You don't look like your family. So, it's like Tracy Beaker, yeah?
I wish I was adopted! I couldn't love someone else's child.
Oh, well, luckily, you don't.
Were you left on a doorstep?
It cracks me up, like, is this a movie? Am I Harry Potter, like...?
Oh, my goodness.
We don't want our kid, you can have it. Bye!
There's so many laws and legislations
and social worker meetings and boring things
that you have to go through, you cannot just be...
Like, "Oh! A baby! I was waiting for a baby!"
Wrap me up in a blanket and drop me off at Steve Jobs' house.
But he's dead now, so, Bill Gates.
He'll have to do.
A lot of them thought that they were given away and it hurt.
So, when you talk about putting them on a doorstep,
yeah, maybe they might take it metaphorically.
That really hurts, it means, like, giving someone up.
So, like Tracy Beaker? We get a lot, don't we?
Me and Tracy, we're like that.
I wish it was that glorious.
I watched Tracy Beaker even before I was in foster care.
Same. And I, I imagined being in the Tracy Beaker house
and thinking it were well wicked.
I remember...always wanting a Cam to come and pick me up,
in a rusty, red beetle.
She has loads of friends, she goes out when she wants
and she does what she wants and she gets into loads of trouble.
It's not like that, really, is it? No. Like...
There's boundaries, if you're bad, you're going to move!
You've got people that care a lot and you've got people that
really can't give two shits.
Not everyone lives in a care home full of people that understand you.
Most often, you're just one person, maybe, if you're lucky enough,
you'll be with a sibling, but probably not.
You're a droplet in an ocean.
You don't look like your family.
People would be like, "That's not your mum. Like, where's your mum?"
"Oh, this is my mum, guys.
"This blonde, white woman is my mum, yeah."
You know, when you try and use the family tickets, like, for, like,
the trampoline parks near by, we were trying to use it
and they're like, "Are you guys a family?"
And you have to explain the whole situation!
Four black kids, a Scottish, white guy who's ginger
and an Indian lady.
We didn't look like a family, but you know what?
It's probably the closest thing to a family that I've had,
since being in foster care.
They don't understand...the concept, at all. Cos if they did,
they'd probably realise that actually what you're asking is,
"You don't belong, do you?"
Why did they give you up?
You go through this process, "I'm adopted."
"Oh, really? Why did they give you up?" Yeah!
It's always, always the next question.
It's a very personal question and I just want to ask them,
"Are you writing a book about me?"
Why do you have the audacity to even...?
Yeah, why does no-one love you?
In most cases, most parents don't want to necessarily
give up their child. It's not something a parent sets out to do.
Sometimes it's the best thing to do, so that person or child
actually has the best life.
I think my birth mother realised that she
necessarily couldn't do what she needed to do
to give me the chance.
Why should I know why someone else has given me up?
Like you've got this disease, this disorder or something.
Or a mind-reading power.
Right! I never thought of it like that.
I'm going to take it as a compliment.
"I wish I was adopted."
No, you don't. Yeah, first of all...
By "I wish I was adopted" they mean, "Oh, I wish I was...
"..living with, like, millionaires,"
or, you know, "going on holiday every week."
A lot of people automatically presume
that we got to pick our families.
"Oh, no, I don't like them, no.
"Oh, yeah, they might... I'll go live with them."
It's nothing like that.
People want to... Yeah, I understand it.
..feel the need to belong somewhere, you know? Yeah.
So looking around, they're going, like, "Yeah, I have my dad's nose,
"I have my mum's hair," you know, that kind of thing.
I will never have it.
You also have, like, a lot of photos and things from when you were
younger, but I know now I have nothing from when I was little.
You'll hear them on the phone talking to their mum
or their dad or, like, you know...
.."Oh, my mum didn't get me anything for Christmas," or, like,
"I wanted an iPhone and I got a Samsung." You know what I mean?
Like... Get a... Get a grip, man.
Like, there's people out there that would, like,
take what you have in a heartbeat.
"Don't you want to meet your real parents?"
It's an easy question and I understand why they're asking that,
but it's a complicated answer.
My mother walks past me on the street.
She walks past me cos she doesn't recognise me. Really?
She has a mental illness, yeah, and I can't actually approach her
because of health and safety reasons.
I will just say straight up, no, I don't want to meet them,
and just because of what I've been through.
The love you have for your parents is because it's the love
they've given to you, whereas if you haven't received it... Very true.
..it's not really something that we thrive on doing.
What I feel is very hard about this is that it's insulting
to your parents that brought you up.
If you've had really good foster parents,
then you don't always want to meet your real parents
because, actually, your foster parents are your real parents.
I would say family is more about just being close,
just the closeness that you have with each other.
"You must want to see her, you must want to meet her,
"to know her and stuff like that, she gave you birth."
Well, yeah, but she abandoned me as well!
"You should be grateful."
Are you grateful?
Yeah, I'm happy, I've got some support.
Like, what do you want me to do?
Like, do you want me to have a fundraiser?
That one really annoys me. Like, really annoys me.
Like, I deserve to be loved, right?
We're more aware of it because we understand the value of it more.
On one side, I'm really, really grateful
for these two incredible, amazing people
who took over the responsibilities of raising a child,
but I'm really resentful for the people who didn't.
This is always a great one, I always get this.
"You seem like you're perfectly normal."
I am normal. I'm great. I'm killing it, man.
When I was growing up, I was statistically proven to fail,
to be a high school dropout. I remember someone said
I will never make it, that I'll be, like, a teenage mum.
I tell them that I'm doing all these incredible things in my life
and they're, like... "Wait, but you're adopted.
We're stronger than people that maybe haven't been in care.
We're a lot more self-independent, we're resilient.
I lived with people from different backgrounds.
I learnt about their cultures, I learnt about their languages.
I learnt about Christmas and, you know,
I got first-hand experience of what it's like and they celebrate...
Well, yeah, they sort of celebrate Eid and, like, Ramadan.
I grew more confident, I grew more cheeky. I spoke out a lot.
I'm really, really proud and I know it doesn't go for everyone, but
I've grown up in such an incredible, loving, perfect home full of...
..bits and bobs of us that have all come together to become one
very dysfunctional family, but we work.
I should put it on my Tinder profile, my dating apps, like,
"I'm adopted."
Just to get it out of the way and done
because it's such an awkward thing.
No, cos they would ask those questions!
"Yeah, don't worry about it."