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“I used to work for an adoption agency, a very long time ago,” Pauline Hillen says. “Nowadays, I help adoptees in their search for their biological mothers.” But what about adoptees who don’t know if they want to find their birth parents? For the filmmaker Tomas Ponsteen, who was adopted from Brazil and raised and still lives in the Netherlands, the question is a complicated one. He loves his parents and doesn’t feel a strong desire to find his birth mother. But learning about abuses in the adoption system makes him wonder if he does have some kind of obligation to reach out. He connects with a Brazilian mother—not his own—whose child was taken from her and adopted out under false pretenses. “If your adoptive parents are entitled to tell their side of the story, then I think your biological family should get that same chance,” she tells him, standing in her kitchen. He has travelled to Portugal, where she lives, to hear her perspective, but it’s not clear whether he will be persuaded. Her story makes him wonder about his situation, and how to proceed in his decision about whether or not to search.
An earlier version of this article misidentified the country where the Brazilian mother was interviewed.
Sourse: newyorker.com
