Why did he leave her money at all? Why did she take it? Why dishonor him after his death? She should just donate it to a charity otherwise this book appears to be disloyal and another attempt to cash in on her Dad.
Nelson's review is as pretentious as it is in some spaces overly generalized, and very misleading. More psycho-cyber babble that we neither need or want any more than we need of want fake news. Just as mothers don't fit into a neat cubby hole, neither do fathers , and the culture of both has a great bearing on how a child will reared, as well as the environmental era in which the events happened. And if Steve Job's daughter can find it in her heart to forgive his imperfect fatherhood, who are you or anyone to suggest otherwise?
My father and mother abandoned me and my younger sister. I don't remember them because of the trauma, but I do have scars which tell at least some of the story, just as I have memory too many like Nelson would dismiss ..
She should read up on the latest research done regarding what children remember or don't, how it is they do remember, and how far back that memory goes. My memories have been confirmed by family from whom I was separated for 6 decades or more, and have served to prove that I am the abandoned child of long ago.
3
Reviewer Nielson says "our childhood memories are not always accurate representations of what actually happened" and gives us a link to Loftus's 1980 book, Memory. It is difficult to see how she came up with this link to support her statement. The index lists only "childhood game of telephone" under childhood. "Accurate" is not listed, nor is "representation." Apparently, Nielson has provided us with a false claim--this suggests that her article should have been fact-checked prior to publication.
1
Some mothers are much more loving and warm and in other families the fathers are the ones who are much kinder and gentler to the daughter. You cannot generalize about parental roles or ways of being.
If I say I love you and then I ridicule, shame, embarrass and rage at you I guess you need to say actions speak louder than words.
Saying: I love you- and being emotionally abusive is a typical mode of behavior in abusive families.
There is a lot of secret abuse that is going on in families. I am so glad that Lisa Brennan-Jobs has written her story.
2
Most children have experienced incompetent parenting. My five closest friends and I have all grown up with varying degrees of emotionally deprived childhoods as well as varying degrees of parental support.
This writer is apologizing and rationalizing for inadequate parents and implying that behind most unskilled parenting is a father or mother who still actually loves their children.
Unfortunately, this is often not the case. The ugly truth is that many incompetent parents simply do not love their children and are being honest in their indifferent attitude.
The realistic and honest reaction to this is to acknowledge the truth about unloving parents and move on with life. Sometimes psychotherapy can help in dealing with this painful reality.
A careful self examination of one's own parenting aptitude may lead to a decision to not have children yourself. This may turn out to be the kindest decision you can make after being raised by unloving parents!
3
I completely DISAGREE with Ms. Loftus's assertion that "It’s important to remember that our childhood memories are not always accurate representations of what actually happened."
This statement is hogwash. Worse, it's a sad way to further undermine the truth of the memories of children who were badly treated by their parent(s). I'd never want to be in therapy with a person who could say something this ignorant.
My mother had NPD to the hilt, and my (and my siblings') vivid memories of my mother's inexcusable behaviors and words are VERY accurate, thanks - we recall them right down to the exact phrases she used.
My heart goes out to Lisa Brennan-Jobs; her father had a mean & twisted personality that he took out on her. Her belief that he did this to make her stronger indicates that she has Stockholm Syndrome.
Having said that, I know I *am* stronger for having had to deal with my mother's severe personality disorder - but my strength came from 2 sources:
First, within my own mind, I *knew* from a very young age that there was something wrong with how my mother behaved. She was gratuitously mean just to inflict pain on me & my siblings - and I knew other people's parents did not behave like that.
Second, as an adult, I had the help of several dedicated & well-trained psychotherapists who guided me through years of therapy; I saw how VERY warped my mother's actions & words were, and that none of it was my fault.
It's a tough road, and I wish Lisa Brennan-Jobs the best.
8
She doesn't mention parental alienation and/ or abuse suffered from her mother and how that could distort her memories towards her father and his family. It would be sad if the memories are different from reality and she has accused her living stepmother of sexual inappropriateness and not telling her goodnight. He is portrayed as a monster, and that is clearly how she views him whether she claims forgiveness now.
1
An important issue here is that Steve Jobs had broken up with Lisa's mother years before, had denied Lisa was his child and initially rejected her.
