dancequeen407^
I do agree with you that this was handled incorrectly.
Not many people, whether they are teenagers or adults, would want to be taken from the environment that they have known (and from the movie, Janie had been raised in a loving home) and plopped into an entirely different one, to have to change their name, to have to suddenly call what are virtual strangers at that point, names that are terms of endearment (such as 'Mom' or 'Dad'), to have to go to a totally different school in a totally different neighborhood and to have to leave behind, so to speak, the closeknit group of friends that, in this case Janie, had grown up with. Talk about suddenly being stripped of all familiar and close relationships, familiar locations, and known support systems, and all in one fell swoop!
Neither set of parents was 'right' or 'wrong' in their feelings about 'their' daughter. I AM a parent, so I guess I have some credibility when speaking about a parent/child bond. The fact that Hannah was dead sealed the deal that there was no one left 'to blame' for the original circumstance. All that was left was dealing with the remnants of the wreckage and moving forward with it all. There was plenty of anger and hurt to go around, but no legitimate target at that point.
I don't understand why a counselor was not brought into this, to help Janie/Jennie acclimate to all the new information, new circumstances, and to help her to better understand and cope with her rather unique situation. Both sets of parents (and the sibs) could have been helped by some good counseling, too.
Poor Janie/Jennie. She is like taffy being pulled between the grief of her nurture-parents regarding their 'real' daughter and then the ‘loss’ of Janie; the grief of her bio-parents, who, as loving parents would, never fully recovered from losing their daughter so many years prior, not knowing if she were alive or dead, and then having to deal with the fact that she had all these attachments to her nurture-parents and another life, and did not even know her bio-family anymore; AND the grief of her bio-sibs, from resenting how her disappearance affected their parents and their childhoods to the misplaced guilt the brother felt for incorrectly thinking that he was to blame for Jennie being abducted, that he at first projected in anger against Jennie/Janie.
Jennie/Janie had her own issues to deal with, in addition to what I listed above. She had her own misplaced guilt for having 'gone with' Hannah, although she was only 3 years old at the time and so was certainly not to blame, and also having to deal with the fact that the family she grew up with was not what she had thought they were, in relation to her.
It would have been totally reasonable and more appropriate, IMHO, for both sets of parents to share visitation -- the bio-parents could have started with a weekend visitation sort of plan so that Janie did not have to have her daily, school life and whatnot disrupted. And, they should not have forced the name change because that was just insensitive. Also, I think that they should have talked more with the other two children because the brother was, at least initially, SO hostile to Janie and the sister obviously had some issues, too, regarding Janie. Everything was just too fast for everyone and some time, flexiblity, and good guidance from a counselor certainly could have helped everyone along in this strange transition.
A very interesting story and dynamics, all the way around.
denise1234
"I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than..a rude remark or a vulgar action" Blanche DuBois
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