General Chat

Does anyone else feel slightly uncomfortable watching this? I feel a bit like a voyeur watching peoples emotions.

Don't get me wrong, I love watching it and always have a good cry but at the same time feel it is somewhat intrusive.

It would be interesting to see if they do a follow up series in say two years time, to see how families have "got on", once the initial emotions have settled down.

Yes, I feel the same and I tend not to watch 'real life' programmes for that reason.

I did watch the programme about Relate though.

I'm always concerned about the high expectations that people have about reunions. I remember watching a program a few years ago and they did a follow up awhile later. Sadly, a high number of the reunions didn't bring the joy they hoped for. I have to say though that it's a wonderful thing to see people brought together after so many years apart.

Sue

I caught up with the last 2 episodes yesterday Libby and i cried buckets. It is the sort of thing we all love to watch............but i do understand what you mean about it being a little on the intrusive side. Having said that, i just feel impelled to watch the next episode!!

I feel uncomfortable with 'reunion' shows generally.....apprehensive, I suppose is the word. These 'happy endings' are not really that, they are happy 'beginnings', hopefully all the issues can be resolved and relationships made that last. But it can't always work out.

I love watching it, tears flowing. But at the back of my mind is always the thought 'How many failed reconnections were there'?
Those of us who know our near relations know there isn't necessarily a 'link' - and we'd rather not know them!

I've seen a couple of these programmes and they are tear-jerkers but

a) people volunteer to go onto these shows so they may not have very high expectations to start with - maybe the elation is all part of the relief?

b) maybe they want their 15 minutes of fame?

c) how many times do they follow a story only for it all to go completely pear-shaped?

hmmm - interesting.

Jill

I caught up yesterday as well.

I have to say though that over the last ten years I have watched a friend and a close family member trace their birth families .... one encouraged by the other. In one instance it was like a love affair.

Sadly, over the course of a few years, due to "family / sibling rivalry" one of them has lost further contact and the other has fizzled out due to "having nothing in common". In both instances though "demons" have been laid to rest so I suppose there has been a good outcome.

Looking forward, with tissues ready for next weeks episocde.

A neighbour of ours - sadly gone now - was desperate to find his family. His mother had been made to give him up by his father and he was sent to Australia through Dr Barnado. He had an unhappy childhood and was very bitter towards his mother as she and his father then went on to have 4 more children. Through the Salvos he found his sisters and was able to visit them. He remained close to two of them who had known of his existence but not so his two youngest sisters. One of them told him that his father didn't want him because he wasn't in fact his father's child. This opened up more wounds and he spent his last years making life difficult for his wife and family because he was so bitter.

On the other hand - my sister-in-law was separated from her sister when she was 4 and her sister was 2. She was adopted by a lovely family but missed her sister for many years. She found her about 5 years ago and they are almost inseparable - so many years wasted but together now.

Sue

My late father in law had my ex in his 40's.
However, when he was19,he had an affair with an older divorced woman.
This resulted in a child. FiL was 'encouraged' to move away, so he joined the Navy. However, FiL's father secretly kept in touch with the woman, and gave her money for the upkeep of the child.
When FiL was dying, he tried to find his first born. His sister knew where he was, but ex and I couldn't get his whereabouts out of her - until after my FiL had died.
We meet at least once a year,and my ex's brother (who lives in Australia) is in regular contact.
How my late Fil would have loved to have met A..., and A... his dad- it's so sad, but at least he has 2 brothers now.
Mind you, his wife is a bit strange!
Our daughter went with ex to visit him last year, (I couldn't make it) and his wife thought our daughter was ex's 'bit of fluff' - ex may be a bit of a filanderer, but he tends to 'go' for women of his own age!! LOL

It reminds me of Surprise, Surprise, just waiting for Cilla to leap out from behind a bush. and gives false expectations for others still searching.

No sorry it.s not for me , there are some cringe-worthy moments and why would I watch something to make me cry ?

I don't see any measures in place to protect those who don't want to be found nor at the end of the program no message for a helpline for anyone affected by it .

I found tonight's programme particularly moving with the two sisters. The reason is as some of you know, I had a really crap family life. A year or so ago I became friendly via the internet on a small, closed forum for home educators with a lovely lady called Beth. We've discovered so many similarities in our lives, our family experiences and so many almost identical interests and we had our first child within days of each other. We've travelled to meet up too and it's like we have known each other for ever.

