Subscribe to listen
- Share this article
- Copy Link
- Twitter/X
Phoebe Smith (front left) pictured with her parents and three of her siblings.
Wellington woman Phoebe Smith knew early on that her family was different.
Her parents were palagi, or European Kiwi. She had two siblings who were white and two others who looked like her – brown.
“Growing up, my brother and I used to be aware when we’d walk into cafes
or restaurants and people giving us a side-eye.
“Or if I’m with my dad and he’s like: ‘My daughter’ and then points to me – and obviously we don’t look anything alike.
“We just let that sit. We don’t try to explain it.”
Smith, now in her 30s, was born in Wellington and adopted at 2 weeks old by a Kiwi couple. The pair had two children of their own before adopting her and two others, each from different families.
“I’ve got a sister who is Fijian-Indian, then there’s myself and then there’s my little brother, who is Samoan. I talk about us being like Liquorice Allsorts, because we are such a mixed bunch.
“We’ve got such different personalities and we’re just colourful and rich – and that’s the beauty of it.
“As the family’s grown with partners and kids, it’s now even more multicultural. My brother’s wife is Ethiopian, my sister’s partner is Māori – we have such a multicultural family now.”
Her adoptive siblings had connections to their birth families growing up, but Smith did not.
When she turned 18, her parents gave her an envelope with everything they had kept from her birth mother about the time of her adoption. It included a letter and her birth certificate with her mother’s details, but not her birth father’s.
“I think the way that I understood being adopted, as a kid, was that I was born and my birth mother wasn’t able to look after me – and therefore, I was adopted into my family.
“My parents always talked about my adoption as a real gift. The way my parents talked about my birth mother was really positive.
“They said she seemed really loving… but they got the impression that she really didn’t have a lot of choice.”
Meeting for the first time
Years later, Smith’s efforts to find her birth mother had stalled until a chance connection on social media.
Smith, who enjoys contemporary dance, posted one of her performances to Facebook. A woman she didn’t recognise shared the video and Smith noticed the woman’s birthday on her profile was the same as her birth mother’s.
“I messaged her and said: ‘Hi. Thank you for sharing my video. I hope you enjoyed it. Just wondering, are you who I think you are? If so, I’d love to be connected’.
“I woke up to a message the next morning: ‘Hi my beautiful. Yes, it’s me. I love watching your dance videos – I’m so proud of you. I love you with all of my heart’.
“I couldn’t believe it. It was one of those moments when time just stopped.”
Smith’s birth mother, Siulioamoa Julie Va’ai Tanuvasa, explained she had spotted her years earlier in the newspaper, when a short article ran about Smith being made head girl at Wellington East Girls’ College.
“She found me on social media and then just followed me from a distance.”
The pair finally met in January 2019, on Va’ai Tanuvasa’s birthday.
“It was a really happy reunion. There were no tears – it was very light. She lived in Wellington with her husband and had two kids.
“The main thing she wanted to know was that I was okay, that I had been loved. When she saw that I had had a really great life, she actually became afraid to reach out.
“She was worried that I wouldn’t want her, which is so crazy to me.”
The pair met four times that year – the last being on Smith’s birthday that December.
Va’ai Tanuvasa died unexpectedly about two weeks later, after a short illness. “She passed away just before New Year that year.
“God gave me that year with her and it’s beautiful that I got to spend that birthday – that was the last time I got to see her.”
Gaining new family members
At her birth mother’s funeral, Smith met more family members, including aunts and uncles and a half-brother she remains close to.
She has also learned more about her familial and village roots in Samoa and has visited Samoa to meet her uncles – her birth mother’s brothers – and more cousins.
“I need to do a family tree,” Smith laughed.
Before Va’ai Tanuvasa died, she shared details with Smith about her birth father, but Smith has not been able to connect with him.
However, members of her new extended aiga have brought a new love into her life, she said.
“To have their arms wide open and welcoming as they were, was quite overwhelming. It challenged a story that I had in my head about how it could be.”
Smith paid tribute to her parents, who asked not to be named in this story. She described their “classic humility” and selflessness in providing a safe and loving home for all their children.
“One of my adopted friends says it really well: ‘Love is thicker than blood’. I always enjoyed that, particularly when I didn’t [know] any blood relations.
“The power of love really can conquer everything.”
Smith has shared her story in online documentary series An Adoption Story by Aucklander Alex Gilbert.
Vaimoana Mase is the Pasifika editor for the Herald’s Talanoa section, sharing stories from the Pacific community. She won junior reporter of the year at the then Qantas Media Awards in 2010 and won the best opinion writing award at the 2023 Voyager Media Awards.
- Share this article
- Copy Link
- Twitter/X
