The State We're In, 2 July 2011. A Palestinian man discovers that his family may have taken the wrong baby - him - from the hospital. A British woman talks about her surprising and beautiful reunions with her birth mother and "birth son". A transgender man, a 'hijra', recounts the split from his adoptive mother, also a 'hijra', when he announced he wanted to live life as a male. And a Ghanaian-Dutch woman, who was adopted, talks to an Australian woman forced to give up her child for adoption.
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Switched at birth
Ahmed Masoud was born in the Gaza Strip just before an Israeli air raid. His father rescued him from his cot as the hospital was getting hit by fire. Years later, Ahmed discovered that there were two babies in the cot. Did his father take the right one?
So that’s who you are
Jo Galloway in the UK was adopted. When she got pregnant as a teenager, she had to give up her baby boy for adoption. She tells host Jonathan Groubert about meeting both her birth mother and later her "birth son" – and how the reunions were full of surprise and delight.
Hijra hero
Transgender people in India, or hijras, live on the margins of society. Christy Raj in Bombay (pictured above) is transgender and was adopted by a hijra mother, who raised him as a female. When Christy announced that he wanted to live life as a man, he found himself marginalised even more.
Link - read more about Christy at RNW's South Asia Wired website.
Woman to woman
Samuela de Ruiter was born in Ghana and adopted by a family in the Netherlands, where she grew up. Last year, we aired her essay about meeting her birth mother for the first time. Lina Eve, an Australian listener wrote into TSWI, to tell Samuela her story of having to give up her own baby girl for adoption.
We thought it’d be good to have them "meet" on air to exchange their insights.
Link - Lina Eve's website
Video - Bitter Winds, the song Lina wrote for her daughter:
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We have adopted our daughter in an open adoption from the US and would never tell her she was "chosen". That wording dates way back to when couples could actually go into an orphanage and "choose" a child (one that usually resembled them). In North America, unless the Birth Parent chooses otherwise, she/they choose the adoptive parent(s). We chose to adopt from the US because we prefer open adoption, where all parties are in contact and there are no questions or fantasies - some choose to adopt overseas because the children, often orphans, usually don't have accessible Birth Families.
Our daughter's Birth Mother made a conscious adoption plan, one that she has said she is very proud of, for her child and chose us, among others and through an agency that is extremely ethical in how it respects all parties involved.
Next month we'll be traveling to our first visit (we've been trying to coordinate this for the last three years) and are very excited to see our child's Birth Family again! Making memories and knowing the story is all part of adoption.
What a lovely story. Best of luck with your visit to your child's birth family.
I found Samuela's story personally very touching, not because I was adopted, but because my parents divorced when I was very young. I never got to know my father, but met him once when I was 15, and then 20 years later. I had many of the same fantasies, reactions, and confusions as she did. To hear her long-lost parent's story also helped me to try to see my father's point of view a little more. PS: I'm 59 now and still working on this issue...
Thanks for offering the opportunity to share our stories on the State We're In. Responding to the earlier post, I would think the programme is called The Chosen Ones as many adoptees are told they are chosen. This was especially true in the Uk in the 50's, 60's and 70's when adoptive parents were actively encouraged to use the terminologies, chosen and special. For my part my parents did choose me as in the late 50's people would get pictures of several babies to pick from. In the Uk still today it is a bit of a pick and mix affair as when potential matches are identified prospective adopters can choose whether to pursue the match or not. Of course being told you're chosen doesn't necessarily fill one with great joy once you get to adulthood as of course one intellectualises it a bit and may think just cos one pair of parents chose you, did it mean another couple passed you over?
Listening to the other interviews I am most impressed by the sensitive way in which the interviewer handles this very complex issue. I'm sure it will provoke discussion and thought as adoption always seems to.
Cheers
Jo
I just heard your program about adopted people. It wasn't bad; I thought you allowed a number of different perspectives to be heard, and you touched on the core issue for adopted people, that adoption is a complicated, lifelong experience.
I do wonder, though, why on earth did you call the program, "The Chosen Ones?" We weren't chosen at all; we were the "not-chosen." Certainly, we had no choice in what happened to us, and for the most part, neither did our birth mothers.
If you decide to do a follow-up story, I would be willing to speak to you.
Thanks, Nicole Burton, author
Swimming Up the Sun: A Memoir of Adoption, NicoleJBurton.com
Hi Nicole: thanks for your note. I think Jo, who was a guest on the show, explains it well: we called it "The Chosen Ones" as adopted children in many parts of the world were told they were 'chosen' and that's the explanation as to how they became part of a given family. We're not valorizing that notion. We're simply tapping into it. Glad you found the show interesting. Greg, Editor TSWI
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