Falling in Love With Adopted Siblings

Nigerian director Tchidi Chikere made IN ONE HOUSE, a groundbreaking 

movie about adoption.

Adoption is not in the public domain because it is highly private, between hospitals, adoption agencies, adoptive parents and the kids. Laws in most western countries give them the right to know their mothers when they grow up, if they want to.

Very little is known about adoption in African countries because it is not popular. Culture has handled bringing up all children, since the beginning of time. Kids have mothers and ‘small mothers’, their mothers’ sisters. Kids have ‘small or big fathers’, their fathers’ brothers. All African languages have titles for these relationships.

This extended family takes care of kids even when parents are alive and well. They can attend school, far away from their parents and don’t miss them a bit, because they are raised by aunts, uncles and grandparents.

Madonna went to Africa to adopt David.

 The icing on the cake is growing up with cousins, who become valuable friends later on in life. Kids don’t play with teddy bears. European and American aid agencies should stop bringing teddy bears to Africa. It imposes a culture of individualism, one child in a room of his own surrounded by objects. Kids in the developing world play and grow up in groups.

Back to adoption. South Africa has adoption laws that can be abused because of the money factor. In the best interest of the child is usually measured in monetary terms.

As a result, some white adoptive parents use adoption to give the impression that they are liberal, that they were never part of the racist apartheid system they benefited from. Some adoptive parents adopt black children to abuse them physically or sexually.

American film director Woody Allen married Soon-Yi Previn, his stepdaughter adopted by Mia Farrow, his long time partner.

When do adopted kids have the right to know their natural mothers?  When they are adults of course. How they go about it, depends on the country.

Mike Leigh’s film Secrets & Lies gives us a glimpse of British adoption laws. Hortense (Marianne Jean Baptiste), a black woman who was adopted by a middle class black family decides to find her birth mother, when her brothers start arguing about property after her adoptive mother’s death.

The film shows us the paper trail that leads Hortense to Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) a poor white working class mother constantly harassed by daughter. Hortense does not believe that a white woman is her mother. Cynthia definitely does not either, and apologizes to Hortense that there is a mistake. However, papers from the social worker point to one direction: they are mother and daughter.

Despite traditional African customs and tradition we mentioned earlier, urbanization has led to countries like South Africa and Nigeria to put adoption laws in place. In One House, a movie by Nigerian filmmaker Tchidi Chikere, a brother falls in love with his younger sister. The mother never told them they were adopted.

The son accidentally came across adoption papers when he was 16 but did not tell the mother. She is livid, telling him that he cannot love his sister because ‘you grew up in one house’.

The two movies deal with how kids, who are now grown up, handle the information that they are adopted. In real life, it can lead to complications.

For example, Woody Allen, an American film director, married his stepdaughter Soon-Yi Previn, who was adopted by Mia Farrow, his long time partner.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.