Long Lost Family - General Discussion

[VioletNevermind]

I'm kind of conflicted about the new show that followed last night's regular episode of Long Lost Family.  The (near-constant) commercials for this show portrayed it very differently from how it actually is.  The stories were heart-warming and interesting, but I thought the format was awkward and the hosting was just terrible.  Of course, the whole "LIVE!!!" thing is an attempt to inject some natural excitement into the show, but the whole thing is a big swing and a miss for me.  The wedding at the end of the episode was cut off by Lisa Joyner before the poor guy could walk back down the aisle with his bride after the ceremony.  I don't think I'll be tuning in to the next three (?) episodes.  I'd love to know how my fellow PTV'ers feel about this show, but it doesn't look like anyone else is interested either!

Edited April 25, 2017 by SuzyLee

[crazycatlady58]

Well I will watch  it,but I watch  almost  anything. It's not bad but for some reason  it does not move me like I thought it would. Watching  it now about a young  man who is coming  out to his friends .

[Snarklepuss]

8 hours ago, UsernameFatigue said:

Luckily I had PVR'd the show so could ff to see WTH was going on. Since it was 10 minutes into the hour before the show I was supposed to be watching started, had I not PVR'd I would have changed channels and watched something else. I watched Long Lost Family, and stopped watching when the new show came on. I guess TLC thought it was a clever way to introduce a new show, but it just ticked me off instead - lol. 

They're pissing me off big time by tacking this new live show on the end of "Long Lost Family", especially because it's supposed to go on for a few days straight - My DVR will go over its size limit with all this extra show!  Who can watch all that TV at once??!  I ended up fast forwarding through most of the first one because I was only interested in the part that was similar to "Long Lost Family".  Why did they have to end the season with 3 days in a row of marathon shows?  UGH!!

[bybrandy]

I fast forwarded liberally through the live show's first night but very much enjoyed the very nonchalant way Tiffany was introduced to Grandpa Bill and his husband Grandpa Dave.  But I was way more interested in these two little old men than I was in anything else at all.   

There have been a lot of birth parents on this show that ended up married.  But I really enjoyed the couple tonight.  I like that they told Megan that they were prepared for whatever relationship that she wanted/needed from them.   I think it might take her a while, she is still very young but whatever relationship they do or don't have, I'm really glad the birth mom was able to know that the daughter didn't have the terrible adoptive experience she had.

I think it is really brave to be in a bad adoptive experience and to trust that your experience isn't typical and that your child has a chance to have a good adoptive experience.

The other daughter, she was hungry.  So, so hungry.  And she'd built that birth mom experience up so much in her head.  The meeting wasn't awkward to me, but I still am a little worried that her birth mom isn't going to be who the daughter built her up to be.

I also found the whole, "we found your birth father, want to meet him?"  "Eh... eventually" a little weird.   Maybe for the what happens next episodes?   I know a lot of adoptees assume they won't be able to find their father or will only find him with help from the birth mom once she is found,  and I know this girl had a descent relationship with her adoptive father but the relative indifference to meeting the birth father was weird to me.

And I'm also skeptical about how super close the daughter and the adoptive father were if he allowed her to be emotionally and physically neglected by the adoptive mom after the divorce.

[Lizzing]

I'm still wondering how a kid can fall out of a car on a freeway.  I need more details on why CPS wasn't called on that one.

One thing that cracks me up on this show, and it happened most recently with the "Live" reunion of the half sisters and on the Monday night episode of the woman who fell out of the car as a child and her birth mother, is when one of the people meeting exclaims, "You are so beautiful!" then, about 10 seconds later, the same person says, "You look just like me!".  I'm sure these folks are caught up in a moment, but it cracks me up at this kind of latent narcissism going on.

ITA that Life Live is a bust.  The hosting is terrible and, if anything, these live reveals are less emotionally resonant than a recorded reaction would be.  Lots of awkward pauses and idiotic host questions of "how do you feel?" and I swear it seemed like Lisa was yelling in the back of the church wrapping up the show, and thereby interrupting the proceedings. 

Oh, and that bio Grandpa on the first Live ep?  Damn, he looks good for 90!  Someone should have gotten a segment on him on how to look 30 years younger.

[Jeeves]

I checked out of the Life Live thing last night a few minutes into the baseball player's scene with his mom. What a freakin' narcissist that guy is. So, he's gay and let's drag Mom in front of cameras for a live cable TV show when he tells her that. Because, well, if he does that who knows how many poor suffering gay kids "out there" in the world he will essentially save from suicide or something. Really, dude?

Oh, IMO Baseball Player looks and talks a lot like Tim Tebow. Another famous publicity hound. 

And oh please, the hype and product placement for whatever was going to restore that woman's sight was just. bloody. relentless. As I said, I tuned out during Baseball Player's scene with his mom. I hope the woman was really able to regain sight with the Whatchamacallit  Advanced Miracle Technology. Seriously. I'm not snarking on her! A disease that steals your sight is vicious, and I hope she was really helped. But I just couldn't with all the breathless hype and plugs for the product. Looking at you, TLC.

