Following the lives of Dave and Joe, ages 52 and 67, this feature film delves deep into the issues that adoptees in closed adoption face. The unexpected conclusion of both men's stories underscores the need for change in adoption policy in all fifty states in America.
Showing posts with label Jean Strauss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jean Strauss. Show all posts
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Monday, December 5, 2011
Dark Side of Adoption: 'Steve Jobs' and 'Blue Nights' #adoption
'Steve Jobs' and 'Blue Nights' Reveal Dark Side of Adoption
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
ABC News – Wed, Nov 23, 201
(ABC News) http://news.yahoo.com/steve-jobs-blue-nights-reveal-dark-side-adoption-125404247.html
Quintana Roo Dunne, the adopted daughter of writer Joan Didion, had frequent nightmares about "The Broken Man" -- an evil repair man in a blue shirt with a L.A. Dodgers cap and "really shiny shoes" who told her in a deep voice, "I'm going to lock you here in the garage."
"She described so often and with such troubling specificity that I was frequently moved to check for him on the terrace outside her second-floor windows," wrote Didion, 76, mourning the death of her daughter in the memoir "Blue Nights."
Quintana died of acute pancreatitis in 2005 at the age of 39, only two years after the death of her adoptive father, writer John Gregory Dunne, who was the subject of "A Year of Magical Thinking."
Didion agonizes about her parenting and Quintana's recurrent fear of abandonment and a failed reunion with her biological family. "Adoption," Didion writes. "I was to learn, though not immediately, is hard to get right."
Such fear also haunted Apple founder Steve Jobs, who died last month at the age of 56. In numerous interviews with family, friends and lovers, biographer Walter Isaacson unveiled the dark side of adoption in his life.
Jobs ultimately formed strong bonds with his sister, author Mona Simpson, but he refused to meet his biological father, despite the lifelong sense of loss.
More than 1.5 million Americans are adopted, about 2 percent of all children, according to the New York City-based Evan B. Donaldson Institute for Adoption.
Both bestsellers, "Blue Nights" and "Steve Jobs," expose an unspoken truth in the adoption world: Fear of abandonment is universal.
"Attachment and abandonment issues are part of every adoption. It's just a matter of how much," said Marlou Russell, a Santa Monica, Calif., psychologist who works with adoptive families. She, too, was adopted.
"In the best-case scenario, everyone is on board," she said of adoption. "But you cannot separate a child from its mother without an impact. There is always an impact."
Parents of an earlier generation told their children, "You're adopted and you were chosen and very special," said Russell, who is author of the 2002 book, "Adoption Wisdom."
"The problem with that," she said, "is that, "If my adopted parents chose me that means there was someone else who didn't choose me.'"
Such was the thinking of young Quintana Roo Dunne, according to her mother's account in "Blue Nights."
When her beautiful little girl was born at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica in 1966, friends told Didion, "You couldn't possibly tell her."
Many viewed adoption as "obscurely shameful, a secret to be kept at all cost," according to the author.
But Didion said they never thought to do otherwise. "What were the alternatives?" she writes. "Lie to her? Leave it to her agent to take her to lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel?"
Quintana was baffled by their explanation that she was "chosen," according to her mother: "What if you hadn't answered the phone when Dr. Watson called?" or "What if you hadn't been home, what if you couldn't meet him at the hospital, what if there'd been an accident on the freeway, what would happen to me then?"
Psychologist Russell said she advises adoptive parents to say, "Your birth parents were unable to take care of you at that time and that covers every situation, even if they go on to parent other children."
"When you get the story line that you were adopted because you were very loved, that sets up love to mean leaving, and you might leave them, too," she said. "I tell parents not to use love and money or poverty. ... If you are in Toys R Us and say you can't buy something because you can't afford it today, they might think you can pack your bags and go."
Quintana had a fascination with meeting her "other mother." She wondered what she looked like and when her father asked what she would do if she met her birth mother, the girl replied, "I'd put one arm around Mom and one arm around my other mommy and I'd say, 'Hello Mommies.'"
In 1988, a letter arrived from Quintana's full sister, who was one of two siblings born after their mother and father married. "They were "strangers," according to Didion, who "welcomed her as their long lost child."
A reunion was arranged, but it was a weekend of "willed excitement, determined camaraderie and resolute discovery," Didion writes. Soon, Quintana seemed distraught and "on the edge of tears" when her birth mother wanted to explain why she gave her baby up and kept calling.
Eventually, Quintana backed off from her newfound relatives, telling them it was "too much to handle" and "too much too soon" and she needed to "step back."
