This Is Where You Have To Go: A forced adoption. A heartbreaking reunion. A mother's fight for justice.

by Lynda Holden, Jo Tuscano

150,000 adoptions took place in Australia between 1950 and 1975. It is estimated that one in 15 was forced. Proud Dhunghutti woman, laywer, human rights advocate and former midwife Lynda Holden tells her own heartbreaking story and of her fight for justice.


In 1970, Lynda was eighteen, unmarried and pregnant when she was forced to give her baby up for adoption. She was sent by a doctor to a Catholic girls' home for unmarried mothers, and told she'd have no hope of keeping her child because she was Aboriginal.


After twenty-six years, Lynda was finally able to make contact with her lost son – but the much wished for reunion didn't go well. When she looked into the adoption records, she found a web of lies – lies about her family, the baby's father, her 'consent' for the adoption – and her Indigenous heritage had been completely erased.


So began a quest for Lynda took on the Catholic Church in an attempt to right the wrongs of the past. In this incredibly powerful memoir, she sheds light on the lasting impacts of forced adoption on mothers, children and their families, and gives voice to the countless women who have been silenced for generations.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, History, Indigenous

245 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2024

Reviews

[EmG ReadsDaily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heartbreaking memoir by Lynda Holden, proud Dhunghutti woman, human rights advocate, lawyer and for midwife. This is a remarkable story of her fight for justice.

[Marles Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

ⒷⓄⓄⓀ ⓇⒺⓋⒾⒺⓌ

This is Lynda Holden's story.  Lynda was the first Indigenous woman to sue the Australian Catholic Church over forced adoption, and for justice over the way in which she was treated at the hands off the church with religious bigotry, hatred and prejudice. Women in the 1970s did not have a lot of rights, and for Aboriginal women, this decreased even more so. Lynda's decision to tell her story, and capture it with the help of @jotuscano was a way to bring the issues and trauma that Lynda went through out into the open, and encourage more women to speak up and out about their experiences.  The institutions that took away new born babies and  children because women were young and unmarried was a traumatic experience and is a moment of shame in Australia's history.

Lynda is an accomplished woman, and a proud Dhungutti woman. She trained as a nurse, a midwife and a lawyer. Using her legal prowess, Lynda worked with Jo Tuscano and trawled through the thousands of pages of legal documents to get to the bottom of what was covered up, and what needed to be addressed. It was horrific to read that there was so much false and fabricated information created about Lynda on her files from the Catholic Mothers and Babies Home in Waitara, Sydney, to justify their actions in taking away her son. The book also covered Lynda's life: from the earliest memories hoping that a young white child  would not come to school so she could sit with them and read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, losing her younger brother through adoption, her parents' heartbreaking relationships and her push to achieve all she could.  Lynda spoke with strength and vigor of her determined nature and also tackled the pain of the loss of her son.

I finished this and was so very moved by it that I could not put it down.

[Mercedes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read a few books about forced adoptions and once interviewed a lady for a magazine story about her horrific experience being forced to hand over her newborn son for adoption. The story doesn’t get less harrowing, no matter how many times you hear it. In fact it shows you how common it was. It is estimated that in Australia around 150,000 babies were adopted between 1950 and 1975 and a vast number of these were forced.

The latest brave woman to add her story to the terrible toll is Lynda Holden, a proud Dunghutti woman who fell pregnant at the ago of 18 and found herself in the Our Lady of Mercy home in Waitara on Sydney’s north shore. She naively thought the sisters would help her through the birth and teach her how to care for her baby.

But the constant hounding for her to sign over her unborn baby for adoption started almost as soon as she arrived in 1970. When her son was born, she was tricked into signing adoption papers but told she could overturn her decision within 30 days. When she returned with plenty of time to spare before the deadline, she was told her baby had gone with his new family to live in Paula New Guinea.

And so began her decades long fight to find her son, reconnect with him and ultimately to fight for recognition and compensation through the courts.

This memoir will make you sad, then angry as you learn that Lynda’s story was way more common than we would like to think. But she tells it with honesty and strength so what results is a story that shines with hope and positivity against the odds.

[Ally Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lynda Holden’s memoir, This Is Where You Have to Go, is a powerful, heart-wrenching, and deeply personal account of forced adoption in 1970s Australia.

At just 18, Lynda, a proud Dhunghutti woman, was sent to a Catholic home for unmarried mothers and coerced into giving up her newborn son. What followed was a decades-long fight for justice, identity, and recognition, culminating in Lynda becoming the first Indigenous woman to take legal action against the Catholic Church over forced adoption.

This story goes beyond personal pain, it exposes a dark and often silenced chapter of Australian history. Lynda’s courageous recounting, paired with Jo Tuscano’s accessible narrative, shines a light on a time when institutions acted with accountability, separating mothers from children under the guise of morality and social order. As Lynda unearths falsified records and institutional lies, her legal background gives her the tools to seek truth, but the emotional toll is profound.

