Reactions to "Find My Family?"

Before it aired, I posted about one adoptee/adoptive parent reaction to "Find My Family," ABC's reality show about adoption search and reunion. I had to teach Monday, so didn't get to see the show. Entertainment Weekly says 12.9 million people viewed the show, and called those "solid numbers." Here's a roundup of some reactions from the adoption blogosphere:

Adoptee Susan, in an entertaining post at ReadingWritingLiving, says:

As I was watching the show I kept asking (out loud) the question, “Is this exploitive? Is it bad? WHO is being exploited here?”

I decided to look up the definition of that explosive word.

Exploitive: unfairly or cynically using another person or group for profit or advantage

Well, profit and advantage, definitely. They want their ratings. But is it UNFAIR? Is
it CYNICAL? Hm. I don’t know about that.

I’ll tell you what’s UNFAIR. It’s UNFAIR that a show like this is even feasible in the FIRST place, because if ADULTS had access to their OWN birth records, it’s unlikely that these decade-long dramas would be playing out like this. It wouldn’t hold the enormous charge and people wouldn’t have to be paying agents and investigators for
fruitless searches.

* * *

That’s it, I think. For now. But my opinion is that while the show is cheesy, melodramatic and emotionally manipulative, it also showed some real truths. It was hosted by real adoptees. The people seemed stable and reasonable, for the most part. And their journey is just beginning.

At Birth Mother, First Mother Forum, Lorraine says:

Find My Family on ABC hit it out of the ball park last night with their half-hour reunion show. Yep, it milked the strong emotions that surround the reunion of first/original/birth/genetic/biological parents with their offspring. Yep, I got glassy eyed, and so did the co-host, Tim Green, who met with the birth parents, Sandy and Scott Steinpas, and told them their daughter had been found. "I've waited so long for this," says the mother, Sandy. "I was sure I would always look for my daughter."

Birth mother FauxClaud at Musings of the Lame says:

Birthmothers and Adoption TV=Not Fun
As a birthmother, I find it is like walking through a land mine; carefully place my foot down on the next step, only to find myself blown sky high, or hellish low, when they hit an emotional trigger. Still, when I read up on it on the ABC website, I didn't get that completely awful feeling. The whole mission of the show besides ratings, is to bring families back together, they claim on the website. I can get behind that..

Watching ABC's Find My Family
Channel 7; 9:30 pm: I pull myself away from the computer and sit down to watch. It has that cheesy reality show feel that Extreme Makeover Home Edition does; very dramatic and simplified. Yes, everyone is on their best behavior and say "all the right things"; the view is, at least, shining a sympathetic light on the now married birthmother and birthfather.

* * *

And that's what I want you to try to take away from this new show. I honestly hope that it does well and stays on the air because if it does, and it portrays adoption searches and reunions in a continual positive light, and it is respectful and loving, albeit in a make me cringe a bit way, then what we have is a mass media vehicle that can have the power to make middle America sympathetic to the idea of adoption reunions.

So did you see it? What was your reaction? I'd especially like to hear from adoptive parents who watched and liked the show (since the only adoptive parent reactions I've heard were pre-viewing and negative).