We have adopted each other as sisters and text morning and evening to say goodnight. Those sisters who finally found each other after a lifetime apart made me send an extra special message to Beth to tell her just how much she means to me. Soppy it may be but when you've always longed for a sibling... and that is why the sisters on here tonight made me shed some tears.

xJill

I presume those who don't want to be found just state the fact and aren't included in the programme!
We know we are just being shown the 'good' results.
I love giving my tear ducts a good clean out occasionaly.

Many of those who are reunited state that they thought they had been forgotten. Some are, some aren't, it's life. like some who know where they're from wish they didn't know.

It's just nice to see people reach the potential to create a relationship.

I think that having Nicky Campbell fronting the programme along with Davina gives it some kudos.

I watched one episode from the US (can't remember the name) of something very similar wth a guy tracing lost relatives. It was definately too much. I watched the one episode and had enough. There was something of a moralistic attitude too. Give me LLF in comparison any day.

Jill

We don't get the program in Canada, but I sure know about a real-life reunion.

My old partner (for about 3 years back around 1990) was from Texas, born in California, actually. Completely dysfunctional family. He was the oldest of four kids. His father then married a woman with three kids and had three more. One of the woman's kids was probably his.

The youngest of the first four disappeared as a baby. The mother was an alcoholic, the parents were separated. The story was that the father got a call from the babysitter the mother had left the baby with saying she was owed two weeks' pay and they could have the kid when they paid. He went rushing over and she was gone, and the kid was never seen again.

My partner suspected something more nefarious than "the babysitter stole him" and years later asked his mother. Her story was that the father had sold him (a blond blue-eyed all-American boy baby) to a couple in the US military stationed in Germany.

Well. Fast forward to around 1990. Somehow the baby, now about 30, finds his family. Guess what? The babysitter stole him. She reared him as hers, in Missouri. (How one does that without documents, I don't know.)

A reunion was organized -- by US national network program 60 Minutes. It's all filmed and broadcast.

The family continues to go downhill. The stepmother, who hated my partner because he was smart as a whip while her son the same age was slow, had been abusive toward him all his life, and his father's parenting amounted to feeding him beer at the age of 5. The stepmother's son died of a heroin overdose the next year, but she was told it was a heart attack, so at the funeral she could keep hating my partner the druggie, her own son being a saint. A couple of years later, the lost son was charged with sexually abusing children at the daycare where he worked. My partner got clean and sober for about a year, five years after I sent him packing, and then died of a heart attack at 50.

Very often, but of course not always by any means, a family that has had a breakdown was dysfunctional to start with, or individuals involved have suffered awful life situations (like what result in giving up a child at birth or becoming estranged from children later). There are hornets' nests waiting around the corner in some cases.

That's life. Families have problems.

The problem here is if programs like these lead people to think that reunions are all wine and roses, and their problems will go away if they find their families. Very often not so.

The latest programme of last evening was a nice one, altho sad and it was obvious altho given up for adoption, both mothers had never forgotten their daughters and had not hidden their births so hopefully those reunions will continue even tho there are oceans between them.


I think a lot depends on why the separations occured in the first place. Many women will keep their children away from fathers who have left or been thrown out so the child thinks the father is no longer interested and the fathers think they are better staying away.


I have close knowledge of the attitude of one person who is not and never has been in contact with his daughter and his own father discouraged him from taking any responsibility or telling his wife about the child, born before he knew his wife. When the mother of the girl made contact in the early 1990s when the girl was 18, her father arranged to meet her but then cancelled as he 'was suffering with depression and would have been meeting her to cheer himself up!' His words!
Altho she wouldn't know it, she is better off with not being in touch with him, he can't cope with relationships but I suppose she would at least like to know what he looks like and such. All credit to the man who kept paying for the grandchild tho Maggie, the person I know of or his father paid nothing, and no heed either, despite them living close by the grandfather. In fact when his first great grandchild was born a girl, he made a big thing that she was the first female born in the family for 50 years which was a lie, altho not many people knew it. Hypocrite! (he has two daughters as well as the young girl's father)

It doesnt happen over night or as fast as it seems, these people have lots of meeting with councillers for all possible outcomes before its even gone to film and exchanged many letters and possible telephone conversations & it can take up to 6 months before any reunion takes place ....and those who qualify are filmed with full agreement from both sides .....those that do fail overtime are low in numbers to those that succed....