Subsequently Steve Jobs married and had more children.
Sadly, it is not unusual for fathers to favor the "newer" children with the current wife/girlfriend/relationship - and for fathers to be uninterested or unsupportive or outright reject children (especially girls) from a previous and fractured relationship.
4
Laurene Powell Jobs et al seem to have conveniently forgotten that Steve Jobs denied that Lisa was his daughter and refused to support her. For years.
8
He refused to pay to heat his child’s bedroom. That isn’t simply a matter of poor communication, it’s neglect.
5
"Highly intelligent, successful people can have very little of what is known as emotional intelligence. They may be terrible at reading and responding to other’s feelings and social cues. This does not necessarily mean these fathers don’t love or care about their daughters — or that they are self-absorbed narcissistic men. They are simply inept communicators."
Researchers, and everyone else, need to examine that statement carefully.
Is the goal of "communication" - to make others feel "good" - or to carry "truth"? Truth is very, very often uncomfortable. But truth is always - always - the most valuable message. Warm fuzzy half-truths; will not ever help anyone.
In attempting to measure the actual communication outcome; one needs to measure the long-term effects; not the immediate emotional response.
And, incidentally - it needs to be added to the analysis that "Not-highly intelligent not-very successful researchers may carry biases regarding highly intelligent, successful types." Just so you know. :-)
I don't know how anyone could read the profile of Brennan-Jobs and not see the emotional abuse her father perpetrated upon her. I was in tears reading it. He sewed seeds of self-doubt so deep, and Brennan-Jobs believes her father's criticism at her core. He wasn't just acting on a lack of emotional intelligence, nor was he trying to make her more aware of her flaws. He engaged in deliberate cruelty, punishing her for her existence. I agree with the commenter who said that forgiveness is over-rated. Sometimes it more healing to acknowledge and accept anger as the logical and natural response to abuse. Allowing myself to experience anger and having it validated by family and friends has been the catalyst for positive change in my life. If I needed for forgive anyone, it was myself, for making excuses for people who repeatedly mistreated me.
4
Linda Nielsen writes:
“This does not necessarily mean these fathers don’t love or care about their daughters — or that they are self-absorbed narcissistic men. They are simply inept communicators.”
My thought was that in addition to being poor communicators the fathers might ALSO be self-absorbed, narcissistic men. The daughters could choose not to dwell on that and to move on. There are plenty of worthy role models out there, and surrogate parents and mentors, too, if you look.
I’m not convinced this particular father has much to teach us about the father-daughter relationship, aside from
1. his daughter’s resilience
and
2. what behavior fathers should avoid.
1
Did Steve Jobs spend years denying Mona Simpson was his sister?
Did Steve Jobs spend years denying Laurene Powell was his wife?
Mona Simpson’s and Laurene Powell’s life experiences with Steve Jobs were not those of Lisa Brennan Jobs and so it’s not their place to criticize his relationship with his daughter.
Lisa, remember the good, dump the bad and pay no attention to anyone’s criticism. It’s not their story, it’s yours.
9
Cry me a river.
If the proverbial Joe Sixpaque, rather than SJ, had been LB-J's dad, there would be little to no interest in a book about her claim to fame as a victim of his bad parenting.
I could tell stories about my dad's sins, too. You've never heard of him, so there's little gossip value in knowing about his sins. What my father shares with Steve Jobs, however, besides extraordinary brilliance, was growing up without a biological father, wondering about his own origins. My father's parents were "enemies of the people" (according to the Bolsheviks) so his mother, who survived efforts to kill them & everyone they knew, made sure he knew nothing about his family.
That kind of gap in personal history does wound a person's ability to form authentic connections, especially if the capacity to trust explanations offered by others has been impaired.
Jobs grew up without siblings. Though they gave him a cheesy name, he always praised his adoptive parents. But were they gentle & kind? It was insensitive of them to divulge that he had been "twice rejected" as a newborn. How often was he stung by harsh words?
People who grow up without warm, affectionate, accepting & even indulgent parents, in safety, can hardly be blamed for not knowing how to treat other kids.
