Given Up

Thousands of unmarried mothers renounce their baby in the 1960s and 1970s. Agnes, Mieke and Cecilia. They become unmarried at an early age, a social disgrace, and their parents are furious. The 'solution': secretly conveying the pregnancy and giving up the child for adoption. There are dozens of shelters in the Netherlands where the pregnant women, hidden from the outside world, can stay. In childbirth, mother and child are separated as soon as possible.

Ingrid, Anne-Marie and Leon were born in the 1960s in the former Vroedvrouwenschool in Heerlen, in an attic, far away from the ordinary births. After birth, they were taken directly from their mothers and ended up in the baby ward, in anticipation of their adoption. Leon only finds out as a young adult and has many questions. Ingrid and Anne-Marie have always known and go in search of traces and answers to the question why they were donated.

In the 1960s, there are long waiting lists of childless couples who want to be in need of adoption. Jantina and Ingrid are very happy when they are allowed to adopt children of distance mothers. But the adoption procedure is not always going to be careful. For example, remote child Jessica is looking at the Council for Child Protection, Monique’s biological father is sidelined and the adoptive parents of Marieke and Janneke are following an alternative route to get a coveted child.

Distance mother and child can each start a completely new life. That is the idea in the '60s and '70s. But it is often not that simple. Marco and Pamela have gone in search of their biological mothers to learn more about their origins. Mothers, in turn, could not forget their child. Lack of information, stigmatization and sorrow have drawn the lives of distance mothers and children.