My Mom Had a Secret Daughter. I Finally Found Her.

Modern Love

The New York Times

Love, New York Times, Nytimes, Essay, Loss, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Redemption, Nyt

4.3 • 9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tracy Clark-Flory was 16 when she learned something that would change her world forever: She had a half sister she’d never met. Tracy's mother, Deborah, had gotten pregnant as a freshman in college. She’d given birth to a baby girl in secret and placed the baby for adoption. Tracy could tell that talking about this baby made her mom uncomfortable, so she didn’t pry. But from that moment on, Tracy was full of questions. Where was this sister? What was her life like? Would she want to hear from Tracy if there was a way to get in touch? These days, Clark-Flory is a writer, and she is a mother herself. She has a new memoir coming out called “My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past.” In this episode of the “Modern Love” podcast, Clark-Flory tells Anna Martin how she finally got answers about her sister. She also shares what she found out about her mom: Turns out, there was so much more to her story, too.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Love now and love.
0:03.3	Love was stronger than anything.
0:07.3	And I love you more than anything.
0:10.5	What is love?
0:11.3	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love.
0:17.9	And today I'm talking to writer and journalist Tracy Clark Flory.
0:22.0	Growing up, all Tracy wanted was a sister. She'd beg her parents for a sister all the time.
0:28.4	And she could tell it made her mom upset, but she didn't understand why. Then when she was 16 years old, Tracy's mom sat her down and told her the truth.
0:37.8	Tracy did have a sister. When Tracy's mom sat her down and told her the truth. Tracy did have a sister.
0:39.5	When Tracy's mom was a teenager herself, she got pregnant, and she was sent away to have
0:43.5	the baby in secret.
0:45.0	She never saw the baby again.
0:47.4	After this conversation, Tracy had a million questions, and she spent years wondering
0:52.9	what happened to this sister she never knew.
0:56.4	Today on the show, Tracy's here to tell me how she finally got some answers,
1:00.1	not just about her sister, about her mom, too.
1:14.3	Tracy Clark Florey, welcome to Modern Love.
1:16.1	Thanks so much for having me.
1:22.7	Tracy, in your new book, my mother's daughter, you write that when you were 16, your mom,
1:28.6	Debra, decided to tell you a big secret from her past. Can you take me into that moment? What happened?
1:37.3	Yes. So this was just a couple weeks after I had gone on birth control pills. I feel like it's relevant to mention. I had a boyfriend at that time. And she sat me down at the kitchen table and she said,
1:46.5	I have something to tell you. It's serious. When I was 18, I had sex and I got pregnant. My father
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.