Sean Anders and his wife, Beth, talked about having children for years. But when they decided the time was right, he was in his 40s and felt like maybe he had waited too long.
“One day I joked, “Why don’t we just adopt a five-year-old and it will be like we got started five years ago?” Anders said.
His casual remark took hold. And soon he and his wife, Beth, started doing research online and enrolled in classes at a local agency.
Sean and Beth got licensed to foster and adopt. And in 2012, they became foster parents to three children—a toddler and his older sister and brother.
When the children were adjusting to their new home—and Sean and Beth were adjusting to being parents—they feared that they had made a horrible mistake.
“We went through some really tough times…But so much of what we went through was also funny. I thought, couldn’t we make a comedy to show how this really works?” Anders said.
The result is his new movie, Instant Family, which is arriving in movie theaters November 16. The film draws from the experience of his family, as well as other families, adopted teens, and child welfare professionals he met along the way.
“Hopefully the film will demystify the process a bit and people will realize that this could be them, and it could be their family,” Anders said.
Sean Anders and his wife, Beth, talk about the making of Instant Family in this short video.
