Yesterday I had the opportunity to screen a new documentary called DON’T DIVORCE ME! a new documentary airing on HBO next week.  I was instantly intrigued by the invitation, given the fact that I have newly divorced friends with young children and am the daughter of a divorced couple.  My own parents divorced when I was much older than the young children shown in this film, but I have always thought about the profound impact divorce can have on children.  I see it on my friend’s young children and I was curious to see how one could produce a sensitive, thoughtful movie on the subject.

And this film does.  It’s only 30-minutes long and it’s the kind of movie your own children could watch.  They don’t show parents arguing, they don’t talk about how the parents got to the place they’re in. The focus is on the kids.  It’s about how they are.  Throughout the film, they show kids holding signs, which express their feelings that read:

“Don’t take your anger out on me.”

“Be honest with me.”

“No fighting.”

“Don’t make me a messenger.”

It’s powerful stuff.  Whether these words are written on these signs or spoken out loud, these kids care.  They miss the life they once had with two parents living under the same roof and are struggling to move on.  Brooke, aged 7, boldly and wisely states, “No one invented families.  People made families to spread love.” These kids are let down that their family unit is no longer one. They are insightful and they are all working to build a new future, sometimes with their parents, sometimes alone in their mind,.  What strikes me about them is that they are incredibly resilient.  They even ask each other insightful questions about their situations and these are not kids holding their feelings inside their hearts.

During a “Lunch Bunch” scene where four children talk over lunch in a classroom, one tells the others, “Some people think it’s all their fault.” In the case of divorce, everyone feels responsible, especially the children. The film shows children equating memories to objects, as one little girl does in a special pink jewelry box, and how concrete aspects of one’s life makes a difference to kids.

Along the way, you have quick shots, great music (including “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash), drawings, songs and photos.

The film was made by executive producer Rosie O’Donnell (HBO’s “A Family Is a Family Is a Family”) and Emmy(R)-winning director Amy Schatz (HBO’s “Classical Baby”), and debuts THURSDAY, SEPT. 20 (6:30-7:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO. It’s truly a film from the hearts of the children interviewed in the film.  It’s a film that can help families going through it.

Disclosure: I was not compensated to write this review but I really benefitted from the experience and mean everything mentioned above.

Last night I watched “Gloria: In Her Own Words” on HBO, an engrossing documentary about the woman who helped spearhead the women’s movement of the late ’60s and ’70s, the one and only Gloria Steinem.  It was informative and inspiring, about a woman born at a time when women had limited rights and Steinem’s upward battle to improve her every women’s lives.  She believed that talking wasn’t enough and that women had to take the streets to demand change.

And indeed she did.

Early on in the hour-long portrait, we learned that she never wanted to cover fashion, dates and domestics, she wanted to cover real stories about real women.  We learn about an experience with a Playboy club where, in 1963, she did an undercover stint  dressed as one of Hugh Hefner’s famed bunnies. The result was an article exposing the clubs’ conditions.   Soon after, she covered a hearing about abortion where women were telling the committee about their agonizing abortion experiences.  She realized that one in three women needed an abortion and could not understand why abortions were secret, illegal, and dangerous. By  the 1970s, she had become the voice of the women’s rights movement and founded Ms. Magazine to give women a platform to speak out.

The documentary also taught me a lot about her and her relationships with fellow feminists, like Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug.  I never knew that she had a conflict with Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique. Steinem said of Friedan, “She considered herself the owner of the movement.”  Steinem did not think there was only one.

She is a champion.  She has helped push human rights on so many levels. She attended the National Women’s Conference in 1977 which led to the passing of abortion and lesbian rights — along with support for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Steinem during the 70-minute long documentary:

“I began to understand that my experience was a universal female experience.”

“We were accused in the press of having penus envy.”

“A woman who inspires to something is called a bitch.”

“Once we started to change the mainstream of the culture, we became a threat.”

“No one hands you equality. You have to take it.”

“We are the women that our parents warned us about, and we are proud.”

“I just never felt compelled to have children & I don’t have any regrets.”

“Feminism shouldn’t need a name and one day it won’t.”

We owe so much to Gloria Steinem.  Today female reporters do cover hard stories.  Today it’s okay for women not to get married or have children (Steinem decided to never get married early on but did decide to get married at age 66.  Unfortunately, her husband passed away a few years later.)  It’s okay for a woman to have an abortion (Steinem had an abortion before there was as a women’s movement and never told anyone.)  It’s okay for a woman with kids to work outside the home. It’s okay for a woman to be in a relationship with another woman.  It’s okay for a woman to have a child on her own.  Look how far we’ve come.

I want my daughter to learn about her and take a cue from the life she has led.  She will grow up knowing that the world is her oyster, and I truly believe that Gloria Steinem is partly responsible for that.

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