Something I was wondering about.
 

Ya, my first thread. Ahem, anyway.

I saw the screen grabs for Better Off Ed. Unfortunately I missed the ep, stupid cable. Anyway seeing the friends in the nursery made me wonder something.

Is it possible to adopt an imaginary friend? Not as an imaginary friend, mind you, but as a son or daughter? Take the imaginary friends in the nursery, for example. What if a couple, unable to have children of their own were visiting the mansion one day, for whatever reason. What if they saw these cute little imaginary friends and wanted to legally adopt one?

Would something like that even be possible and if so, how difficult would it be?

I, personally don't see it as beeing illegal to adopt an imaginary friend as a child, mainly because nobody ever considered the matter before. And in the show, kids who create imaginary friends are technically considered to be their parents. After Mac thought he created Cheese, he called him Bloo's brother.

But, there's the other point, what kind of life would an imaginary friend in that position lead? Oh, I imagine their home life would be good enough, but what about in public? We've seen how Mac's teacher treated imaginary friends in Emancipating complication, so I doublt public school would be an option. In fact, we've never actually seen imaginary friends attending school in the show.

I can almost imagine Foster's organizing a form of home school system for Imaginary Friends. And heck, you have to admit Mr. Heriman would fit perfectly in the category of stuffy old teachers, who talk for hours on end and put everyone to sleep with boring lecturs. And goodness knows no one could top Wilt as a basketball coach.

So, what do you think?

Those are some really great points you brought up there. I've wondered myself whether or not only families with children could adopt Imaginary Friends, or if a childless couple could do so. That had brought up a similar discussion awhile back(might have even been on the old forum) as to whether a single adult could adopt an Imaginary Friend. It seems to me that regardless of how many people are in the family, or whether there are children, there will always be the potential for abuse of the one being adopted. It also brings up the question as to whether or not any family could adopt an Imaginary Friend permanently, not just until their child got tired or him/her or got "too old". Most adoptions seem to be temporary, but I have to wonder if there would ever be families who would grow to love their adopted IF as a family member, and not every want to give them up and send them back to Foster's when the kids got "too old". Would the IF be happy in that situation, especially the ones that are really child-like, no longer having kids to play with once those in the family grew up, or would they be satisfied simply being nurtured by the adults as though they were the biological offspring? It would be ashame if a human couple really loved an Imaginary child(not just the "babies" in the nursury, but say, one that LOOKED like a human child, like the "spotted-tongue" version of Mac that Goo created), and had to give him/her back once their kids reached a certain age.

pitbulllady

Oh, yeah, I had almost forgotten about the imaginary Mac. That leads me to wonder, how close to a human being can an imaginary friend look? I mean the imaginary Mac got pretty close, except for the tongue. And Frankie actually thought Goofball McGee was a human.

I wonder if there are imaginary friends close enough to actually pass for a human. I know Goofball did, but only until his trunk was revealed. Who knows, some of the kids we've seen on the show might not be kids, after all.

Prince Charming(from "Frankie My Dear") sure looked-and ACTED-totally human, except for the clothes, but he obviously wasn't absolutely required to wear just that outfit, since he did change into drag(not his idea, though, clearly)in order to help spoil Frankie's date with Dylan. I don't think that anyone would have known that he was an Imaginary Friend, though, even with the princely clothes and the horse, but probably would have figured he was just this human guy who was a cup and saucer short of a full place setting. He definately had at least ONE of the primary interests as most young adult male humans, that's for sure!

pitbulllady

Now that I think about it, I wonder whatever happened to the Imaginary Mac, anyway. I don't tink he's been seen since Bus the Two of Us. I wonder if Mac thinks it's weird, having an imaginary friend running around that looks almost exactly like him. That could get confusing, too. Imagine if people mistake the real Mac for the Imaginary Mac, or vice versa, that could lead to some very interesting situations.

I could see that happening. Though, my question is would an IF be allowed in regular school? I mean you could be right about the home school thing, but it wouldn't be fair.

Maybe there might be imaginary schools and human schools. :D

Have we learned nothing from Brown v Board?

Uh...I don't really think too hard about these things, but there must be something about all of this stuff that just hasn't and probably won't be revealed to us.

Neither do I; even though there's nothing wrong with asking such questions. IMO, I highly doubt they'll ever answer those questions.

Well, these idiosycrancies in the world of Foster's do make it more interesting and I just think it's our curiosity that causes us to think about these sorts of things, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Still, it's definately something to think about.

Surely that would count as segregation. :o

I can think of two instances within the show in which IFs have been adopted by adults for their own purposes, both of which had negative outcomes. The first, of course, was Kip Snip's adoption of Bloo in "the Sweet Stench of Success" (Kip had tricked Bloo into signing the adoption papers; nonetheless, his initial offer was to adopt Bloo). The second occurs in "Emancipation Complication", when Mac's principal purchases Wilt, with apparently little more intention than to use him as a flag pole (and was presumably one of many adults who took advantage of the opportunity for inexpensive labour). In Kip's case I guess the legality of it is highly questionable, and given that the latter example occurred during Lil Lincoln's extremely shady reign it's by no means representative of standard Foster's protocol. Either way, I would hope that they're not totally opposed to the concept of childless adults adopting IFs, because I'm sure that there are many responsible adults out there who lead lonely existences and could certainly use the companionship of an imaginary friend - why would they have any less right to one than a lonely child? That said, the fact that most kids are persuaded to give up their IFs when they reach a certain age strongly implies that having an IF companion is widely regarded as a "kid's thing", to be put away with the Barbies and the G.I. Joes. I can see a couple who chose to adopt an IF and raise it as a child facing a whole load of social stigma. Anyone seen AI: Artificial Intelligence? I haven't since it first came out, but from what I remember the troubles faced by the robots in that movie might not be terribly different to what an IF might face if used as an alternative to a real child. I don't know, maybe it's not such a good example.

