Parental Guidance: Adoption Movie Guide

Artie and Diane Decker have not seen their daughter, Alice, and her family for nearly a year. They travel across the country to babysit Harper, Turner, and Barker so that Alice and her husband Phil can travel together. Diane is determined to win the love of her grandchildren, and Artie eventually warms up to the idea. However, Alice and Phil are very particular about how their children should be raised. 

How is This Relevant to Adoption? 

Many adoptions are completed within families. Grandparent adoptions are not uncommon. Parental Guidance isn’t about grandparent adoption, it’s just about kids being babysat by their grandparents for a week, getting used to them, and starting to love them. Still, some of the pertinent issues to grandparent adoption are present – or at least, sort of present. Artie, Diane, and the kids need to adjust to their new relationships – instead of being far-off, out-of-touch relatives, Artie and Diane are now responsible for the children. They’re stuck with the very real task of balancing their own adjustment to the kids, their desire to develop a positive-feeling relationship with the kids, and the need to provide the structure that the kids need.

 

Strong Points

Parental Guidance does have the potential to open conversations about family dynamics, which is particularly important in cases of same-family adoption, but also in regular life. Artie and Diane are scared of being judged by Phil and Alice – they feel as though Phil and Alice disapprove of them. Interestingly, Alice fears their disapproval.

Alice and Phil are super-busy. They barely have time for their children, and have no time for each other. Diane reminds Alice of the importance of her marriage.

Phil and Alice appear to raise sheltered but highly-driven children. In one scene, Alice’s daughter Harper is upset that she cannot attend a party on the eve of an audition. Harper explodes, “I hate you and I wish anyone else was my mother.” Later, Alice allows Harper to skip out on the audition, since Harper did not want to do it in the first place. Harper takes back her hateful words.

By the end of the movie, Artie and Alice are able to communicate with each other about their feelings. We are also given insight into Artie’s father, and can see that, although Artie wasn’t a perfect father, he did make improvements over his father’s parenting style. It’s quite true that some changes in family dynamics take multiple generations to accomplish. I was surprised to see something that profound alluded to in a movie that featured a song about constipation.

 Weak Points

Artie is a piece of work. He encourages an eight-year-old to fight another boy, puts his own career in front of the safety of his youngest grandchild, and suggests that a woman is too ugly for her fiancé.  Artie regularly bribes the children to behave, and also bribes them to keep secrets from their parents. Artie threatens to spank one of the children for misbehaving, and raises his hand to strike him before stopping. He explains that the he would not have struck the child, but that the threat was effective because the child did not know he would not be struck.

Some toilet humor might be offensive to some families, and Diane’s reasonably modest pole-dancing exercise routine might also be a bit much for young kids. A child is mocked for stuttering.

Questions for Discussion after the movie

What challenges would grandparents face if they had to inherit the role (or at least the function) of “parent”?

Parents typically do need to balance “fun” and “structure.” In what ways might the balancing act be more difficult for foster/adoptive parents who are parenting older kids? Is it any different if the foster/adoptive parents are also the kids’ grandparents?

Which relationships in your extended family have “cooled down” lately? Why? Which one might be helped by an open, mutual expression of feelings?

You might also enjoy:

Adoption Movie Review of Superman

AdoptionMovie Review of Superman 2

Adoption Movie Review of Angels in the Outfield

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Perfect Moment Monday: A Brief but Happy Meeting

Lori at Lavender Luz encourages us to find the perfect moments in our day-to-day life; moments that just happen, rather than moments that are prefabricated. It’s an exercise in choosing to observe and acknowledge the good in our lives, even when the bad things seem to scream at a louder volume.

Chris was adopted by his grandparents; I had been his foster care social worker years ago, when he was an infant. Years later, his grandparents brought him by my office, unexpectedly. He was happy, healthy, talking, and walking. Their visit was short and unexpected, but it brightened my day to know that things worked out for him. His grandparents and his former foster parents became friends and both committed  to love and support Chris. The few moments of that visit, years later, were perfect moments because they showed that everything worked out.

For more (and longer!) feel-good reading, you might like to revisit my other Perfect Moment Monday posts:

·         A Child Gets Out of Foster Care

·         A Child is Listened To

Or visit Lori’s page,  Lavender Luz .

·         All case stories are fictionalized combinations of several histories, altered for confidentiality.

Meet the Robinsons: Adoption Movie Guide

On a sepia-toned rainy night a woman, obscured by shadow and hood and fearful of being seen, hugs her bundled infant one last time and leaves him on the doorstep of the Sixth Street Orphanage. Twelve years later, Lewis has sat through 124 adoption interviews, none of which resulted in his adoption. He almost gives up hope.  Through the magic of Disney, Lewis travels twenty years into the future to meet the loving family that will eventually be his. He returns to his regular life with his hope restored.  The movie ends as Lewis is adopted by his new, lovably weird parents.

  

How is This Relevant to Adoption? 

