Adoption assumptions
When Steve Jobs died, the press and public went into overdrive spinning mythical origin stories for him, and some of those stories concerned his status as an adoptive child. One graphic making the rounds had a picture of Jobs with the legend "Born out of wedlock. Put up for adoption at birth. Dropped out of college. Then changed the world. What's your excuse?" I saw other people referring to him as having been "rejected" or having a "rough start in life."
I take exception to this. While being adopted can certainly have far-reaching effects on an individual's life and identity, the fact that Jobs was adopted (or born out of wedlock, for that matter) does not itself mean that he had a rough start, and a look at his biography shows that there wasn't much exceptional about his early life. I won't repeat the details; you can Google it yourself. But suffice it to say that his birthparents made a well-thought-out adoption plan; they agreed to the Jobs family adopting him, albeit with reservations, when the first adoptive family backed out; he was raised in what sounds like a pretty normal home; and later he made contact with his birth relatives and established a relationship with his birth sister, also a talented and creative individual. Pretty typical stuff. We're not talking about Oliver Twist or Little Orphan Annie here. (As for dropping out of college, that was his choice, and it was probably because of that choice, not in spite of it, that he became such a success.)
The "What's your excuse?" line is an example of pathologizing adoption -- that is, assuming that it is "abnormal," that it's necessarily an obstacle to overcome, and that adopted people are always damaged. The flip side of it is that if you, too, were born out of wedlock and "put up for adoption at birth," you'd have an excuse for not changing the world. That's a pretty crummy message. There's a difference between holding someone up as an inspiration and using him as a case study.
In my experience, institutionalization, a poor home environment, and frequent moves to different homes are the aspects of adoption to be concerned about, and even then the effects depend on the individual. Two of my children were affected by those aspects of adoption, and one really wasn't. Not coincidentally, she is also the one who spent the least time in an orphanage. She would give you the evil eye if you said to her, "Wow, you really had a rough start in life! You would have a good excuse if you turned out to be a mess!" I have seen her evil eye, and you do not want to be on the receiving end of it.
Happily ever after
We are sci-fi/fantasy geeks, so of course we watched the premiere of "Once Upon a Time" the other night. It was fast-moving and entertaining, and I think the whole family is hooked. But they sure hit the adoption theme hard, didn't they? I mean, it's bad enough when the Wicked Queen is depicted as an evil stepmother (I say that as a stepmother), but when she is also an evil adoptive mother, that's a bit much to handle. Or it was for me. I kept asking the kids, "Are you okay with this? Don't you think it's sort of negative about adoption?" They shrugged. There was one line in the show that had to do with "that basic question [adopted children] all inevitably face: 'Why would anyone give me away?'" I asked the kids if that's a question every adopted kid faces. More shrugs. When I was still sputtering a bit at the end of the show, May said, "Mom. You take this stuff too seriously." So, yeah. They're not exactly bubbling over with feelings about adoption at this point in their lives. Sometimes I'm the one with the problem.
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