Diksha Sundriyal
Hulu’s ‘Good American Family’ tells a complex story of varying perspectives. The focus is on the Barnett family and their adoptive daughter, Natalia Grace. Kristine and Michael Barnett adopt the seven-year-old Ukraine-born Natalia with the hopes that they will all have a happy life together. However, each day with the girl brings a new set of challenges, and things start to get dangerous when the Barnetts see her violent side. At least, that’s what they tell anyone who will hear them. From Natalia’s perspective, she is subject to abuse from her parents, who she thought would love her, and is later abandoned by them, forced to fend for herself despite the physical challenges they know she faces. In all of this, the Barnetts start to blame First Path, the adoption agency from where they adopted Natalia. The show paints a very shady picture of the agency, but in real life, things are much more different.
The Fictional First Path Adoptions Represents the Barnetts’ Side of the Story
There are different sides to each story, and ‘Good American Family’ tries to present Natalia Grace’s case from all the sides that were involved in it. The initial episodes specifically focus on Kristine and Michael Barnett’s side, and in the first episode, we see the rushed process of the adoption, which makes it seem pretty shady to begin with. This narrative is pulled right from what the couple has talked about publicly several times. Michael Barnett appeared on a news channel to detail the adoption process, where he pointed out the things that he and Kristine had ignored at the time but should have paid more attention to.
The Barnetts claimed that instead of them approaching the agency to adopt a child, the agency approached them. They claim that they got a call from an agency in Florida, which said that they’d looked into the Barnetts and believed that they had a perfect girl whom they should adopt. The couple claims that they were given 24 hours to decide whether or not they wanted to take Natalia home; otherwise, she would be placed in foster care. Michael Barnett said in an interview that the adoption agency’s office was in a strip mall and that because it was a closed adoption, they did not give any information about Natalia’s past. He said that they were told that her previous family was leaving her, but the reason behind this was not shared with them. All of these claims have been denied by the real adoption agencies that were involved in the process of Natalia’s adoption.
The Adoption Agencies Have Challenged the Barnetts’ Story
In the Hulu series, the Barnetts meet with only one adoption agency and its fictional representative, Sandy Mosley. In real life, however, two agencies were involved in the process: Adoption by Shepherd Care (ASC) agency in Florida and Gateway Woods in Illinois. ASC is one of the oldest adoption agencies in Florida. It has been operating since 1980 and helps children find their forever homes with families of all faiths. When the charges of child neglect were placed on the Barnetts, and Michael Barnett talked about the suspicious nature of the adoption agency, ASC came forward to refute his claims.
According to them, they didn’t directly handle Natalia’s adoption. Instead, they were approached by her former family from New Hampshire, who had adopted her from Ukraine, to find another family for her. The agency helped them understand Natalia’s needs, especially regarding the surgeries, and was also in touch with the Barnetts when the girl was put up for adoption. They have categorically refuted the claim that they gave 24 hours to the Barnetts to adopt Natalia. Moreover, they said that since they were not licensed in Indiana, they were not part of the home study process, which is one of the most important parts of the adoption process. That responsibility fell on Gateway Woods.
Gateway Woods, a Hague-accredited organization, has been operational since 2003 and is licensed to function in Indiana and Illinois. They have been involved with overseeing the adoption of over 400 children from 25 countries and conduct about 60 home studies every year. They, too, struck back at Michael Barnett’s claims of rushing the adoption process without sharing important information about Natalia, especially when it comes to her age. According to them, during the adoption process, they told the Barnetts that Natalia was somewhere between nine and eleven years old, which was confirmed through a check-up by their doctor. They confessed that they did not know her exact age but also claimed to have shared that information beforehand with the Barnetts. This shows that the things we see about First Path are entirely based on the Barnetts’ side of the story and cannot be considered a true representation of the real adoption agencies.
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