Long lost families

[OhDoAdmitMrsDeVere]

Is anyone watching?
ITV.

What do you think?

No angle - just asking generally.

Of course it's nothing like modern adoption, but I did feel it was realistic about 50's-70's adoption, and very moving, highlighting the importance of the information we have nowadays about the children's background. I also feel that the people of those adoptions might need a TV program about it as much as we do. Luckily we've had some very good programs (like A home for Maisie) about modern adoption, althouh of course we could have more, but I hope LLF will be a good program that appeals to those who were involved in adoption years ago.

I believe the program makers deliberatly select those involved to ensure there aren't any bad reunions (at least initially for the period they are filming). I think they track down everybody and get permission before filming. That old live program sounds horrific

The only thing I don't like about it, is Davina!! Her demeanor really grates on me!

I dont object to there being programmes based on old style adoptions.
I do wonder if they perpetuate the urban mythology around modern adoption.

I am suprised at the attitudes to adoption from people of all ages. Not just ones who would have remembered the old style.

I have had conversations with much younger people who were adamant that children up for adoption were still young babies given up 'for a better life'.

Where do they get this from? Why do the more contemporary style programmes make such a small dent on this idea?

I wonder....

I'm not quite sure MrsDV! I wonder of it's TV/film - not non-fiction programs like Long Lost Families, but dramas and soaps, especially imported ones. Most programs these days HAVE to have an adoption storyline at some point, which is rarely realistic, and films have them as well. Everything from the Simpsons, Friends, Glee, 90210, Juno and so on. All of those are really popular especially with DD2's age group. Plus books which mention it, plus parents who explain adoption to their children as girls giving up babies, plus celebrity baby adoption stories of which there are several a year. To be honest, adoption is pretty much presented in popular culture as something which happens to babies, and teens will absorb that. But teens don't tend to watch BBC adoption documentaries for the most part, so the foster care bit gets missed.

I have yet to see a realistic adoption storyline in any light entertainment show.
To be fair they are pretty free and easy with all aspects of LAC.

I am used to Eastenders being crap but even I was gaping like goldfish at the Billy/Lola story.

Billy finds out he had a child by his ex girlfriend (they were both LAC in a children's home of course).
Billy finds out the child died.
Billy finds out he has a grand daughter living in a children's home.
Billy rocks up to children's home and walks out with Lola because he is her grandfather.

What sort of message is that giving out to children in care or just anyone really?

Much the same as the message in Despicable Me, Mrs DV - where they rock up to a children's home, sign a bit of paper, walk off with three kids, return them a few days later because they have changed their mind....then bring them home again.

OK, so I'm not expecting an animated kids film to be completely accurate, but we watched it with DS while we were going through the assessment process and had to really reassure him that there is no giving back, that the assessment process was a lot more stringent etc etc.

I notice all kinds of things that would have passed me by pre DS2!
I can bore for England on misrepresentations of adoption in film/the media

They can catch you by suprise and poor DS2 has been knocked for six a couple of times completely out of the blue

He loves Dispicable Me though. Hook and Nanny Mcphee have laid him flat. I think that was because of the mother/loss motif so I guess that is a different thread.

Despicable Me was fine, so were Tangled and Annie (they loved Annie). On the other hand, Matilda did not go down very well. DD2 did not get a good message from the 'punish your parents if they do stuff you disagree with', and she was upset at the emotional abuse by parents and the physical abuse by psycho head - but the adoption scene is the single most unrealistic adoption in the whole of movie-land!!

Abusive parents want to run to Guam, so Matilda just yanks out some adoption papers, suggests she gets adopted, and her parents just sign them straight away whilst half SMILING about it, then grin and wave and drive off! To take the cake, no one asks Miss Honey how she feels about adopting - the child and bio parents decide and sign papers while she stands on the sidelines. And Kazam, the adoption is final just like that

The mind boggles....

DH got Juno out one night having not read the box. He spent quite a long time that evening rubbing my back and apologizing whilst I blew snot bubbles of distress. Matilda gets a mild from me but the film makes me suspend my disbelief anyway. There is much more openness about adoption though, I agree. There was something on the radio last week about it so I said to DS1 'you know mummy's adopted don't you' and he just shrugged and said 'yeah'. So yah boo to the stigma then!

I am a proper 70's unmarried mother adoption. I feel almost proud to be such a cliche. There is even a blank bit on my birth certificate in the 'father' section. I can't decide whether all the changes have been for the best or not. Two friends of mine have just adopted their second child, both of their babies have been in foster care for 18 months before coming home. I know there has to be balance but, oh, I don't really know. In an ideal world women would all make wonderful, selfless, mothers and only become pregnant when they can cope with motherhood. By magic or something. Of course all people who want children would just be able to have them too.

Wales - I hope one day your wand waving won't be necessary

I loved the last series and this one looks great as well by the first episode. How the nature of adoption has changed! Having adopted children myself, growing up without parents and meeting my dad when I was 18 knowing little about him I can understand how they feel.

I also loved the Protecting Our Children series on BBC 2 recently. I wish they would do another series of that too. Sadly as it took 3 years to do 3 eposides I doubt it!

I love the programme, I cry my way through it. I absolutely expect the happy ending at the end of the programme although I can imagine it must be hard for people who haven't had happy reunions to watch.

It makes me both sad and happy for my dd. Happy that she won't grow up in an information vacuum so hopefully it won't be such a big unknown factor in her life. Sad because our children are not adopted for the same reasons as the adult adoptees in the programme and I worry that there won't be this magical reunion for dd, just a sad story and very mixed feelings about her birth family.