I’m a 76 year old adoptee, with a 72 year old adopted sister. I have no other siblings. My husband’s and my only child is an adopted son aged 45.

It worries me that the public rarely hears about successful adoptions. I feel a strong need to speak out on behalf of my experience with two sides of the triangle - an adoptee and an adoptive parent. The reason I need to do this, is because if ever the subject comes up and I say I’m adopted, I’m met with pity and sadness. That’s because the prevailing attitude towards adoption is one of negativity. I find that insulting to me, my sister, my son and particularly, my parents. It’s assumed that I had a horrible childhood, while nothing could be further from the truth.

Now, I understand that not everyone was as lucky as I was, and I feel so sorry that their experiences were bad. Every child deserves to feel safe and loved. I believe that the success or failure of any adoption lies squarely with the parents. I can not remember a time when I didn’t know I was adopted. It was the same with my sister. Our son asked me where babies come from when he was three. I took the opportunity to tell him that my ‘tummy didn’t work’ (I’d had a total hysterectomy) and another lovely lady grew him in her tummy and gave him to his Dad and me, because she wanted him to have a daddy and she wasn’t married.

My sister found her biological mother shortly before her mother died, at 92 years of age. Our son has no interest whatever in seeking out his biological mother, and neither have I. My biological mother was 16 when I was born and never had any intention of keeping me, because she adored her father and wanted her baby to have a father as well. Not only that, she knew she was too young to be a mother, and she really didn’t want to. I thank her every day. My sister’s biological mother told her exactly the same thing, so it’s not the case that all white adopted babies were forcibly removed from their mothers. I’ve met relinquishing mothers during my long life who’ve told me the same.

If I could tell adoptive parents one thing, it would be this: do not treat your adopted child as someone special. Parents who make a huge deal about adopted children being special and different, run the risk of alienating the child from their peers. No child wants to feel different, not even ‘special different’. I’ve seen it happen. The parents tie their children’s whole identity to their adoption. Those adoptions never work and the parents never understand why.
I think when a child is adopted out to the right family , who wants to nurture and love that child then that is amazing and that child is so lucky.

You were very blessed for the parents that adopted you as is your son but unfortunately more often than not adopted children are taken into an unloving family and treated either badly or treated ok but with no love.

My father and his adopted sister was adopted by a family who were cold as ice. I was actually scared of his adopted mother where my nan ( mums mum) banned me from visiting.

I have met so many people over the years that are adopted and only one of those had a happy childhood.

I remember one saying that they only took her in because of the money they received for doing so.

It's so sad
 
What a great positive story. It’s such a pity it’s usually the negative stories we hear. I had two adopted cousins who should never have been given to my aunt and uncle, not because they were abusive, but because my aunt was a strange woman who had no idea how to raise a child. Looking back, I believe she had a mild intellectual disability. The son turned into a lovely man, but sadly the daughter has been troubled her whole life through.
I think we hear so many negative stories because there are more negative stories
It is great to hear of a positive adoption story
 
I have my original birth certificate, that's how I found out my name and place of birth. A search of the name listed as my mother brought up no results on Ancestry.com and the place of my birth no longer exists.
Ricci, are you able to google "Finding Birth Parents in the UK/DNA, Adoption & Unknown Parentage"
That site, or others may get you started.
I'm watching a series on SBS on Monday nights "DNA Family Secrets", a British series helping folk with a similar history to yours, through DNA finding a family tree.
I cry +++.....there's such a big hole in so many lives.
I grew up with an absent father, but we knew who he was, in the 1950s, Mum was known as a 'deserted wife'. The stigma was crippling. There were no government hand outs. Poverty was appalling.
It was only after Mum died that I started doing my ancestry to find out about my father's family....cousins etc. I do know that my father had died in 1979, Mum read it in the paper.
A sense of emptiness is a huge hole to bear in your heart.
 
Last edited:
I was born in 1961 my mother was 13 when she fell pregnant and 14 when she gave birth.
My grandparents raised me .

I met my husband when I was 14 he was 16 he had just lost both his parents in a car crash.

Together we were rebellious smoking pot , drinking , and awhole alot of other crap.

When I was 15 and he was 17 we found out we were pregnant. It was 1976 and so many tried to convince us to adopt our baby out. Saying we had our whole life ahead of us. That we were being selfish and that we could give the baby to a couple who couldn't have kids.

We were ready to take off if need be but lucky I had a supportive family, my grandparents and my mother.

March of 1977 we gave birth to a daughter.
But I can now see how under pressure so many girls would have been made to give up their babies. Sadly I knew a couple.

My husband and I are still together with 13 precious children ranging from 17 to 45 .
We were determined to break the cycle of teen pregnancy which we have done.
Most of my kids finished year 12 and went onto uni.
As teenagers we were told we wouldn't make it. We were both determined to work hard and be the best parents we could be.
Wow, what a story! Well done guys.
 