[BusyOctober]

2 hours ago, Lizzing said:

I'm still wondering how a kid can fall out of a car on a freeway.  I need more details on why CPS wasn't called on that one.

One thing that cracks me up on this show, and it happened most recently with the "Live" reunion of the half sisters and on the Monday night episode of the woman who fell out of the car as a child and her birth mother, is when one of the people meeting exclaims, "You are so beautiful!" then, about 10 seconds later, the same person says, "You look just like me!".  I'm sure these folks are caught up in a moment, but it cracks me up at this kind of latent narcissism going on.

OMG! Yes to both points!

Falling out of car - she said she was sitting in the FRONT seat and "fell out" and then her adopted mom "didn't even know it".  Um...unless mom was blind drunk, anyone would notice the passenger side door popping open and the occupant tumbling out.  And I'm sure that to a traumatized and dazed and injured small child, it felt like a very long time before the mom came back.  The mom probably panicked, had to find a place to turn around or back up on the shoulder of the road.  I don't know anything about the mom or daughter other than what this women told us, so maybe the mom really was a wacko with no emotional connection.  After all, who lets a toddler ride in the front seat, without a seat belt?  I know it was 40 years ago, but I'm 50+ and no kid I knew was allowed in the front seat until they were 11-12 yo;(it was a huge rite of passage in my neighborhood - look at me! I'm in the front seat!) And me and all my friends wore seat belts every.single.time. we got in the car.

As for the "you're so beautiful!....just like me!" comments - that makes me giggle a bit too.  Even though you're making a comment on a personal level about someone's appearance, it really is more of a surface level comment.  These people don't know each other yet, so commenting on how beautiful/handsome the stranger is a nervous reaction/break the tension kind of thing.  It's a compliment, it's a pleasant greeting. But it definitely sounds funny when after 15 minutes they tack on the "...just like me!"

[bybrandy]

16 minutes ago, BusyOctober said:

As for the "you're so beautiful!....just like me!" comments - that makes me giggle a bit too.

Legitimately my mother says this is the very first thing she said when she saw me in the hospital.  I was a preemie on the cusp of viability (at the time, now I'd be all bah she's hardly premature at all) and she was super nervous about what she'd see when she saw me.  

She said she looked in the incubator and she didn't see all the wires and tubes and scary things she said she saw my nose, her nose.  And her first words were, "You're so pretty.... you look just like me" and then she started laughing really hard because it wasn't at all how she meant it.  They were independent thoughts but it sounded so very, very wrong.  

I pretty much have my mom's exact face.  No, seriously.   I never really thought about it much.  But multiple adopted people I've worked with over the years have said how much they just wanted to see somebody who looked like them.  It seems like such a strange thing to need.  But then I've literally always had somebody who looked like me.  It isn't something that holds power for me but it is something some people really, really connect to.

[Jadzia]

3 hours ago, Lizzing said:

One thing that cracks me up on this show, and it happened most recently with the "Live" reunion of the half sisters and on the Monday night episode of the woman who fell out of the car as a child and her birth mother, is when one of the people meeting exclaims, "You are so beautiful!" then, about 10 seconds later, the same person says, "You look just like me!".  I'm sure these folks are caught up in a moment, but it cracks me up at this kind of latent narcissism going on.

One thing that bugged me on the Sunday night episode was when the birth mom exclaimed "How could I have a child so beautiful?" I wondered how her other kids felt to hear that.

The young adopted woman who met her grandmother in last night's episode seemed very educated and well-spoken, which dare I say it seemed in contrast with her half-sisters. I noticed when she answered the door, she seemed to have a very nice house as well. One thing I wish this show would do more is give us more context and tell us more about the people they find. What do they do they do for a living? I think it would be interesting to see the contrast in how they grew up and if they had more opportunities.

[Koalagirl]

12 hours ago, SuzyLee said:

I'm kind of conflicted about the new show that followed last night's regular episode of Long Lost Family.  The (near-constant) commercials for this show portrayed it very differently from how it actually is.  The stories were heart-warming and interesting, but I thought the format was awkward and the hosting was just terrible.  Of course, the whole "LIVE!!!" thing is an attempt to inject some natural excitement into the show, but the whole thing is a big swing and a miss for me.  The wedding at the end of the episode was cut off by Lisa Joyner before the poor guy could walk back down the aisle with his bride after the ceremony.  I don't think I'll be tuning in to the next three (?) episodes.  I'd love to know how my fellow PTV'ers feel about this show, but it doesn't look like anyone else is interested either!

I went onto Facebook live afterwards and he actually used a cane to walk down the steps and up the aisle. I'm so sorry they weren't able to show that on tv.  When he got into the hallway he sat back down in his wheelchair and that's when the emotion got to him and he and new wife just hugged each other for a long time.  Then they sat with Lisa Joyner and his parents.  He told them that he had twisted his knee that morning and was worried if he would actually be able to pull it off. 

