What Adoption Did to Steve Jobs
The film Steve Jobs by director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin speaks the truth in a way no other film has about Steve Jobs and about the adoption experience for adult adoptees. It provides a sense of what adoption did to Steve Jobs,
This past weekend, I went to a local movie theater to see Steve Jobs at the suggestion of my friend, venture capitalist Stewart Alsop, who is mentioned in the film. I was born a stone’s throw away from the Apple founder. And like Jobs, I was adopted. My first computer was an Apple IIe. My second was a Mac, and then a Palm Pilot, and every iteration since, including the iMac, Macbook, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. (Add to that the PC/ Windows platform iterations as well . . . I am a woman of many tech gadgets.)
I have always seen Job’s unique persona as one that is inextricably interwoven with his adopted-ness. Though his being adopted has been well-reported, no one seemed to recognize how it, in so many ways, made him who he was. No one ever seemed to put that together until this film. This first scene — the first in a triptych of scenes between Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs and Jeff Daniels as former PepsiCo-turned-Apple CEO John Sculley — laid me bare.
Being Chosen Is a Story Adoptees Are Told
Being chosen is a story that many well-meaning adopted parents tell their adopted children. In fact, many parents read The Chosen Baby to explain how we came to be adopted and, therefore, are special.
However, the chosen baby construct isn’t entirely honest. We were never selected. Rarely, if ever, are adopted parents given the opportunity to “choose” their child from an array of multiple babies. We do not come in litters. Adopted children put that together pretty quickly. On Amazon.com, one adopted adult reviewer of the book adopted a child and was warned not use the book. The reviewer states:
“I still had the original book so I re-read it and soon understood the problem. In this book, the social worker is telling the prospective parent that they would find just the right baby for her, and not to worry if they didn’t feel that baby was what she wanted, they would find her another one. My mother, whom I loved dearly, used to tell me that she had sent a baby back. She said she had a big head. I’m sure from her perspective she was trying to make me feel special, but did it?”
The Flip-Side to Being Chosen
As you view the life of Steve Jobs and other adoptees, know that there’s a flip side to being told one was chosen: the underlying fear that one may be sent back from whence we came if we are not special enough. Clearly, those of us who have gone on to achieve great things do so for a whole host of reasons. For many adult adoptees, adoption provides a compelling reason for achievement.
“It’s having no control. You find out you were out of the loop when the most crucial events of your life were set in motion. As long as you have control . . . I don’t understand people who give it up.” — Steve Jobs (Aaron Sorkin)
He was, in effect, his own creation. Many adult adoptees do that because we are not the reflections of our adopted parents. Few understood the nuances of Steve Jobs’ inner life as well as Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Chief of Design.
“So much has been written about Steve, and I don’t recognize my friend in much of it. Yes, he had a surgically precise opinion. Yes, it could sting. Yes, he constantly questioned. ‘Is this good enough? Is this right?’ but he was so clever. His ideas were bold and magnificent. They could suck the air from the room. And when the ideas didn’t come, he decided to believe we would eventually make something great. And, oh, the joy of getting there!”
As an adult adopted person, I grew up not knowing who my birth parents were. My adoption records were sealed and remain sealed to this day. My birth certificate was amended and my adoptive parents’ names are listed as though they gave birth to me. Like Steve Jobs, I realized I was given up or, in coarser terms, “rejected” by my family of origin. Like Jobs, my adopted parents told me that while I wasn’t expected, I was selected.
Chosen.
I watched the film and was completely blown away by the statement and the unexpected searing rawness of what he said. Like you I was born in a filing cabinet (!) and adopted at six weeks. It has taken me a long time to get here. I had this big fear all my life that if I did not please people something devastating would happen, I would be sent back. It never happened of course but I have pushed and pushed to achieve and over achieve often at high personal expense and find myself now leading in my role as chief executive. I am so grateful people have found me during my journey and lifted me on and encouraged me deeply and every day to find my authentic Self. I wish you well my friend, thank you so much for this piece.
Wow! Chosen. I was adopted, and I was anything but chosen. I have struggled most of my life with feeling inferior and the need to be good enough to be “chosen”. I’m in my fifties now, and I’m finally clear about who I am and free of the need to be chosen. You see, I was tossed around between orphanage and mother and various foster homes until I was five. In official social services records that I recently acquired it states that one family returned me because I fidgeted with my fingers. The family that adopted me later made it a point to tell me that they “got me” to do housework, which I did dutifully. Chosen? Who needs it?