Lisa is lucky to have SJ's DNA. We are all lucky to have benefitted from his transformative innovations. Jobs was a visionary & I love him for that.
I forgave my father. He did not mean to do wrong.
Let it go.
1
@Maria Ashot
Hogwash!
How would you know how we who have been abused physically, emotionally, sexually and verbally as children relate to the children we are fortunate to have as adults? You have no clue!
As for Jobs, he was like too many other males, a control freak. Whether or not in response to his own abandonment and adoption we do not know. But what we do know is that DNA sets the patterns of our lives, from physical appearance to preferences of food, companionship, people we like or dislike, and what our individual personalities are. I am certainly happy that I do not share his DNA! (But love sharing mine with Copernicus and Petrarch!)
And do loose the 'forgeddaboutit' advice. It may have been useful for a baseball player, but has no bearing on those who have been traumatized in childhood. There are things we do not forget, just as there are things too painful to remember.
I find this article very troubling and morally ambiguous. Ms. Nielsen strikes me as a dangerous apologist of what most people would agreed was egregiously mean, narcissistic and abuse parenting. I hate to tell her this, but there still are some bright lines in our moral universe - lines she fails to recognize in this attempt to sanitize what is beginning to smell like a sickening memoir.
4
This article is dangerously close to trivializing the daughter's experiences by insinuating a faulty memory. I'm curious if the offspring were male, would the article begin with a lists of all the ways the brain rearranges memory. That said, it's clear the woman had a need to catharse and perhaps make some money along the way. But for the public, Steve Jobs the father is irrelevant. His public legacy should be as Steve Jobs the entrepeneur.
5
It appears the NYT has bent under pressure from Laurene Powell Jobs and scrambled to produce an article attempting to neutralize the impact of Lisa Brennan Jobs' (Steve Jobs' eldest child) memoir.
Shame, shame, shame, NYT.
Mrs. Powell Jobs has incredible influence in the media and is infamous in her furious efforts to protect her dead husband's shining glory. As a
Silicon Valley native with decades of insider experience, I have repeatedly been stunned by flat-out falsehoods she has pressured media to print about Steve Jobs and Apple.
Kudos to Lisa Brennan Jobs for her courage in publishing her true memoir. Steve exerted a reality-distortion field over almost all the areas of his influence, and Lisa's paternity, which he was ultimately unable to deny, forced him to confront the limits of his power. No surprise that he showed his worst aspects to her, and bravo to her for turning them into a valuable lesson on strength and resilience.
5
Might one presume the complicity of the second wife and family is not yet forgiven since it went unexplained in the original book review?
1
Normally I have a lot of respect for research, but this piece did not mention emotional or psychological abuse, which can have serious consequences. However Lisa wants to deal with that relationship is her business, but suggesting that the kind of behavior that Steve exhibited wasn't abusive comes across as a form of mass gaslighting.
5
I guess my anecdotal experience runs counter to this author's' research, because her statement that "Ask daughters which parent is more likely to help them confront the unpleasant truths about themselves and most will say “Dad.”" is by and large not what I've heard from my (female) friends, nor is it my own personal experience. Mothers tend to be the critical ones because the gendered perception that father's hold of their daughters -- that they're delicate and sensitive and must be handled with kid gloves --means mothers are left to issue the harsher criticism, constructive or not.
Separately, I was aghast at Lisa Brennan-Jobs' childhood memories of her father and his verbal, emotional and mental abusive treatment of her. She may rationalize it as "character-building" but it felt far from a healthy approach. Often, sadistic and perverse even (e.g. Mr. Jobs buying a home for his family with Ms. Powell-Jobs, after Lisa's mother expressed interest in it; or, making Lisa watch her father sexually caressing and kissing Ms. Powell-Jobs and refusing to let his daughter, a child at the time, leave the room when uncomfortable; repeatedly assuring Ms. Brennan-Jobs that she would be cut out of the will, which she ultimately was not).
Often after deaths of loved ones we like to revise their character to "honor" them. It's a lesson to us all to make sure people don't have to lie when discussing us once we're gone.
5
This is reasonable. I don’t recall ever reading or hearing anything similar about mothers.
