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Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter
A reissue of the classic 1975 memoir that Elie Wiesel called "deeply stirring…important and enriching."
In this significant and lasting account, Betty Jean Lifton, acclaimed author of several books on the psychology of the adopted, tells her own story of growing up at a time when adoptees were still in the closet. Twice Born recounts her early struggle with the loneliness and isolation of not knowing her birth parents; her identification, as a journalist in the Far East, with the orphans left behind by American soldiers in Japan and Vietnam; and the guilt she experiences over what feels like a betrayal of her adopted parents as she sets off on a forbidden quest to find her roots.
With the mounting suspense of a detective novel, Twice Born explores the difficulty of searching for one's past when records are sealed, and the complexity of reuniting with a birth mother from whom one has been separated by both time and social taboos. More than a vivid and poignant memoir, Lifton has given us a story of mothering and mother-loss, attachment and bonding, secrets and lies, and the human need for origins.
In this significant and lasting account, Betty Jean Lifton, acclaimed author of several books on the psychology of the adopted, tells her own story of growing up at a time when adoptees were still in the closet. Twice Born recounts her early struggle with the loneliness and isolation of not knowing her birth parents; her identification, as a journalist in the Far East, with the orphans left behind by American soldiers in Japan and Vietnam; and the guilt she experiences over what feels like a betrayal of her adopted parents as she sets off on a forbidden quest to find her roots.
With the mounting suspense of a detective novel, Twice Born explores the difficulty of searching for one's past when records are sealed, and the complexity of reuniting with a birth mother from whom one has been separated by both time and social taboos. More than a vivid and poignant memoir, Lifton has given us a story of mothering and mother-loss, attachment and bonding, secrets and lies, and the human need for origins.
- GenresAdoptionMemoirNonfiction
296 pages, Paperback
First published February 24, 1977
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About the author
Betty Jean Lifton
35 books21 followersBetty Jean (BJ) Lifton, PhD, was a writer and adoption counselor, who was one of the leading advocates of adoption reform. She is an authority on the psychology of the adopted child, birth parents, and adoptive parents, as well as the complexity of search and reunion.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 14, 2010
A personal account that confirms an adoptee’s desire to know of his or her origins is a basic human drive. I appreciate how the author is able to depict her growth from self-centered pain to one that encompasses the awareness of the varying complexities of fantasies, fears and emotional pain experienced by all in the adoption triad: the adopting parents, the birth mother (also the father occasionally), and the adoptee.
December 4, 2008
Betty Jean is the "pioneer" of bringing adoption issues to light. This book really spoke to me.
August 27, 2022
pg 5 The child reminded me that her adoptive parents had taken her when she was helpless and raised her with the innocent hope that she would never look back. The unspoken debt was to be paid with acquiescence and silence: it is a form of emotional indenture even though it is made in the name of love. Adoptive parents demand that their stories end happily ever after..
pg 13 ...it seems to have had more to do with the adoptive parents' emotional need to live as if they had produced offspring of their own. The social-welfare agencies have encourage this delusion with the guarantee that by matching hair and eye color along with religious background, they could artificially create families ad durable and wholesome as natural ones.
pg 14 but i still say the agencies did not go far enough. They did not grow with the babies or the times. They thought their job was over once they had placed the available infant in the available crib. They did not understand that it wasn't the end: it was just the beginning.
pg 15 wonder if the intensity of that mother's hysteria was not the fruit of a barren womb... could it not be said that the adopted are changelings who replace the children who might have been?
pg 111 There are hundreds of manual for adoptive parents... but there are no manual for the adopted like....
pg 134 She was not the big, strong, all-powerful mother ready to take the frightened child in her arms and dispel the demons. She too, was riddled with demons. She, too was afraid: afraid of her secret, afraid of exposure, afraid of that cold, domineering, loveless mother of her own. Afraid of me. She was disconcerting combination of self-awareness and denial..
pg 144 I had influence this stranger's life just as she had influenced mine. She had carried her loss within her longer than she carried me. My mother was locked as I was in the intricate tangle of the past: I was the darling baby, the lost child, the ache in her heart; but I was also the dark secret, the one who had almost ruined her life and threatened to again.
