Love Child

Adoption is one of the great, untold stories of the recent past. It is a truly epic tale of loss, guilt, identity, family feuds, reunion, and redemption. It is a subject, until very recently, surrounded by secrecy and taboos. This is the heartwarming true story of a little girl's adoption in the 1950s and her search, nearly 40 years later, for her birth mother. When mother and daughter meet, Sue thinks she has finally reached the end of her journey. Then Sue discovers she wasn't the only baby her mother gave away. Weaved throughout is the vivid, emotional history of adoption in the UK. Drawing on a wide range of intimate personal experiences, it outlines the forces that shaped 20th century adoption practice, from baby-farming, the stigma of illegitimacy, incest, and the bastardy laws, to children taken by force, the Magdalene laundries, mass emigration schemes without parental consent, to modern day adoption practices, buying babies from abroad, sperm donor fathers, and tearful reunions on Trisha.