Our story began the day I drove down the drive to my birth father’s home on July 16, 2011. Who would have dreamed that two and half years later, long after the roller coaster of reunion had spun us about it’s wild ride, that my Pop, Jerry Knight, and I would be scheduled as guests on Huffington Post’s Live Interview coverage honoring National Adoption Month. We will be talking about our reunion, and he will be representing the birth father’s perspective for men who have fathered children of adoption all over the world.
We are excited to share our unique reunion story. So often reunions covered in the media are between birth mother and child, with birth father reunions being quite underrepresented. There are reasons for this: many birth fathers are simply unknown, DNA testing back in the 60’s did not exist, and social stigmas and systems have long sought to erase all ties between birth parents and their children. Birth mothers’ names were far more likely to make it on the birth record than the birth fathers’. This left the birth mother bearing the brunt of the stigma, as well as the emotional toll of adoption. Thus ensued the stereotypical belief that birth fathers got off scot-free.
Here is our viral reunion video which has received more than 70,000 views and which paints a beautiful culmination to what began as a sad loss for this kind-hearted man who only discovered he had a daughter 42 years after my conception.