Movie Drama

Adoption has a way of changing things. Not just the big things like "wow! there's a completely new person in my family!" It changes little things too. A family who is currently working through major adoption trauma with several of their kiddos just wrote this about the movie, Toy Story 3. It's interesting because we just went to see it and the thoughts reflected in the post didn't enter my head. But I understand the mom's concern and see her thoughts as valid for any family who are parenting children affected by abandonment.

My kids have recently been a bit obsessed with the musicals, Annie and The Sound of Music. Two classic musicals, both much loved by many and ones that I really didn't think twice about until we sat down to watch them. As we watched them together the first time, I found myself questioning if I should have been letting my three year olds watch them. Annie sings "It's a hard knock life for me" complete with the line "when you're in an orphanage." Um, my kids have lived there and we use the word orphanage in our house. Annie's orphanage does not resemble the places they lived and thankfully, they did not have a drunk Ms. Hannigan forcing them to clean and deliberately trying to keep them from finding a family. And Annie has a girl leaving her orphanage for a mansion, possibly leaving one with the impressiont that my "first life" was pretty crummy while my "new life" is full of bright, shiny goodness. The Sound of Music also contains a somewhat mature topic in that the children gain a new mother, something both of my kids have experienced first hand. Of course, this mother is a delightful mother who truly loves her step children but nevertheless, I still found myself treading lightly as I explained the story line to my kids.

I don't expect Hollywood to change the way it makes movies. Good stories need drama and conflict and this may include conflict within families as well as themes of loss and redemption. It's just that I worry about my kids internalizing some of those subtle messages movies and tv communicate, especially that they might stick their thoughts down deep into some pocket of their brain and let those thoughts become truth in their hearts. I pray they will learn to see themselves in the light of Psalms 139, a psalm I have prayed often over each of them. And I pray they will choose to talk and share their feelings, that they will believe they can share their hearts' worries honestly with us as they work out the complexities of adoption.


Psalm 139 (New International Version)

O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be