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The author wishes to remain anonymous.
Warning: This content may be upsetting for some readers. Please note that this is quite personal so please comment with caution and compassion.

Mrs X is a 51-year-old wife, mother of two and a retired member of the Royal Australian Air Force. She also happens to be my mother. A recurring source of pain in her life is her adoption at six months old, before which she lived in a Queensland orphanage. The orphanage, like many, is long gone.

We’re sitting at her kitchen island on a Saturday night. She’s just returned from a Vespa Club outing wearing a scooter-printed shirt. The apartment is quiet despite its location in the heart of the city. She likes being able to walk into the CBD. On her coffee table lies Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, the first of which I gifted her for Christmas and remains unread. The latter she refers to as her ‘Bible’ for its spiritual teachings.

Mrs X is one of many children now referred to as Australia’s White Stolen Generation.

‘I don’t want to take it away from the Indigenous. But we are a stolen generation. The Government took the children–they weren’t taken like the Indigenous–it was that socially-, they could not look after a child and if the families did not say I will raise the child or help you raise the child then the child was given up for adoption.’

g40_4iWrepNeLRARIjZ1KR5pgB0c79IXIPapSuzXl76cDld_aSHCxMx3N6Kxmvu5GtJkD7PArV_R2E4M3LNcTySD9Hq2Tt67gQiveo8dffRVwRO23YKLTjgE6BBAEJlpEbVyPOJcRhiQSkLS0EmKvGU1RFuYrsPCWCV25uvBEuX5fu6jHJi3jS5o

Government practices stole babies from their families. Image Source: Pexels

Dr Higgin’s research ‘Unfit mothers … unjust practices?’ confirms these adoption practices had ‘lifelong consequences’ for both mother and child with over 35,000 adoptions estimated to have occurred between 1968 and 1980. The Australian Government delivered a formal apology to people affected by past forced adoption or removal policies and practices in 2013.

Then-PM Julliad Gillard acknowledged it was government policies that ‘forced the separation of mothers from their babies, which created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering’. The apology touched on something that plagues Mrs X to this day: ‘To each of you who were …led to believe your mother had rejected you and who were denied the opportunity to grow up with your family and community of origin and to connect with your culture, we say sorry.’ But 'sorry' cannot take away the ingrained trauma.

Mrs X’s biological mother and father were unwed, the former of which was only sixteen years old. She recalls being told that when her brother was born, a year before her, their biological father stole him from the hospital and was subsequently put into jail. Mrs X was conceived upon his release but he would not find out about the pregnancy until the baby girl was born, in the late 1960s, and placed in an orphanage. Regardless, it went unsaid, no one had tried to steal her to safety.

Visibly emotional, Mrs X explains, ‘just imagine from zero to six months, that child is not loved. There is no love for that child to learn how to, you know, get on with-, it’s... it’s a tough one for anyone to understand.’

She props her elbows onto the bench and clasps her hands together as if to ground herself. Her chin comes to rest on her surprisingly steady hands. While I no longer live at home, my laundry rattles in the background.

Qfzda1lDTsCx9--FeZPOZtrwmWxBxfHubksPSXBuyhNXZwsrVQCPOiV5yoAV59u9z3WFUWb0Ov-4BwtAdNkjBPnFPDzo2qkLE6ZTu4fgp2P8CiClScOJD2yM-2pguK4SfJYryhpKGDhOgDnJu8TotPswlaPB1BOUwDQUFAIkJF-U2YTQJN-2PkLZ

Empty beds and empty cradles. Image Source: Pexels.

She recalls being eight years old when she was told of her adoption and remembers exactly where she was at the time. ‘It didn’t really resonate with me and I remember going off after that and playing a game of tennis with somebody … I said “Oh, I’ve just been told I’m adopted”.’ Two other girls in her thirty-two-student school were also adopted.
‘I don’t think we ever spoke about it.’

Her silence has continued up until now; something she blames on fear of further rejection. At 21, a recent Air Force recruit and admitted ‘run-away,’ Mrs X started to look for her biological mother through the adoption ‘search and contact’ company Jigsaw. ‘They got back to me and said, “Do you realise you have a brother?” and I thought “Oh f***, I already have four”.’

Despite having already discussed the adoption generally, when the interview steers toward how it impacted her, Mrs X began to cry.

‘I’ve never really let myself get close to a lot of people... Not many people have got in… maybe that was the survival in the first six months of my life. I knew what I needed to do to survive.’

‘Why do you think that is?’ I prompt.

‘Because I didn’t learn how to love, I didn’t learn what compassion was.’

