I am very fortunate to have a job where I listen to music, tune out the world and just lose myself. However; more often than not, I find myself wanting to listen to talk radio versus music. Don't get me wrong. I love music. Any and all kinds (almost). But it just gets to the point where I get sick of hearing the same things over and over again. So recently, I have downloaded a few apps on my phone so I can just listen to people talking. I usually listen to the previous night's NBC Nightly News broadcast on, "Tune In," then I listen to the Elvis Duran Replay Channel on, "iHeart Radio." But today I was introduced to something new.
I have some new friends at work and one of them has been experiencing the same kind of lack of interest in listening to music at work. She suggested I try listening to this broadcast called, "This American Life." According to it's website, it's a weekly public radio broadcast. The themes of each broadcast change and are kind of like documentaries. They are usually about an hour long. So today, my friend suggest I listen to the broadcast she had just listened to. It was a broadcast from 2008 called, "Switched at Birth." It's a story about two families who had baby girls, and, somehow, the girls were given to the wrong parents.
This isn't something that happens every day. Especially nowadays when hospitals have gotten so much more diligent with their records and whatnot. However, this happened back in 1951. It didn't used to happen a lot back in those days either, so when it does, it's kind of a big deal. The babies who were accidentally switched at birth had no idea until they were 43 years old. So, of course the question is, how did they find out after so long? Well, here's the kicker--one of the mothers knew almost from day one that the child they brought home was not theirs.
Of course, the next question would be, how could this woman go 43 years, knowing she had the wrong child, knowing what family the child actually belonged to and knowing the hospital made a BIG mistake without telling someone? It turns out this mother told her husband she believed they had the wrong child. He believed her, but told her they should just let it go. They should keep quiet and just raise that child as their own because it was God's will that they were placed with that child. Of course there weren't too many tests back then to determine whether or not this mother was correct because DNA testing did not come about for 30 or so more years. When it was available, the mother had blood tests done to confirm her thoughts, and the only reason why the women ever found out was because this mother wrote letters to both the child that she raised and her biological daughter that was raised by another family.
This story made me quite sad because the daughter of the family who was unaware of the switch always felt like an outcast in her family. Her siblings were outgoing and personable and she was somewhat shy and reserved. She didn't have a great relationship with one of her brothers, and when the family was made aware of the switch, that brother sought out his biological sister and made an instant connection. This made the daughter even more of an outcast in her family. Not only was she not really "theirs" but it all made sense as to why she was always an outcast and they never tried to welcome her in after they found out.
What makes me upset is the fact that, not only did the one family know the whole time, but many families in the community knew as well. The mother who knew kept trying to drop hints to the other mother that their children might actually be each other's, but they were too subtle and somewhat strange for the other mother to pick up on. And what makes me the most upset is the fact that the one father, who was actually an Evangelical minister, kept telling his wife to just forget about the fact they were raising the wrong child. That it was God's will. She said she obeyed her husband because she knew if she didn't, it would be the end of their marriage. And back in the 1950's, wives faced public scrutiny if they disobeyed their husbands.
I just cannot imagine going through almost half of my life knowing I had the wrong child and knowing what family had my real child. I can't imagine that I would be that submissive to my husband to not follow my instincts to seek out my real child earlier in their life. I would never believe that it was God's will to keep the wrong child, especially if I knew. I would be under the impression that it's God's will that I found out and it would be my duty to make the other family aware. It's just hard for me to comprehend. It wouldn't make me love that child any less. I guess it would kind of be like adopting another person's child, but it wasn't done willingly. Just knowing my real child was given to someone else by accident would drive me crazy.
Can you imagine going through the better part of your life keeping a secret like that? It's no wonder she had to come out with it eventually.
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