A Mother’s Day message from Sunshine’s Karen Skloss

Karen Skloss, producer/director of Sunshine (premiering May 4 at 10 PM on Independent Lens on PBS, check local listings), shares the process that brought her to find her biological mother and to carry her pregnancy to term, as well as the social stigmas that subtly color our view of single parenthood.

Karen Skloss and her birth mother Mary return to the Home of the Holy Infancy

I suppose anyone who is adopted wonders about their natural parents. When things are kept secret, questions are all you’ve got. In the back of my mind, I’d always thought about what life might have been like growing up with my biological mother, but I was afraid of what I might find if ever I met her. I was also afraid that she wanted to forget all about me.

When I turned 19, my adoptive mom told me that if I wanted to, I could go back to the adoption home and ask my questions. It turns out I had ridden my bike past that place a million times, The Home of the Holy Infancy, right down the street from the biggest sorority at the University of Texas in Austin, where I had been going to college. Waiting for me in the files there was a letter from my biological mother. “I just need to know that you are okay,” said the letter. It had been waiting there for five years.

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Tags: adoption, gay parenting, mother's day, single mothers, single parents