3 lessons This is Us teaches about adoption.

by

Before The Child and I watched the television show This is Us friends warned me about letting her see it.

The majority felt I should preview the series prior to letting her watch.

I wonder if it will be triggering for her? some asked. I bet it will make her think about her birth mother. That might make her sad. others suggested.

I listened. I sat with their thoughts. I went with my gut. We watched the series together in real time.

We paused the show frequently for tears & talks (as with Gilmore Girls it took hours to get through an episode), but I’ve absolutely no regrets about letting her see it.

In fact, after the fall-finale, we both concluded This is Us should be mandatory viewing for everyone.

If it were, The Child stated, I’d be asked fewer questions by people and they’d just “get” adoption better in general.

Adoption is beautiful & devastating. A gift & profound loss.

Around here this idea came as no surprise. I’ve shared our adoption story. With her permission I’ve shared some of my daughter’s thoughts around adoption. In essence, I’ve shared nothing at all. Only the surface stuffs. The heartbreaking late night chats she and I have? The story of the why behind her being given up (released? we don’t fret about semantics here)? These deeper level stuffs remain private.

Adoption is unbelievably hard for a child to grasp. In addition to it being glamorized at times (ala Annie & Daddy Warbucks. ‘We were destined be together’ type themes) when humans/media do focus on what the adopted child authentically feels it’s all too easy to ‘forget’ about birth parents.

As a society we’re slowly recognizing adoption shapes a child’s entire life-journey, yet must now acknowledge it concurrently impacts birth parents’ lives in a powerful way.

This is Us offers unique insight into the birth parent experience and provides a launching pad for discussion in our home. Unlike many ‘cleansed for TV’ stories of adoption we witness a birth father’s (uncommon given traditional focus on birth mothers) internal conflict with guilt/regret over  relinquishing his son.

Judgement surrounding whether adoption was the “right” choice isn’t the emphasis here. We, the viewer, are simply afforded an opportunity to watch as a birth father cannot resist challenging himself with the question: What if?

Adopted children are curious…even if they aren’t asking.

A child can have absolutely everything she wants/needs and still she’ll wonder.

Wonder about birth parents. Wonder about sibling or relatives from family of origin. Wonder about shared mannerisms or traits with her ‘real’ family.

This is Us shows viewers a happy, secure home where an adopted child has everything he could want emotionally/materially…and still feels a void. As viewer we see no matter how much stuff or love the child is given he remains curious about where he came from and longs to find someone who looks like he does.

This feeling is normal. This feeling is common in adopted children. This feeling is often one which for myriad reasons (fear of hurting parents’ feelings is one) goes unsaid by the child. As adults in the lives of adopted children it’s incumbent upon us to hear what children are saying and initiate conversations about what they may not be saying, as well.

We oversimplify transracial adoption.

We (OK I) often believe if our child has friends of the same race, friends who are adopted from her same country, friend who are the same religion *and* adopted from the same country—that’s enough.

Transracially adopted children have needs we as adopting-parents can’t fill on our own. Acknowledging this is more than OK—it’s pivotal for a transracially adopted child to thrive. These children need information about race/culture. They require role models of all sorts who physically look as they do.

As difficult a lesson as it is for parents of a transracially adopted child to learn: we are not enough. Raising our children demands a village. Asking for help (in the case of This is Us with regards to physical differences) is not a sign of weakness, but of awareness.

Not seeing color is *not* a gift to our transracially adopted children.

Greater than even teaching, This is Us is a reminder adoption is a never ending process.

It’s a life-long path which is constantly shifting and sparking new insights and challenges.

More than any other time I’ve seen adoption portrayed on television This is Us handles the concept deftly and with honesty and ease.

  • Have you watched This is Us? Have you gleaned new insights/knowledge from how the show handles adoption themes?

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Comments

  2. Of course I absolutely love the show and now, I love it even more for what it brings to transracially adopted kids! What a gift for you and your daughter to watch together and I absolutely love how you pause and talk and work your way though it. This is giving me all the feels. xoxo

  4. I haven’t watched it! And now I wish I had so I could understand this post in context. BUT I understand it anyway and appreciate your candor. Great explanations/observations.

  5. Haven’t seen it, but i was taught years ago by someone who works with birth mothers that we give away what we don’t want or what isn’t valuable, so no mother “gives away” a child for adoption. She lovingly makes an adoption plan for her precious child because she feels it’s the best way to love the child.

  6. I’ve never heard of it before Carla and I had no idea what a minefield all those involved with adoption walk through. Australia has many barriers in place to make international adoption extremely difficult and very few Australian babies are adopted. I can see why this is, but there is also a huge need for children to be brought up in families – it’s definitely a dilemma but one that can be handled sensitively I’m sure.

  7. I have not seen “This is us”, but I am familiar with the joys, blessings and challenges of adoption families based on interactions with friends and family who have adopted kids. Its just as you said, beautiful and devastating. Thanks for sharing your touching story.

  8. A beautiful post, Carla. I’ll have to catch this show for sure. A close friend of mine, early 50s, was adopted and has been figuring out who her birth parents were, since CT won’t allow her to see the records. A fascinating journey.