Importantly, this memoir doesn’t sit comfortably within one narrative. While Lynda’s Aboriginality undoubtedly heightened her vulnerability to discrimination, it’s clear that forced adoption was a widespread and systemic issue that impacted thousands of unwed women, regardless of race. It’s a controversial but necessary reminder: while the treatment of Indigenous women has its own legacy of injustice, the cruelty of these practices spanned far and wide.

The book is not an easy read, nor should it be. At times repetitive, and occasionally let down by overly simple prose, the emotional weight more than compensates. Lynda’s resilience and determination stand tall as a reminder of the cost of silence, and the strength it takes to speak truth decades later.

This memoir will leave you heartbroken, furious, and moved. But most of all, it will leave you changed.
A must-read for anyone wanting to understand the painful legacy of forced adoption in Australia, and how far we still have to go.

[Sarah (is clearing her shelves) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lynda's life story was hard to read, full of injustices that made me so angry with our (the Australian) government and any and all conservative religious institutions that I had to put the book down in order to allow my blood pressure to go down. The way Lynda (and so many other women) were treated is just terrible and based on my level of anger on Lynda's behalf I don't know how she managed to move on and present a calm front so well - I get so stuck in anger that I doubt I would be as balanced as Lynda is. I so hoped there could be a happy ending for Lynda and her estranged son, Michael. Every time she thinks about what could have been it must be like he's being stolen from her all over again. The only criticism I have for the book is that the writing was quite simplistic, often repetitive with lots of short sentences, and there were a few grammatical errors, which I was a little surprised by as Holden had an author, Jo Tuscano, co-write this with her. I would be interested in reading another of Tuscano's books, Back on the Block, about Bill Simon, a member of the Stolen Generations.

[Akhila · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, will be thinking about this book for a long time

[Rebecca Langham · Rating 5 out of 5]

This feels like a deeply cathartic story. Perhaps… A process of apology for the son who was taken, and self-forgiveness for the mother who lost him to corruption.

It’ll make you angry. Sad. Disgusted. And deeply, deeply sorry that you can’t change one thing about what Australian society has done to women and to Aboriginal people.

Thank you, Lynda Holden, for sharing your story. Your voice should’ve been heard from the very beginning.

[Jack Magner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of an Aboriginal mother and the removal of her son, and her pursuit to get him back. The Stolen Generation isn’t a particularly well taught topic in schools, and I remember my first encounter was during the apology to Indigenous People by Kevin Rudd. This was therefore a fascinating insight into the racist perspective that white Australians had towards others, and the removal of children was seen to be helpful. Just a heartbreaking tale and I’m glad I read it, but boy is it not a light topic.

[Gwen Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a woman who has written of my own experience of being forced to sign adoption papers for my son, I recommend this book to all who wish to understand more of the punitive practices of the era, and the damage done to both mother and child. Lynda Holden has gone a step further than me and shed light on the difficulty - sometimes impossibility - of reestablishing a relationship with the children we were separated from. It is nothing like what TV reality shows would like you to believe.

[Belynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book that everyone should read
It does get a bit long especially the Australian legislation and acts towards the end but it is so important to read and understand what happened in the past so we can understand the pain it has created today and make sure it never happened again.

[Leonie Youngberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a sad story. Sadder still is the fact that it is a story shared by so many. I hope it is read/ listened to by many - we need to know and acknowledge our history. It is also well written and celebrates the resilience and fortitude of the author who has gone on to achieve so much in her life despite the treatment she endured because of our government policies and at the hands of the church.

[foamoftheocean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book about forced adoptions, which I had no previous knowledge about. It is an eye opening book on how cruel it was for Lynda and the struggles with her child being taken away.
I do wish they had explained or expanded on the legal process a bit more, but that’s my only complaint overall. Other than that, this was a worthwhile read.

[Bianca Leri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very important book and a little known part of Australian history. It is a riveting read, very sad at times and an insight into the attitudes of the day that were prejudiced against single mothers. The treatment of single, pregnant girls by the authorities and the church is horrendous and the effects are felt to this day. Highly recommended.

[Elizabeth Maguire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a sad sad story, devastating for Mum, for her son and for the whole extended family. Lynda describes well how the stolen generation continues to effect their lives generationally - heart breaking story

[Alli_aye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damn. This was a heavy story and an absolute national shame. Thank you to the author Lynda Holden and her family’s strength in advocating for others and sharing their story

The National Apology for Forced Adoptions was given 21/3/13

[Maria Giura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book broke my heart and made me very angry at what young girls had to go through with the forced adoptions. The cruelty of the times is still felt by many people many decades later. An important book to read.

[KJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

How the Catholic Church can sleep at night is beyond me.

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be compulsory reading for all Australians.

[Gabby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really heartbreaking memoir that I'm grateful Lynda was able to share.

[Bec · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audio book - review to follow

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Catholic Church has a lot to answer for. Brave women like Lynda are holding it to account.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, excellent read. Learnt so much.

[Pam Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

A harrowing book at times, but a story we need to hear. I admire Lynda's courage and determination to continue to live and to fight for her family and her heritage, and to educate others.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heart rending story that needs to be heard.