[iMonrey]

Finally got to see the rest of Sunday night's show. Uh? This was dumb. I mean, the story about Tanner was inspiring and all, but what in the Sam Hill does it have to do with Long Lost Family members? And if this is supposed to be a totally different concept that doesn't involve lost family members, then why did the other live segment feature a long lost family member?! And if they were trying to build up to the big moment when he could finally walk down the aisle, why did they start the whole 2.5 hour show with the ceremony itself? And if it was "live" then how did they have the actual exchange of vows at the start of the show then backtrack to everyone walking down the aisle at the end of the show? When was it actually live?

The whole thing was just a mess. Totally screwed up concept and screwed up execution from start to finish.

A couple of other notes:

Seems like Ericka and Tiffany's father was a real asshole. They should be glad he's dead if all he ever did was father kids then run out on them. Ericka was very generous to call him "not ready to be a father." Ya think? Also, I had to laugh when Tiffany and Ericka kept telling each other they looked exactly the same. Really? I mean maybe they see some facial features in each other but they couldn't have been more opposite, body-wise. 

Also, they made it seem like the only people who knew Tanner was going to walk were his fiance and the groomsmen, but neither of the parents looked surprised so I think someone tipped them off.

[Koalagirl]

In the Facebook Live interview after the show the parents said they knew that Tanner had been doing some work with a walker - that's why I think they weren't completely surprised.

[Ina123]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Finally got to see the rest of Sunday night's show. Uh? This was dumb. I mean, the story about Tanner was inspiring and all, but what in the Sam Hill does it have to do with Long Lost Family members? And if this is supposed to be a totally different concept that doesn't involve lost family members, then why did the other live segment feature a long lost family member?! And if they were trying to build up to the big moment when he could finally walk down the aisle, why did they start the whole 2.5 hour show with the ceremony itself? And if it was "live" then how did they have the actual exchange of vows at the start of the show then backtrack to everyone walking down the aisle at the end of the show? When was it actually live?

 

That wedding scene at the start was the leftover end of the previous show. It was not Tanner's wedding. Timing was way off on starting and ending of all the programs.

[stormy]

In last night's show, were Abbi's sisters half sisters because none of the girls looked like they were related to each other.

Grandma was cool.   :)

[okerry]

1 hour ago, stormy said:

In last night's show, were Abbi's sisters half sisters because none of the girls looked like they were related to each other.

Grandma was cool.   :)

It was hard to tell without a scorecard, but from what I could gather:

There was an older daughter, the firstborn, that the mother kept. We did not see that one.

Abbi was born sometime later, apparently with a different father, and given up for adoption.

A third daughter was born, whose father was evidently a black man in the USAF.

The last two daughters appear to have the same father because they look much alike. I don't remember if the birth mom married him or not.

So we seem to have five children with four different fathers, and I don't remember hearing anything about who they were or where they are now.

[Quof]

Quote

After all, who lets a toddler ride in the front seat, without a seat belt?  I know it was 40 years ago, but I'm 50+ and no kid I knew was allowed in the front seat until they were 11-12 yo

Seriously?  I'm in that age bracket, and we sat on mom's lap in the front seat until we started school. No seat belts, we probably didn't even use car seats as infants. 

[UsernameFatigue]

2 hours ago, okerry said:

It was hard to tell without a scorecard, but from what I could gather:

There was an older daughter, the firstborn, that the mother kept. We did not see that one.

Abbi was born sometime later, apparently with a different father, and given up for adoption.

A third daughter was born, whose father was evidently a black man in the USAF.

The last two daughters appear to have the same father because they look much alike. I don't remember if the birth mom married him or not.

So we seem to have five children with four different fathers, and I don't remember hearing anything about who they were or where they are now.

I am confused about the above information. On the show, the grandmother Dee said that after Abbi (Annie) was born and given up her daughter April wanted to have her tubes tied but the doctor said she was too young. Two years later April did meet someone and get married, and she and her husband had three children together. They even showed a picture of the oldest daughter and the three younger children as kids - of the three younger by her husband one was a boy, and two were girls - the girls that were shown as adults on the show. So 5 kids including Abbi, three fathers, and the youngest three kids including the two half sisters of Abbi's shown on the shown are full siblings. 

Edited to add: Oops, the two sisters that Abbi was introduced to (and were with their grandmother at the first part of the show) were April's first daughter Samantha, and one of the younger daughters Alexis. So they are half sisters as well. 

Edited April 25, 2017 by UsernameFatigue

[ElleMo]

2 hours ago, okerry said:

It was hard to tell without a scorecard, but from what I could gather:

There was an older daughter, the firstborn, that the mother kept. We did not see that one.

Abbi was born sometime later, apparently with a different father, and given up for adoption.

A third daughter was born, whose father was evidently a black man in the USAF.

