A Man and His Mother: An Adopted Son’s Search is written by Tim Green. Football fans may recognize that name—Green has played with the Atlanta Falcons and Syracuse University, and been a commentator for Fox Sports News.
Green is also a published author, and this memoir is very personal. Green is candid about the many facets of his life as a son, brother, college and pro athlete, husband and father—and as an adoptee.
Many of the adult adoptee memoirs I’ve read are written by women. Green’s book may be of interest to older teen males who were adopted. It also may help adoptees understand birth parents and their decisions, and help non-adopted people understand feelings that their adopted friends and relatives may have been having.
One caution: Green writes for adults, and candidly admits to some college exploits (of both himself and his birthfather’s) that I worry might lead some teens to think “everyone does it” about alcohol and intimate relationships.
Green is able to describe his childhood experience of being raised in a wonderful home, yet of being timid and crying easily, of feeling embarrassed when people asked why he didn’t look like his parents, of being eager to prove himself and fearful of rejection.
Green claims that despite the above, he never consciously allowed himself to think of his birthmother for the first twenty years of his life. He became close to a friend’s mother who finally revealed that her special fondness for him was because she had given up a son for adoption. Perhaps in some way she wanted to spoil Tim as she wanted to care for her own son.
This woman’s anguish at not knowing what had happened to her son made Green suddenly want to reassure his birthmother than he was all right. He also wanted to see which of his physical, mental and emotional attributes he shared with his birthparents. (The book’s title comes from Green’s pleasure in having others recognize his likeness to his birth mother and immediately know that “here is a man and his mother”. )
Green was aided in his search by hired private detectives and NFL security people– resources most adoptees obviously do not have access to—and so isn’t terribly useful as a how-to-search guide.
It is, however, a terrific guide to some of the emotional pitfalls of searching. While Green’s adoptive father understands his desire to know about his birthmother and let her know that he’s okay, his adoptive mother feels betrayed, noting that “nobody told us this could happen”—meaning that they had adopted thinking they would always be the only parents Tim would ever know.
Other roadblocks in Green’s search included a mentally unstable woman who falsely claimed to be his birthmother. His birthfather initially denied the possibility and refused to take a paternity test, causing Green to have a crisis of confidence in his newly-discovered birthmother.
Green does attain a good relationship with his birth and adoptive mothers and fathers, and many adult and young adult adoptees will enjoy this book.
Please see these related blogs:
How Long Does an Adoption Search Take?