I could write a book about my situation, however, I was adopted at six months old, in Montreal, by parents from Ontario. My adoptive parents went through a hallway, glassed in allowing them to look at the babies available. My mother favoured a blond boy but my dad wasn’t moved. Finally the nuns brought me out as apparently I was just signed over for adoption( untrue). So this is how I grew up in Ontario. Years later it cost me $450.00 for Social Services to check my records, find my birth mom and initiate contact. Now that I have met birth family I know that what adoptive parents are told about their chosen baby is a crock…and I have heard similar stories over and over again ( not mentioned here). That’s why we Adoptee’s need the truth early in life to be able to find our place in ie culture, language, traditions, medical history….to feel who we really are….thanks for listening….all good..now…
Many times I would read criticism of things Steve Jobs would do or so, and I would think, that is such adopted-guy behavior. These people have no clue. They think it’s him, but I was willing to bet so much of it was a result of adoption, and I so I was delighted to read your article. You got it. Thank you.
Anne Heffron, author of You Don’t Look Adopted
Very powerful review and movie scene. Thanks! P.
Wow! Chosen. I was adopted, and I was anything but chosen. I have struggled most of my life with feeling inferior and the need to be good enough to be “chosen”. I’m in my fifties now, and I’m finally clear about who I am and free of the need to be chosen. You see, I was tossed around between orphanage and mother and various foster homes until I was five. In official social services records, which I recently acquired, it states that one family returned me because I fidgeted with my fingers. The family that adopted me later made it a point to tell me that they “got” me to do housework, which I did dutifully. Chosen? Who needs it? Yes, I believe that adoptees are too often thought of as chattel.
Although I am not adopted, I am an Adoptive Mom, and I have always believed that children choose their parents before they come to this earth. I guess from a spiritual perspective I have seen it so many times, I believe the Universe has a bigger plan…
Although I have not seen the movie Jobs, I intend to. I wonder if I will feel differently after I see it?
as an adoptee, I agree – yes, we do choose our parents but then adoption agencies rip us away from them to give to strangers.
Thank you for your thoughts. I do hope you see the movie and that it begins to shed light on the adoption experience for you. Steve Jobs (Aaron Sorkin) speaks the truth about the adoption experience — a truth that is as wildly complex as it is painful. “It’s having no control. You find out you were out of the loop when the most crucial events of your life were set in motion. As long as you have control . . . I don’t understand people who give it up.” No amount of love from a caring adoptive parent erases the primal wound experienced by many, if not most, adoptees. No amount of love erases the biological part of an adoptee, the biological heritage, and our very genetics. While my adoptive parents are my parents in function, my original parents are my parents in form. I am the sum total of both influences. You can’t have one without the other. I believe, as do many adoptee rights advocates, that both sets of parents have an obligation to help (adult) adoptees heal and to integrate both parts of themselves. Adult adoptees are the only class of Americans denied our original birth certificates, and in turn, a current medical history which has potential life-saving information. Case in point: my birth father’s family had a history abdominal aortic aneurysms. When those aneurysms burst, you can bleed out in a matter of a couple of minutes. Thankfully, I searched for and found my birth parents and he shared that medical history with me so that I can be screened for that issue to prevent a sudden and untimely death. So, to your point, yes, I often like to believe we are spiritually guided in life as if the Universe has a bigger plan for us. Adoptive parenting can be part of that plan, but it is a journey. Please, embrace your whole child, not just the adopted side, or he/she will inevitably feel unloved, if not unloveable.
I was immediately placed in FACS care when I was born. I always knew my birth mother loved me enough to do that. And I was placed immediately in an incredible family. Grew up knowing I was loved so much by them. Told from day one about my adoption. I also had a sibling who threw it in my face constantly that I was not ‘one of them’ and my dear mum would find me sitting in a corner crying my heart out, feeling so alone in the world. My mum would try to reassure me by telling me I was their ‘chosen one’ but my sibling found a way to turn that around. I knew I was loved but always felt alone and inferior, always felt lost and out of place and very different. Despite the love and honesty and encouragement I grew up with. I found my birth mother (with my mum’s encouragement – when I was a teen, she saw and encouraged me to ‘find my people and complete the circle of my life,’ but I loved and respected her too much to turn her life upside down. Just over 10 years after her passing, I found my birth mother. She acknowledged and accepted me into the last two years of her life. I finally felt complete. I was always shy and unsure of myself and for my life, I was successful, children of my own, education and a very great well paying job (oddly, in technology). Maybe I was driven to achieve the little I did manage and didn’t achieve the drive and success of Jobs, but I know every circumstance of my life is affiliated with being adopted, and with my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I grew up in the Bible Belt and was told first I was chosen/special, then I was no worse than anybody else, then there was nothing wrong with me, then when I became a big failure, I was treated like a crazy outcast and failure.
I didn’t give being adopted much thought until I was middle aged and picked up Primal Wound and Journey of the Adopted Self. I saw then why I had been failed in life, working hard in the wrong directions because I didn’t know where I came from and didn’t know who I was and consequently hated myself which robs me of the will to do anything. I came to understand my ‘self’ which was half artificial (the adopted side) and half dead (the biological side)
And I filled with rage and depression because I know how hard I tried AND NOBODY HELPED ME OR GAVE ME A CHANCE!