The last two daughters appear to have the same father because they look much alike. I don't remember if the birth mom married him or not.

So we seem to have five children with four different fathers, and I don't remember hearing anything about who they were or where they are now.

 

IIRC, I think that you are confusing two different shows.  The woman and her husband who were searching for the child they conceived when they were in their teens;  she joined the military, had a child with a black man, then came back home and got back together with father of first born and they had kids together.  Not sure how many kids but two different fathers and all the kids that were kept were younger that the one adopted out.

 

Abbi was a different episode.  Mom has died, grandma and sisters were looking.  UsernameFatigue correctly described the family above. 

 

I could be wrong but that is what I remember.

[ElleMo]

12 hours ago, Lizzing said:

I'm still wondering how a kid can fall out of a car on a freeway.  I need more details on why CPS wasn't called on that one.

 

I don't think it happened the way she thought it happened;  Mom probably stopped as soon as she realized something had happened, but to a frightened kid that took a really long time.  She said he mom was backing up the car.  I am sure she didn't drive in reverse for miles along the highway.  

I think because of her relationship with the mom, she felt her mom abandoned her and kept driving.  Someone with a different relationship would have referred to it as the crazy time the car door swung open and I fell out and mom had to back up on the freeway to get me. 

IIRC, the woman was in her 40s?  We are about the same age and back when she was a child, seatbelt use was not a big thing.  As someone else mentioned, babies rode on the mom's lap.  You could get at least 3 or 4 kids in the front seat if you squished together. I know plenty of people who would do it today if they weren't worried about a ticket. 

There was probably something wrong with the door or it wasn't closed properly.  Nothing to call CPS about. I remember my dad yelling at me whenever I leaned against the car door for that reason;  I think he heard stories of people falling out of cars.

As for the mom's reaction, that is a different story.  She did sound like a cold fish.  But being a single mom can do that to you or maybe she was just that way, who knows.   I don't know the entire story, but it does sound sad to me. Daughter never felt like she had a mom. 

[okerry]

28 minutes ago, ElleMo said:

IIRC, I think that you are confusing two different shows.  

I think you may be right - I apologize, I coulda sworn that's how I remembered it (that there were five girls) but next time I will check!

[Mom2twoNonna2-3]

1. I fell out the back door of our car and recall a car driving over me. No injuries though.

2. The mom who had a baby joined air force and then got back with the dad and had more was Sunday. The grandma with Abbi  was..mom had one, then abbi, gave up abbi met a man had 3 more. I think the biracial girl was the 1st, before abbi. That was Monday. Abbi and the dark haired girl did look similar, but their body types were different.

3. My mom had a baby at 16 and gave her up. When I found her she was my mom's clone, down to mannerisms. Once my niece met my mom she agreed. Older sister was more like mom than the two girls my mom raised!

The special glasses worked. I'm glad they did. The other 3 live events didn't thrill me like that one, even with the built in commercial.

[Lizzing]

Regarding the season finale with the 2 brothers looking for their mother, the twins, and the baby of the family, I felt like there was a lot left out of the story.  I'm just not understanding why a social worker would show up and take away 2 of the 4 kids (the baby was in utero at the time) because there were "too many kids".  Plus, as far as we were told, at the time the social worker came, the parents were married and the husband was employed by the US Government (Coast Guard) at a time right after WWII when vets came home and created the baby boom generation, hence lots of kids wasn't a weird thing.  And certainly 4 to 5 kids wasn't some kind of egregiously large number of kids for the time.  Further, the brothers said the dad wasn't abusive to them until after they went back to live with him at 10/11 years old.  Granted, the dad could have been abusive (and probably was) to his wife, and maybe there was some kind of 3rd party reporting to the authorities, but domestic violence prevention wasn't exactly a hot topic in the early 50s that would have garnered intervention, and even if that was what caused the social worker to show up in the first place, how did the state sever parental rights for both parents to have the twins adopted out and yet do nothing about the toddler brothers?  Sometimes I wish that this show had that voice over guy from Who Do You Think You Are to explain whatever adoption law/mores/common practice/whatever of the time to give the story more context.

In any event, I'm glad the brothers got to meet everyone and I hope they do a follow up where all the kids and the mother get together at the same place and time.

[Cara]

37 minutes ago, Lizzing said:

Regarding the season finale with the 2 brothers looking for their mother, the twins, and the baby of the family, I felt like there was a lot left out of the story.  I'm just not understanding why a social worker would show up and take away 2 of the 4 kids (the baby was in utero at the time) because there were "too many kids".  Plus, as far as we were told, at the time the social worker came, the parents were married and the husband was employed by the US Government (Coast Guard) at a time right after WWII when vets came home and created the baby boom generation, hence lots of kids wasn't a weird thing.  And certainly 4 to 5 kids wasn't some kind of egregiously large number of kids for the time.  Further, the brothers said the dad wasn't abusive to them until after they went back to live with him at 10/11 years old.  Granted, the dad could have been abusive (and probably was) to his wife, and maybe there was some kind of 3rd party reporting to the authorities, but domestic violence prevention wasn't exactly a hot topic in the early 50s that would have garnered intervention, and even if that was what caused the social worker to show up in the first place, how did the state sever parental rights for both parents to have the twins adopted out and yet do nothing about the toddler brothers?  Sometimes I wish that this show had that voice over guy from Who Do You Think You Are to explain whatever adoption law/mores/common practice/whatever of the time to give the story more context.

