Sandra Bullock's Most Important Role

It's a little that's a little thing you're doing. Come mom, high, I have a little emotion right now. I didn't know good word. Look at this I'm in the room. Is this the same table? Did you guys switch it up? No? This is the same. It looks right or on camera it's yes. I started point that out for the audience. Look who we have here with us. It's an Oscar winner and one of my favorites, the super Special super Stoff Sandra Bullet in the house. Thank you for having me.

I really love what you guys are doing. You Sandra, She's probably one of the first people to reach out to me when we first started Red Table talk. Yes the original. Oh, I love it, and you have a fantastic movie out called The Unforgivable, and I want you to know your work is just outstanding. Thank you for watching it. Yeah. Absolutely, I was in prison. I just cut out accident. Damn. I'm looking for Katie. She's my little sister. I raised her. Can I help you with something?

What would Catherine Jane are meeting her now? I wonder all the time what she looks like. But she became. She did her time. She killed somebody in cold blood. If that were any of your black sons who had been in this system, and they would be dead. I gotta be a convict wherever I go. You're a cop killer everywhere you go, don't you like I told the Chest told her, I'll be about I was projecting her. I'm not a victim. I I don't care. I'm just sitting here going Wow, great cast, great cast. I'm just

living for the intensity. Big shout out to Viola and to Vincent. What drew you to it though? I mean, it just seems so different from anything you've done in the past. All my rage needed a place to say my daughter. I had an extraordinary experience through the foster care system was incredibly hard, but you know, I have the most glorious child to show for what exists within that system. Sort of my love letter to her. You have two beautiful children. You adopted Louis, and you fostered

Lila and adopted her. Yeah, she was in three different systems before I found her, and she was only two and a half. So just tell me when was the moment though, Sandrew that you were just like, Okay, I'm ready to have a family, and I'm going to take this route. I'm going to adoption. Yes, well, um, I don't know why that was the only route, but I'm so glad the universe had me wait, had me wait, even though I was anxious and I was eager, and I went, Nope, we're not going to do it the

way think you're going to do it. The sweetest part of it is that I found out about both babies when I was in the exact same place. I was in a place where my mother was buried Jackson. I was in the same place. It makes me really emotional, but I go I feel beyond a shadow of a doubt that my mother brought me these children's beautiful I knew I would be a mother. I knew I wouldn't be a mother at a young age because you were full on actress. Most Look, that's what I had. That's

all that I had. That was my joy. I was on a wheel. But it's hard when society is breathing down your neck going you are supposed to do it this way. You're always shoving that down women's throats. Yeah, in this amount of time, I don't want to go to Yeah, it's like, you know what my clock says, it's now. Yeah. Sometimes you feel that. But when Louis came into my life, he was put in my arms at ten days, I just knew and I said, this is this is my path. Wh now your daughter. You

had a journey through the foster care system. It's a system that exists and people don't know about it because it's it's a difficult thing to talk about. It gets deep and it gets dark. When I first went through the process myself, you have to prove that you are a capable parent and you're you're in in the judgment cage. I got halfway through it and I said, I can't do this. It was an out of body experience and

that they literally sit down and they ask you. They go, so, what do you think is the worst kind of abuse? What is the worst kind of drug? And alcoholic? I don't know, They're all bad. You're just going to if I don't answer this right right? Not fit. You had to take classes in regards to how to raise children

with trauma. Absolutely what I learned along the way that I might see, like I had my kids in my closet and with their little beds because I was so afraid to not have them super close to me, and I would walk in and I wouldn't be able to find her. She'd be in the closet with all her clothes on, she'd be on a bookshelf, she'd be hiding,

and she'd always be ready to leave. She's always telling me she's leaving, and it sometimes it was hilarious because she was just all power and she says, I'm leaving you, And I was like, okay, well I would be right behind you, so just know that you can leave. But

I'm I'm right hair but anywhere. And my partner said to me, he said, you know, when she's been with us longer than she hasn't been, I am a feeling we're going to see a change, and you love by leaning in and hugging and holding and letting them know that they are not going anywhere. I saw triggers happening on a daily basis that I could not identify because I took it personally, and I was like, that hurts me, that hurts me, that hurts me. And then I went

back to my training. I went, wait a minute, it's not about I mean, sometimes it is about me, and sometimes I am okay, no. But at that time, it was really hard to separate yourself and not be hurt because all you want to do is love. But guess what your love is not going to cut it right

then and there. Lila would hide food, you know, and it's it's survival, absolute survival, and her spirit and just who she is has pushed forward beyond the triggers and the fears that they'll come up for the rest of her life. They'll be there'll be fears that she has, but she knows that where she chooses to go to school, I'm moving there. So that's the joke in the house. You guys need to pick the same college. If you don't,

because I'm living there. How long do you think it took Lila specifically to just find her comfort zone, because she was three when you brought her home right the minute that I didn't have to sleep in the room with her, We didn't have to sit with her until she fell asleep. I mean, mind you, she was in the bed this morning, but when it wasn't a like exactly exactly exactly and how old is she? She's eight? Wow, let's see that year and a half, two years ago.

