This Is Where You Have to Go

A Forced Adoption. A Heartbreaking Reunion. A Mother’s Fight for Justice

De: Lynda Holden, Jo Tuscano

Narrado por: Roxanne McDonald

In 1970, Lynda was 18, unmarried and pregnant when she was forced to give her baby up for adoption. She was sent by a doctor to a Catholic girls’ home for unmarried mothers, and told she’d have no hope of keeping her child because she was Aboriginal.

After 26 years, Lynda was finally able to make contact with her lost son – but the much wished for reunion didn’t go well. When she looked into the adoption records, she found a web of lies – lies about her family, the baby’s father, her ‘consent’ for the adoption – and her Indigenous heritage had been completely erased.

So began a quest for justice: Lynda took on the Catholic Church in an attempt to right the wrongs of the past. In this incredibly powerful memoir, she sheds light on the lasting impacts of forced adoption on mothers, children and their families, and gives voice to the countless women who have been silenced for generations.

2025, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Indigenous Writing, Commended

©2024 Lynda Holden with Jo Tuscano (P)2024 Bolinda Publishing