Adoption is Not Gleeful; Fox's hit show tells it like it is

Jane

An adoptive mother who finds the adoption plot lines on Glee so offensive has started a petition asking for a Public Service Announcement that would offset the "harmful inaccuracies" the show perpetuates. Really, we wondered when we first heard if this--after all the inaccurate and nasty portrays of first/birth parents we've seen. What does this woman find so offensive on the Fox teen hit, FMF wondered.

It's about a birth mother who wants her child back. Quelle surprise! A cheerleader, Quinn (played by Diane Argon), is a birth mother who wants to get her child back from the adoptive mother; another character (born by surrogate) has had her real mother come back into her life. Well! How outrageous is that!?!


Angry adopter Amber Austin initiated a petition on change.org for because, Quinn is, as the petition puts it, "actively (and with malice)" trying to get the baby back from Shelby (Idina Menzel), the birth mother of Glee Club member Rachel (Lea Michele). Following this? That means that adoptive mother Shelby is also the biological mother of Rachel, the best singer in the Glee Club. And they remarkabye look like mother and daughter! Yo! And they are all at the same high school! The father of the disputed baby? Puck--he sleeps around.

RAISES FALSE HOPE? MAYBE NOT
According to Austin, this story line is objectionable because "for adopted children, the show raises the fear that they may be taken away from their adoptive families. And for adoptive parents and birth mothers, the show creates confusion about the nature of adoption.... And for young women facing unplanned pregnancies, many of whom are in Glee's target demographic, the show gives the inaccurate impression that adoption is a temporary solution, not a permanent one." 

Interloper Lorraine and Interlopee Daughter Jane

Austin is so wrong it's hard to know where to begin. In real life, birth parents do come back into the lives of their teenage children. Case in point: fellow blogger Lorraine who showed up out of the blue when her daughter was 15. Her daughter's adoptive parents said, Come right in! "Our" daughter needs you! And birth parents do suffer from losing their children and want to get them back. More would try if the laws weren't stacked against them --  allowing the adoption industry to purvey false information and permitting pre-birth and delivery table surrenders -- and if birth parents could find attorneys to take their cases.

It's doubtful that a story line about a mother trying to get her child back would lead any pregnant woman to believe adoption is temporary, It might, however, clue them in that adoption does create lifelong pain and thus deter surrenders, something that Austin and her ilk would find threatening.

As for causing adopted children to fear they will be taken from their adoptive families, it's more likely the show will give them hope that their birth families will come looking for them. As the writings of adults adopted as infants attest, adopted children do want to know their first mothers. Zara Phillips, writing her in her memoir, Chasing Away the Shadows, voiced the desire succinctly: “I was always waiting for the day that my birthmother would show up on my doorstep, apologizing and telling me there had been a terrible mistake.”  

HOW OFTEN DO OUR CHILDREN THINK OF US?
Austin and the 2099 adoptive parents who signed her petition would do well to forget the "out of sight/out of mind myth about adopted children. They could take a cue from adoptive father, Adam Pertman. At the Open Adoption Symposium sponsored by Coordinators2 in Richmond last month, Pertman, director of the E. B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, told about wanting to open up communication with his adopted son, Zack, about adoption. Pertman said he asked him, “How often do you think about adoption?"

Without looking up from the game he was playing, Zack shrugged his shoulders and said, “Not much.”

Pertman thought for a moment, and then asked, “How often you you think of your birth mother?”

Zack responded, matter-of-factly, “All the time.” 

Zinger, that. Pertman was obviously surprised and distraught as he told the story.

The only people the Glee story line will scare are insecure adoptive parents who fear that given a choice, their children will want to return to their original families. What scares us at FMF is that ignoramuses like Aylin Zafar of Time (9/7/11) give credence to Austin's boogey-birthmother scenario, ("adoptive parents are right to be upset about the story line"). And we've read the same sentiment elsewhere in news stories of this silly imbroglio. Biological/birth parents almost never get such a break when we're written about. We're usually the bad guys, the careless teenagers, the drug-addled sluts, the moms in prison, the uncaring don't-look-back hotties (or an African-American doctor) who had a child and walked away. (See yesterday's post for more on media matters.) To change our image in the media, now that's a petition we could get behind.--Jane and Lorraine
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 See also:
Is adoption ever funny to the adopted, to first mothers?

If the folks at Fox are inclined to do a PSA about adoption, we suggest they take a look at The Declassified Adoptee's thoughtful suggestions.
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