Like Father, Like Son

Imagine that you have a seven-year-old child who is--like you and your husband--quiet and disciplined.  He has thick black hair and a beautiful face.  He is (and will be) your only child. You adore him.

One day you get a call from the hospital where your child was born.  You learn that he is not your biological child; he was switched at birth with another baby boy.

You meet the parents of your child and their three rowdy children--one of whom you gave birth to.  You take outings with the other family and you visit in each other's homes. They live in a crowded and noisy apartment, and are more playful than your family, less focused on success and achievement.  You live in a large, attractive apartment and are devoted to your child's getting in the best schools.

At times, the two families take snapshots together and the son you have loved for seven years is the one whose shoulders your hands are on--even though you know you are not his "real" mother. He is the one you watch out for.

This is the heartbreaking story of the Cannes prize-wining Japanese film, Like Father, Like Son.

Ironically, the questions at the center of this film are related to the ones in the documentary,  Stories We Tell.   Both involve parents who love children who are not biologically "theirs."  But in the Japanese film, you have the additional and excruciating question: do we exchange our children and get back the one that DNA tests tell us is our own?

The father who raised Sarah said, in effect, that he was grateful to her birth father for the gift of his daughter; he couldn't imagine his life without Sarah, exactly the Sarah that she was.  Had he been her "real" father, Sarah would have been someone else.

Imagine exchanging your child for a stranger, no matter that he "shares your blood"--as the Japanese father says?  Imagine telling your child that he is now to call another woman "mother" and another man "daddy." Imagine packing up all his drawings and clothes and toys--for his move to the rowdier, more playful, home, where he will have no need for his piano and no space for it.

Your blood-son is a boisterous boy who loves video games, pounds on the piano and turns objects into guns--yet he looks like you and your husband.  In his original family, he has a father who can fix things and make kites, but who cares little about making money.  He is accustomed to being an only child in a well-ordered home; he moves into a family with siblings and a mother who sells fast-food.

An American version of this film is in the making.  I see how dearly my son loves his stepson--who is in every way his "real" son.  Versions of this story are being repeated in families all over the world, with foster and adoptive parents loving the children with whom they may share everything but blood.