Her birth mother disconnected her phone and cut ties, Didion says. "She didn't want to be a burden."
The two sisters sent flowers when Quintana died.
Steve Jobs knew from a young age that he had been adopted and had a similarly conflicted relationship with his biological family.
When he was 31, his adoptive mother was dying of lung cancer and he peppered her with questions about his past. "When you and Dad got married, were you a virgin?" he reportedly asked her, according to his biography.
"It was hard for her to talk, but she forced a smile," Isaacson writes. "That's when she told him she had been married before to a man who never made it back from the war. She also filled in some of the details on how she and Paul Jobs came to adopt him."
In the early 1980s, Jobs had hired a detective to look for his birth mother, but found nothing. Until then, he had been hesitant to tell his parents about the search, afraid he would hurt their feelings. But when Clara Jobs died in 1986, he told his adoptive father, Paul Jobs, and began a search in earnest.
Jobs learned the name of his mother -- University of Wisconsin graduate student Joanne Schieble -- and through her the name of his sister. Mona Simpson was a full biological sibling, born after his mother married his biological father, Syrian academic Abdulfattah "John" Jandali.
Jandali left Jobs' biological mother and daughter when Simpson was 5 and she went on to remarry and divorce.
Jobs eventually arranged a reunion, hoping to tell his mother she had "done the right thing."
"I wanted to meet [her] mostly to see if she was OK and to thank her, because I'm glad I didn't end up as an abortion," he told Isaacson. "She was 23 and she went through a lot to have me."
Both mother and sister spent Christmases at Jobs' house, but his birth mother often burst into tears, telling him how much she loved him and apologizing for giving him up. "Don't worry," Jobs told her, according to his biographer. "I had a great childhood. I turned out OK."
Jobs said he was surprised at how much he and Simpson were alike. "As we got to know each other, we became really good friends and she was my family," he said. "I don't know what I'd do without her."
Still, he never took an interest in meeting Jandali. Jobs, then a wealthy man, worried about being blackmailed, but he also was angry that his father had left his family.
"He didn't treat me well," Jobs said. "I don't hold anything against him -- I'm, happy to be alive. But what bothered me most was that he didn't treat Mona well. He abandoned her."
Steve Jobs' decision to ignore his father's overtures was likely rooted in issues of control, according to psychologist Russell.
Even for a man as in control and successful as Jobs, adoption inevitably evokes "a lot of pain and heartbreak," she said.
"When adoption occurs, everyone is out of control," Russell said. "It's a crisis. Adoption doesn't happen when things are going well. Sometimes adoptees do not want to meet their birth parents and the bottom line for that is to be in control, not to meet someone who wants to meet you. The last bastion of power is to say, 'no.'"
But Jean Strauss, a Washington state filmmaker who for 30 years has chronicled the lives of adult adoptees in books and documentaries, argues the "secrets inherent in adoption are diminishing and disempowering."
Fostering open adoptions and allowing adoptees to freely learn about their identities is critical for psychological well-being. Strauss, herself, reconnected with her birth mother and an entire biological family when she was 35.
"Steve Jobs and Quintana Roo did have different experiences and choices regarding their birth parents," Strauss said, "but as the writer Betty Jean Lifton once said, 'It isn't what you find, but that you find it.'"
[Unless a psychologist is an adoptee, they can never truly know or understand what we go thru as adoptees... I wrote my memoir to help them "get" us...Trace]
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
ABC News – Wed, Nov 23, 201
(ABC News) http://news.yahoo.com/steve-jobs-blue-nights-reveal-dark-side-adoption-125404247.html
Quintana Roo Dunne, the adopted daughter of writer Joan Didion, had frequent nightmares about "The Broken Man" -- an evil repair man in a blue shirt with a L.A. Dodgers cap and "really shiny shoes" who told her in a deep voice, "I'm going to lock you here in the garage."
"She described so often and with such troubling specificity that I was frequently moved to check for him on the terrace outside her second-floor windows," wrote Didion, 76, mourning the death of her daughter in the memoir "Blue Nights."
Quintana died of acute pancreatitis in 2005 at the age of 39, only two years after the death of her adoptive father, writer John Gregory Dunne, who was the subject of "A Year of Magical Thinking."
Didion agonizes about her parenting and Quintana's recurrent fear of abandonment and a failed reunion with her biological family. "Adoption," Didion writes. "I was to learn, though not immediately, is hard to get right."
Such fear also haunted Apple founder Steve Jobs, who died last month at the age of 56. In numerous interviews with family, friends and lovers, biographer Walter Isaacson unveiled the dark side of adoption in his life.
