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I’m not always keen on documentaries. In fact, I’m not always keen on movies. I greatly prefer to lose myself in a book. I don’t like to sit still for the amount of time watching a movie of any genre requires. A new documentary has me excited though and I do plan to watch it.
Entitled Off and Running, the film features an all-star high school runner who just so happens to have been adopted. Avery Klein-Cloud was apparently born in Texas and was adopted by two (white) lesbians. Avery herself is African-American. She lives in Brooklyn and attends a private Jewish school. All kinds of interesting ideas playing into that, right?
What caught my eye wasn’t the fact that the review mentions there is birth mother involvement in this particular documentary. With a teenager who is a minor. Ooh.
Desperate to define herself, Avery is seen early in the film writing to her birth mother and posting the letter in a state of cool panic. She receives a loving but noncommittal response followed by months of silence, and in that void, she starts to go a little nuts.
Of course, I’d feel better if Avery’s birth mother was ecstatic beyond belief and stepped to the plate. However, as it’s a documentary, I can’t really ask them to rewrite the script, can I? The truth is that if you read any number of adoptee blogs on the Internet right now, you will find many stories that mirror this one. It’s sad but it’s a reality for many adoptees. I think all birth parents, closed or open adoptions, need to consider these things and should probably give this documentary a watch.
It seems as though there are other issues within the family as well which is probably okay. If anything, people need to see that, like the birth mother who avoids contact, adoptive families are not perfect. Yes, I’d love if Avery had two doting parents that were able to help her understand her culture, her family and her life. That would be perfect. We don’t live in a perfect world.
I think perhaps this is a documentary that I’d like to watch with my daughter’s Mom. Hopefully we can work together to avoid some of the negativities that are presented in this film.