Have you identified for yourself what your superpower is? To Louis and then to nothing, he said, no, I know nothing, I have it. I have an idea. But I think you have a very strong superpower of compassion and resilience for because a small child who putting all her clothes on and hiding in the closet and saying she's gonna leave, and that's quite the emotional and mental roller coaster to even be in service that on. I don't think that I would. I don't have to think you would. You

would think I would not not, I would not. I don't. I don't because when you have a child, you never know what you're gonna get. Look at what happened there, But I don't know that that would be willing to take on that type of challenge, And yes, maybe I would after having met the job. But you went in not having met, but you made a decision off the top from the gate. That's quite the power, I ask, yes, but I would be commended. It is. My superpower is

that I'm good at saying sorry and I'm good at listening. Yeah, that parents couldn't say I'm sorry, and it was a generational thing. It was something that I now in retrospect, I can see their pain in their fear. But I say I'm sorry a lot, even when I'm right. But I'm sure I'm making tons of mistakes. But they know that I'm flawed, my partner's flawed, but both flawed, but

we show. It was like, you know, I don't like it when you fight, I said, but we fought in front of you, and she said yeah, and I said, and we're fine now and she goes, but you're not supposed to fight, said, you and Lou fight because but we're not a couple. I mean, I'm learning every day and and I've already told them. You know, I put money into the therapy fund, I said, I'm sure I'm pissed up here. I said, you guys have a therapy fund. Therapy for human beings. We need therapy. Yeah, and it's

it's washing of the brain. You're willing to get a facial wash the brain and take it out, clean it, what doesn't belong there, and throw it away. That's important. I panic it everything. I think all the time. Like I I when I go get up at night, I walk by the rooms and make sure they're breathing. What did you what were your realizations around that? Just net you know, as a mother, there's a white mother. As a white mother is a white parent who loves her

children more than life. And so I'm scared of everything. I know. I'm laying all kinds of existential anxiety on them, and I have to think about what they're going to experience leaving. They're gonna have my fears. But how can I make sure that my anxiety is act hear it protective? You know? With Lou being a young black man at one point, sweet funny Lou is going to be a young man in the minute he leaves my home, I can't follow him everywhere. I will try. I will try,

and I'm joking, but I'm not. I don't know what I will do, but I pray. I pray, you pray. But I've done a good enough job, scared them sufficiently. I've been schooling loose since he was six years old. He popped that hoodie on his head and I went and I said, let me just six point and I let him see everything. I let him see everything on to I let him process it. He knows how the world works. He knows how cruel it is. You knows how unfair it is. And now Lila's knowing it. And

she what was Brian watching? He was watching oh squid game. She walked out of the room and she was deprayed. I was like, what happened? I don't want dad to watch that? And I said, well, I don't. I'm not watching it. It's violent. Oh of course you should. She was because there's no black people in it. The fact that that was fire in her belly made me so happy that she was already voicing it's amazing. And I let them teach me and tell me what they need

to know. I thought I was educated and woke. I thought I had it all, and guess what I wasn't, Sandra. I wanted to ask you a question in regards to being judged to have people ever been like, well, Sandy, why would you adopt to black children? You know, did you ever feel you guess what? You you get the racism you get, the get there's been sure a lot

of it. Guess what. Your sickness is not my problem. Yeah, let me say this about your saying that a sickness too, because I don't think that that everybody that feels that way, um is racist. I think that they truly believe, because I know I did in the beginning, and I've kind

of changed my outlook on that. But feeling like it is better for a black to be raised in a black home, you know, And it's not a racist attitude, it's just as a protection for that child, absolutely so Yeah, but at the end of the day, it's kind of a pretty old and tired attitude. Yeah. You know, in this new day, my ideas around love and family has expanded. Yeah.

I really have come to the conclusion that love is love, absolutely, And I know it's hard for people to look at a white woman going I just have a hard time getting past that. I know, they push up against that and then they come into the home and it is just I go, let our, let our, let our human love be at the evidence, you know, because I'm still pissed in the morning when I go, I got you up at seven, I got everything right, and still you're late.