Jobs ultimately formed strong bonds with his sister, author Mona Simpson, but he refused to meet his biological father, despite the lifelong sense of loss.
More than 1.5 million Americans are adopted, about 2 percent of all children, according to the New York City-based Evan B. Donaldson Institute for Adoption.
Both bestsellers, "Blue Nights" and "Steve Jobs," expose an unspoken truth in the adoption world: Fear of abandonment is universal.
"Attachment and abandonment issues are part of every adoption. It's just a matter of how much," said Marlou Russell, a Santa Monica, Calif., psychologist who works with adoptive families. She, too, was adopted.
"In the best-case scenario, everyone is on board," she said of adoption. "But you cannot separate a child from its mother without an impact. There is always an impact."
Parents of an earlier generation told their children, "You're adopted and you were chosen and very special," said Russell, who is author of the 2002 book, "Adoption Wisdom."
"The problem with that," she said, "is that, "If my adopted parents chose me that means there was someone else who didn't choose me.'"
Such was the thinking of young Quintana Roo Dunne, according to her mother's account in "Blue Nights."
When her beautiful little girl was born at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica in 1966, friends told Didion, "You couldn't possibly tell her."
Many viewed adoption as "obscurely shameful, a secret to be kept at all cost," according to the author.
But Didion said they never thought to do otherwise. "What were the alternatives?" she writes. "Lie to her? Leave it to her agent to take her to lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel?"
Quintana was baffled by their explanation that she was "chosen," according to her mother: "What if you hadn't answered the phone when Dr. Watson called?" or "What if you hadn't been home, what if you couldn't meet him at the hospital, what if there'd been an accident on the freeway, what would happen to me then?"
Psychologist Russell said she advises adoptive parents to say, "Your birth parents were unable to take care of you at that time and that covers every situation, even if they go on to parent other children."
"When you get the story line that you were adopted because you were very loved, that sets up love to mean leaving, and you might leave them, too," she said. "I tell parents not to use love and money or poverty. ... If you are in Toys R Us and say you can't buy something because you can't afford it today, they might think you can pack your bags and go."
Quintana had a fascination with meeting her "other mother." She wondered what she looked like and when her father asked what she would do if she met her birth mother, the girl replied, "I'd put one arm around Mom and one arm around my other mommy and I'd say, 'Hello Mommies.'"
In 1988, a letter arrived from Quintana's full sister, who was one of two siblings born after their mother and father married. "They were "strangers," according to Didion, who "welcomed her as their long lost child."
A reunion was arranged, but it was a weekend of "willed excitement, determined camaraderie and resolute discovery," Didion writes. Soon, Quintana seemed distraught and "on the edge of tears" when her birth mother wanted to explain why she gave her baby up and kept calling.
Eventually, Quintana backed off from her newfound relatives, telling them it was "too much to handle" and "too much too soon" and she needed to "step back."
Her birth mother disconnected her phone and cut ties, Didion says. "She didn't want to be a burden."
The two sisters sent flowers when Quintana died.
Steve Jobs knew from a young age that he had been adopted and had a similarly conflicted relationship with his biological family.
When he was 31, his adoptive mother was dying of lung cancer and he peppered her with questions about his past. "When you and Dad got married, were you a virgin?" he reportedly asked her, according to his biography.
"It was hard for her to talk, but she forced a smile," Isaacson writes. "That's when she told him she had been married before to a man who never made it back from the war. She also filled in some of the details on how she and Paul Jobs came to adopt him."
In the early 1980s, Jobs had hired a detective to look for his birth mother, but found nothing. Until then, he had been hesitant to tell his parents about the search, afraid he would hurt their feelings. But when Clara Jobs died in 1986, he told his adoptive father, Paul Jobs, and began a search in earnest.
Jobs learned the name of his mother -- University of Wisconsin graduate student Joanne Schieble -- and through her the name of his sister. Mona Simpson was a full biological sibling, born after his mother married his biological father, Syrian academic Abdulfattah "John" Jandali.
Jandali left Jobs' biological mother and daughter when Simpson was 5 and she went on to remarry and divorce.
Jobs eventually arranged a reunion, hoping to tell his mother she had "done the right thing."
"I wanted to meet [her] mostly to see if she was OK and to thank her, because I'm glad I didn't end up as an abortion," he told Isaacson. "She was 23 and she went through a lot to have me."
Both mother and sister spent Christmases at Jobs' house, but his birth mother often burst into tears, telling him how much she loved him and apologizing for giving him up. "Don't worry," Jobs told her, according to his biographer. "I had a great childhood. I turned out OK."
