NBC's This Is Us tackles foster care and a mother who returns to claim her daughter

Lorraine

Are you watching America's most engaging and informative show on adoption these days? This Is Us continues to surprise and delight me with its examination of the adoption issue and most specifically, how it depicts the emotions and actions of the adopted person at the center of the drama, Randall Pearson--nerdy, successful, sensitive--brilliantly portrayed by Sterling K. Brown. It is an examination of many of the issues that are usually not fodder for primetime TV, in fact, any TV at all.

Last season we dealt with Randall's adoption and his adoptive mother's duplicity in dealing with knowledge of the identity of his biological father, who could have met Randall as a young teen when he was searching and curious on his own. But his otherwise sterling adoptive mother (Mandy Moore) prevented it. For those who haven't watched, the adult and married Randall went on a search without telling her, and found his father in one of the first episodes. The whole gamut of emotions of reunion, anger at his adoptive mother for keeping his father secret, telling the grandkids who this older guy was, the father's late-stage cancer, and his death was played out while we stayed riveted. And wept. One birth father of my acquaintance told me that he watched and cried every week.

ADOPTION VERSUS FORSTERING

This year, Randall and his wife set about adopting, but in the end decide on taking an older foster child named Deja, as in deja vu.  Fantastic! This Is Us, a show that had an audience of 12.6 million for the season opener, is exposing to America how helping a child have a home ought to be done. Instead of looking for a "perfect baby" they took in a troubled teenager, whose mother was sent to jail. Suddenly having Deja (a quiet, understated Lyric Ross) in the home without an instruction book seemed real. She remained shy and leery of the family in the beginning, but the two other girls in the house, the natural children of Randall and his wife, help smooth things over. 

Deja (Lyric Ross), left, and foster father Randall (Sterling K. Brown)
slowly bond, despire some wariness, on NBC's This Is Us. (Photo: NBC)

Time passes. Randall does all that he can to make Deja feel welcome. He becomes the house father; his wife goes to work full time. He takes Deja to visit her mother in jail, but at the last minute, as they are waiting for the mother to appear, she cancels and is a no-show to a visit she is allowed to have. Randall is infuriated! What kind of mother is she! On his own, he visits the mother who says that she had been in a fight in jail and didn't want Deja to see her with facial bruises; Randall vows not to let this woman get Deja back and lets her know that. 

Not unlike real life, I'm thinking. The natural mother is not a paragon of justice and rectitude. Well, what do you know--the charges against her were dropped and she's out of jail soon enough and she shows up at the Randall's home and makes a scene outside--she wants her daughter! Deja comes out and sees her mother and despite their obvious affinity, and Deja's defense of her mother, the Pearsons are infuriated! They will fight this unworthy woman! They are so much better off, have a nicer home, will nurture Deja way more than her mother's inadequate nature can overcome! Randall drives by the neighborhood and apartment house where Deja will live with her mother. Not so nice. Not unlike where he found his own father. On to the lawyers. 

A life with a lot missing 

You gotta give them credit for taking this show right where most of the audience is going--keep that girl in the upper middle class home! Knowing the nature of the melodrama, I'm suspecting that this could take episodes before it is resolved--but no. Driving to the lawyer, Randall has a transformative moment, he relives wanting to find his own father, and realizes he needs to let Deja go back to her real mother....

ADOPTION IS A CONTINUUM IN REAL LIFE

I know these kinds of situations are sometimes handled just like this by adoptive and foster parents. We write about adoption cases where the adoptive parents fight like make dogs to keep a young child they ought to let go. I have to give the show credit for writing this story the way they did. Of course I'm thinking all throughout the episode--how is this going to end up?--most of these story lines end up not the way that warms our hearts, but this one surely did. 

Randall, for those non-watchers--was the adopted "triplet" when Mama Pearson's (Rebecca) third child didn't make it. So Randall is the black adopted son with two white siblings, all of which is part of the complicated and endearing plot lines. While the other characters have their own stories (the sister Kate always struggles with her weight and insecurities; brother Kevin, the good-looking "perfect" child has his demons of failed dreams) but to me their story lines pale in comparison to that of Randall. 

What Randall's story makes clear is that adoption is not a one-time thing; it colors his life and decisions, and the writers get that. I've written about the plot of returning a foster child, but the greater longterm impact may be conveying how adoption is a continuum in the life of an adoptee. Earlier we had the intense sibling rivalry between Kevin, the natural son, and Randall, the adopted one. We had the Rebecca's mother as a clueless mother-in-law dealing with the adopted son differently from how she treats the "twins." She gives him a basketball while he tries to interest her in his latest science project, as he is clearly the brain in the family but she doesn't see it. She says unconscious racist things about blacks in front of Randall. Randall's birth mother died early on, and so she was never a character, but it appears that Randall's father may appear in flashbacks now and then. As a learning tool for American, all good. 

The show is on holiday hiatus, and will return January 2. 

Looks like the Randall and his wife Beth will adopt or foster a son. So no matter what, adoption will continue to play a part in the NBC hit, This Is Us. If you haven't seen it, all the episodes can be watched on line. I'm curious to know what adoptees and other mothers--adoptive and biological--think of the show and how it handles the adoption/foster child plot line.--lorraine  

In the same vein, one of our regular commenters, Robin, recently wrote about how adoption has affected her life at her blog: What were the chances?

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Liz Duren was kind enough to send me her memoir about growing up adopted, All about You: An Adopted Child's Memoir, her search, and less than welcoming arms of her biological mother. Many adoptees will recognize themselves through her story and will find some comfort there. I'm reading it now; highly recommended. By the way, Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption in on sale on Kindle for a few more days, Dec. 7.  Take advantage of it! The links will take you there.

And This Is Me: Our new house is not quite there. After discovering several things critically wrong (or not working) with the downstairs bath (and my bathroom), we decided to gut the old and put in a new. I ordered the fixtures on line, and therein lies the problem. The shower "trim" (or shower handle) was supposedly in stock when I ordered it, but it was not, and a month later I am still waiting for the part. It is supposed to come this week--from Germany. There have been other slowdowns, etc., and for more than a month the living room contained all of the stuff from the linen closet and medicine cabinet. I posted a depressing shot on Facebook! 

I had thought we would be finished totally by Thanksgiving. Now I am looking at Christmas, because without the missing part, I am not having the rest of the shower bits installed. If the part doesn't ever arrived, some of the wall will have to be taken apart from the other side--where my office is! In the meantime, I have learned more about toilets, showers, tile, grout, doors than I ever imagined. Stay tuned.