Cast Off

"Cast Off" is the true story of Lee Campbell, an undereducated housewife in the mid-70s, who risks exposing her state-sponsored secret, her rehabbed reputation, and everyone she holds dear in her "new life." She is driven to find other mothers like her to invite them to follow her half-baked vision for an organization that is the first of its kind in the world. Breaking one taboo after another, this unique band of mothers invents words and reveals hidden stories. As they help tens of thousands of people, they recruit professionals who "get" that a socially-sacred institution is overdue for a reform that will affect generations to come. Along the way, Lee finds her voice and her spirit, and she exercises smarts she didn't know she had.

"Cast Off" twines two stories. One story shows how being banned from my firstborn's life affected my roles as a woman, a wife, and a mother of two others. The second story reveals how, in the mid-1970s, I searched for mothers like me and invited them to help me form a new organization, the first of its kind anywhere. Our unique band of mothers broke one taboo after another. We risked our rehabbed respect to spread our message across the United States. We swallowed hard when we revealed our state-sponsored secrets. We exercised the mother of all restraints when we followed our children's lives from a distance. Along the way, we gathered support from some professionals. With them, we squared off against others in the adoption industry who exercised their money and might to block the changes we proposed. In the end, we expanded what it means to be whole. As I look back after many decades, I don't know how I had the courage to do any of it. After all, I was only a 1970s housewife, who a decade earlier had been kicked out of high school. But I did do it. And, I will prove how trusting your own instincts and imagination can infuse your spirit, too.

Dr. Lee Campbell was the founder in 1976 of the first organization in the world -- Concerned United Birthparents, Inc. (CUB) -- devoted to the support and advocacy of mothers and fathers with children missing in adoption. Lee also served as CUB's first president between 1976-1984. During Lee's tenure with CUB, she was a four-time guest on the then-nationally syndicated show, "The Phil Donahue Show," as well as on countless other varied audio-visual and print media, such as "Good Housekeeping," "The Wall Street Journal," the "Boston Globe" and tons more. After CUB, Lee moved into academia where she taught social sciences at the college level for 30 years. Upon her retirement, Lee returned to CUB, assumed the position of Curator, and was charged with re-assembling CUB's early history. Digital copies of more than 4,000 pages of CUB's history -- and history of the adoption reform movement -- are available on CUB's website (www.cubirthparent.org). Moreover, both digital and hard copies of all artifacts will be available in 2015 at Radcliffe's Women's History Center of Schlesinger Library at Harvard University.