Last night was the Adoption STAR staff dinner and training, and as a group we watched a PBS documentary from the POV series entitled “Off and Running.” Here is a link to the “Off and Running”trailer on pbs.org, and I would certainly recommend watching the full documentary to anyone, whether they are going through an adoption journey or not.
I would rather not spoil the movie by talking about the plot-points, but the basis of the documentary is two white Jewish women in Brooklyn are raising three adopted children of different races. The story specifically follows their 17-year-old daughter Avery as she searches for answers about her past as well as her future, and how her relationship with her family changes as she searches for these answers.
There were about 30 guests at the dinner last night, and we all took part in a lengthy discussion after watching the movie. As you would expect there were a lot of different opinions regarding Avery and her parents, none of which were right or wrong. I think the one thing everyone agreed upon was that this movie was a great proponent for open adoption. If Avery had more contact with her birth family growing up she most likely would not have had the same questions she was faced with as a teenager.
I would love to share all of my opinions about “Off and Running”, as well as share some thoughts from other staff members, but I’d like to give everyone the opportunity to watch it for themselves first. So I will be returning to this topic sometime in the near future, but for now make sure to check out “Off and Running,” which you can find on Netflix