It's like, you know, you're supposed to bring me the bag. I'm supposed to do your edges, and now you need to sit down and execond to do it. Why are you taking away? It's chaos and I'm they leave the house and I go, why am I angry again today? And then they're gone and then I miss them. It's like and every parent has the same thing. So I'm like coming to our home and discovered the every parent

problem exactly, you know. And to say that I wish our skins matched, sometimes I do, because then it would be easy on how people approach us. It's our anxiety, it's our fear, it's our cross to bear. The minute you become a mom, and I have the same feelings as a woman with brown skin and being her babies or a white woman with you know, white bees, but the mother child you don't have to put a color on. Maybe one day that will go away, Maybe one day we will be able to see with different eyes, how

has your partner been during with me? He is? He has evolved on a level that is not human and what's he's part of the decision making. Hell no, all of this happened. I had let me first. And then when I met him and I was like, and we hadn't been together that long. I go, remember that NDA you sign when you photographed my son. He's like yeah, he's like he's still scared. His whole life had been

unraveled because of me. And I said, you know that still holds and he was like yeah, okay, okay, okay, why And it's like, because I'm bringing a child home when I come back from Toronto. Hand sorry what he was like, And he was so happy, but he was scared. I'm a bulldozer. My life was already on the track and here's this beautiful human being who doesn't want anything to do with my life, but the right human being to be there to help me be the crazy out

of the bottom. Yeah, but support, And you know what, he's the example. He's the example that I would want my children. I have a partner who's very Christian, and so there's very two different ways of looking at things, and I don't always agree with him. He doesn't always agree with me, but he is an example even when I don't agree with him that I go, if they can take away from Matt and if that is where they feel drawn to, then he's the exact right. That's

a beautiful way to be in this position. And you know I'm stubborn, but sometimes I need to sit back and listen and go. You're saying it differently, but we mean exactly the same thing, the same thing. It's hard to co parent, yeah, because I just want to do it myself. Yeah. I just wanted to ask if it was hard to set boundaries because of how traumatic their past had been. Louise wasn't he had the benefit of

having had me from the very beginning. Boundaries are huge, huge, even now when I want a helicopter and fly in um she differently than you're protecting for so long and scared and then you have to let them go. What happens. If something happens, you just hope you put everything that you can into them too. I mean, what do you do like when you guys left, how is that for you? We as a family have grown such a um strong connection. So even when my house was broken, into and I

had a lot of things. It was just it was just a lot to handle. No, I wasn't. It was doing Christmas, thank god. But you know, I had just gotten that house, my first house, and you know that's a big stepping stone for anyone. And you were invaded in the worst way. Yeah, pretty much. Did you still feel the ramification I had? I had a whole moment. It was rough, but you know, after I peeled myself off the floor, I took a deep breath. I said, you know what, I said a prayer, and I said,

we're gonna be okay. This is We're going to figure it out regardless. But it didn't. See my house was broken into. I was in it, and that's a different story. It's it's a difference, especially when you've been watching last I mean, how's the in the closet going kiss doesn't end? Well, I'm in the closet, not going to help, you know. But it was the one night that Louis wasn't with me.

It was the one night that ar nanny goes, let me just take him to my apartment, which is up the street, because you're gonna be out late, and I went, had he been home had he been home, I would have run to the closet was now my official closet, that was his bedroom, and it would have changed our destiny forever. So why was he not home on that one night and the violation of that? Yeah, I wasn't the same after that. I was unraveling. And that's hard.

So I don't know, that is really hardcore. But that's what I'm asking you, Like, what how long you know did it take to take you feel? Because that's that's unless you address it. Yeah, you're you're sitting there. I still get scared. Um, I got my kiddis never there alone though I make sure that. But you were still traumatized. But I had to keep telling myself, I'm good. You know what I mean. But you have PTSD. You you were that you were violated. I wasn't there, which makes

it No, it doesn't make it better. It's just different. But the thought the violation is the same. Let it is, you know, And and look, I I haven't been alone since the day it happened. But did they catch the guy? Oh? Yeah? And this is what's sad is that the system failed him. There was a altercation with SWAT and he killed himself, Wow, how has that journey of healing been like that? That? That's hard? It was. There are some layers. I didn't realize what PTSD was until I was this is the

oddest thing. I would look left out of a car, not right. I would look left and I would start sobbing. And I thought to myself, I'm a single parent and this child is going to absorb nothing but fear and trauma and shame from me in the most pivotal times of his life. And I was like, I don't want to drop that load of baggage onto my beautiful child. So I discovered something called E M d R yeah, which amazing was the most healing. I was so scared

