I have long been interested in the whole Nature Vs Nurture debate and tend toward the latter as the most impactful especially when it comes to the important things in life, WHO we are (Personality etc.) rather than WHAT we are (DNA etc.) There are many who feel the need to trace ‘birth parents’ and sperm donor ‘fathers’ – likely hard up students being short of cash rather than long on altruism.

When my kids were well behaved and friends commented on this I’d say “I blame the parents!” (Hoping behaviour is a taught characteristic) as I was a naughty boy, the son of goody two-shoes parents – DNA? I’m not sure about that!

Personally I’d NEVER want to be DNA tested or trace a ‘birth parent’ (So far as I know I’m not adopted and even if I am I’d rather not know.) and potentially open Pandora’s box of cuckolding and adultery – My grandparents and extended family, mother & father are my family whatever DNA might say and I’d far rather NOT know as once knowing it’s impossible to un-know!

(I wonder if it’s like those who believe in reincarnation who always seem to have been one of the great and the good rather than like the majority, just plain ordinary and rather dull like me! Ricky Gervais riffs on a reincarnation convention with multiple Napoleons in attendance!!!)

I wonder how many who do trace their ‘birth parents’ are rather disappointed by their ordinariness? 

Gerald Mahood always knew he was adopted and for decades accepted he would never meet his biological mother. Then he found a clue to his past on a piece of paper kept in a wardrobe

Paula Cocozza

@CocozzaPaula

 

 

Gerald Mahood was 60 when he discovered that this was his real name. He always knew he was adopted. “A bastard!” as his adoptive mother explained when he was four. He was born in Northern Ireland in the 1950s and like many babies whose mothers were not married at the time, he entered the world as a secret. The midwives – nuns – placed an advert in the Belfast Chronicle. “Home for an unwanted child, sort of thing,” he says.

The only comment the social worker’s report made about his adoptive parents was that their house was clean. His birth mother has said that she “handed me to them, and then they drove off with me,” Mahood says, though he is still unsure about his first few years, and he may have been placed with another family first. At around three, he moved from Northern Ireland to south-west England.

For decades, Mahood lived with the understanding that he would never know his biological mother. His adoptive parents discouraged questions. From time to time, he tried to explore his past, but, with no birth certificate, he hit a wall. Besides, he says, “I’ve known people who are adopted and [reconnecting] hadn’t gone well. For a long time I thought, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’. But it kept haunting me.”

When his adoptive mother had a fall in 2018, he and his youngest daughter gathered clothes to take to the hospital for her. In the wardrobe, they found a piece of paper listing family names and birthdates. “My date of birth was not what I thought. This made me think, ‘One more roll of the dice’,” But he says he acted only after his adoptive mother died, in 2020. He presumed that both his biological parents “would probably be dead” too.

The social worker said, ‘Do you want to meet her? She’s wanted to meet you all her life’

Gerald Mahood

However, a social worker in Northern Ireland “did some detective work and got my mother’s name … She met my mum, took photos,” including a photograph of Mahood’s late father. “She said, ‘Do you want to meet her? She’s wanted to meet you all her life.’”

“As soon as Covid restrictions were lifted, I went to Northern Ireland,” Mahood says. His daughters, 40 and 36, “came over to support me. For me, it was like heaven. This is the place my ancestors come from. The rolling countryside, the space, it’s very idyllic.

“We were greeted at the gate by a strangely familiar-looking woman, who threw her arms around me, and said, ‘You’re a Mahood!’ I’d never met her before – she was my cousin. She led us into my mother’s cottage, and there she was – my actual mother. ‘You took your time!’ she said. When I looked into her eyes, it was like looking into a mirror.”

Mahood, 63, and his mother, 92, have talked on the phone every week since – “about birds, gardening, everyday stuff. I think we both feel very redeemed that we have had a year of being able to speak to each other,” he says.

Mahood has always drawn and painted, since early childhood. “It was my creative outlet, my refuge,” he says. He never felt he belonged in his adoptive family, nor at school. “Me and my pals who were secondary modern, we were really just expected to go on the shovel. We were all scratching around. Mostly it was about music and forming bands and getting high.”

In his 30s, after a string of casual jobs (roofing, house painting, etc.), Mahood undertook a fine art degree, but afterwards his painting lapsed while he worked. Over the past two years, “I’ve gone back to taking my painting seriously. With real joy,” he says. In finding his mother, “Some kind of spiritual thing has happened to me, which has been very, very beneficial.”

He has begun to use his birth name, including on his art website. Reconnecting with his birth mother has been transformative. It has given him access to his ancestry: “There’s family history going back at least to the battle of the Boyne” – and it has given him permission to take himself more seriously as an artist.

“It’s been a wonderful blessing. There is a light at the end of the tunnel sometimes, and it is unbelievable to me to have found it.”

Gerald’s art can be found at: geraldmahood-artist.com

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