I've had several people say to me, "You have to see the movie Instant Parents." They say it with this enthusiasm that suggests I am going to be enlightened or keel over laughing or that somehow they gained a privileged view into my day. We did see it and probably with more enthusiasm and interest than many of you.
Some aspects of those statements are true. I did laugh. A lot.
I loved this movie and it was much needed.
But, I also hated this movie and it pissed me off.
First, I feel that even though you know this because most of you know me, there are some serious differences between my experience and that depicted in the show (based as I understand it on a true family). Our older kids are adopted out of an orphanage and not a foster system which are both equally horrible places for children in some cases but present very different issues. Our older children are also from a foreign country which adds the cultural clash that is so difficult to maneuver. Finally, we already had two younger children in the home whose presences creates safety concerns and a horrible division of us (our original family) vs. you (the newer children).
Second, it is in me as the sinful person that I am to vent and tell you all the "awful" things these kids put me through so that you might pity me or rescue me or understand me or not judge me or create some you-are-amazing-and-these-kids-are-miserable-so-just-get-rid-of-them-and-go-back-to-your-easier-life scenario. In the end though, there is a stop in me that won't let me air their dirty laundry so instead I'll air mine.
Down to a review.
I loved this movie. I laughed at the truth of it. I've said some many of those words and done so many of those things. It was accurate. Too accurate. I felt sick in my heart to see myself up there on the screen saying, "Oh, did that hurt? Too bad" or "I guess our life will just basically suck from now on." I was mad that people laughed at how painful it was to watch these parents struggle. It's so funny to watch her wrestle a Barbie out of her hands in a store until I see myself wrestling my adopted child to the ground neither in control of myself or this child. I felt like the audience was laughing at me and I didn't feel very humorous when I shut the door on my injured child to cry it out for the next 45 minutes while I ate a tub of icing.
But, I did love this movie!
I loved the way it reminded me that these kids are hurt. Desperately in need of hope and stability. The movie did a fantastic job of showing the dejectedness of the kids' positions. The repercussions of a blighted childhood. I can't fathom what was taken from adoptive/foster kids of this age range. What devastations have happened in their homes to take them away and yet the absolute love and devotion they have for their mothers or fathers that harmed them. I've seen it as a teacher: kids living in their cars while their parents lock them out of the house for weeks, girls showering their mothers after they come home drunk and high, kids with no food but X-Box's. My foreign adoption experience has been different. There is seemingly no connection to anyone. No one has ever bonded with them and we are just another caregiver in the cache of caregivers and housemothers that they use for survival.
There were only two areas of the movie I felt were inaccurate. The first one connected to this idea of "mommy" and "daddy" and how excited they were to hear it. For my older adopted kids it is a title not a connection. I'm mom but so is their birth-mom and so are the housemothers and so are their orphanage sponsors and so are the adoptive parents who didn't follow through. Most of the foster parents that I have encountered have a similar experience with children that call whoever mom or dad. No reason to get excited about them calling you something that means nothing to them.
I love that this movie ends in hope. I love that it ends in hurt people coming together to do the work necessary to heal as best as they can and become a family. However, the second area of the movie that just pissed me off was the ending. In college, I had a professor who commented that no story is a person's life. That statement resonated with me because I understood that whatever story I am looking at is just a segment of their struggles and victories. It is a snapshot of an unusual event or life-altering occasion. And I get that with this movie. They had to wrap this movie up with a happy ending full of hope and a future with smiles and joy. But, my story hasn't ended yet and it certainly didn't end in pretty dresses and remarkable love at the end of one year. Listen, it's not that my story won't end in pretty dresses and remarkable love, its that there is so much more to go. We have so much more pain to overcome and some much more left to hope for. It goads me to think that for some people it could be so easy. But it infuriates me to feel like people are given this false sense of success and beauty in such a short period. It gives false expectations and makes me feel like failure.
Like they did, I did get a new house out of this deal but it isn't all neat and shiny with lovely windows that represent beauty and hope. It is probably a house like yours full of painful objects to step on in the middle of the night, ripped screen doors, and dirty underwear which you have no idea how it arrived where it is at. Maybe too, your home like ours contains fighting siblings and yelling parents. Mixed in, though, are starting to be sounds of growth and connection. (By the way, if any of you have any walls or cabinets to knock down, I can only imagine how wonderfully therapeutic that could be for me. I'll bring the sledgehammer.)
I love the community connection. I wish, wish, wish, I had the support group sessions that was portrayed in Instant Family. I've met those couples. I've talked with the parents of those kids. The stereotypes are hilarious! Funny enough to warrant that exclamation mark. By far this was my favorite part of the movie- everyone so different and yet the same. Kids and parents alike with hopes and dreams and struggles and joys and fears and a solidarity that comes with understanding or compassion or whatever it is that bonds people together who are in similar struggles. The community has been my lifeline. And to the credit of our local community, we, unlike many we have met, have couples who still dare to invite us to their homes or events. But for many of our comrades-in-arms so to speak, they are shunned, left out, or condemned for their parenting decisions or family sizes or trauma that their families bring with them and set at the table. After all, the noise level we bring alone is truly deafening and often remarked upon at restaurants, doctor's offices, schools, homes, church foyers, playgrounds, birthday parties.... I need you, though! My kids need you. I'll bring earplugs, but don't push us away...take a chance on us.
I loved this movie. Go see it. Even better, go laugh at it.
I hated this movie because it is my unresolved pain out there for you to laugh at.
I'd much rather you laugh and begin to understand than turn away.
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