When I heard that Steve Jobs stepped down for Apple — and it sunk in as to what that really meant — I found myself sniffling back tears.
When I read an article from TechCrunch that Laurie shared and learned that Steve is an adoptee, I wept openly. There was no way I was getting through that article without tears when I read how his birth mother made his adoptive parents promise to send him to college.
Every mother — biological, birth, adoptive, step, you name it — wants their children, however they are theirs, to have all the best in life. So often young, expectant mothers are told that if we just do this one thing — relinquish our children — that we are guaranteeing them a better life. Sometimes that’s not true. Sometimes it is. The path that Jobs’ birth mother took changed the world as we know it, thus proving again that adoption does not only affect the child, the adoptive parents and the biological parents. It changes the course of a life. And sometimes that life changes our lives, however far separated we are from that one decision, that one name on a line.
I was tender after learning about Jobs’ and his history with adoption. I pondered, briefly, where his birth father is, if he was still alive and what he thought about everything. I got my answer from a rather sensationalized piece in the New York Post. It’s not even really a horrible piece with finger-pointing and blame-games; I just find it completely inappropriate time wise. Jobs and his family are dealing with so much right now. The guilt trip tone of the article seems rather crass, placing blame on Jobs instead of taking blame for being the one not to reach out to his son.
I do have compassion — to a point — for Abdulfattah John Jandali. Mostly in the same way that I have compassion for other birth fathers who were simply left out of the adoption decision. As he said in the piece, he thinks that failing his two living children (he and Jobs’ birth mom, Joanne, had another daughter together after they married but they later separated and divorced) caused him to never have children. I’d take that back one step farther and argue that the relinquishment decision that he was not involved shaped how he parented or, in his case, became an absentee father. It’s hard to tell, of course, and we’ll never know the answer. But as someone parenting two children post-relinquishment, I maintain that the adoption shapes and contorts and affects my parenting, my decision making and my abilities.
Where my compassion runs out, however, is his inability to reach out to his biological son before time runs out. I believe that Jandali is not after Jobs’ money, as he so worries will be thought if he reaches out. But this is it, Jandali. This is it. It’s honestly now or never. And if you can’t get over “what people might think” to let your son know that he is loved? Well, you’ll live with that. I wonder if that’s why Kristin Chenoweth’s birth mother won’t reach out. Or why other celebrity adoptees refuse to meet their birth parents. I wonder if those birth parents are feel satisfied in knowing that something they took a chance on — relinquishment — ended up in a good way. I don’t know.
I do know this: If I didn’t have contact with the Munchkin when she was a famous, world-changing adult and she was dying, I wouldn’t be worried if society, her parents or even she thought that my contact meant that I wanted her money. I would suck up pride and fear and whatever else was holding me back and I would just do it. Nothing in this world would be able to keep me from telling my daughter that I loved her, that I was proud of her and that I would miss her terribly.
My thoughts go out to all those who are a part of Steve Jobs’ life at this time.