Despite being placed in a home at six months old, her life did not improve. She explained that the orphanages were closing and families that were previously rejected from adopting due to their financial situation were now handed children, with essentially no questions asked. ‘They literally had to get rid of us out of the orphanages.’

‘Get rid of us’ rings in my ears long after the interview ends.

Mrs X had been adopted by a family undeniably living in poverty. Her adoptive mother had an ectopic pregnancy where she lost who she believed to be her daughter. In turn, she went to the orphanage and brought home Mrs X. In her new home Mrs X was beaten and treated as a maid, something she refers to as ‘Cinderella Syndrome’. While she didn’t wish to delve into this part of her history, she confirmed she was also physically and sexually assaulted throughout her childhood by her adoptive brothers; something she has never received an apology for or any sort of acknowledgement of from her family. The impact on her psyche has been profound:

'If a mother cannot love you… and when you’re adopted, it depends who you’ve gone to…I’m not the only person who is gonna go “I’ve had two mothers that have not loved me.” I’m not the only one. Mum doesn’t even say happy birthday to me, doesn’t ring me… doesn’t acknowledge my birthday because she wasn’t there.'​

The dryer chimes, we’d both forgotten it was on. When I return, we discuss other adoptees and whether she had any advice she would like to offer.

‘First of all, I’d try not to burden them with my story.’ This thought has appeared throughout the interview, that her story is not worth sharing, a remnant of the emotional turmoil of her childhood.

‘It’s always there, it’s always in the background…My advice would be to accept what’s happened, acknowledge what’s happened but be grateful for what you have now.’

U7tpmWfGhLWtLQDcVWKgnrJgmCHU_yStZo9eRykaRsGoCWFXeMBjy6eqCME-VWXse2UkOwzC0rVImjQczuTtsDKtc8Y5bMAi05rGohvZhBuaprMyEIxB2jafuqbkP88pnYplS7BfV40cbVfpL89DJg

A horrific stain on Australian history. Image Source: Pexels.

Before I head home, she helps me fold everything. She relaxes as we sit side by side. While Mrs X did not have a positive mother figure, when I think of my childhood and current relationship with her, I know she figured motherhood out.

Did other adoptees from my mother’s generation find their families? It is likely to remain an intimate part of history that will go largely untold.
The author wishes to remain anonymous.
Warning: This content may be upsetting for some readers. Please note that this is quite personal so please comment with caution and compassion.

Mrs X is a 51-year-old wife, mother of two and a retired member of the Royal Australian Air Force. She also happens to be my mother. A recurring source of pain in her life is her adoption at six months old, before which she lived in a Queensland orphanage. The orphanage, like many, is long gone.

We’re sitting at her kitchen island on a Saturday night. She’s just returned from a Vespa Club outing wearing a scooter-printed shirt. The apartment is quiet despite its location in the heart of the city. She likes being able to walk into the CBD. On her coffee table lies Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, the first of which I gifted her for Christmas and remains unread. The latter she refers to as her ‘Bible’ for its spiritual teachings.

Mrs X is one of many children now referred to as Australia’s White Stolen Generation.

‘I don’t want to take it away from the Indigenous. But we are a stolen generation. The Government took the children–they weren’t taken like the Indigenous–it was that socially-, they could not look after a child and if the families did not say I will raise the child or help you raise the child then the child was given up for adoption.’

g40_4iWrepNeLRARIjZ1KR5pgB0c79IXIPapSuzXl76cDld_aSHCxMx3N6Kxmvu5GtJkD7PArV_R2E4M3LNcTySD9Hq2Tt67gQiveo8dffRVwRO23YKLTjgE6BBAEJlpEbVyPOJcRhiQSkLS0EmKvGU1RFuYrsPCWCV25uvBEuX5fu6jHJi3jS5o

Government practices stole babies from their families. Image Source: Pexels

Dr Higgin’s research ‘Unfit mothers … unjust practices?’ confirms these adoption practices had ‘lifelong consequences’ for both mother and child with over 35,000 adoptions estimated to have occurred between 1968 and 1980. The Australian Government delivered a formal apology to people affected by past forced adoption or removal policies and practices in 2013.

Then-PM Julliad Gillard acknowledged it was government policies that ‘forced the separation of mothers from their babies, which created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering’. The apology touched on something that plagues Mrs X to this day: ‘To each of you who were …led to believe your mother had rejected you and who were denied the opportunity to grow up with your family and community of origin and to connect with your culture, we say sorry.’ But 'sorry' cannot take away the ingrained trauma.

Mrs X’s biological mother and father were unwed, the former of which was only sixteen years old. She recalls being told that when her brother was born, a year before her, their biological father stole him from the hospital and was subsequently put into jail. Mrs X was conceived upon his release but he would not find out about the pregnancy until the baby girl was born, in the late 1960s, and placed in an orphanage. Regardless, it went unsaid, no one had tried to steal her to safety.

