I was privileged to be contacted by filmmaker Huibert van Wijk and his production team about their documentary Kind van de Tijd (Child of their Time) over 2 years ago. The film follows Huibert’s adopted brother, Tim, who was born in Indonesia and adopted to the Netherlands in the mid-1970s. It premiered at the Netherlands Film Festival in September 2024.

This is a powerful and important film because it offers a rare portrayal of the relationship between a male adoptee and his adoptive father. Over many years, they have grown apart and now have minimal contact.

Adoptee spaces are often dominated by women’s voices, while the experiences of male adoptees receive far less attention. The perspectives of adoptive fathers are also rarely explored. This film brings both into view and challenges the adoption myth that love and good intentions are always enough to sustain adoptive family relationships.

Many adoptees who cut ties with their adoptive parents have carried pain throughout their lives without meaningful support from within their families. Eventually, it can become exhausting to navigate our own trauma while also trying to teach adoptive parents how to understand and support us. There remains far too little specialist help for adoptive families to hold both adoptee and adoptive parent experiences with sensitivity, without relationships ending in estrangement.

I wish my own adoptive family had sought support and education to better understand what I was carrying. I especially appreciated the film’s recognition of the importance of finally acknowledging harm and offering an apology.

Child of the Times captures how difficult it can be for male adoptees and their adoptive fathers to connect, communicate and speak honestly about painful experiences. It highlights the need for specialist spaces where adoptive fathers and sons can safely share their truths and rebuild connection. The use of family constellation work was particularly powerful.

I loved this film and highly recommend it to anyone wanting to better understand the complexity of relationships within adoptive families.

Watch the film in English here:

Resources

ICAV reviews of books & documentaries

Dutch, Danish and Norwegian adoption investigations into Indonesian intercountry adoptions