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The Brad & Angelina Template
Words Jennifer Engmann
Far from what was deemed conventional, Jennifer Engmann discusses the template in which Jolie spearheaded back in 2002, and continued with Pitt from 2006.
Family dynamics have continued to evolve over the years, leaving more of an opportunity for people to create their own definitions of what ‘family’ looks like. The family of iconic actors, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are far from the traditional nuclear family dynamic, which not only caught the media’s attention but also started a conversation about how these outdated idealisms of the family dynamic are no longer the desire of even the rich and famous.
The former power couple took the world by storm with their individual careers as actors, however, something other than their lives on screen captivated the world. This was the cultural blend of their family which is made up of 6 children, 3 of which were adopted into the Jolie-Pitt family from their home countries.
In 2002, Jolie became a single parent by adopting a baby boy from Cambodia Maddox at 7 months old, was adopted by Angelina from an orphanage she had visited there. A year later Jolie would go on to adopt 6-month-old Zahara from an Ethiopian orphanage in 2003. Already a single parent of one child, at the time of her relationship with Brad Pitt going public, the couple jointly decided on this step. In 2006 Brad adopted both Maddox and Zahara and their last names were changed to Jolie-Pitt.
A year later in 2006, the couple were expecting their first child not long after finalising the adoption of Maddox and Zahara. Angelina gave birth to a baby girl who was named Shiloh. The media went into a frenzy just to get a snap of Hollywood’s beloved couples’ first child together, already nicknamed the ‘rainbow family’ the worlds interest in their lives grew rapidly. Nonetheless, this didn’t stop the former couples desire to adopt again, this time welcoming 3-year-old Pax from a Vietnamese orphanage.
Now 4 children strong, Jolie surprised the world by announcing her second pregnancy revealing her baby bump proudly on the red carpet at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. With twins on the way, son Knox and daughter Vivienne were the newest additions to the Jolie-Pitt family. So with a blended family of six, the famous pair showed us all that families are built according to a vision, Jolie having expressed recently that she had “wanted to have many children and be a mum” although she didn’t believe she had the skills to be a “traditional stay-at-home mom”. Though she may currently have shared custody with Pitt after the couple split in 2016, Jolie has been the one to take the lead when it came to the adoption side of things, igniting a conversation on raising children from other cultures and races in today’s society.
In this time where societal norms are being disregarded, people are redefining what family is to them and not basing it on what a family should look like. Even so much so by looking at relationships between people such as a mentor and their mentees, mentors who in which can also have the opportunity to take on a more strategic role in the life of others and still provide the necessary guidance that would be expected of a parent.
We may not be able to choose our biological family, but we can choose our own families, with the help of technology a number of communities can be created and reached by the click of a button. But also, more practically, adoption does not simply have to occur in the traditional sense as was shown by Angelina and Brad, by going to third world countries, but by simply seeing someone in need of guidance or support in which you have the capacity to provide.
As someone who has seen the effects of a blended family, it can provide the best environment for opening your mind to a range of possibilities you may not have otherwise discovered.