Title: Independent Lens: Twin Girls

Date: 2014

Media type: Documentary

Format: Complete

Category: Families in Society, Interpersonal Relationships, Family Life Education Methodology

Keywords: family types (adoption), communication, cultural and global perspectives

Rating: NR

Audience(s): Children Under 12, High School Age, College Age, Adults

Language: English

Film/Episode Summary: Independent Lens looks at a case where twin girls were adopted in China to 2 different families. The families were not informed of each other nor did they know that the child they were adopting had a twin. The families met by chance in China after adopting their children and figured out that the girls were twins. One family lives in Norway and the other in California, the girls remain in correspondence and have met on a few occasions, both express feelings of incompleteness without the other and share many traits.

Comments or Recommendations for Teaching: What ethical questions does this raise? In regard to who or what raise those questions? What does this say in your opinion about the international adoption process? Should the families tried to keep the girls together or was separating them right? What does this say about the influence of nature and nurture on a child’s development and personality?

Contributor: Ian Brunzell-Looney