Visibly emotional, Mrs X explains, ‘just imagine from zero to six months, that child is not loved. There is no love for that child to learn how to, you know, get on with-, it’s... it’s a tough one for anyone to understand.’

She props her elbows onto the bench and clasps her hands together as if to ground herself. Her chin comes to rest on her surprisingly steady hands. While I no longer live at home, my laundry rattles in the background.

Qfzda1lDTsCx9--FeZPOZtrwmWxBxfHubksPSXBuyhNXZwsrVQCPOiV5yoAV59u9z3WFUWb0Ov-4BwtAdNkjBPnFPDzo2qkLE6ZTu4fgp2P8CiClScOJD2yM-2pguK4SfJYryhpKGDhOgDnJu8TotPswlaPB1BOUwDQUFAIkJF-U2YTQJN-2PkLZ

Empty beds and empty cradles. Image Source: Pexels.

She recalls being eight years old when she was told of her adoption and remembers exactly where she was at the time. ‘It didn’t really resonate with me and I remember going off after that and playing a game of tennis with somebody … I said “Oh, I’ve just been told I’m adopted”.’ Two other girls in her thirty-two-student school were also adopted.
‘I don’t think we ever spoke about it.’

Her silence has continued up until now; something she blames on fear of further rejection. At 21, a recent Air Force recruit and admitted ‘run-away,’ Mrs X started to look for her biological mother through the adoption ‘search and contact’ company Jigsaw. ‘They got back to me and said, “Do you realise you have a brother?” and I thought “Oh f***, I already have four”.’

Despite having already discussed the adoption generally, when the interview steers toward how it impacted her, Mrs X began to cry.

‘I’ve never really let myself get close to a lot of people... Not many people have got in… maybe that was the survival in the first six months of my life. I knew what I needed to do to survive.’

‘Why do you think that is?’ I prompt.

‘Because I didn’t learn how to love, I didn’t learn what compassion was.’

Despite being placed in a home at six months old, her life did not improve. She explained that the orphanages were closing and families that were previously rejected from adopting due to their financial situation were now handed children, with essentially no questions asked. ‘They literally had to get rid of us out of the orphanages.’

‘Get rid of us’ rings in my ears long after the interview ends.

Mrs X had been adopted by a family undeniably living in poverty. Her adoptive mother had an ectopic pregnancy where she lost who she believed to be her daughter. In turn, she went to the orphanage and brought home Mrs X. In her new home Mrs X was beaten and treated as a maid, something she refers to as ‘Cinderella Syndrome’. While she didn’t wish to delve into this part of her history, she confirmed she was also physically and sexually assaulted throughout her childhood by her adoptive brothers; something she has never received an apology for or any sort of acknowledgement of from her family. The impact on her psyche has been profound:

'If a mother cannot love you… and when you’re adopted, it depends who you’ve gone to…I’m not the only person who is gonna go “I’ve had two mothers that have not loved me.” I’m not the only one. Mum doesn’t even say happy birthday to me, doesn’t ring me… doesn’t acknowledge my birthday because she wasn’t there.'​

The dryer chimes, we’d both forgotten it was on. When I return, we discuss other adoptees and whether she had any advice she would like to offer.

‘First of all, I’d try not to burden them with my story.’ This thought has appeared throughout the interview, that her story is not worth sharing, a remnant of the emotional turmoil of her childhood.

‘It’s always there, it’s always in the background…My advice would be to accept what’s happened, acknowledge what’s happened but be grateful for what you have now.’

U7tpmWfGhLWtLQDcVWKgnrJgmCHU_yStZo9eRykaRsGoCWFXeMBjy6eqCME-VWXse2UkOwzC0rVImjQczuTtsDKtc8Y5bMAi05rGohvZhBuaprMyEIxB2jafuqbkP88pnYplS7BfV40cbVfpL89DJg

A horrific stain on Australian history. Image Source: Pexels.

Before I head home, she helps me fold everything. She relaxes as we sit side by side. While Mrs X did not have a positive mother figure, when I think of my childhood and current relationship with her, I know she figured motherhood out.

Did other adoptees from my mother’s generation find their families? It is likely to remain an intimate part of history that will go largely untold.
My heart goes out to Mrs x 💜 My story is different as most stories are you can never say you understand because as every one’s journey brings different outcomes or frustration of not being able to join the dots. I have are many unanswered questions and many DNA queries which wil cost me money and I feel that under the circumstances it should be provided by Government.
I am an adopted child of 1948, I did some years age get in touch with a Social Worker who helped me answer some questions and as result of that I have found extended family which has been well receive. I would still like dig a little deeper a support group of some description to pave the way through bureaucratic BS would be a great.
 

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