Naturally, I agree that we're never likely to receive answers to these questions, but it's still fun to think about them.

Some really good points there, though I do not regard either Kip Snip's trickery in "Sweet Stench of Success" or the actions of Lil' Lincoln in "Emancipation Complication" as "adoptions". Kip tricked Bloo into signing what Bloo thought was a business contract, then told him it was adoption papers, but in every case where a legitimate adoption was carried out at Foster's, it was in the presence of either Mr. Herriman or Frankie, and frequently, both, and they, too, had to sign papers. In the case of Lil' Lincoln, he clearly SOLD the Imaginary Friends for a profit to anyone who was willing to pay, without regard as to who was buying them or for what purpose.

There certainly is a case to be made for adults adopting IF's as friends or surrogate family members, or live-in care-takers. That would certainly apply especially to older people, who might not have any living relatives and who are lonely and just need someone around to help them out. Such a person would need a friend just as much as would a lonely child. You've made a good point, though, that apparently, there is still a stigma against a person still having an Imaginary Friend, whether or not that person created the IF in question. Yes, some adults still have theirs; Madame Foster and the guy at the bowling alley come to mind, and Jordan Michaels certainly had no qualms against HIS Imaginary Friend residing with him as family, either. In a way, had Wilt decided to go live with his creator, and had the two of them mutually agreed to go public, it would have done a lot to remove some of that stigma against adults having Imaginary Friends, since if a guy of Jordan's status, both in terms of celebrity and financial situation, can publically admit to having an Imaginary Friend, it must be a cool thing. I can see how Wilt would not wish for his relationship to a celebrity to be known, though, since that would cause many people to try and adopt him for that reason alone, like owning a car once driven by a movie star or something, and most of those people would probably not be very compatable.

pitbulllady

Who knows, maybe there's a whole group of people who view imaginary friends as status symbols more than anything else. This could lead to places like Foster's intervening and removing imaginary friends who aren't recieving proper treatment. That leads to another point. Does Foster's as an agency have any real authority when it comes to Imaginary Friends?

We know that they rescued food based Imaginary Friends from a fat camp. How would Madam Foster, Frankie or Herrimen go about removing an IF from a neglectful situation? Could they just swoop in and remove the friend, like a rescue mission? Or would they have to go some type of legal channels?

For that matter, is there some kind of government agency that regulates imaginary friends and their treatment? We've seen that when a child becomes too old for their friend, it's not uncommon to just drop them onto the street. Heck, in Good Wilt Hunting it appeared the basketball IFs actually lived in the alley.

I wonder how well IFs could survive on the streets or even in the wild. We've seen that Coco lived by herself, comfortably on a desserted island for presumably years. But then Coco had a natural advantage with her eggs. Who knows, some abandoned friends might even go feral, the way pet cats and dogs can, when they're abandoned.

The status of Imaginary Friends, along with their rights, is something that is definately left up in the air in the series. We do not know if there's any government agency that oversees the welfare of Imaginary Friends, and to which adoption agencies like Foster's(which appears to be the only one of its kind)must answer, as there is in the case of human children who are neglected, abandoned, abused or put in potentially dangerous situations. At times, the public perception towards them on the show contradicts itself. It's legal, apparently, to abandon an Imaginary Friend, but you can't murder one or harm one physically, since Mac pointed out to Coco that the group would go to jail if they killed Peanut Butter. They can apparently hold at least menial jobs, but they are rquired to obey the same laws as everyone else, and rather than having the Imaginary Friend's family or creator held responsible when an IF breaks a law(as is usually the case when a child breaks the law or an domesticated animal does something bad), the IF himself is held fully acountable, so it would seem that they are regarded more or less as adult humans, albeit a lower class of humans, somewhat like minorities were(and in some cases, still are)were regarded in the past. It's illegal to abandon an animal or a young child because the law recognizes that most cannot survive or at least have any quality of life without adult human care, but it seems that since IF's are regarded more as adult humans, it's assumed that they can take care of themselves. No one seems to question the idea of an Imaginary Friend on his/her own, without a human child or family, or treat them any different than they would an adult human. We see this also in Good Wilt Hunting, when no one even asked Wilt why he was traveling alone or treated him in any way that would make it seem that he was regarded as inferior to them, as a person. A child, or even a dog, wandering about unsupervised would have drawn some suspicion or at least comments.

I'd noticed all those apparently-homeless Imaginary Friends that populated the alleys in GWH, too, but then, this is a part of town where there are also a lot of homeless humans and where crime is rampant, so I guess that the situations which befall many humans living there would naturally befall IF's. I don't know, therefore, if the term "feral" would apply, since the IF's do not seem to become afraid of humans or avoid them as feral cats and dogs do, but since even humans living under those conditions on the streets of a large city must live by the "survival of the fittest" code, from day to day, I guess the IF's would, too. Some, like Wilt, are fortunate enough to find their way out of that and integrate themselves back into society, while others have to tough it out.

pitbulllady

Most likely not. The relationship would be an imaginary son or daughter and wouldn't be legally binding.