In profiles of four families, the film portrays the profound desire of many “retarded” people to raise children and the social and legal barriers they have to overcome to be able to do so. It also reveals the emotional price their children may pay as they get older and outgrow their parents’ mental abilities. The film offers an often brutally frank perspective on the new and growing phenomenon of people who were once institutionalized and sterilized as “feeble minded,” but who are now having children of their own. It poses the fundamental question about the rights of parents versus those of their children.