In any event, I'm glad the brothers got to meet everyone and I hope they do a follow up where all the kids and the mother get together at the same place and time.

Yeah, there were definitely several things that didn't add up. I think the mother was leaving out some very pertinent details.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Cara

[Ina123]

21 minutes ago, Cara said:

Yeah, there were definitely several things that didn't add up. I think the mother was leaving out some very pertinent details.

Personally, I think she was probably an abused wife and overwhelmed mother who split, maybe to save her life, but it was too mysterious. I want to know more about this "grandfather" she supposedly left the boys with and why the boys never mentioned a "grandfather". Also, why couldn't the boys go with her? (That's OK if there is a legitimate reason, I'd just like to know more.) I'm sure that some is left out of these stories to protect them from embarrassment but just leaving us on this one was cruel to viewers. Sure, maybe it's something they want to save for an update show but the way it was left, I felt, made me wonder about the mother being a real monster and leaving them there to die. Where did the story originate that she called a neighbor and said there might be 2 dead boys left there. Or did I not understand that correctly?

[crazycatlady58]

That is what I understand also, but that is what they were told who knows what really happened.

[Cara]

My assumption is that in the 50's it would taken a lot more for social services to intervene in a family situation than it would take today. So I think something pretty bad had to be occurring in the household for them to get involved.

[iMonrey]

Playing catch-up:

Quote

I checked out of the Life Live thing last night a few minutes into the baseball player's scene with his mom. What a freakin' narcissist that guy is. So, he's gay and let's drag Mom in front of cameras for a live cable TV show when he tells her that. Because, well, if he does that who knows how many poor suffering gay kids "out there" in the world he will essentially save from suicide or something. Really, dude?

I agree this was a terrible way to handle a coming out and put everyone on the spot in front of cameras. Also, that guy is kidding himself if he thinks people don't already know he's gay. I mean, just look at the hairstyle. The very first second I saw him on my TV I assumed he was gay. Is his mother the blind one? People just can't be that shocked. Also, unless his mother was super religious I don't know why he'd be so afraid to tell her. She was a single mother at 16. The teammates I can understand, but the mom? And what about his brother? The whole thing was way too awkward.

Quote

The young adopted woman who met her grandmother in last night's episode seemed very educated and well-spoken, which dare I say it seemed in contrast with her half-sisters. 

Yes, I got the impression she was a bit put off by her bio family and I do not predict they will have a close relationship, since she seems to have a pretty good life with her adopted family.

Also, the woman who fell out of the car - I don't predict good things for her and her birth mother either. She's waaaayyyyyy too needy. The ones that come from bad adopted homes more often than not are just going to make their birth mothers feel guilty. She was laying it on pretty thick about what a terrible relationship she had with her adopted mother - how is her birth mother supposed to handle that?

[Jadzia]

It's unfortunately in my nature to hold a grudge, so I had a hard time reconciling the happy reunion with the mom with her earlier abandonment. I did'n't believe her side of the story at all and I found it lacking in details that would make sense. If she wasn't guilty of abandoning her kids, then why would the daughter feel weird about telling her the twins found her? If it had been a situation where the mom always talked about missing the boys the daughter would not have hesitated. And if she thought the boys were with a grandfather, why did she never try and contact them? I think she was a horrible mother who got out of a bad situation and never looked back.

I thought it was interesting the twins weren't reunited with the mom. I wonder if they just refused.

[bybrandy]

I suspect the truth in most of these situations lies somewhere in the middle.   I suspect that the mother really believed that the grandparents would take care of those boys, the grandmother did until the father retired.   I don't think she knew that the grandmother had been ousted and the boys were with the abusive dad.  

I do think there is way more to this story that we're not telling and that part is not going to be flattering to the birth mom.  But I suspect that the boys heard a worse version of what happened as well. She wouldn't have gone to check on the twins if she didn't care if they lived or died.   

And as for the mom not telling the ugliest bits of the truth.  What is she keeping from the camera?  From the daughter she kept?  But also what has after 50 years of telling herself a story has she really come to believe?   If you tell yourself a lie for long enough it becomes so hard wired that you can convince yourself of the lie.   

I think she'd convinced herself that those boys were away from the father.  I think she needed to believe that to go on.  And that's not pretty but I suspect it never even occurred to her that a guy who was never around for her and the kids was going to be around any more once she left.  