Jobs said he was surprised at how much he and Simpson were alike. "As we got to know each other, we became really good friends and she was my family," he said. "I don't know what I'd do without her."
Still, he never took an interest in meeting Jandali. Jobs, then a wealthy man, worried about being blackmailed, but he also was angry that his father had left his family.
"He didn't treat me well," Jobs said. "I don't hold anything against him -- I'm, happy to be alive. But what bothered me most was that he didn't treat Mona well. He abandoned her."
Steve Jobs' decision to ignore his father's overtures was likely rooted in issues of control, according to psychologist Russell.
Even for a man as in control and successful as Jobs, adoption inevitably evokes "a lot of pain and heartbreak," she said.
"When adoption occurs, everyone is out of control," Russell said. "It's a crisis. Adoption doesn't happen when things are going well. Sometimes adoptees do not want to meet their birth parents and the bottom line for that is to be in control, not to meet someone who wants to meet you. The last bastion of power is to say, 'no.'"
But Jean Strauss, a Washington state filmmaker who for 30 years has chronicled the lives of adult adoptees in books and documentaries, argues the "secrets inherent in adoption are diminishing and disempowering."
Fostering open adoptions and allowing adoptees to freely learn about their identities is critical for psychological well-being. Strauss, herself, reconnected with her birth mother and an entire biological family when she was 35.
"Steve Jobs and Quintana Roo did have different experiences and choices regarding their birth parents," Strauss said, "but as the writer Betty Jean Lifton once said, 'It isn't what you find, but that you find it.'"
[Unless a psychologist is an adoptee, they can never truly know or understand what we go thru as adoptees... I wrote my memoir to help them "get" us...Trace]
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
URGENT Update for Illinois Adoptees from Melisha Mitchell
 |
| check your bookstore for this book! |
November 1, 2011
PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS MESSAGE WIDELY!!!!!
Dear Friends:
Yes, it's me again. A little sooner than expected...but with important news for all of the post-1946 adoptees who plan to request their OBC's on November 15th.
We learned yesterday from Illinois Vital Statistics that they WILL NOT ACCEPT any OBC Request Forms that arrive in their offices before November 15th. Yes, you read that correctly. They are not going by the postmark, but by the date the Request Form arrives! And, all Request Forms received in
Springfield prior to November 15th are being RETURNED TO SENDER!
According to Vital Statistics, accepting Request Forms prior to that date "would be like breaking the law." I am surprised by this interpretation, but time is of the essence here... As I type this, the checks of hundreds among you who planned ahead, and thought you were going to be at the front of the
class, are weaving their way back to your mailboxes... and you'll soon find out that you've been sent to the back of the line.
What do do???
If you've already sent your Request Form in, don't panic..just keep reading!
And, if you haven't, below you'll find complete instructions on how to make sure your Request Form is among those that Vital Statistics receives on the morning of November 15th, and not a second before (or after).
Scenario 1:
You've already mailed in your Request Form.
If you've already mailed in your Request Form, trust me, it's on its way back. They have reportedly returned "hundreds" of forms in the past two weeks. If yours is one of them, don't wait for it to come back (hoping they made an exception in your case--they didn't). Unfortunately, returned mail
travels very slowly...November 15th could very well come and go before your envelope works its way back to you.
Void the check you sent with your original Request Form, if you don't feel comfortable having a $15 check that won't be cashed floating out there.
Otherwise sit tight...and then choose one of the options below for Scenario 2.
Scenario 2:
You have not yet mailed in your Request Form (but you sure would like to learn more about being among those who are being sent to the head of the class).
Since learning about this latest glitch in the unrolling of the second phase of the new law, we have come up with five ways to allow you to make sure that your obc will be among the thousands that will be sitting on Vital Statistics' doorstep on Tuesday, November 15th:
1. You can mail your completed Request Form, along with the $15 check made out to the Illinois Dept. of Public Health and a photocopy of your state ID to me at our offices, 525 N. Halsted, Suite 203, Chicago, IL 60642. DO NOT USE the PO Box address which appears on the website. I am asking that
Request Forms mailed directly to me be sent via Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation (cost is $5.65 in the U.S.) or via any other method of your choice that can be tracked via the internet (eg. Fedex, if you have a Fedex account). All mailed Request Forms must reach me by Friday, November 11th at the latest to be part of "Operation Pony Express" (see below).