And for me this woman was the beautiful lots mother; but she was also the one who had abandoned me.
pg 148 Let us now pay homage to taboos:
pg 150 I had been disappointed in my mother. I had not expected to find a queen, but at least a vibrant, creative woman. Someone less defeated; someone who had willed herself to be strong just as I had done throughout my youth. I thought she would open not only her arms to me, but her house and her life. I did not expect to find the entrance barred, myself on the outside. She had been more nurturing as the ghostly mother of my fantasy than as a reality in life.
On a conscience level I could say I was glad I had searched for her, but on an unconscious one I was devastated and had to rearrange my psychic furnishings.
pg 174 It's easier for us both with the children around. It must be so for all daughters when there is a generation between the present and the past.
pg 181 like the adopted, natural mothers have their own guilt and fantasies. Certainly the pain of the natural mother is of the same intensity as that of the adoptee---if not greater. But who can measure pain? What doctor can cure it? The symptoms can be treated, but who can hold anyone long enough, tightly enough, to make the agony go away?
pg 189 I think about the psychology of the relationship a mother has to the child who comes after the one she has secretly given away. That child is like the survivor of a dead sibling, but will not understand why the mother is so abnormally intense and clinging. At least one who grows up with knowledge of a dead sibling can try to integrate the fact and cope with it in various stages of life. But the second/first child, like my half-brother, is flying blind: he has been heralded as the first-born by a proud father and has never been told the truth about the hidden forces governing the relationship with his fearful mother.
pg 191 but we usually talk about the past. That is the space we have in common. We keep bringing up the baby-me. I am still in the infants' home
pg 194 but she never mentioned the subject matter to me, just how well I looked. part of that fantasy world that can be turned on and off at will.
pg 222 he warned me not to romanticize of mythologize him
pg 237 This quest is healthy and necessary. it is the way it is handled that distorts it.
Telling the child he or she is adopted is a step toward fidelity. It should be conveyed in an easy, natural way; gradually, must as one give sex education.
pg 239 the problem of what to do with the relationship with the natural parents once it has been initiated
pg 244 There's very little psychiatric literature on what happens to the child after it's grown. You and I are making the data now. We are writing a new page of the adoption story even while we talk.
pg 247 I felt relieved, sure of the integrity of my action. Just as one must have the courage to find one's natural parents, one must have the courage to say goodbye, if necessary. To let go.
pg 248 I could concede that we had reached a pace in our relationship with no room to maneuver, that we must give each other up.
pg 258 that the conditions of the airlift could have been different- that the children could have been brought out under a foster plan rather than for adoption; that we could have helped care for them temporarily until the political crisis in their country was over, and then tried to sort out the real orphans from those who had some family members with whom they might be reunited. As it was, the American style of adoption, which denies the past, was sealing their records for them even more irrevocable than it had sealed mine.
pg 264the way the adoption triangle is set up now, everyone in it is victimized.
pg 276 but there should be some careful study as to when a child is ready to receive such information-and not when the adoptive parents (or society) feel they are ready to give it. And even then the child should be told that at the age of majority he can have the choice of looking up the natural parents. It should be a choice, not an obligation. And the important thing here is that the decision should not be made by the 'natural' or the adoptive parents for the young adult: the adoptee should make it for himself.
pg 13 ...it seems to have had more to do with the adoptive parents' emotional need to live as if they had produced offspring of their own. The social-welfare agencies have encourage this delusion with the guarantee that by matching hair and eye color along with religious background, they could artificially create families ad durable and wholesome as natural ones.
pg 14 but i still say the agencies did not go far enough. They did not grow with the babies or the times. They thought their job was over once they had placed the available infant in the available crib. They did not understand that it wasn't the end: it was just the beginning.
pg 15 wonder if the intensity of that mother's hysteria was not the fruit of a barren womb... could it not be said that the adopted are changelings who replace the children who might have been?
pg 111 There are hundreds of manual for adoptive parents... but there are no manual for the adopted like....
pg 134 She was not the big, strong, all-powerful mother ready to take the frightened child in her arms and dispel the demons. She too, was riddled with demons. She, too was afraid: afraid of her secret, afraid of exposure, afraid of that cold, domineering, loveless mother of her own. Afraid of me. She was disconcerting combination of self-awareness and denial..
pg 144 I had influence this stranger's life just as she had influenced mine. She had carried her loss within her longer than she carried me. My mother was locked as I was in the intricate tangle of the past: I was the darling baby, the lost child, the ache in her heart; but I was also the dark secret, the one who had almost ruined her life and threatened to again.