  10. I haven’t seen this show. However, one of my best friends from childhood was adopted and I will never forget the day she found out she was Mexican. This was in high school. I think it really messed with her, not knowing this until then. Back in the day, parents didn’t talk about any of that. Over the past couple of years, she found her birth siblings! Her mother wasn’t alive anymore, but she has a picture of her–she looks just like my friend. A happy ending, but wouldn’t it have been nice if she knew all this earlier in her life?

    Adoption is so complicated.

  11. I love the show. As a birth-mother and very involved STEP-mother, I can’t articulate how meaningful it is to see “my” side of the adoption story portrayed with depth and love, and without the heavy-handed platitude-laden writing of an After School Special.

    There have been many programs with themes or episodes (generally the “we’re trying for an Emmy nomination” episode) centered on adoption that I have felt compelled to just stop watching. They were too ridiculous or one-sided or simply one-dimensional. I’m not terribly sensitive about it – it’s been over 22 years now – but it’s hurtful when I see something so complex and personal oversimplified. (Loser Drug-Addicted Abused Pregnant Teen Gives Up Baby And New Parents Are Super-Awesome-Fantastic! Hooray Adoption!)

    “This Is Us” paints with a light brush and lets us, as viewers, sit with it. With the complexity of it. With how Hard it is on all sides. Siblings, parents, adoptee, birth-parent. It is, as you said, Beautiful and Devastating.

    <3

    Oh, and I prefer to say my bio-son was "placed" for adoption – never heard "released" in that context before, interesting…

  12. I have loved this show from the beginning, yet had no idea of its impact from the adoption standpoint. I appreciate it so much more after reading this and will definitely view it through a different lens from now on. It’s time we had impactful shows to help us all relate on a different level!

  14. As and adoptee who recently searched and found through DNA I have shied away from watching this show for now maybe some day though. I have heard all good things about it from both sides both adoptees and birth parents.

  15. I haven’t watched it, but now I am intrigued. Thanks for sharing your experiences. There are so many things you can’t possibly imagine unless you experience them for yourself.

  16. Love “This Is Us” and after watching it last night, my face was a wet soggy mess. Such great writing on this show. Bless you Carla for being open, honest and forward thinking with your daughter.

  17. Wow Carla. This is such a wonderful post. I had never heard of this show. I’ve always thought adoption was a beautiful gift but never really focused on all of these issues.
    You sound like an amazing mom!

  18. You know I didn’t see the stark similarity between the This is Us adoption sitch and yours. Now I love and appreciate it even more if that is possible. You are very very right about the “void” it never really goes away. xo.

  19. This Is US is an important show. One that will be remembered for many reasons long after it’s off primetime.

    It’s the first I’ve seen to talk about adoption realistically.

    I can see my mother going to see the person who was obviously involved in the adoption. (My father would have made him part of the family as Jack probably would have). But Rebecca’s motives are different. I’m not sure she realizes that meeting William, seeing how brilliant though screwed up he was, and how William’s suggestion that she give Randall his own name–not one that was supposed to be for the dead baby—helped her bond to a point that Randall obviously “became her favorite.”

    While, in many ways, he wasn’t the most needy–both Kate and Kevin have their own issues as kids do in the best of families—and they are—he was the most overt about it.

    I never wanted to belong to another family but when I was angry at my mother–and from 11 to 12 I often was–I would ride my bike for hours and pretend that my birth mother had never given me up–she lived in Greenwich Village, let me grow my hair to my waist and not put it up, let me be barefoot all the time, and I never had to go to school. Other times she was a princess and my father was a prince and their kingdoms couldn’t meet.

    When I was 12 I was going through my father’s work files when they were out. The first thing I found was another version of my adoption story than the one I post. He wrote that i was “adopted for the usual reasons.”

    i was smart or sophisticated or something for a 12 year old. I was also very very moral and didn’t believe in sex before marriage—though that wasn’t from my parents. My fantasies immediately stopped, and I began to see my birth mother as just another flawed human.

    My father told me later that he left the story in a place I would be sure to find it.
    Now it would be handled differently.

    Now Rebecca would have handled it differently.

    But it’s Randall’s story ultimately and he still loved Rebecca very much which is why he just needed a month to forgive her though I’m sure the trust was broken in some ways–or he could understand that she did her best. She might tell him the story, and he might understand that it was her way of bonding.

    I’m so glad that you and your daughter watch it. Makes me feel great.

  20. So. I am NOT an emotional TV watcher… but This is Us struck me. Maybe the different perspectives and experiences in the seemingly same lives… It really make you think about perspectives vs. realities.

  22. I saw it advertised but haven’t watched it. Sounds like you and your daughter enjoyed watching. Commenting from The Women of Midlife FB group. Shared on social media 🙂

  23. I have had to give up watching this show. The writing and acting were so bang on when it came to grief that I couldn’t get through an episode without something triggering a flashback or PTSD moment for me.

    I’m so glad that you and E are watching together though.

  26. I read the comments here, but adaptation is a process which provides by us through nature sometimes it is good and sometimes is bad. But until we consider it, it was too late.

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