Abandonment issues in adoption on America's Next Top Model

Lorraine

America's Next Top Model is not the place where you would expect adoption issues to be discussed but this season features Molly, a young woman Tyra Banks told repeatedly that her mean, sourpuss demeanor when the camera wasn't on her would lose her bookings--even though she took totally fab pictures. Molly is one of the two finalists, the winner to be revealed on Wednesday.

Then, a few weeks ago in her talk-to-the-camera segment the 22-year-old from Charleston, South Carolina, comes out with:

"I think I have a couple of places where the anger comes from. I've had a lot of sadness, a lot of hurt. You know I think being adopted gave me some issues, you know, abandonment issues
--so that's why I'm mad all the time. Obviously I have to act like a wholly different person and be fake. But that's what I have to do. I think that's bleep but that's what I have to do. Apparently I look like I want to kill everyone."

Molly

I hit rewind and took notes. She mentioned adoption again the following week, and again in the let's-just-talk session when Tyra dropped by their apartment in Morocco, where they were taping the last couple of shows. Tyra asked the girls what they talked about on their "emotion day," referring to a show earlier in the season that I missed. It showed Molly in front of a drawing with a lot of frantic lines she had just done. She says of what she talked about on emotion day:

"...My adoption and feeling not wanted. You need to stop thinking you're unwanted just because your mother gave you away. And also about my adoptive parents loving me and just what I put them through--the drugs, the staying out, and not listening to them. But my adoptive parents showed me unconditional love and they are the best people I've ever known."

A picture of Molly and her parents came on on the screen. Tyra briefly talked about abandonment issues and how that can lead people to sabotage relationships--you leave before the other person can in order not to be left again.

Molly managed to encapsulate so much of what adoption can do to a person: instill a fear of connecting, for fear of being rejected (all over again); a sense of being abandoned; a need to act out to test her adoptive parents, and feeling intense gratitude to them for standing by her. I wondered where Molly's first/birth mother is today, and considered the possibility of her watching ANTM--but who knew? South Carolina, where Molly is from, does not let adoptees access their original birth certificates. (Of course, we don't know where Molly was born or adopted; but only in one of six states could she without restriction get her original birth certificate.)

I thought of the Adoption Option put forth by the liberal think tank, Center for American  Progress, and wondered if the writer, Jessica Arons, had ever heard straight talk about adoption like that from anyone adopted. I know the kind of people who write idiotic, specious documents like the Adoption Option*--well educated women who embody the pervasive attitude in society that adoption is only a good, without trailing problems, without a dark side. They tend to see adoption as a blessing, only a "blessing." To us, it is the best solution to a bad situation that cannot be otherwise fixed, as we note in What We Think About Adoption on the sidebar. Whatever solution it is to mothers who give up their babies, their babies do not get off scott free.

On blogs following the show Molly is not the fave to win, but this gramma--quite possibly the oldest living fan of the show--is rooting for her. The finale is Wednesday night on the CW, that's 9 p.m.  on the East Coast. I've been tuning in every since my granddaughter, Kim, said she liked it a few years ago. It's about much more than fashion and the modeling biz; it's about young women, many from troubled backgrounds, a few from privileged families and with Ivy League degrees, baring their souls as they make their way in a tough career using their bodies, and yes, their brains.--lorraine
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*See our Response to The Adoption Option of the Center for American Progress

 

Update

Molly, the adoptee, did not win America's Next Top Model. Her adoptive parents were in Morocco for the last segment and they seemed like nice people who totally love and support their daughter who apparently has put them through a lot because she talked again about being in rehab. Brittani, the dark-haired girl who won, repeatedly spoke about living in a trailer park with her mom, and how winning will change both their lives. They had been on welfare for ten years; it's clear that her life has been financially difficult.

Molly's parents apparently will support her as she tries to make her way as a model; that would have been impossible for Brittani, so it seemed to work out in the best way possible for both. I look to see both of them in ads soon--as I have seen some of the other girls who did not "win."