My big question is the ship record they found on ancestry.  After Kerr Ava, there was a Kerr Lori M.   They never explained who this was.. another completely unmentioned sib?

[bybrandy]

I'm 39.  I had a car seat when I was a baby because the doctor recommended it because I was premature and smaller than an average newborn when I came home from the hospital.   But I was the only one of my mom's five kids (youngest) that had a car seat.  

I sat on my mom's lap until a seat belt law was passed in my state.  I was 5 or 6.   But even then there weren't any rules about kids in the front seat they just had to be belted.   If I was going someplace with just one parent I sat in the front with my seat belt on.  

The fact that she remembers her mom backing down the road does indicate to me that the mom noticed quickly and got back the quickest way possible.  However, it wasn't part of her narrative.  If that happened to me my mom would tell the story of how terrified she was.  Her rushing back and taking care of my busted up arm would be part of the story that got told of that incident.   

[camom]

Quote

why couldn't the boys go with her?

I know that when I got divorced, neither of us could take the kids out of a 5 county area (even for a vacation) without the other's permission.  (And it was an amicable divorce.)  Since she was leaving the state she couldn't take them.  Also, if social services was involved, as it appears they were, that would be another reason.  What I don't know is why she felt the need to leave California.  I suspect that she was a neglectful parent, but that's just a hunch.

[riverblue22]

That was a really complicated reunion story but I'm not sure that the mother was totally in the wrong.  For one thing, she was married to a "monster"--the twins agreed with that assessment.  She may have been terrified of him, and knew he would never leave her alone if she took the twins.  I think she was also a very young mother.  She may have been 22 or 23 with 5 kids.  She probably had no support system and that is why she left the state.  I think she deluded herself into thinking the grandfather would protect the twins from their father.  Maybe the father was willing to let the twins be given up for adoption so he wouldn't have to support them.

[Lizzing]

It just seems odd to me that the mother never sought out her 2 sons (not the twins who were given up for adoption).  Even if she had assumed they were raised by the paternal grandparents, the boys' names wouldn't have been changed and you'd think sometime in the intervening 60+ years she might have tried to look them up.  And considering they didn't move out of San Francisco area, I can't imagine they'd have been all that hard to locate, especially in the last 15 to 20 years with internet accessibility.  If she wanted to find them, I'm sure the daughter who was with her could have helped or found someone to help do a basic phone/address search without signing up for Ancestry.

I guess I had overly cautious parents?  I'm 44 and had a car seat as a baby.  We were strictly forbidden from riding with people who didn't mandate seat belt usage and our car didn't move if the belts weren't on.  So I just can't imagine flying out of a car on a freeway without some intervening event.  Wouldn't a loose door come open before getting on the freeway?  Wouldn't the air current help keep the door closed at 55 MPH more than starts and stops on surface streets?  If the girl flew out of the car on a freeway, something hinky was going down, IMO.  I highly suspect it is an exaggerated memory because she didn't like her adopted mother.  She's had decades to ruminate on the story and make it bigger in her mind.

[Koalagirl]

I think there's also a lot the mother of all of those children had been holding back.  The truth is most likely somewhere in between what she said and what the father told them.  I can'[t imagine a woman leaving her children behind unless she is in dire straits  but if things were that bad she had to still know that the father would come  home at some point and be with the boys and she still left them in his hands.

I'm as we speak having a "find my family moment."  Was contacted the other day through Ancestry by a DNA first cousin match who is an adoptee looking for her birth family.  All she has is date of birth, where she was born and the name given to her at birth.  Private adoption and the lawyer who handled and was a part of her adoptive family has passed away.  I cross referenced her match with another cousin of mine to determine if she is on maternal or paternal side.  I've narrowed it down that she is possibly the half sibling of one of my other first cousins which would mean one of my uncles had a little sideline going 59 years ago. The other really crazy thing is that the adoptee's last name given to her at birth is the same last name  as my cousin's husband (the cousin who might be her half sister).  And, to make it even crazier the adoptee's middle name is the same name as her possible half-sister.  Sounds like a Jerry Springer moment, doesn't it.

[okerry]

23 minutes ago, Koalagirl said:

I'm as we speak having a "find my family moment."  Was contacted the other day through Ancestry by a DNA first cousin match who is an adoptee looking for her birth family.  All she has is date of birth, where she was born and the name given to her at birth.   . . .  The other really crazy thing is that the adoptee's last name given to her at birth is the same last name  as my cousin's husband (the cousin who might be her half sister).  And, to make it even crazier the adoptee's middle name is the same name as her possible half-sister.  Sounds like a Jerry Springer moment, doesn't it.

I can relate. My (full) brother posted his DNA results on ancestry.com and it looks like we have a half-brother out there, who was born about 1-1/2 years after my brother and just happens to have the exact same first name, unusual spelling and all, as my brother.

Those names you mention might not be a coincidence, any more than my brother's name and the possible half-brother's name.

