throw light on the circumstances the author goes through in his search for his real mother in search for a stranger
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Answer:
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Explanation:
The author is a child psychiatrist working in Columbia, USA. The author tells us about what happened to him the previous summer. One day his cousin asked him about his work. The author talked about a conference, which he had attended on adopted children. The difficulties faced by adopted children had been discussed in that conference. These children needed professional help to overcome the emotional problems they faced. One of the emotional problems was the feeling of a double identity. If a child wanted to know about his/her natural parents, the law did not help them. The courts usually sealed the adoption records. An adopted child usually felt bad when they could not easily find out about their birth, they feel that there is something shameful about them when they find out that their births have been kept a secret.
The cousin wanted to know why an adopted child should know about its adoption. The author feels that the child should know the truth from its adopted parents. If the child learns the truth of its adoption from other people, that he/she is adopted then there can be psychological damage. The author’s fourth child, Michael is adopted and he had told him the truth. The cousin then asked as to what he would do is he knew that he was an adopted child? The author replied that he would start searching for his natural parents. The cousin immediately asked him to start searching for his parents. The author thought that his cousin was joking but slowly he realized that he was speaking the truth. He was an adopted child.
The author felt very bad that he had not been told the truth for so long. He was thirty eight years old. He could not face the truth. Till now he had thought his adopted parents were his natural parents. He had been thinking that he wad Scotch-lrish. Many questions arose in the author’s mind. He was suddenly experiencing the problems that an adopted child experienced when he/she found the truth. He asked his adopted father as to why he had hidden the truth from him. He says he was afraid that he might have liked to see his natural parents. His adopted parents were afraid of losing him. The author assures his adopted father that he would always consider him and mom as his parents. His adopted mom had died a year ago. The author then starts his search for his natural parents.
The author had been born on June 30, 1938. When he had been adopted, his parents had been living in the city of Detroit. They had come along with their friends, the martins who had also adopted a child. He had been adopted from an agency in Memphis, Tennessee. The author made telephone calls to the martins and found out that he had been adopted from the Tennessee children’s home society. The author wanted permission from the Tennessee department of public welfare to see the records of the children’s home society. Since all adoption records were sealed by law, permission was denied.
The author left his parents to his colleagues and then flew to Memphis. He could not find any record in the Memphis city hall (every American town has a library and a reading hall). He then went to a local newspaper office and asked for its old issues. He found out that the children’s home had been closed in 1950. The director had been selling the children. The children were usually the children of unwed mothers, prostitutes, and mental patients. The author wondered to which category his mother belonged. The author engaged a local lawyer to help him in his search. The next day the lawyer found out that the author’s birth name was Donald Alfred Cardell. His sealed records were in the Memphis court house. The next morning the author and his lawyer went to the courthouse and made a request to see the records. The records were given to him.