As much as I've enjoyed reading about Steve Jobs's amazing life and achievements since his sad passing last week, I have to say this particular tribute irked me a little.
I'm not much of a "PC" kind of person, but first of all, a little rant about the term "put up for adoption". It's a careless term, one that implies a sort of nonchalance on the part of birth parents - as if they conducted an auction or raffle or something. It also carries the stigma of rejection, the "unwanted" child who was "lucky" to find a family. Children are PLACED WITH ADOPTIVE FAMILIES for various reasons - sometimes these placements are ethical and beneficial, and sometimes they are not. (The seemingly endless debate about the ethics of adoption is complex, emotional, and sometimes downright mean. I have had my heart pierced countless times while perusing the internet and participating in discussions with people who've been affected by adoption. It's a minefield out there. But I have learned. A lot. And for that I am grateful - although I do wish that people could dispense with the ad hominem attacks, mostly directed toward adoptive parents, and focus on the issues at hand; and that people could set aside their prejudices and preconceived notions about other members of the "adoption triad" - adoptees, birth/first parents and adoptive parents - and accept the fact that these are hard questions with equally hard answers, and that none of us possesses the necessary wisdom to solve all the problems that lead to relinquishment without the potential for causing unintended consequences...)
In the case of Steve Jobs, he appears to have been placed with a loving couple who nurtured his God-given talents and provided the opportunity for him to achieve his full potential. Could his birth parents, with some support, have done the same? Perhaps - and no doubt many of the talents possessed by Steve Jobs were, at least in part, inherited from his birth parents (a method by which God gives us certain traits and abilities). But I don't think the perception of adoption as some sort of "handicap" serves anyone well, particularly those who were adopted.
Adoption begins with loss, there's no questioning that. The extent to which this loss affects a child - and the adult he/she becomes - is very individual and therefore hard to quantify and impossible to predict. Some adoptees spend little time pondering the circumstances and "what-ifs" of their adoption, and simply consider themselves fortunate to have been placed with their adoptive families; others feel deeply wounded and express a great deal of anger about the loss of their birth families. Neither reaction is right or wrong - it is what it is for each person. I suspect that most adoptees fall somewhere in between the "extremes", and we all know from experience that seemingly contradictory emotions can be felt at the same time. Life is hard, and human beings are complicated. I recently read this excellent essay on the topic of "adoption guilt". It was written by an adult adoptee who is also an adoptive parent. I found it beautiful and inspiring, not just as an adoptive parent but also as a human being.
We can - and should - continue the debate about the ethics of adoption. I have many thoughts on that topic, and maybe someday I will find the time and energy - between diaper changes, loads of laundry, doctors' appointments, childhood illnesses and sibling conflicts - to piece those thoughts into coherent sentences and post them on the blog as a form of cheap therapy. But I think we need to dispense with the stereotypes about birth parents, adoptive parents, and mostly about adoptees - including my daughter and the woman she will become - because while we all are shaped by our experiences, we are also more than the sum of them. Steve Jobs did not become an American success story primarily because he was adopted, nor do I think it's fair to say (or imply) that he did so in spite of the fact that he was adopted. He was a talented, successful, complex human being who happened to have had adoption as a part of his history. I don't know whether he would have changed the fact of his adoption if he could have. I have a feeling, though, that he did not consider it some sort of "disability" or an obstacle to achievement. Neither should we.
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