We're waiting on further test results now. Jerry Springer indeed. DNA testing has busted a lot people's worlds wide open. 

[Koalagirl]

41 minutes ago, okerry said:

I can relate. My (full) brother posted his DNA results on ancestry.com and it looks like we have a half-brother out there, who was born about 1-1/2 years after my brother and just happens to have the exact same first name, unusual spelling and all, as my brother.

Those names you mention might not be a coincidence, any more than my brother's name and the possible half-brother's name.

We're waiting on further test results now. Jerry Springer indeed. DNA testing has busted a lot people's worlds wide open. 

The proliferation of TV shows like this has led to people looking for their bio families and I don't blame them.  They're the innocent ones in the scenario.  In my case my uncle and his wife are long gone so there are no toes to step on there.  As far as my cousin's husband whose last name is the same as her birth name I'm not going to push him with the DNA route because, as you said, there is the potential to bust someone's world open.

[okerry]

6 minutes ago, Koalagirl said:

The proliferation of TV shows like this has led to people looking for their bio families and I don't blame them.  They're the innocent ones in the scenario.  In my case my uncle and his wife are long gone so there are no toes to step on there.  As far as my cousin's husband whose last name is the same as her birth name I'm not going to push him with the DNA route because, as you said, there is the potential to bust someone's world open.

I hope you find out as much as you'd like to know. I do think that everyone has the right to know who they really are. It's an interesting time to be alive, because so many people went through life (right up to now) thinking that no one would ever know the truth and they'd never get caught.

Never say never. My bro and I also found out that our maternal grandfather is not who we thought he was - in other words, Grandma was steppin' out while Granddad was teaching at bible camp.

We were a little shocked, but not surprised. It explained a lot of things, such as why Granddad had such a poor relationship with our mother (and subsequently with my brother and I,) why Grandma and Granddad fought like cats and dogs 100% of the time, and why my brother is a foot taller than all of his male cousins.

We know who the side trip was; Grandma almost married him and carried a torch for him all her life. She was a very conservative church-going woman, too, with four other daughters besides my mother. Ya just never know - but I guess we do now, don't we?

[Mom2twoNonna2-3]

My ggfather was also hateful to his youngest son because he suspected he wasn't his. However, he looks just like my ggfather.  His father married his son's exwife and went on to father several kids with her. So my ggfather was the uncle and brother to the same kids. And no, we are not from the south. 

[okerry]

24 minutes ago, Mom2twoNonna2one said:

My ggfather was also hateful to his youngest son because he suspected he wasn't his.

I wish that more social workers and other professionals - not to mention people in general - knew that this is a very, very common factor in child abuse. Nobody wants to talk about it, but now that the facts can come out through DNA testing it's a lot harder to pretend otherwise.

[Galloway Cave]

Did the mom leave the two boys with the paternal grandfather? I have deleted the episode already. If so, then I can maybe see why she never contacted the grandparents again to check in with the boys, since her husband was so abusive. But if the grandfather was her own father, then the whole situation just doesn't make any sense. She also had the new last name by 1956. It's possible she remarried pretty quickly after getting the divorce and the new husband may have wanted her to "move on". So many questions. The way the daughter responded to her mom being found, I get the feeling the mom has spent her lifetime regretting some bad choices.

[camom]

I don't believe it was ever said if the grandparents were paternal or maternal.  I thought it was interesting that the sons said they were with the grandmother and their mother said she left them with their grandfather.  You'd think they would say grandparents if both were present.  More questions than answers in this episode.

[bybrandy]

4 hours ago, okerry said:

DNA testing has busted a lot people's worlds wide open. 

True fact.  Although, I tested because my father thought he had a kid who was placed for adoption and without details I wanted to act as a beacon in case that kid came looking... or to pick up anybody else who might be out there.

I was super excited to find out what skeletons might be in my family.   

As it turns out?  None.  Or if they are they are so far back they certainly don't count.   I have proved that both my parents are my parents, that my grandparents are who I thought they were, and that their parents are who I thought they were.   There are some scandals that we know about from family lore, but the DNA checks out.

[Sammich]

9 hours ago, Jadzia said:

It's unfortunately in my nature to hold a grudge, so I had a hard time reconciling the happy reunion with the mom with her earlier abandonment. I did'n't believe her side of the story at all and I found it lacking in details that would make sense. If she wasn't guilty of abandoning her kids, then why would the daughter feel weird about telling her the twins found her? If it had been a situation where the mom always talked about missing the boys the daughter would not have hesitated. And if she thought the boys were with a grandfather, why did she never try and contact them? I think she was a horrible mother who got out of a bad situation and never looked back.

I thought it was interesting the twins weren't reunited with the mom. I wonder if they just refused.

I think the twins didn't travel to New Hampshire because the male twin can't travel due to health issues. Hopefully there will be a way to get them all reunited, as I think traveling may be also difficult for the 87 year old mom. 

