On a good day, parenting will test the integrity of your character. On a bad day, parenting will test your will to live. Parenting children with trauma histories will cause you to test the integrity of everything and everyone you thought you knew, for the rest of your life.
~J. Skrobisz

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Reviews

MOVIE REVIEW: CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION!
We took our kids to see "Despicable Me". It was a great movie: funny, great cinematography, quick wit, adorable. Steve Carrell is the voice of the main character so you know it's good for many belly laughs. However, if you have children that are recently or late in life adopted, this movie may be a trigger.

The story line includes a single man adopting three orphaned girls so he can use them to fulfill his evil plans. The orphanage caretaker is a surly, demanding woman that punishes the children by putting them in "the shame box" During the climatic point of the movie, the evil character-turned good guy sends the girls back to the orphanage (against his wishes, but it's still a disruption). The orphanage caretaker makes the girls sit in the shame box because they're returned! The end is happy and endearing, heart warming, tear jerking, etc. Really, despite the premise, it's super cute. However, it could definitely be a trigger for traumatized children so be careful! I would NOT recommend it for families that have newly adopted children, have severe attachment issues or that have little girls that were abused by a male figure.

which is a large portion of the adoption population but whatever. Disney doesn't ever consider the psychology of these stories and how they'll impact the adoption community, they care only about the revenues.

BOOK REVIEW: BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT
If you haven't purchased Claudia's (Never a Dull Moment) book you need to. It is an excellent account of how they navigated the foster care system and secured permanent placement for their 12 children. It will inspire you do go and do likewise. Plus, the proceeds will help benefit their family. Who doesn't like to help our fellow RAD moms?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I let my kids get movies from the library.. last night they were watching Nancy Drew, when suddenly in the middle of the movie, one of the characters runs in yelling "Nancy, someone from CPS just came and took my daughter! She said I was an unfit parent! I didn't even do anything!"

My kids turned around and looked at me and said, "what does THAT mean?"

I about died.

Who thinks up these story lines?

Integrity Singer said...

corey - I know what you're saying! so many of the story lines that are written never consider the truth and reality. Those of us living life on this side of the fence have a RADical understanding that life is absolutely, NEVER going to be like fictionalized television or movies and for that matter, even reality TV is grossly skewed from norm. Ah, but we live a slightly jaded life, don't we? lol

GB's Mom said...

They can't use our live for plots in movies; Nobody would believe it.

Integrity Singer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Integrity Singer said...

lol GB's mom! The irony when they make these fantastical fictitious adoption scenarios for movies and TV is that people believe these stories to be the truth when they couldn't be LESS plausible, realistic or true! Perhaps that's why there are more duped and naive adoptive parents out there - the truth isn't being adequately and accurately portrayed?

wilisons said...

Thank you for posting this, I will stay away from the movie with my kids!

Shanna