Finding out who I am…
Emma Johnson always knew she was an adopted mix-race child – but would tracking down her birth parents feel like a betrayal to her mum, Jill?
When I was little, there was one bedtime story I loved. About a room filled with cribs, each holding a newborn baby, and out of all those babies, my mum chose me. I’d drift off to sleep smiling.
I’ve always known I was adopted. It would’ve been impossible to keep it secret; my skin colour in a white family is an obvious clue.
Mum always framed my adoption as something wonderful that had happened to her – rather than focusing on the fact my birth mother had given me away. I knew from my adoption file that my birth father was black and my birth mother white and just 17 when she had me in 1978.
I grew up in a rural village in West Yorkshire. Mostly, it was a protective, loving bubble… and although I knew I looked different, it didn’t matter. I rarely encountered racism and I always felt as much my parents’ child as my brother, Matthew, now 46, and sister, Abigail, 40. We were loved and disciplined the same and attended a local private school together.
However, as I got older, things like Mum being able to wash and brush Abi’s hair, while mine was relaxed by an Afro-Caribbean hairdresser, were reminders I was different. I began searching for a link to where I came from. I’d record videos of black people on TV, fascinated by others who looked like me. The first time I felt affected by racism was, irnally by black students at college in Leeds, when I was 17. I felt excited about being among black and mixed-race students. I wanted to fit in, but they rejected me, calling me a ‘coconut’ – black on the outside, white on the inside. I didn’t speak their slang and, compared to many of them, I’d had a privileged upbringing. I began to question my identity. Where did I fit in? Mum listened but there was little she could do to soothe my confusion. I wanted to meet my birth parents. when I told she was incredibly supportive and enouraging, insisting I had counselling to prepare for all eventualties. Looking back, I can see it can’t have been easy to face the prospect of sharing her daughter with strangers but she would never say.
In 1996, I met my birth father and, a few weeks later, my birth mother. They had split up after I was born.
My birth mother was emotional. To her, I was still the tiny baby she’d given up – because of her age and the lack of acceptance of her mixed-race relationship.
I felt an instinctive connection with her I’d never had with Mum but that was oddly hard because it felt like a betrayal.
But as ever, Mum was only ever welcoming of my relationship with my birth mother, saying I was lucky to have two mums.
I stayed in touch with my birth parents for 20 years, getting to know halfsiblings, grandparents, aunts and cousins, relishing the connection with my father’s West Indian community.