It’s that culture that also created adoption laws. The first adoption law began in Massachusetts in 1851 and was meant to ensure that the homes were fit and proper for the children. Laws continued to evolve but were mostly focused on the adoptive family and their home. Although it was wonderful that they were protecting the child’s physical well-being, no one was considering the child’s mental well-being. From the beginning, the birth mother was treated like an embarrassment and laws protected their anonymity. The ones making the laws and protecting the laws were affected by that culture, not to mention that the legislators were mostly middle aged white men who most likely couldn’t fathom the emotions connected to something so traumatic as adoption. The birth mothers were afraid to speak up; they felt like there was no way their child would even want to know them. The parents of those birth mothers were driven by society to feel shame about their daughters being pregnant outside of marriage and wanted full secrecy surrounding the situation. Not one of those people, the parents, the pregnant daughters, the lawmakers, the lawyers, the religious services enabling the adoption ever considered how wrong it is to keep someone’s identity away from them. It was a selfish society. Our generation has made great strides in many different areas and driving out shame for people who are different, whether they are same sex partners or mixed race couples or women who are alone and pregnant. We have to keep up the positive change. We have to be loud now that we are grown adoptees and can speak to the affects adoption as had on us. We have to speak up to cause a change in legislature. We have the power to evolve the culture. Change is coming; change for the rights of adoptees.