Lewis shares an orphanage room with Mike, and both boys sit through interviews with prospective adoptive parents. Scenes from several of Lewis’ interviews show him optimistically sharing his inventions with prospective adoptive parents. None of them adopt him, and eventually Lewis loses his optimism.

One scene is loaded with adoption content. Lewis is sad after an unsuccessful interview. Mildred follows him and affirms that the family’s choice is not Lewis’ fault. Lewis responds that he’s almost 13, and that being a teenager makes being adopted less likely.  He feels as though no one wants him – not even his birth mother.  Mildred suggests that his birth mother loved him, and may have wanted to keep him, but couldn’t. Lewis latches on to this, and says, “My real mother is the only person who ever wanted me.” His desire to belong somewhere fuels his desire to find her, and his desire find her drives the movie. Lewis is eventually adopted.

Strong Points

Mildred, the orphanage director, is loving and positive. This is rare in movie portrayals of orphanage directors! Mildred smiles lovingly at Lewis when she first seems him, as an infant on her doorstep. Twelve years and 124 adoption interviews later, Mildred still believes in Lewis and shows her belief in him. Before an interview she tells him, “Go show them how special you are.”

The movie highlights the benefit of persistence. Lewis is adopted, even after 124 unsuccessful adoption interviews. One of his inventions took over 900 tries, but he finally got it right. His adoptive family celebrates failures for the lessons learned, and his own motto is “Keep Moving Forward.”

Teaching Gratefulness

I recently guest-posted on FamiliesOnlineMagazine.com about three ways to help your children develop a sense of gratefulness. Gratefulness is a mindset, not just manners. While it's not an adoption post, I'd sure appreciate you checking it out & giving feedback

Manners or Mindset: Three Ways to Help your Kids be Grateful.

Also, I'm working on adoption movie reviews for Parental Guidance, Meet The Robinsons, and Batman Begins. Coming soon to a blog near you...

Martin Luther King Jr. and Foster Care Adoption

I've never seen the overt discrimination against which Dr. King worked. I was born in the 80's, and where I grew up, he was celebrated. So much has been accomplished and should be celebrated.

There is more yet to do. Fully equal treatment hasn't arrived. Because my focus is so often on foster care adoption, I can't help but thinking of that world when I think about Dr. King. Children of non-White ethnicity end up in foster care disproportionally more than simple demographic statistics would suggest. If they can't reunify, children who aren't  White have a harder time finding an adoptive family. Some families that do desire to adopt children of different cultures or races are unaware of the importance of that child's culture and unaware of the experiences that the child will have because of their race. Overt discrimination is mostly gone -- but covertly, it still happens.

One thing I know: older kids of every culture are waiting in foster care for a family to live with forever. Kids of every age who are part of sibling sets - or who are not White - or who have some special need - are also waiting in foster care for a family to live with forever.

I have a dream - or at least a wish - that one day, children will be either reunified with their families or adopted out of foster care. But that they won't languish in foster care. A dream that they will not be judged by the color of their skin - or their age - or their special needs -- but by the content of their character and by their worth as children created in the image of God.

Maybe you can help.

More movie reviews coming soon.

Dr. King's speech

Book Review: Successful Foster Care Adoption

As a social worker who’s primarily worked in the field of foster care/adoption, I appreciate this book. There aren't many about foster care adoption, and foster-care adoption may be where adoptive parents are most needed. Beasley's book asks prospective foster-adoption parents to evaluate their own preparedness for adoption through a thorough workbook. She advises individuals to practice mindfulness, believing that in doing so they will become better capable of being excellent parents. Sections on parenting children of trauma and on cultural awareness and sensitivity offer good wisdom; she notes that racism and prejudice are still realities and that children will experience them in the world even if parents believe that they personally are "color-blind." She encourages parents whose children have experienced trauma to parent from a place of understanding the child's experiences and needs, rather than parenting based solely on reaction to observed behaviors. In both instances, Beasley encourages a realistic, child-focused, proactive, thoughtful approach.

Beasley's outline of the fost-adopt process seems unintentionally specific to her home state, and a serious concern is that reunification isn't mentioned enough. Placement with extended birth family members seems like something to be feared as a barrier to adoption rather than the joyous maintenance of family ties. I could see prospective fost-adopt parents finishing this book and not realizing that reunification or placement with an extended birth family member is often preferable to adoption. A second serious shortfall is that the book does not address the place of openness in foster care-originated adoptions; adoptees from foster care can gain much from ongoing contact with members of their birth family.

Beasley writes in an accessible, friendly manner and incorporates many examples and case studies to illustrate her points. The book reads like a casual discussion with an experienced foster parent. I applaud her emphasis on parents espousing a child-focused point of view. This book does have some shortcomings with regard to openness, and I encourage readers of the book to question the way in which extended birth family placement and post-adoption openness are (and aren't) addressed in the book. The book also succeeds in making foster-care adoption feel understandable and accessible while at the same time encouraging prospective foster and adoptive parents to consider the child's history, feelings and needs beyond their own. It's a worthwhile book to read if you're considering foster adoption, and could help you decide whether foster adoption is an avenue through which you could serve kids.