As hard as it is sometimes to watch, because of my own experience of searching for and finding my birth son, I am committed to the show Long Lost Family.
This show takes birth parents and birth children on a journey during which they come to understand more (for the parent) what their child went through and, for the child, to understand what their birth parent went through.
One thing that struck me is in a number of cases in the program, when a birth child searched for their birth mother, or the birth mother searched for the birth child, when they were finally united, the birth mother was overcome with emotion much more than the birth child.
In some instances it seemed to me that the reunion was more about the birth mother’s pain and loss and less about the birth child’s. When the birth mother is finally connected with her birth child, she is so overcome with emotion that the birth child’s loss almost takes a back seat, sometimes to the point where the birth child ends up comforting the birth parent.
I don’t think this is intentional and maybe it’s even unavoidable considering the gravity of the pent up emotion that’s accumulated over the years. A birth mother who loses her child is scarred for life. A piece of her heart is gone, a piece of her soul is gone. In most cases her life will never be the same again.
This made me realize that in fact the same emotions were going on when I met my birth son. I tried to tell him how much I wanted him, how he was taken from me at birth without my consent. How every day, for all these years, I did all I could to find him and how my life was so much better now that I had found him.
Notice there is a lot of “I” and “my”.
But the program also made me realize that I was speaking to him about my experience, I was speaking to him about my pain. I should have concentrated more on what it did to him instead of what it did to me.
Yes, what I see in Long Lost Family is the pain of the birth mother (and please know there certainly is huge pain from the loss of the child) but, it seems the birth mother/birth parent is overwhelmed in their own pain when they meet their birth child for the first time that they don’t, or can’t, acknowledge the child’s pain of loss and abandonment, at least, to me. But of course what we see in the show is only a snippet of all that went on during the first meeting
What happened to me that took my birth son away from me at birth has nothing to do with him in that my loss and my pain is not his. His emotions are very different from mine, naturally, but just as real and must be acknowledged. I believe that will help the relationship grow.
It’s sometimes hard to watch Long Lost Family but it is teaching me some very important life points, life lessons. For the birth mother’s out there reading this I recommend you watch it, even if you can only handle it once. I also hope birth children will watch too.