[Lucy Ricardo]

I was going to also comment on this episode.  I also wondered why the never mentioned the twins being found to the mother and sister.  If it was to not hurt the mom for some reason they could have told us this as a side note.  

[iMonrey]

Quote

Did the mom leave the two boys with the paternal grandfather? I have deleted the episode already. If so, then I can maybe see why she never contacted the grandparents again to check in with the boys, since her husband was so abusive. 

It would almost have had to be the paternal grandparents. If it were her own parents why would she have had zero contact with them? But even assuming she left Tim and Ron with her husband's parents, there's really no excuse for why she never had any contact with them afterwards. I think she just wanted to abandon all connections to her former life including her own children. As for Betty and Bobby - is Bobby maybe a little slow?

The whole story was hinky and I think maybe after Tim and Ron's euphoria wears off the situation could become uncomfortable. There are a lot of inconvenient truths to this story they're willing to gloss over just to be reunited with their mother but wait until the whole story sinks in. 

I didn't even watch the "Life Live" portion of this episode. A woman whose baby and two sisters were killed by a drunk driver gets to confront him after X number of years. Who wants to watch that?!

[Mom2twoNonna2-3]

She didn't "confront" him. She met with him to forgive him. Her parents had forgiven him at the scene and had written letters to the parole board asking for him to be released early. She, on the other hand, didn't forgive him right away and I think she may have forgiven  him as a final gift to her mother who had just passed away. I'm not sure I could ever forgive someone who hurt or killed my child, but, everyone is different. Shoot, I have a hard time forgiving someone who told my husband to divorce me and take my kids because she never liked me.  So I'm not the one to use as a forgiveness gauge.

[iMonrey]

Be that as it may, I wasn't interested in the story. It hardly sounds like something uplifting or inspiring. To each his own; I don't really understand the concept of this "Life Live" thing anyway, or why it's tacked onto Long Lost Family. The first one actually had someone searching for a long-lost sister (Ericka) but none of the others have. It feels like bait-and-switch.

[ElleMo]

6 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Be that as it may, I wasn't interested in the story. It hardly sounds like something uplifting or inspiring. To each his own; I don't really understand the concept of this "Life Live" thing anyway, or why it's tacked onto Long Lost Family. The first one actually had someone searching for a long-lost sister (Ericka) but none of the others have. It feels like bait-and-switch.

I thought it was anything but  -- I couldn't  bear to watch the end.  He was released from jail land got another DUI.  I don't understand the whole forgiveness thing. So I shut it off.

Edited April 28, 2017 by ElleMo

[ElleMo]

8 hours ago, iMonrey said:

8 hours ago, iMonrey said:

It would almost have had to be the paternal grandparents. If it were her own parents why would she have had zero contact with them? But even assuming she left Tim and Ron with her husband's parents, there's really no excuse for why she never had any contact with them afterwards. I think she just wanted to abandon all connections to her former life including her own children. As for Betty and Bobby - is Bobby maybe a little slow?

The whole story was hinky and I think maybe after Tim and Ron's euphoria wears off the situation could become uncomfortable. There are a lot of inconvenient truths to this story they're willing to gloss over just to be reunited with their mother but wait until the whole story sinks in. 

I didn't even watch the "Life Live" portion of this episode. A woman whose baby and two sisters were killed by a drunk driver gets to confront him after X number of years. Who wants to watch that?!

 

The boys never mentioned a grandfather  - just a grandmother so I would assume he was deceased or otherwise out of the picture early on.  The story does sound off.  The twins certainly had the better deal.  It sounds like she was a battered wife and ashamed of what she did.  What the sister said was telling - sister wanted to look for the kids but what afraid of how it would go if they were not raised happily.  So she was aware that things likely did not go well for the boys and the only way she would know that would be from her mom.  

I do feel bad for the mom.  There was not much help for domestic violence back then and she had little recourse.  It's hard enough today  but back then there were no shelters she could take 5 kids to to escape her husband and she likely had no money and perhaps no skills to get a job.  I am sure she had a lot of fear of her husband and that kept her away initially.  Later it was also shame for leaving her kids.  Chris mentioned "horrific" abuse.  At least I think that was the word he used.  At the time I thought that was odd because I didn't hear anything that sounded horrific.  Unpleasant yes, but horrific just seemed on a whole other level.  I wonder if something had been cut.

BTW, if she did call the neighbor and said that the kids would be dead at home, it was probably because the husband threatened to kill them.  She visited the twins in their adoptive home to make sure they were ok.  I think she did the best she could for the other two but didn't have the ability to do more.  I wonder if she had some post partum depression on top of everything else.  It sounded like all this went down when the littlest was a newborn.  

[TiredMe]

That two sons story seemed off to me a bit too. But then I assumed it was abuse and she ran for her life. Felt sorry for the two brothers though.

regarding the live shows. I'm gonna speak frankly. It was gross. And I feel dirty for having watched that disgusting exploitive mess. 

Edited April 28, 2017 by TiredMe