30 Things I Know About Adoption: It’s Not Like the Movies

Since November is National Adoption Month I decided to do a series sharing “30 Things I Know About Adoption.” Come back each day for a new post. (Read all the 30 Things posts.)

Adoption is Not Like the Movies

Last year my friend Jen and I went to see “What to Expect” during a girl’s night out. The movie was great and super funny. But at some points our laughter wasn’t due to great comedic writing, but rather the gross discrepancies in how international adoption was portrayed. The movie features the story lines of several couples but Holly & Alex decide on adoption after struggling with infertility. One day they have a visit from the social worker and seemingly within a few weeks, poof, they have a referral call. Several weeks later, poof, they’re in Ethiopia waiting outside an orphanage to pick up their son, with A CARSEAT. At this point Jen and I are nearly peeing our pants at the absurdity. No one brings a car seat to Ethiopia. No one even wears seat belts in Ethiopia. International adoption is NOT a 3 month process.

Then of course there’s the movie “Annie” which forever destined every orphan to expected, or at least hoped, their adoptive parents would be Daddy Warbucks. One of my children admitted several years after coming home, that they thought they were coming to America to live in a mansion with a pool.

On the other end of the spectrum are horror movies like “The Orphan.”

When it’s not making orphans out to be homicidal maniacs, mainstream Hollywood tends to glamorize adoption and wrap it up in neat little packages.

I get that everyone wants a happy ending, but please don’t base your ideas about adoption on the movies.

• Adoption is hard.
• Adoption is a LONG process.
• Adoptive kids will not thank you for “rescuing them.”
• The process is unpredictable.

We’re going to address a ton of these issues this month so I hope you’ll come back!