Job's adoption was a pivotal factor in his life

Lorraine

"If there was one trauma that persisted throughout much of his life, and which seems somehow connected to his extreme behavior, it was the effect of his adoption," according to the new biography of Steve Jobs, as reported in the Washington Post with Bloomberg Business this morning. Based on reading an advance copy of the new biography, the response was to a question asked by someone who knew Jobs: Why was he so mean?

Biographer Walter Isaacson was given complete control over the content of the book after Jobs asked him to be his biographer, and so it was not subject to Jobs's editing, and thus the answer above. From the Post:

At the age of 6 or 7, Jobs told the girl who lived across the street that he was adopted and she asked if that meant his “real parents didn’t want you.”


His adoptive parents, whom Jobs seemed to revere, explained that they had picked him out. But through much of his life, Jobs appeared to have been on an ill-defined spiritual quest — including a seven-month trip to India, extreme diets and primal-scream therapy. And the quest at times seemed to relate to his adoption, his friends told Isaacson.

“The primal scream and the mucusless diets, he was trying to cleanse himself and get deeper into his frustration about his birth,” a friend, Greg Calhoun, said.

The book chronicles the sometimes shabby treatment he accorded his adoring and ever-accommodating adoptive parents; the daughter he fathered when he was 23 and largely abandoned until she was 10; and how he appears to have cheated Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, during one of the duo’s first business ventures.

Steve Jobs's natural parents, "John" Jandali and Joann Schieble

We have wondered why there was not more about his birth mother, Joann Schieble Simpson, in the news, and we learned that she at 79 is institutionalized in a nursing home for serious dementia and is unlikely to even know that her firstborn has died. The (London) Daily Mail reports that after he found his mother the two kept in touch, as he did with his full sister, Mona Simpson. The mental condition of his mother has so far deteriorated she is said to have been admitted to a mental hospital after neighbours reported seeing her wandering the streets not appropriately dressed. She is now in a nursing home.  

 

Said a neighbor who knew her: 'She was a lovely woman so it was very hard to see her demise. Jobs knew about his birth mother's mental condition and is thought to have helped her financially. As any good and wealthy person might...we hasten to add.

WHY JOBS ADOPTION FASCINATES THE WORLD
We know we've covered the death and adoption of Steve Jobs, this amazing historic figure, in detail because his adoption continues to be big news, since he became such an iconic figure in the world. Frankly for us at FMF it is fascinating to see how it plays out in real life, without the usual fears of hurting someone (such as his adoptive parents) and in the hands of a respected biographer not connected personally to adoption (writer Walter Isaacson).  Full disclosure: I have a passing acquaintance with Isaacson. 

In the true life story of a major figure such as Jobs, there is no doubt that his adoption--and all four parents--are is going to be part of the story; no credible obit is going to fail to mention that Jobs was adopted. Yet there is frequently some skirmish about the obituaries of people not famous whether or not it will be mentioned that he or she is adopted, or that he or she was the adopted son or daughter of the deceased. Adoptive families often do not want it include that pertinent fact. But it is a true fact and is sure as hell is pertinent to the adopted. 

When my daughter Jane died, I had nothing to do with the funeral arrangements or the notices in the local newspapers in Wisconsin, but as I was a presence in her life from the time she was 15 on, I was included as her "birth mother," and so was my husband, as he for all intent and purposes was a kind of step-father. It did not say that she was the "adopted daughter" of, but then, it didn't need to.  

 

WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGMENT, WE DO NOT EXIST

Undoubtedly, my feelings that "adoption," if it is a fact of one's life, ought to be included in the obituary have to do with the fact that unless it is, we mothers are once again relegated to the status of non-person. If our children were adopted, and that is deemed not a fact of their true life records, than we, the biological mothers, cease to exist. We are the uteri passing by. I am sure this is a controversial concept, and that many adoptees will disagree; but this is a natural mother speaking out here. It meant a great deal for me to be included in my daughter's obituary, and it was the first thing I scanned the article for. Yes, she was the daughter of someone else, but to me, she was always "my daughter" first and foremost. Not "birth" daughter; my daughter. Adoptees may not agree--and intellectually I can understand your reasoning--but allow us birth/first/natural mothers our own emotions and feelings here.  

 

But that someone was or is adopted is often left out of the obituaries of ordinary people, and as I understand it, at the request of many adoptees. Perhaps it does make them feel "more" a part of the family if the truth is obfuscated. I may understand the squishy thinking, but then here we go again: Let's play Hide the Truth. Obituaries are supposed to be the true story of one's life, not some fairy tale version with white-washed facts. If a son or daughter was adopted, say so. The dead often give up the best clues for someone searching because of what is found in obituaries, but not if they do not contain all the facts, the true facts.

TRUTH IN LIFE AND IN DEATH
The kind of thinking that would obliterate the reality of an adoption rather than a natural birth fits nicely into the fairy tale that adoption doesn't make much difference in the life of the person adopted. Which is total baloney. And that feeds into the idea of:  Who needs their original birth certificate? Who needs to know? And if that's the case, then birth mothers, and natural mothers and just plain mothers who have given birth all have some sacrosanct right of "privacy" and "anonymity" from the children they gave up for adoption. Which is also total hooey. Life is what it is and everyone has the right to know the truth of his origins. Obituaries should be true stories. Case closed.--lorraine
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Our thanks to commenter SameOld today for alerting us this morning to the Washington Post story...and now I think I'll go have my first cup of coffee.  And to the Anonymous A who keeps informing me that Jobs did not search but was instead "ambushed" by his original family, if you have a source other than your imagination, do tell. All other sources say Jobs searched for his mother.
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For more see previous posts:   Steve Jobs Did Meet His Father--without knowing it

Steve Jobs, Mona Simpson, and Paternity: It's all in the family  

and  Like father, like son...John Jandali and Steve Jobs

Other sources: Washington Post  and Daily Mail.