Depictions of foster care adoption in fiction (TV, movies, novels, etc.)?

"The Great Gilly Hopkins" is the first thing that jumped into my head. The movie is available but I read that book about a hundred times as a kid and re-read it again this past summer. I think it should be required reading for foster care training.

Other movies:

"Candle Shoe" - I LOVED this movie as a kid.

"I Am Sam"

"December Boys"

The Glass House"

"Just Like the Son"

"Fred Claus"

"Meet the Robinsons"

"Foster Child"

Books (I haven't read them all yet, but this is my list.):

"Dancing With Elvis"

"Defect"

"Pictures of Hollis Woods" (I think this is a movie too.)

"The Sorta Sisters"

"What I Call Life"

"Baby"

"Gossamer"

"Strays"

"The Road To Paris"

"The Boy From The Basement"

"Lullabies For Little Criminals"

"My Loco Life"

"Where I'd Like To Be"

"One True Friend"

"The Life All Around Me"

"The Miracle Life Of Mint"

"Little Soldier"

"The Monster in Me"

"Dakota Dream"

"Leonardo's Hand"

"The Ocean Within"

"Tin Can Tucker"

"When The Road Ends"

"Won't Know til I Get There"

"You're Dead"

"Memories of a Cherry Blossom Tree"

TV:

Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends (I adore this cartoon!)

Judging Amy

The Law & Order Series

CSI ("Sara Sidle" was a foster child)

The Cheetah Girls ("Dorinda" is a foster child)

One World

There are more but this was what I could come up with for now.:)

Some are more accurate than others. Some are based on fact. Some are total fantasy.

In the current plot line of a TV show called "House," the supervising doctor (Cuddy?) is currently a foster mother to an infant.

House is a medical drama. A young girl came into the hospital with some problems and it turns out that she had something related to pregnancy. She had the baby in an abandoned home and left it there crying as she felt she had nowhere to turn. (Her parents did not know she was pregnant, neither did the father of the child) The supervisor lady went to the abandoned home the girl described to find a homeless family there taking care of the infant. She gave the baby to the girl in the hospital prior to her dying. The maternal and paternal grandparents did not want the baby. They did not say anything about the teen father's wishes (which made me very mad). Apparently the system allowed this supervisor lady to take the baby home with her (and I think it hinted at changing the child's name). In the last episode, it covered the home inspection from the foster system and that is it so far. The previews suggest that she will be taking leave from her job in the next episode. It is an ongoing storyline. (This same woman tried to adopt an infant, but the girl decided to parent in an earlier episode this season.)

I do not feel it is quite realistic because it just is not this easy or fast to get things rolling usually. (She was not approved to be a foster parent at all as far as I know prior to this child coming to the show- the home inspection was done while the baby was already there etc) I am glad that they decided to make it so that she is fostering first though because it would truly be unrealistic if the girl was adopted already.

Off hand, I remember the foster-adopt plotline in "Six Feet Under" where a mixed-race homosexual couple adopted two African American school-age brothers.

The children (particularly the oldest boy) certainly had some issues and I recall a scene with the obviously overworked social worker who basically had the idea that if the boys weren't being mistreated, the placement was working out fine. I remember the boys stealing a car, threatening the foster parents with knives, stealing, lying, etc.

The crux of it came when the children confided that they had been bounced around so many times that they thought no home was forever so it was all about doing whatever they wanted because every situation was temporary.

Ended up with the foster parents starting to talk about what they were all going to do together next summer, or next winter. Putting the future into context for the children by including them.

I thought it was done pretty well, myself.

Stuart Little, Problem Child, Annie...those are the ones that spring right to mind.

I don't think they are realistic (with one tiny exception) because nobody sang about it ("Maybe", "Tomorrow", "We got Annie!") any of the times I have witnessed children being adopted from foster care and Stuart Little was a mouse being adopted by humans.

The one realistic thing I saw was in the movie Problem Child, when the fost-adopt father (played by John Ritter) was told how many homes the child had been in previously. I don't remember the number but it seems like it was in the 20s. That seems pretty realistic (for some kids).

Oh...Martian Child -- that's another one, although I haven't seen it. It stars John Cusack. Oh...and there was an Adam Sandler one (although I'm not sure the child was actually a foster child)...Big Daddy, I think...or something like that. I just realized something very interesting -- In only one of these movies was there an a-mother involved, all the others were adopted (or not) by single men. Huh...that must be a selling point for a movie. I know Disney loves single fathers and dead mothers.

ETA: Just thought of a couple more -- Anne of Green Gables (though I don't believe she was actually adopted) and Pictures of Hollis Woods.

Foster Care Movies

Movies About Foster Care

I don't think I have seen anything about adoption out of foster care that I can think of....I wish there were more. I do know that I was extremely irritated with how China adoption was portrayed on "The Simpsons" (I know, everything is supposed to be a joke on that show so I should have not expected it to be a real depiction) and on "King of Queens". I watched both of those shows and thought to myself "Did anyone even TRY to find out about the process of China adoption before writing this script?" Ugh.

Anne of Green Gables was adopted by Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert from an orphanage in Nova Scotia. This one might be accurate for the time it was set in but not now.

Punky Brewster is another one. She wasn't actually adopted but I seem to recall their being some discussion about it. I think in some ways this show was realistic. The social worker is a bully, the child has no say in her own life and it seems like the system is a big, broken mess. In other ways I think it was a bit gushy and mushy but it certainly hit home for me at that age.

A few episodes of Law & Order: SVU where a young girl was locked in a psyche ward because she accused her foster parents of abuse (they did it by the way). And then there was the little boy with severe rage who was being fostered by the man (Luke Perry) that actually raped his mother. Episode of Millennium where the young man who aged out of foster care got his kicks out of attending funerals with his serial killer best friend. The majority of depictions IMO have been negative. The children are damaged beyond repair.

There are also vampire foster kids, as Dr. Cullen and his wife were "foster parents" to a gaggle of young vamps in the Twilight saga.

I just watched a movie on Lifetime that was pretty good called "Gracie's Choice". It was based on a true story about a teenage girl who fought to adopt her three younger siblings after her mother repeatedly neglected them, stole from them, ended up in jail, and then tried to get back custody. I thought it was a pretty realistic depiction, and the girl was able to legally adopt her brothers in the end.