Famous Birth Parents and Their Experiences

by Michele Fried

kate mulgrew
Kate Mulgrew

I remember reading a painful account written by Roseanne Barr as she described falling to her knees and begging the paparazzi not to leak the story of her having a child at the age of 17. In 1970, when she was 17, Barr had a child that she placed for adoption. Brandi grew up happily with her adoptive family. Barr found Brandi to avoid the media from approaching her first. They still have a relationship today. Several famous birth parents have shared their experiences with an unexpected pregnancy.

When Kate Mulgrew became pregnant as an unmarried woman in 1977, she placed her child for adoption. Her pregnancy and adoption story was written into the story line of Ryan’s Hope, the soap opera she was on during that time. She has written a memoir to be published next year and addresses this experience.

When Joni Mitchell sang about a “child born with the moon in cancer,” it was daughter Kilauren Gibb, who she reunited with in 2001.

Joni Mitchell – Little Green Lyrics

Born with the moon in Cancer
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who’ve made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to California
Hearing that everything’s warmer there
So you write him a letter and say, “Her eyes are blue.”
He sends you a poem and she’s lost to you
Little green, he’s a non-conformer

CHORUS:

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there’ll be sorrow

Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you are sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You’re sad and you’re sorry, but you’re not ashamed
Little green, have a happy ending

CHORUS:

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There’ll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform

There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there’ll be sorrow

Promoting his first self-penned album in 22 years, Time, Rod Steward told how he’d dedicated the song Brighton Beach to his birth daughter Sarah and her birth mother Sue. Rod and Sue gave birth to Sarah over 50 years ago when he was only 18. He and his then girlfriend made an adoption plan. Sarah found her birth father in 2008 after her adoptive mom passed away.

Rod Stewart – Brighton Beach Lyrics

I remember when you were only 17
You were the finest girl that my eyes had ever seen
I guess you found it hard to simply just ignore
This scruffy beat up working class teenage troubadour
So we fell in love and I tuned your heart
With my out of tune guitar
You were wonderful, you were mystical
And the envy of all of my friends
Seems like only yesterday
Under the stars on brighton beach

Oh what a time it was
What a time to be alive
Remember Janice and Jimmy
Kennedy and King
How they cried

I sang to you the songs of Lamb and Jack
You were Greta Garbo and I was Cadillac
And we played so hard and we loved so hard
Seemed we never ever slept
There were crazy days, there were wonderful days
And I loved you with all of my heart
Seems like only yesterday
Under the stars on brighton beach

Your daddy had plans that did not include me
And he won’t stay away from your door
And I dreamed how I dreamed I could steal you away
To some far distant shore

Then early one morning
I awoke to find you gone
You wrote ‘I love you baby
But it’s time for me to move on’
And so my teenage heart laid scattered on the floor
I swear to God I could not have loved you anymore

And as I sit here the night, playing with my kids
Wondering where you are in this world
Did you find your man, are you happy now?
Do you ever stop and think about me

How I long for yesterday
Under the stars on brighton beach