My own father was subject to violent fits of temper and my childhood was really tense, and yes, I've come to terms with it and forgiven him, and I'm glad of it. He has meant a great deal to me.
But even to *me*, Mr. Jobs's behavior to his daughter is appalling and Ms. Brennan-Jobs's forgiveness of her father seems beyond reason.
6
I have a dear friend who was treated cruelly by her successful father and she never stopped trying to please him, although she could not. She still suffers—and she’s now a grandmother.
3
I think this analysis of our reactions, while thoughtful, definitely lets Steve Jobs off the hook. I can understand why his daughter may do that, but we should not. To carry the thesis of this essayist further, the softened perception of how Jobs treated his daughter (the implication that he was an inept communicator and not a narcissist) may indeed be more the projection of the esssayist than an apt description of the father in Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ book. These descriptions, if true, are of an unaware and unapologetic narcissist more than a man who just can’t find the right words. This essay, while explaining some nuances of father/daughter relationships well, does something else we do all too often in American culture - it gives fathers, and famous men, and this famous father in particular - a pass that would never be contemplated for women.
6
We forgive, first and foremost, for the benefit of ourselves. Ms. Brennan-Jobs is wise to forgive her father. Bitterness is an incredibly toxic thing to carry around for the rest of one’s life.
2
Dr. Nielsen should know that emotional abuse of children can be as devastating as physical or sexual abuse.
5
Was not Mr Job adopted? If so he may have felt abandoned by his parents and he returned the hurt by negating-hence in a real sense abandoning-his daughter; he did so by using a ruse often used by men of his ilk who deny responsibility for their own actions in what is the most important event of their lives, namely the procreation of another human being.
In my opinion he was as screwed up as they come; the fact that he achieved monetary success and power in his work does not, in any possible way, make up for, nor excuse, his reprehensible conduct to his daughter and to other human beings who came within his orbit.
I wish this daughter all the validation of her humanity that he denied her.
7
As I write this my youngest girl is stuck in Chicago because of a missed connecting flight coming back from a conference in London. She lives away and I only see her three times a year.
I raised her all on my own because her mother is an alcoholic. I grew into the role, which at first was a forced fit. As the years passed being her father came to define who I am as a man in the world. Moreover, as life’s setbacks and losses accumulated, as they can, I came to see that she, and her siblings, were my life’s work and that I was a better man for all the years of caring for them; they and their loving memories will be all I leave behind.
Even though I will probably end my days in public housing, am richer than Steve Jobs ever was in his life.
13
Not telling the truth about Steve is what many people who had sever father problems did and do. I am Lisa's mother and at some point I realized I was the only woman Steve had ever been with who had a functional and responsible father. With each significant relationship the father issue with the daughter/girlfriend was worse, was alcoholic, and or left/ died earlier in the daughter's life. Even Steve recognized and said this in the end.
I know a lot about what happened behind the scenes. How about considering that the people who made the public statement weren't necessarily telling the truth?
I agree with the summary that Lisa is dear.
6
@Chrisann
You have a method and means for making human beings perfect?
Patent it and send it to God.
What matters to me is what Steve did for humankind: gave us each access to powerful communication, research, recording and playback technology -- pocket-sized -- that industry titans did not think private citizens needed, or could possibly want.
Your family's dirty laundry, your personal history, your hatred and envy of your father's daughter: seriously not interesting.
Yawn. Double yawn. Get on with your lives.
What have you done to deserve the limelight? Earned a Ph. D. in human psychology? Penned a self-help book on how to find & keep the perfect mate? Guided millions of parents into undoing the harm done to them by the parents & grandparents who warped them?
Do you even know of a way to make sure both parties to any legal marriage are equally sincere & equally self-aware, at the time of commitment?
@Chrisann
It's important that people consider it isn't just his daughter who reports his behavior, but that many people throughout his life have said how difficult, rude & downright mean he could be.
When the writer says "It’s important to remember that our childhood memories are not always accurate representations of what actually happened", she doesn't seem to be taking this into account.
His daughter deserved better. From what I can tell, so did you.
3
@Maria Ashot
Wow.
Steve and many others were part of a tech revolution that changed our lives, but that isn't all that matters to me and many others.
I don't care who you are; if you're not a decent & caring human being I have little respect for you.
