Abandonment in the Movie Juno

Abandonment in Juno The movie Juno is a multiple Academy Award nominated movie which focuses on a teenage girl’s pregnancy. There are many instances of abandonment in this movie, although some may not be as obvious to the viewer as others. During her nine months of pregnancy she has many high points, but also just as many low points. She decides that abortion is not the answer to her problem (due to the fact she was informed her fetus already had fingernails), so she decides to give the baby to a family who has not been able to become pregnant themselves. When we are introduced to the main character, Juno, we learn that she was abandoned by her mother when she was four-years-old. She also states that she rarely if ever sees her mother anymore, and all she sends to her are cactus plants for her birthday. You could argue that since she was abandoned at such an early age, she did not become as emotionally bonded to her like she might have had it been at the age of 16. Either way, losing a parent can be extremely hard to handle, no matter how or when it happened. I might have felt abandoned by the parents she had also. When she announced to her dad and stepmom that she was pregnant, their emotions hardly changed at all. Her father was mildly surprised about the boy who impregnated her, saying “I didn’t know he had it in him.” Her stepmom started planning out how to handle this with products and preparations, but neither freaked out about the single fact that their daughter was pregnant! \ This not only caught me by surprise, but everyone else whom I was watching the movie with. They all commented about how their own parents would have flipped and either been screaming, crying, or a combination of both. I believe her dad and stepmom cared for her well-being in general, but that part just really threw me. I guess you could argue since they didn’t lose their cool it would be easier for Juno to handle the situation. I think it just depends how you are brought up and how you would rather deal with it. Throughout the movie she has to deal with abandoning her child herself. Her first option was to have the fetus aborted right away. However, after realizing that there was indeed a human being inside of her and feeling the guilt of having it killed, she decided against it. I believe in this sense that having the abortion is a form of abandonment because not only would she have given up any chance of herself being in the child’s life, she would have given up the child’s life. While she chose to keep the fetus, she did then decide to give it up for adoption after she would give birth. This decision was due to her not feeling ready at all for a child, not being responsible enough to care and look after one, the pressure from kids at her high school, and the sense that her life as she knows it would have come to a complete end. She would lose the chance to go after her dreams and live life to the fullest. She is abandoning her child, saying she isn’t capable of raising it, and giving it to someone else so they can have the responsibility. I’m not blaming her or putting her down. I have no idea what I would choose to do if I was put into this situation. Once the child is capable of thinking clearly and beginning to reason more thoughtfully, he could start to question why his real mom did not keep him. This could be very hard on him when he’s going through his adolescence cycle. I saw something like this happen to a girl in my high school. She was put up for adoption instead of having a family already lined up for her, and she came to my school in fourth grade. I remember she was just the typical sweet girl, really shy and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Then we got to high school and she started changing. I believe she started thinking about her situation more and more and it really got to her. She fell into a cluster of girls who were known as the lazy kids during class, would not pay attention to the teachers, and also known for going out and partying whenever they could. She became a lot more dark and unapproachable, and then she became pregnant. Cycles are very hard to stop, but luckily she chose to keep her baby. She now seems to be a great mom to her child, and it helps that her parents have been very supportive of her. During the movie, Juno feels abandoned by her “boyfriend,” Pauley Bleaker. I put “boyfriend” in quotations because it is kind of difficult to determine what their status is. It is obvious they are good friends, but after they have sex and she becomes pregnant, it becomes unclear. This is probably why Pauley decides to take another girl to prom instead of Juno. Juno pulls out the “tell you one thing but mean the exact opposite” card when she says earlier it is ok for him to ask someone else because they aren’t an item. She feels betrayed by Pauley, even though I am sure he would never have done that had she been clear about her true feelings about the situation. You could also argue that she is abandoned by Mark, the adoptive father in the couple. She builds a really strong relationship with Mark through their love of the same rock music. Mark then essentially “kill’s two birds with one stone,” by informing Juno he plans to divorce his wife, Vanessa. Juno again feels deceived by a person she put her trust into. I did feel the relationship they were forming was becoming very sick and twisted. In a real life situation, that could have become something worse though, and whatever betrayal Juno felt now would have been infinitely larger. As we have been reading, abandonment is most likely the largest issue for teens and adolescence today. Juno does a really nice job of showing this through the journey of a pregnant teen with a less than perfect home life and friends who wind up hurting her, even though one of them doesn’t realize it. I feel by watching this movie I have gotten a better understanding of real life abandonment, and have even started to analyze my life and other peoples’ lives that I know.