to do it. Okay, what is that? They use it for trauma and PTSD is start tapping involved, It can be tapping, it can be I had the paddles UM and it is literally the therapist going start where you

first find yourself in the house. And I was like, well, I was in the closet and I heard him banging on the door and and then UM and they said, okay, hold that feeling, and then he started vibrating the paddles and the paddles were inconsistent, so in your minds, where your eyes are closed, I was going back and forth mentally to wherever the paddle was vibrating. So what that is doing is rewiring your synapses. I think I'm saying this right. And so by the time he took me

through was about two hours worth. I realized I'd gone on this entire journey and it was inside my house. But all of a sudden it went too unsafe relationships, unsafe childhood moments, unsafe thing. And when I got out of it, I realized I have surrounded myself often with unsafe people and situations and put myself there. I no one else to blame it myself because that was the most familiar feeling I had, And I went understand that one,

and that one that's a big one. I was in New Orleans with my friend Da day and he was sitting there. He goes, why are you making that noise? Stop? And I go, I'm not making I was literally looking through an architectural digest. I love the design. He goes, but every time you flip a page, you're going And I went, I am because every time you flipped a page, and I went I have anxiety that I am sitting in the place that I want to be in doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, and I had

extreme anxiety. I went, that needs to stop. So in that E. M. D. R. Journey, I had to take ownership of everything that I brought into my world because it felt comfortable, and realized it no longer had a place. So, you know, I also vanity got. I was looking at my body and I said, it's going to break. It was not responding well to what was happening. The timeline is crazy. Louis had a Grandma Segar. He had a

really high fever. I thought he had died. Two days later, I pulled my hair tight, went to the Academy awards. Pulled it too tight. Day later, I was bitten by a poisonous spider. My hair starts falling out. I have alopecia spots everywhere. I'm like, what the hell? And I've always had hair, And I'm by the tub laying out hair and going to the break in happens and I literally had to take inventory, going if I don't pull

it together, I'm gonna die. The stress. Something is going to happen to my body that I can't control, and I can control almost everything. I know God really, so the m DR. I sought counsel, and I will seek it again, and I will. I learned to ask for help. I'm not good at asking for help. It's not how I was raised. I had to ask for help. I'm

still not great at it, but I'm getting better. And it was my children who showed me that unless I pull it together right now, I'm not going to be around to have the moments that I want to have. But if someone said to me, they go, it had to be loud for you. Didn't what are you talking about? And they said, it had to be loud for you because you're kind of hardheaded and you're stubborn. It had to be loud for you to stop point the finger

at yourself and make the change. And I went, yeah, I heard it, So we're gonna do I was so excited. So we're gonna bring the fishbowl out, fishbowl, fish bowl, thank you, thank you, Sandy with you'd like to go? For sure, I'll take the top one. Just because it was screaming, Okay, Kelly from Miami, I need advice. My adopted daughter is starting to ask questions about our biological parents. Do you think I am a horrible person if I

don't support this someday? Big one. It's a big one because you feel like it's an affront against you, like you weren't enough. Each situation is different, like what I will explain with lout would be very different from lying. But it's a hard one because you're not a terrible parent. You love your child and you're thinking, why am I not enough? It has nothing to do with you, It

has nothing to do with you at all. It's it's a it's a big one because you're never gonna look at your mom going I want to know what else is out there? She never looked at her saying you know, I want to know what else is out there? You is this? Mama? Have to be like, it's not me, It's just your journey and I'm just honored to be on it with you. It takes a lot. It's a hard one though I don't know it's it's a hard one.

That is a hard one. Maryam from Houston. I am divorced and now live with the love of my life. We want to have children, but I have no interest in getting married again. Everyone keeps telling me that it's unfair to the kids. Sandra, you are a role model to me, So I need advice should I should not? I am someone who went through the divorce process. I found the love of my life, but you shared two beautiful children, three children, his older daughter, the best thing ever.

So I don't want to say do it like I do it. But I don't need a paper to be a devoted partner, that's devoted mother. I don't need to be told to be ever present in the hardest of times. I don't need to be told to weather a storm with a good man. So if that's what you have, think about what kind of parent he would be. Think about what kind of parent you would be, and what if something happened, would you both be great parents to those children even if you didn't make it as a couple.

Think about the children first. Yeah, that's a good one. It's really good to have to think about that person is as a parent, and if that person will still parents, if even if you're not together. And my whole thing is it's really about a is this the right person that you want as a partner for that? Because a lot of people are like, oh no, we have to agree on everything. We have to like the same things.