And just because someone doesn't "make it" in some splashy & important way, there is no need to treat them the way you have.
Very sad behavior, I'm afraid.
"What we forget or remember and the meaning we give to those selected memories is colored by the “life story” that we create for ourselves."
It could have been said in two words: selective memory.
"She does not deny the past. But she does not dwell in it. Forgiving does not mean forgetting."
I'm not sure if I totally agree on this. If she does not dwell on the subject, she wouldn't be writing a memoir and publish it for the world to read. Maybe she wants the world to feel her pain, and let others know that she can be bigger than her dad (a giant whose stars none of his children, including Lisa, has managed to eclipse).
However dysfunctional their relationship might be, the best way to deal with it, is to let go. One can only imagine it must be hard for Lisa when she wasn't given much as an inheritance to speak of, hence not much to let go. She's approaching her middle age now, and if she's still remember all these minutiae details from childhood, it's not likely she'll be letting go, never mind forgiving, any time soon.
I can only wish she finds peace when she truly let go.
1
What Lisa Brennan-Jobs thinks of her father, how she regards him, whether she forgives him or not, is her own business. I wish her peace.
However, from reading other points of view about Jobs -- including parts where Woz and other folks had to beg Jobs to support Lisa or pay attention to her as a child -- I believe Lisa's memory of what happened better than Laurene Powell-Jobs or Mona Simpson's accounts. Job's actions - objectively -- were cruel and not at all like how a loving father would act. What especially stood out to me were when the neighbors -- the NEIGHBORS -- saw fit to have Lisa move in and live with them during high school. How often is it that someone not family would interfere unless they were really concerned.
This article seems to give cover to families where the parents have done an extremely poor job of caring for their children. It seems to deny the impact that early poor care and neglect have on children. I would suggest she read "Childhood, Disrupted" or any other similar articles showing how poor parenting does impact children for the rest of their lives. I have also had friends who have been subjected to poor parenting and observed how long it took them to finally separate themselves from their toxic parents. They were much healthier mentally afterwards.
24
I can't help but have the sense that if Steve Jobs did not break down and give Lisa and her mother significant money (for them anyway), Lisa would feel very differently about him right now.
2
Intellectually equating Jobs to a Bell or Edison is not even close. Jobs put a team together to create a product which we all have made successful. On the personal side he very well could be a jerk but I would not look to him for any such quality. Too often we think that rich and famous people are also "nice" people. This is seldom the case. Jobs will be remembered as a pioneer in the tech industry period end of story. I would leave it to his children to decide if he was a good dad to them. The rest of us dads should ask our kids the same question.
12
I agree with 90% of this well written article. However, it's also true that some of Jobs behaviors were simply a matter of spite and meaness not poor communication skills. His refusal to acknowledge and provide financial support for her at a young age and buying the house his ex wanted for his wife were two such examples. This inconsistent demonstration of spite verses bad communication often makes it more difficult to distinguish what is going on for the daughter both as a child and adult. I think in the end forgiveness definitely frees one from the past hurts. I also think it's important to work through the pain prior to forgiveness or the unaddressed feelings that accompany premature forgiveness are often very destructive.
18
Steve Jobs was an unspeakably bad father, a sociopath who denied he was even her father and was viciously abusive both to his daughter and to others.
It is an insult to the many men who are decent fathers to suggest that Jobs' behavior was in anyway typical, or that it should be forgiven.
Too often, when someone defends an abusive parent, they find themselves unconsciously seeking similarly abusive people in adult life, with negative consequences. Part of healing for someone like Lisa Jobs rests in seeing one's parents as they actually were.
57
"Forgiving her father is a gift a daughter gives, not just to her father, but to herself. In choosing not to allow her bitterness about his failings as a father to consume her, a daughter is choosing not to deprive herself of whatever pleasure she can still derive from their relationship. She does not deny the past. But she does not dwell in it. Forgiving does not mean forgetting.
Not forgiving does not mean being bitter. Forgiveness is something to be given, but to be meaningful it should be earned.
Forgiveness is not a mental game about making yourself feel good.