2. You can bring your completed Request Form, along with the $15 check made out to the Illinois Dept. of Public Health and a photocopy of your state ID to in a SEPARATE envelope and hand-deliver it to me at White Oak's offices, at 525 N. Halsted, Suite 203, on November 9th, 10th or 11th, or at the
informational table we'll be hosting in the Thompson Center, 100 West Randolph, on November 8th or November 14th. Drop-off times on the 9th, 10th and 11th will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. all three days. We will be at the Thompson Center between the hours of 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on 11/8 and 11/14. All request forms received during the 3-day open house and the two days at the Thompson Center will be included in "Operation Pony Express" (more on that after #3).
3. You can join me, along with Rep. Feigenholtz, and film-maker Jean Strauss, and many of those who played a pivotal role in the passage of this ground-breaking legislation. ..at a party being held to celebrate this historic event on the evening of November 14, 2011. I can't yet tell you where exactly we'll be celebrating (but it will be somewhere in Chicago), nor the exact time (6 to 10 is my best guess), but I can promise you that we'll have a lot to celebrate (99.9% of 250,000 original birth certificates unsealed in a single day)!
All of the Request Forms received by mail or in person at our offices prior to November 11th, along with all the Request Forms gathered at the Thompson Center on November 8th and 11th, and all those received at the celebration party on the evening of the 14th, will be hand-delivered to Vital Statistics
on November 15th via what I am calling "Operation Pony Express."
On the morning of November 15th, Rep. Feigenholtz, along with Jean Strauss and members of Rep. Feigneholtz' s staff, will be hand-delivering the hundreds of Request Forms we've gathered between now and November 14th to Vital Statistics. If we can get press coverage for "Operation Pony Express,"
you may even get to see your Request Form, rolling among all those delivered to Vital Statistics that day, on the evening news. If you'd like to be part of "Operation Pony Express"...and Illinois adoption history ....and are interested in taking advantage of Options 1, 2 or 3 above, please email me at iltreesurgeon@ aol.com as soon as possible.
And, if you'd like to get your Request Form in on the 15th, but without being involved in all the hoopla, you can:
4. Send your Request Form via Overnight Delivery on November 14th, using FedEx or the U.S. Postal Service's overnight service.
5. Walk, drive or fly to Springfield, IL and hand-deliver your Request Form to Vital Statistics on the 15th (you might run into Jean Strauss and her film crew, if you do!). However, be advised that, even if you hand in your Request Form on the 15th, you will have to wait just as long as anyone who chose option 1, 2, 3 or 4 above to receive a non-certified copy of your original birth certificate.
WEBINARS
We've been overwhelmed by your response to our free webinars this week! The 2 p.m. Thursday webinar is nearly full (two spots left), and there are five spots left for the Friday, 6 pm seminar. We are looking into recording one of the webinars and making it available online throughout the month of
November.
I will be emailing all those who signed up for either seminar later with instructions on how to find us on Thursday or Friday, along with a Pdf file that includes the materials we'll be covering during the webinar.
Thanks for all the letters of support and solidarity that have been pouring in since Friday night...I'll try to get back to everyone individually once the 15th has come and gone, but it looks like I am going to be REALLY busy between now and then!
If you live anywhere in the Chicago area, hope to see you at one of the events above!!!
Warm regards,
Melisha Mitchell, Illinois Dept. of Public Health
(I know several adoptees in Illinois who are Lost Birds - I send you strength and patience for the journey ahead....Trace)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
click
-
Editor NOTE: This is one of our most popular posts so we are reblogging it. If you do know where Michael Schwartz is, please leave a com... -
Published on Sep 28, 2013 This 40-minute documentary explains the reason for and the process of creating and implementing ...
-
South Carolina court drops contempt charge against Dusten Brown Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation rea...
-
By Melanie Payne ( mpayne@news-press.com ) August 15, 2010 Alexis Stevens liked to describe herself as a model citizen. She was adopted fr... -
Eric Schweig Born: Ray Dean Thrasher on 19 June 1967 Inuvik , Northwest Territories , Canada Occupation Actor/Artisan/...
-
By Mary Charles I somehow don't believe the intention was for us (adoptees) to find our homes using DNA. But when I came across t... -
By: Shannon Logan Feb 07, 2014 Leland Morrill was estranged from h... -
By Trace L Hentz (formerly DeMeyer) Watching clips of today’s episode (10-18-12) of Dr. Phil, watching those teary adoptive parents s... -
Being adopted gives you a certain view of "adoption" unique to the adoptee. Here are my thoughts (some published in August prio... -
By Trace L Hentz (blog editor) It appears that Baby Deseray was placed by the same adoption lawyer Ray Godwin and the birthmother dealt wi...
