MovieChat Forums > I Am Sam (2002) Discussion > Legally Sam would not be raising Lucy

Legally Sam would not be raising Lucy


As much as I found Sean Penn's performance quite moving (and Dakota Fanning's performance quite nauseating), the film is a outcry of illegitimate pretenses and a fake ending.

Sam would never had been allowed to raise Lucy in the real world. After all, he was mentally challenged. What is going to happen to Lucy when she turns 14 and needs guidance through high school? Is Sam going to be able to tutor her though the tribulations of being a young woman? Sex with boys? Mean girls in the playground? I don't think so.

As Roger Ebert said, this film was all about feelings, but in the real world feelings mean nothing. Sam should have allowed Lucy to have real parents to look after her. Just because your sperm created her, don't make you the father. I am adopted- my adopted parents raised me. Did I need my original parents to raise me just because they created me? Nope.

*1/2 out of ****

(oh, and a retarded guy would never be allowed to work at Starbuck's)

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Its quite possible for mentally "fit" parents to do a *beep* job as well. Yours, for example, obviously taught you ignorance and sadly limited views on what makes a parent a parent.
It wasn't sperm that made Sam a dad, it was the 7 years of love he already gave her. He got her through infancy with unconventional yet unwaveringly stable support, which more than proves him capable of handling the responsibilities of parenting. It has nothing to do with "just his sperm".

When you're 17 a cow can seem dangerous and forbidden...am I alone here?

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There are parents who have a higher IQ than Sam's that are able to take care of their children and they could be considered some of the worse parents on the planet. Are you saying that those parents that raise their children in abusive environment with parents who are junkies are more able to be parents just because they have the IQ level of 100?

Most parents are not able to give their children guidance in situations such as high school or the opposite sex since times do change between the parent and child. Lucy is actually an intelligent girl so she would have been able to use her insight in the real world when coming with her decisions about those types of problems when they would come.

I was big, it was the pictures that got small-Gloria Swanson

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I think the OP is just being realistic. Not that there aren't some mentally handicapped parents raising a child, I'm sure somewhere, there are some. I think what the OP meant was, in the real world, if a case like Sam's hit the family court, it's not likely he would win. Not impossible, no. But just not likely. The OP didn't say Sam was a lousy parent. In the real world, lousy parents sometimes get to keep their kids, and sometimes, because of their past, present, or future, parents who love and adore their children are not capable of raising them.
The system is all messed up. I work in a building with CPS, I've seen kids returned to their parents and later end up dead from abuse. I've seen other kids taken away for next to nothing. That's reality. I think that's all the OP was saying.

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Long story short my mother was a psychiatric nurse for years and knew lots of people with severe mental impairments, all the way from the lowest functioning mental retardation to the highest functioning android like sociopaths and everything in between. She had saw those who were parents and the ensuing custody battles, but it was never the state intervening. It was always just family fighting.

The state cannot take your child from you unless you are unable to afford them, and most mildly mentally disabled people do work as well as receive public assistance, so that would never be an issue. The only time they have ever taken custody of a child was if the case was rape and the victim's family did not want the child, and the victim themselves were either profoundly retarded or in a vegetative state.

Though I suppose this varies by state, but here in the northeast US that seems to be the norm. When you say he could not 'legally' have custody of his child, you are making a false statement.

And why could a retarded person not work at starbucks? That's discrimination, to which the company could face serious legal trouble.

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Hilarious that you think Sam somehow can't handle helping out with the "tribulations of being a young woman," and yet he managed to take care of an infant. Good grief, I think taking care of an infant is a lot harder than taking care of a teenager.

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It is a shame if he wouldn't be because he could
she was already smarter than him, he didn't pull her back so acting like a 7 years old is not an issue as the school mentioned earlier in the movie
i think it is not fair to take her from him, especially knowing that there are those who will do worse job with their kids but they get to keep them
Lucy loved Sam very much and was on best terms with him, not something that could be said about Rita and Willy despite the fact that she wasn't retarded
if it was me in Lucy's shoes i would never want any other parents except for my real one, i would welcome being held back by them as long as they are my real parents.



"It is never about what happened, it is only how you look at it!"

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yeah that wud be a proper ending

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