I wrote the review below of this foster care movie back in March of this year. And in the past couple of weeks, I watched the movie again.

What is wonderful for me, watching it a second time around, was that this time I felt less “like the boy” and felt more compassion for the whole situation. I was no longer angry at the mother for being unable to care for him, or at the boy for continuing to love her.

It was still a sad movie, and I still cried for the boy, for the situation, and for myself – but there was less anger at the people involved and more compassion this time around.

This is great news as it is likely that I will have contact with members of my child’s birth family, and I had wondered how I would fare with the things I would learn and the emotions I would feel. From a ‘distant’ perspective of right now in this time and place I feel that I will have compassion, I will see the human being inside of the human doing, and I will be able to be loving and kind and open. I want to be able to see through the pain my child had lived (or is still living), and be able to feel gratitude and compassion for the circumstances that brought us together into the new situation, so as to help my child through the process of grieving and healing. Perhaps I have made great strides in this desire.

Watching this movie again was a good reminder that I am growing and changing through this adoption process; that I myself am healing and learning to see things through new lenses. I am moving forward and I am forgiving.

One could say that I’m maturing and I’m “cleaning the slate” in readiness to become a mom – this movie demonstrated to me that I am emotionally becoming more solid and stable in areas where I was a mite uncertain before.

I have always believed in the ability of human beings to change, I have metamorphosed many times throughout my life so far and plan to continue for the rest of my days.

Yet, occasionally we all need that reminder to say:

“You are never stagnant, you are ever-changing, ever-improving, and ever-equipped for what is about to unfold.”

Sometimes it just takes living with eyes wide open in self-awareness to the changes we are making every day as a reminder that the power is always within us.

And the growth that I’ve experienced, over this past year through my interaction with the adoption world of courses and books and people, and through all of my years of living, means I can show my children that you are never too stuck to grow and change, and teach them how to make these changes one day, one moment, one thought, at a time…

Here is my review from March:

I watched a movie called “Finding a Family” about a teenage boy in foster care, the relationship with his mother, and his persistence in finding a new family for himself (with no assistance from ‘the system’).

This movie made me cry (a lot) for the boy, for the kids that I will adopt in the future and the experiences they may have had, for all of the foster children out there wanting a home – especially the teens, as this boy was – for all of the children who want a loving “normal” forever family, and for all of the kids who ‘age out’ without being placed in one.

I also cried for myself because the child inside of me identified with some of what the boy was going through with his mom.

His mother was “crazy” as he said in the movie and it was a condition resulting from a car accident. Before her accident she was a brilliant professor, and had inspired her son to want to go to Harvard. The movie follows him from a young age, maybe 5 until his late teens almost about to age out of the system.

Due to her condition, she would have “spells” – irrational, frightening, moments – and as a result we watched him be taken away and put into foster care for a short term, then put back with his mom, and then taken away, over and over again.

Watching him grow in that environment was tough.

Each time he went back to her it was good for a day, a week, a year, and then it turned crazy and frightening for him. Watching him try to love her and help her, try to parent her even, watching him make excuses for her and for his situation, it was heart-breaking.

When he finally found a forever family to live with, he gave his mom a card with his new phone number.

I was saying aloud to the TV through heart wrenching sobs, “don’t do that – embrace this new family and never look back.”

He didn’t of course, he got involved, she broke his heart again. And the cycle continued.

At one point in the movie, he – as a teen – was standing in front of an apartment building from which she had just been evicted and all of her stuff was on the sidewalk and he said “This is why I am scared to let her back in again, just when I think it’s safe…”.

The guy who had taken him under his wing (from the group home he’d lived in) said to him, “You are not responsible for your mother, you are a child, and you deserve to be loved and protected. You know you are worthy of being loved right?” the boy looked away.

He didn’t know that. He felt guilty for not doing more for her.

I understood how he felt. And I cried for us both.

It is my hope that my own experiences with a “crazy” parent will help me connect with the experiences my children have lived. Maybe my ability to understand the fears, understand the guilt of not being equipped (as a child) to save the parent or fix them, will make me more able to help them through it.

Perhaps my understanding will give me more patience, as I know that sometimes that guilt or feeling of wanting to do more can last a long, long time. Perhaps our collective experiences will allow the healing to take place, and will allow love to shine through.

It was a Hallmark movie so the ending was relatively happy. The mom got herself back on track, and the boy continued to live with the other family until he eventually attended Harvard.

Even as a Hallmark movie, it did give a small insight into the plight of the kids who age through the foster care system and I am thankful I watched it.

If you see it on your movie channel lineup, check it out.

Warm smiles and Love,

Ali Jayne 🙂