Unwrapping Adoption Themes in Netflix’s “The Noel Diary”

In January of this year, we started a listening exercise known as Podcast Club—a year-long series of in-services devoted to attending to lesser heard voices in adoption: adult adoptees, relinquishing parents, extended family members in the adoption constellation, and more. The lessons learned from this year-long series have made a deep impression, which is why these themes jumped out in a new Christmas romance on Netflix called The Noel Diary. In exploring adoption, the work is significant in that it explores the separation of mother and daughter through the perspectives of an adult adoptee years later, and her birth mother’s thoughts at time of relinquishment. So many elements examined in Noel’s Diary resonate deeply with themes that emerged in the yearlong Podcast Club. Here are some things we saw and heard in both places:

1. Lack of support and resources is often a driving factor towards adoption.

   Noel writes in her diary, “My parents sent me away to have a baby. They are ashamed of me and ashamed of the child I’m bringing into this world. They truly believe it’s wrong to have a child outside marriage. Everyone I know and trust has abandoned me.” This is consistent with an Atlantic article finding that both abortion and adoption rates have consistently fallen since 1973, due primarily to greater societal acceptance of parenting outside of marriage. The poignant reality of total lack of relational support or resources contributing to the decision to relinquish was also seen in Courtney Cook’s interview with The Black Adoption Podcast.

2. Basic, elemental details of adoptees’ personal history are shrouded in secrecy.

Birth certificates of adoptees are updated with their adoptive names, as well as those of their adoptive parents, so they don’t have even the most basic information about who they were initially, their origin story, or their genetic coding. We see Rachel’s concerted and creative efforts throughout the movie to seek out tidbits of information she can cobble together to understand her life’s beginning. Rachel doesn’t even know her parents’ names initially, noting, “My adoption file was sealed—by Connecticut law he [a friend] couldn’t tell me my mother’s name, but he could tell me her last known address.” A blog post at Adoption Advocates describes the arduous and at times expensive court process that can be involved getting access to one’s own records. Virginia at this time remains a “sealed” or “closed” adoption state, meaning that by default all adoption files are sealed by court order, but adult adoptees continue to advocate for greater transparency and access to their own life history.

3. Separation at birth doesn’t negate the fundamental loss & longing of adoption.

Many people wrongly believe that when separation occurs immediately after birth, rather than adoption occurring later in life, that a child may not experience or remember that trauma. That’s simply not true. Rachel reflects on this throughout the film, at one point saying, “I think being adopted I’m just . . . I’m always trying to fill some kind of void. I’m always looking for security and reliability and that’s why I think if I find my real—my birth mom—it’s . . . I don’t know, it’ll resolve this huge uncertainty in my life and then. . .” “You’ll be free,” suggests Jake. “Yeah,” Rachel agrees. She adds longingly as they set out on their journey to find more details about her mother, “I need to know if I ever mattered to her.”

4. The fracturing inherent in adoption creates a lifelong attachment wound.

We know that attachment begins in the womb, so whether separation occurs at birth or in later years, any child’s separation from their most foundational, visceral, and intimate relationship is going to have very real impacts. Adoptees experience higher rates of mental health disorders, particularly depression and anxiety, as well as higher rates of insecure attachment, and are at significantly higher risk of suicide. Rachel says flatly to Jake at one point, “You know that saying, ‘Time heals all wounds’? It doesn’t.” She further explains, “My whole life I thought my mother didn’t want me and that I needed to find her and ask why.” When she reads her mother’s loving description of her birth in her journal, Rachel says with tears in her eyes, “God, I hope that’s true—what she said about loving me.” Adoptive families often try to reframe the inherent loss in adoption by using messaging such as “chosen and wanted,” or by explaining that the child’s parent loved them so much they gave them up so they could have a better life. However, Michelle Madrid-Branch at Adopt a Love Story blog explains how this can create its own issues, as adoptees may come to equate love with the risk of abandonment: “When you are loved a lot, you risk being let go. As we grow into adulthood, this can lead to an inability to be vulnerable before others. Love seems scary. We hold others at an arm’s length. We may want to control relationships and always have a getaway plan.” Rachel describes this dynamic to Jake, saying, “[T]here’s always that, like, push-pull thing, you know? ‘Come closer . . . I wanna be alone. . .’ You know?” Many adoptees may experience an anxious drive towards perfectionism, to ensure they continue to be “chosen,” and avoid desertion. Ms. Branch-Madrid reminds that the reality is that authentic, truly known love is “messy and frightening,” and that this reality may have to be consciously grasped and practiced.

“Adoption is never over . . . Adoption does not end when our parents have signed a document, or finalized a legal course of action. While it is true that the legal part of adoption may be completed, the living part of adoption is only just beginning.”

—Michelle Branch-Madrid

5. Processing the adoption experience may look different at various life stages.

Rachel’s search for her mother appears to have begun in her young adulthood, and this relationship with her adoption story is undoubtedly different and more complex than how she grasped it as a child. She also sees its impact on her romantic relationships in her adulthood, as she explains to Jake that her fiancé offers her more of the stability and dependability she craves. It’s also reasonable to believe that if Rachel were to become a parent in the future, motherhood may bring up fresh insights or grief to process anew.

6. Love of adoptive parents doesn’t resolve the fundamental drive to understand your origin story.

Rachel speaks fondly of her adoptive parents throughout the film, noting that her father taught her to love a wide range of music. We see her near the end of the film with her adoptive parents, and the relationship appears to be supportive and mutually affectionate. A desire to meet her birth mother isn’t an indictment of her adoptive parents, or an indication they’ve failed in some way—rather, the fact that she can be open with them about her search indicates something they’ve done well, in supporting her connecting to all aspects of her identity, and not seeing those gains as a threat.

7. Reunion is hugely vulnerable, and both parties need to be ready.

After reading through the journal that her mother kept while she was pregnant with her, Rachel turns back from meeting up with Noel. Jake explains it to Noel as, “After she read this, she understood everything.” Rachel might have felt she found what she was looking for in the journal, or was feeling too emotionally unguarded due to her involvement with Jake to proceed to another huge moment of meeting her birth mother. When Jake tells Noel he knows Rachel, Noel is clearly stunned, but also grateful, telling him that the return of her journal, as well as some knowledge of Rachel, is “a precious gift.” She also tells Jake that, “If you see my daughter, will you tell her that if she ever wants to get in touch, I would like that very much,” leaving the door open for contact when Rachel is ready in the future.

If you’re ready for a deeper exploration into the complexities of adoption, check out Netflix’s documentary Found, a film about 3 teenage transracial adoptees who discover their genetic connection to each other while living in the US, and document their steps retracing roots and adoption journey from China.