So much has been written about the film, Juno, and how it treats abortion and teen pregnancy. (Another op-ed by Ellen Goodman here.)

But last night I saw the movie with my husband, and as a parent of two kids, one of whom we adopted as an infant, what struck me most was the film's depiction of adoptive parents. For those of you living under a rock, the movie is about a 16-year-old girl who suddenly finds herself pregnant, decides not to have an abortion, and finds an infertile couple who wants to adopt.

In so many movies, couples who enter into a domestic adoption are depicted as snobby and soulless yuppies, who treat the birth mother as little more than vehicles for satisfying their desires. And often this is true in the media too. (Take a look at New York Times story about Guatemala adoptions here and my blog posting about that story.)

While the birth mom in Juno seems to be always carrying shopping bags and lives in one of those ugly suburban McMansions, her yearning to be a mother also is shown as genuine and touching. She doesn't just want the baby as another acquisition; she truly loves children and literally kneels at Juno's belly, hoping to connect with the baby inside.

Now I did find the message of this movie problematic: Abortion is dismissed as an option (the girl dismisses abortion as a choice after finding out her two month old fetus has "finger nails.") Juno seemingly suffers no grief or lasting trauma as a result of entering into an adoption, which conflicts with much of what we know about birth mothers. Plus the movie shows her entering into a closed adoption and reinforces the stereotype that desperately infertile couples are the only ones entering adoptions.

We weren't desperately infertile. Increasingly, people are choosing adoption.

However...it was refreshing to see a movie that doesn't depict adoptive parents as rapacious yuppies, but people who genuinely love children and want to parent.

Labels: adoption

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