In a May 24 post on examiner.com, adoptive parent and blogger Marcie Pickelsimer takes the creative forces behind the upcoming horror/slasher film "Orphan" to task for their negative portrayals of adopted children:

The trailer is so heartbreaking. Just the message in the trailer gives misinformation about adoption, reinforcing the very myth that adoptive communities try to hard to eradicate; that all older adoptees are troubled.

How many hundreds of thousands of adopted children will see this trailer on national television and hear an adoptee say "it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as you own"? How many attachment disordered children will be sent back to therapy because they get ideas from the young girl's actions? How many families could be sent into turmoil because of one movie?

According to the horror film websiteBloody Disgusting, "Orphan" tells the story of a couple who decide to adopt a child from an orphanage following "the tragic loss of their unborn child." The adopted child, Esther, is not the angelic child she appears to be, resulting in a series of horrific events.

"This feeds the notion that older adoptees are very troubled and you should beware. Thats not an image any of us want the general public to have of our kids," Pickelsimer wrote. "It plays into peoples deepest fears."

Labels: adopted children, media

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The National Council for Adoption has launched a new campaign aimed at raising awareness of and promoting adoption as a positive, loving option for birthmothers. Floyd & Partners Integrated Brand Communications developed the campaign, which includes radio and television spots, along with outdoor media for billboards.

"We want to increase public understanding and awareness of adoption and create a more pro-adoption culture in which everyone, including women facing unplanned pregnancies, can consider adoption freely without fear, bias, or misunderstanding."

The campaign's theme is "Sometimes choosing adoption is being a good mother," and all of the ads direct readers to the accompanying Web site iChooseAdoption.org. Read more at PRNewswire.com.

Labels: awareness, acceptance, media

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"Juno," the warm-hearted comedy about a pregnant teenager who chooses to place her child for adoption, is receiving less-than-warm responses from people in the adoption community. Their primary concern is that movie implies adoption is an easy, only mildly sad decision for the biological mother.

"'[Juno] gives the impression that one can hand a baby off to strangers, have a few tears at the time the baby is born, and then the next day get on with your life as if nothing happened. That is of great, great concern to me,' says Mirah Riben, a board member at Origins-USA, a national organization for birth mothers, or women who place their children for adoption."

Though biological mothers admit that the movie has positive points, they almost unanimously agreed that it oversimplifies the very difficult and often painful process of choosing an adoptive family for your baby. Read more at Sun-Sentinel.com.

Labels: awareness, media

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The Greenville, South Carolina news recently ran a story about Dakota Massullo, a young girl in foster care who was available for adoption. Her story helped raise awareness about and interest in adopting kids in the foster care system.

"'We got over 600 hits [to the website],' said J. Lynne Wilson Jenkins, president of the nonprofit organization that partners with agencies, attorneys and support groups to promote community awareness and provide families with training and support."

Dakota, adopted at age eight, first entered the foster care system when she was just three-years-old. Though she has been adopted into a loving family, there are currently 1,600 other children in the South Carolina foster care system that are eligible for adoption.

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Labels: awareness, foster_care, media

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Pamela Kruger was recently the subject - or one of the subjects - of a New York magazine article on adoption. Unfortunately, the question posed by the article - "Do parents really love adopted children differently than their own offspring?" - reveals just how ill-informed much of the media remains about the true challenges faced by adoptive families.

"Too often the media raises the question of can you love an adopted child as if that was THE critical question to adoptive families when that really is a fleeting fear that comes and passes before a couple adopts; and too often the adoption community has been invested in responding by stressing how 'normal' their families are."

Kruger goes on to say that, just as single parents and multiracial families have issues to deal with, so do adoptive families - but those issues shouldn't be given so much attention. Instead, she says, more attention should be given to the joyful though complex realities of these "new family constellations". Read more at HuffingtonPost.com.

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Labels: media, adoptive_families, love

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About two percent of American children have been adopted. Some are adopted domestically, others are involved in international adoptions. Many of them are with families of a different race or ethnicity. A new film series from PBS explores the ups and downs of cross-cultural adoption.

“PBS’ P.O.V. this season offers a series of films that explore the phenomenon, ‘At the Intersection of Identity, Race and Adoption.’ The very personal documentaries include one by Deann Borshay Liem, the acclaimed filmmaker of First Person Plural, her 2000 look at her efforts to reconcile her Korean-American Identity.” [Source: Wintson-Salem Journal]

The first installment of the series, Wo Ai Ni, Mommy, tells the story of Fang Sui Young, who was adopted into a Long Island home when she was eight-years-old. Check local listings for times and dates.

Labels: awareness, media, identity

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