And for me this woman was the beautiful lots mother; but she was also the one who had abandoned me.
pg 148 Let us now pay homage to taboos:
pg 150 I had been disappointed in my mother. I had not expected to find a queen, but at least a vibrant, creative woman. Someone less defeated; someone who had willed herself to be strong just as I had done throughout my youth. I thought she would open not only her arms to me, but her house and her life. I did not expect to find the entrance barred, myself on the outside. She had been more nurturing as the ghostly mother of my fantasy than as a reality in life.
On a conscience level I could say I was glad I had searched for her, but on an unconscious one I was devastated and had to rearrange my psychic furnishings.
pg 174 It's easier for us both with the children around. It must be so for all daughters when there is a generation between the present and the past.
pg 181 like the adopted, natural mothers have their own guilt and fantasies. Certainly the pain of the natural mother is of the same intensity as that of the adoptee---if not greater. But who can measure pain? What doctor can cure it? The symptoms can be treated, but who can hold anyone long enough, tightly enough, to make the agony go away?
pg 189 I think about the psychology of the relationship a mother has to the child who comes after the one she has secretly given away. That child is like the survivor of a dead sibling, but will not understand why the mother is so abnormally intense and clinging. At least one who grows up with knowledge of a dead sibling can try to integrate the fact and cope with it in various stages of life. But the second/first child, like my half-brother, is flying blind: he has been heralded as the first-born by a proud father and has never been told the truth about the hidden forces governing the relationship with his fearful mother.
pg 191 but we usually talk about the past. That is the space we have in common. We keep bringing up the baby-me. I am still in the infants' home
pg 194 but she never mentioned the subject matter to me, just how well I looked. part of that fantasy world that can be turned on and off at will.
pg 222 he warned me not to romanticize of mythologize him
pg 237 This quest is healthy and necessary. it is the way it is handled that distorts it.
Telling the child he or she is adopted is a step toward fidelity. It should be conveyed in an easy, natural way; gradually, must as one give sex education.
pg 239 the problem of what to do with the relationship with the natural parents once it has been initiated
pg 244 There's very little psychiatric literature on what happens to the child after it's grown. You and I are making the data now. We are writing a new page of the adoption story even while we talk.
pg 247 I felt relieved, sure of the integrity of my action. Just as one must have the courage to find one's natural parents, one must have the courage to say goodbye, if necessary. To let go.
pg 248 I could concede that we had reached a pace in our relationship with no room to maneuver, that we must give each other up.
pg 258 that the conditions of the airlift could have been different- that the children could have been brought out under a foster plan rather than for adoption; that we could have helped care for them temporarily until the political crisis in their country was over, and then tried to sort out the real orphans from those who had some family members with whom they might be reunited. As it was, the American style of adoption, which denies the past, was sealing their records for them even more irrevocable than it had sealed mine.
pg 264the way the adoption triangle is set up now, everyone in it is victimized.
pg 276 but there should be some careful study as to when a child is ready to receive such information-and not when the adoptive parents (or society) feel they are ready to give it. And even then the child should be told that at the age of majority he can have the choice of looking up the natural parents. It should be a choice, not an obligation. And the important thing here is that the decision should not be made by the 'natural' or the adoptive parents for the young adult: the adoptee should make it for himself.
June 27, 2010
This is one of the famous adoption memoirs about a woman who searches for her birth parents and discovers the truth about her past. I am not done, but have mixed feelings. She likes metaphors and similes a lot which feel overboard at times, although it is clear that she is well-read. Some chapters are compelling, others I find a bit cheesy.
October 30, 2021
Groundbreaking when it was written, this book definitely needs updating. There are a number of adoption myths and falsehoods in this book, which people believed at the time, but don’t believe any longer.
It is a decent start to understanding the complexities of adoption.
It is a decent start to understanding the complexities of adoption.
March 1, 2024
3.5⭐️
October 28, 2012
There are so many layers to this memoir...I've just completed the second read and am still at a loss for what to write in my review. Betty Jean Lifton speaks the adoptee's heart and soul...she understands me and for that I'm speechless. This memoir is life-changing and has encouraged me to continue searching, digging, writing, and pursuing my passion!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews