Open and Blind - Adoption Through My TV Screen

So I was listen to the soundtrack of the Runaway Bride, you know, that song "Where Were You On Our Wedding Day?" is really catchy, pop-ish and funny song.  Anyhow, it reminded me of the movie Juno, which also has a pretty awesome soundtrack and if you have watched it, you'd know the main character is a teenage girl who got pregnant with her high school boyfriend and then decided to give up the baby for adoption.  Throughout the movie, she maintained contact with the couple she decided on giving the baby to, one of those "open adoption" where the adopted family and the birth parents are not constraint by court order to seal the paperwork as in a "blind adoption."

This got me thinking: is it better for the kids and everyone involve if the adoption is "open" as oppose to "blind" ?  And does it really matter if the kids never found out about the adoption until the very last moment on the adopted parent's deathbed: "Oh, btw, you're adopted."  It's so clique, I can almost see it as a movie trailer, in which the kid immediately set on a journey to find the birth parents.  You know what?  I bet Hollywood, or at least Hallmark, has made something along this line...  IMDB is going to be my next stop.  No, I don't think there's nothing wrong about that self-discovery journey across the American landscape to find your birth parents, it's just that I happen to enjoy those type of movies from time to time.  It also remind me of that episode of Friends, where Monica and Chandler were trying to adopt and so they spent an evening at another random couple who have adopted this young boy.  Chandler, in his typical fashion, let it slip out that the boy was adopted and caused him to scream on top of his lungs "I'm ADOPTED?" when his parents had obviously decided to withhold the fact.

I know the practice of optimistic couples who want to adopt would go to these agencies, having interview with these (typically young girls) pregnant women and hope that someone would pick them to be their unborn child's parents.  Between The Blind Side, Juno and Friends and the fact that I've learned most of the necessary American culture tidbits from the tube, I'm wondering if the common type of adoption on the TV changes from "blind" to "open" because of the more open minded people we have now versus 10 or 20 years ago...  or is it the media was just portraying cases that would support their argument for "open" adoption?  I personally think that international adoptions are one of the major selling point for "open" adoption.  Really, if you are a middle aged, white woman walks into a school uniform store with a middle aged, white man and 2 kids in tow, the assumption the salesperson would have is that the man is your Significant Other and the 2 kids are your kids.  Would your perception change one bit if I say the kids are two cute Chinese-looking girls?  Everyone would take a wild guess and think you'd adopted from China.

My story is convoluted but my point is that international adoption leads to interracial adoption, which would be impossible to pretend that "I'm, the white woman, has [birthed] an Asian looking kid with my white husband."  Well, unless you used in vitro to have the baby then you should probably talk to your fertility specialist about the mix-up.  Just like that episode in Desperate Housewives where Gabriel and Carlos found out their in vitro baby carried by a surrogate was mixed-up with a black couple's baby-making materials.



Well, here is the obligatory link to the trailer for the movie Juno, if you haven't seen it yet, make sure it's somewhere near the top of your Netflix queue, OK?