The Odd Life of Every Family

Friday night movies at our house have been dominated for several months by history, starting with the Civil War and moving slowly forward.  We decided at the beginning of the school year to do this for two reasons: First, not nearly enough good movies crawl out of the Hollywood swamp to supply a new movie every week (astounding considering over 700 movies were rated and released in 2012); secondly, we have watched most of the content in our small library numerous times.  This semi-educational approach allowed us to set expectations that movies can be more than simply 'entertaining'.  Of course, most history headlines are full of conflict, so among our choices are Gettysburg, Gone With The Wind, All Quiet On The Western Front, War Horse, and A Bridge Too Far (the latter being a bit intense for the younger set).  

Naturally, Dad could thrive on this serious weekly war diet.  The rest of the family, not so well.  In the search for a true family movie, last week we found a gem: The Odd Life Of Timothy Green.  In fact, we enjoyed it so much we watched it again this week with our extended family.  An excellent review is here.  There are other reviews that snipe at the movie for being 'unbelievable' or 'smarmy' or 'simplistic'.  I suspect these same reviewers have long since forgotten childhood or harbor some resentment about their own family life.  To vastly oversimplify the reaction to the movie in our home, the parents loved it for the parenting angle while the girls loved it because Timothy Green is an endearing kid.

So many realities about family life were captured in The Odd Life Of Timothy Green.

• The searing pain of childlessness.
• Learning to love your child for who they are.
• Enduring comparisons, by yourself and others, of your child, your parenting, your metrics for 'success' to those who are seemingly doing it better.
• The disappointment of crushed expectations.
• How parenting raises the specter of the gaps in your relationship with your own parents.
• Facing your inadequacy to be what your child needs most of the time.
• The unique opportunity for love that we call adoption.

Leo Tolstoy opens the great novel Anne Karenina with this famous line: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  It seems to me that is the essence of what 'Timothy Green' captures.  There is no end to the number of ways that families can mess up and find unhappiness and bitterness.  But as TOLOTG shows, those same moments are an opportunity for applying the simple ingredients that make happy families alike: to love, to forgive, to never give up.

The movie uses as a thematic wrapper the mom and dad explaining to adoption authorities why they should be allowed to adopt.  In doing so, they are telling the story of Timothy Green, his impact on them and their efforts to be good parents.  At one point, the barely credulous official asks, "So, what would you do differently?"

"We would make better mistakes," was the answer.

That is the essence of parenting.  In all the accumulated experience of raising multiple children by God's grace, my progress as a parent is best summed up by this ambition: that I will make better mistakes.  And, perhaps I should add the hope that our little miracles will become all they are meant to be, in spite of our best efforts.