My Story

The chronicle of the journey from infertility, to miscarriage, to finally raising twin girls born in June 2012.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Glee - Don't You Dare

All right Glee, you're treading on some dangerous ice there.

Oh I know, you think that you're so supportive of everyone.  So inclusive.  So sensitive.  So sticking up for the underdog.

Without even realizing it, you have thrown every infertile/potential adopter under the bus already.  Wanna know how you did it?  Here ya go.

At the end of season 1, you introduced the character Shelby, Rachels birth mother.  They met, she realized that she wanted her baby and not this teenager so they decided not to become a part of each others lives, but rather enjoy a distant knowledge of each other.  Fine.  Really, that's fine.  I have to imagine that when a birth parent comes into the life of an adopted child, that's pretty much how the adoptive parents would hope it would go.  They could know each other, but there's no question as to who the childs parents really are.

But that's not all.  You had Shelby give a passing comment about how she can't have anymore kids.  Within 1 episode of her deciding that she wants to raise a baby, Quinn gives birth and hands her daughter over to Shelby.

SLAP!!!!!!

That's not how it works!

Seriously?  Quinn hadn't thought about WHO should she would hand her child to until she was in labor?  WTF? And Shelby couldn't have done a home study because as soon as she had the kid, she ran off to be an actress in New York.  Seriously, what adoption agency is going to say "here failed actress who's going to run off to another state to try to be a failed actress again without anyone to assist with raising the baby while you try auditioning in the most competitive job market known to man, have this baby!"

But okey dokey fine.  You give us this bullshit happy resolution.  Quinn fits back into sexy clothes, a competitor of the glee club takes the baby away, and everyone is happy.

And here we are, beginning of season 3.  Shelby is back in town with the baby and seeks out the parents so they can be a part of her life.  Pshhhhh.  Yeah, I highly doubt that, but fine, we'll go with it.

The way you're handling Puck is actually pretty awesome.  I mean, we had to jump through a lot of suspension of disbelief to get to this scenario, but once we're here, yes, I do believe that's how a father would act when faced with figuring out how to keep enough arms length so as to not spook the mom, but still get as much of the baby as possible.

But what you're doing with Quinn.  Writers, fuck you.  Seriously, from the heart.  Fuck you with every rusty cheese crater found in the fields of Wisconsin.

Quinn is one of the heroes so I'm pretty certain you intend for us to root for her.  And what do you do?  You have her tell the mom of her child that she isn't Beth's mom, that Quinn will always be.

To reiterate, fuck you.

And then, you have her clean up her act as a rouse so that she and Puck can sue to regain custody of their daughter.  And because these are the characters we've been watching for a couple of seasons, there's reason to believe that they are actually going to succeed at some point.  And even if not, they are going to put Shelby through complete hell.

DON'T.........DO........THAT.

It takes years to get someone who is about to give birth to choose you to be the parent.  And every adoptive parents worst fear is that someone is going to come and take their baby away and they will be absolutely powerless to stop it.  Quinn is not that baby's mom, Shelby is.  And if you even DARE to try to send the message that that's not the case, once again, cheese graters, I will gather them and deliver them myself.

You've smacked the infertiles once.  Twice when we realize that you did it because it wasn't even on your radar enough to consider that maybe you should be somewhat sensitive to the issue.  So we're both slapped, and invisible.

I'm not an adoptive mom.  You wanna know why?  Because anyone who would put themselves through the hell of the adoption process in this country is fucking extraordinary.  I'm not that extraordinary.  I'm putting myself through an entirely different hell because I fear that the adoption hell is 1000 times worse than this.  Maybe one day I will be that extraordinary.

But if you smack every one of those extraordinary parents in the face by writing a story where their worst fear in life comes true and then they are just written off the show, la dee da, never to be thought of again with the audience cheering for their tormentors, FUCK YOU.

2 comments:

  1. You don't need a home study for a person to person adoption, only if you are going through an agency. As a birth mother you can give up your child to anyone w/o paperwork or an attorney. My husband and I could give all our kids to my sister today if we wanted to.

    Glee never goes in a direction that you suspect. They have made Shelby out to be a pretty sympathetic character. I don't think they will have Quinn and Puck taking the baby back. But if they do, I totally agree with you that it is a complete FU to the adoptive parents of the world.

    And where are Rachel's adoptive dads in all this? How could they have her birth mother as a focus of so many episodes but we haven't even seen them. And she is such a good friend of Kurt, yet she hasn't introduced Kurt to them? I think as a couple of gay men that adopted a child they would be helpful to her friend. Weird.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Held off on reading this so I could catch up on the ep. I get why you're upset, totally. But - I'm holding up hope that Ryan Murphy has a twist up his sleeve...
    We shall see.

    ReplyDelete

Please share your thoughts! It makes me feel like I have friends.