He has to be everything when it's like no. What's most important is that they are a good example, because example walking around the house. Not just someone who's going to be fulfilling all your romantic needs. Yeah, that's real, that's the realist right there. I got me covered. Here we go. Jackie from London. I'm forty eight and never had children. I waited for the right guy, but that never happened. The pandemic made me realize I have a hole in my soul and I want to adopt. Everyone

tells me I'm crazy. Please give it to me straight. Did my dream of being a mom passed me by? Should I just be happy? Being an aunt makes you want to cry? I get the whole. I get it. Um. There's always always a soul out there that needs you her to be their parents. You're put through the wringer. They ask a lot of questions, had to have people write letters about my character. I'm like, oh my god, But the soul that you are supposed to parent is out there and it's ready for you. You just have

to be willing to go through the gamut. That feels very violating. That feels very invasive, that feels it's questioning your ability to be a good and loving parent. And be okay with that because that soul deserves to have those questions asked. And when you find it and they connect you with it, you'll understand why you're forty eight when you started a journey. So please do because that soul is wondering the same thing out there, going when

is someone going to come love me? Yeah, the right child will choose you, and it won't be an infant. It might not be two or three, it might be seven, might be twelve. So it makes me sad that you have that whole But the times now, times now, and you know what, it's so interesting because biological parents don't go through that and probably we should. Yeah, but nobody, nobody, You don't have I don't. You're not going through an interview to see how fit you are to really parent,

and we probably should. It makes you feel really scared when you go through the process. But if they look at me and go, you're not enough, you know. But at three o'clock in the morning, when Lila crawled into bed with her noise canceling headphones on because somebody's nors and stop me. Um, I go, I am enough because this is where she chooses to be. When she's sixteen, I might not be, but right now you are an and no mother's enough when a child, especially, I just

know that you don't take it personal. Okay, I wasn't it started just individualize. No, No, I wasn't. I wasn't like a like like the quintessential problem. I wasn't the quintessential problem. I just had a lot of emotional issues, have emotional issues. There were a lot of questions, a lot of feelings, a lot of a lot of failings, a lot of feelings, a lot of questions. She thought it was emotional issues, but it wasn't. Just called it

presented like emotional issues. But it's puberty. Yeah, it's like, I remember what I was like and how I struggled. I struggled big time, and I didn't have ears to listen and help, and I remember it clearly. Yes, because it's freaking but it's hard. It's a struggle. Everything out painful. Yes, there's a whirlwind every day, yeah, every day, everything everything. But then you turned eighteen and nineteen nineteen nineteen, Look

where you are now in the voice you have. I mean I watched things that come out of your mouth and I'm like, I wouldn't notice say that, right, I wouldn't know to like in the bravery that you have to be completely authentic, which is what this table is really profound in doing. I mean, it's that's why I

like what you did from the get go. You guys, you brought it I'm not gonna say it to the tablet and you did it authentically and you shared what most people would say, Oh, I wouldn't share that about myself. You know, you presented who you were authentically and gave those of us watching the ability to let go of our shame. And it's a powerful thing. You have so many watching, and so thank God for those feelings and questions because it landed you. Here is an educator see Sandy,

thank you for having met you guys. I really love what you guys are doing something I'm so nervous. I was like, I have not spoken. The only other person I spoke to was you, and I'm like, I have to leave the house. I have to speak to people, have to reveal my soul. What's what was this? You're just is she awesome? You're a really really strong woman. Really you know what I am, and I am and sometimes I wish it wasn't so, because sometimes I just wish I could let myself just fall apart. But it's

not my time yet. I'll fall apart when it's my time. Absolutely, I have a spirit that just says, even when things were bad, I'm like, it's going to get better. I'm lucky. Yeah, thank you for having me. In America, nearly four hundred eight thousand children are in foster care. There over a hundred thousand children waiting to be adopted. Jackie from London. Yeah, listen to the words data saying right now, Jackie from London. Sandra's fantastic new movie That Unforgive a Bull is in

theaters now and on Netflix December tenth. Make sure to check it out. Yeah, thank you saying thank you guys so much, thank you, thank you. That was a great table. Yeah, that was a great table. Love and life just is I think I'm on. I'm one of the originals that came to the Red table watching it and it's it's a it's a beautiful thing that they do. They're real, they don't put on an artifice that makes you feel like you're not good enough, and um, they have conversations

that we wish more people would have. The heel. I'm so grateful I was here and they're cute, We're so we're so pretty. It's like I keep looking at their faces and I'm like, really like, it's like you think it's just magic and lights. There's no lights and mews. They just they just look good. So I'm going to keep my resentment down and just be grateful that I was here and that they had me at the table. Thank you to join the Red Table Talk family and

come a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.