Both Parents Unable or Unwilling to Care for Child
Te Kanawa, Kiri
Te Kanawa was born to an unmarried couple (European mother and Maori father). They were extremely poor and already had a son, so the baby Kiri was placed for adoption at a few weeks of age ... [more]
Truffaut, François
Truffaut was born in Paris to an architect and his wife. He was a frail child and his parents, sports enthusiasts, rejected him, sending him to live with his grandmother until he was eight,... [more]
Tyson, Mike G.
Tyson, the youngest of three children, was born into a poor African-American family in Brooklyn, New York. His father never was a significant part of his life, and both his parents died bef... [more]
Lin Huoping
Lin was born to a poor family in Fuzhou, who, unable to feed her, sold her as a slave. She was later sold on, to a wealthier merchant, as an adoptive daughter. He recognized her intellectua... [more]
Kean, Edmund
Kean was the son of a poverty-stricken actress, Ann Carey, who more or less abandoned him on the streets, and (probably) an architect's clerk, Edmund Kean, who committed suicide when he was... [more]
Banks, John
Banks was a New Zealand National Party MP from 1981 to 1999 and has been Minister of Tourism; Sport, Fitness and Leisure; Local Government; and Civil Defence (he resigned his cabinet posts ... [more]
Bartholomew, Freddie
Bartholomew was born in Dublin but abandoned by his parents to the care of an aunt, Millicent Mary Bartholomew. In 1930 he began his film career as a child star with Fascination, and... [more]
Bijani, Laden & Laleh
Laden and Laleh Bijani were born joined at the head, to a poor farming family in Shiraz, Iran. The family had 11 children and were unable to care for them. They remained in hospital for som... [more]
Bird, A. John
Bird is the founder of The Big Issue, the magazine produced and sold by the homeless in Britain. He was one of six sons of a poor London family. After his parents were evicted from their... [more]
Brooks-Randolph, Angie
Brooks was one of nine children, and her parents were forced by poverty to place her in a foster home where she was brought up by a widowed seamstress. Ambitious to become a lawyer, she ... [more]