The Times, Mr. Jobs’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, her children and Mr. Jobs’s sister, Mona Simpson, said that
To be healthy, surely it is important also to be clear. If someone could really do with earning (and, if they are lucky, also receiving) forgiveness, but others close to him say that “the portrayal is not the husband and father we knew”, those others are not only not helping, they are facilitators of bad behavior -- and not doing themselves any favors.
20
As a Pediatrician, I find more the rule that daughters tend to be more fonder not of the mother or father, but the grandmother, so the odds are built against him.
So what role did the grandmother play? (This is more the key)
5
@correcto as a daughter whose father abandoned her and whose step father was pretty unimpressive as a parent, I can attest to you the importance of grandparents. You are absolutely right.
1
Answering Linda Nielsen prompt, "What do our reactions to Ms. Brennan-Jobs's story tell us about ourselves?"
Having read only the reactions (and not the story), it tells me that we're not too comfortable distinguishing between accusations and compassion. If Small Fry is about one person's struggle to bridge the gap between what she expected of her father and the limits of his humanity, I'm interested in reading it.
I have a hard time with our willingness to so quickly take an absolute position and invoke the words of crisis when viewing family relationships. Everyone's role in both society and family is changing. It's impossibly stressful and painful. If someone's willing to reflect upon and share how they're coping, I say fantastic. Furthermore, if her story helps bring Jobs' reputation closer to human, I hope it helps us all.
4
This is such an odd thing for the public to focus on. Steve Jobs isn’t famous for being a nice person, or giving parenting advice, he’s famous for bringing good design to computers. What strange times we live in, driven by mass thinking... we’ve lurched from celebrity worship to overwrought moralism. Both have a lack of appreciation for privacy.
27
There are two reasons the books are always Mommy Dearest or Daddy Dearest but not the other way around:
One reason is that parents don't tend to do that to a child, and another reason is that the child can "tell all" without the parent's rebuttal, since the parent is dead. Rarely is the child dead before the parent is.
It's a one-way industry.
3
@geebee Exactly my thoughts, family history is not one voice. Therapy via biography is overdone, overplayed, and, for me, over and out. There are thousands of readers who have had dysfunctional childhoods, and have or are working through the emotional damage ... many do not have the resources to access the healing help that Ms Brennan-Job's can access.
1
Steve Jobs was a DEEPLY FLAWED human. He struggled with denial even as his death was imminent. I can imagine he was a challenging person to know in any context, and as a parent, even more so. Good for Lisa for finding HER WAY to express HER FEELINGS and MEMORIES and phhhts to anyone who says she is wrong to feel the way she does or to live her life as she sees fit.
54
@Madelyn
Unless you have lived with, married or worked for decades with Mr. Jobs then you have no basis to make such a declarative statement.
And that lack of standing was exactly what the 'phhts' commenters were expressing.
I don't buy the whole "mean/stern parent did it to make you tougher for your own good" trope.
It just messes the kid up in the end - even if they "deal in the harsh world" better.
What truly makes someone strong and self sufficient (without all the baggage) is the moral ground and sense of "right" that someone gets in a compassionate, loving home.
79
There's an assumption here, at the end at least, that "dearness" is necessarily a better choice than "darkness", and that the former leads to healing but the latter to harm. Sometimes, perhaps, but not always. If we are going to be so generous to Steve Jobs in relation to his daughter, or to his daughter, we should be as generous to those who can't or won't forgive, or who see the harm in forgiving those who don't deserve it.
23
@Meta-Nihilist
Buddhism deals with this at it's core. It's called passing around pain without consciousness. A cycle of harm. It leads to ALL struggle, war, aggression, etc.
I direct example is how abused people (physically and emotionally) often grow up to abuse themselves.
It is a way to displace it.
The only way out is to be conscious and break the cycle of pain through acceptance (not quite forgiveness).
20
@Ignatius J. Reilly, then we may conclude Jobs was an unsuccessful Buddhist: https://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2015/10/26/what-kind-of-buddhist-was-...
Can't win 'em all, but if given a choice between being a billionaire and a legend in my own time, or being loved without qualification by my daughter, well, sometimes ramen just tastes GOOD.
My father lived into his mid-nineties, outliving my mother by six years. This gave him time and space to reflect on his own life, his parenting of his children and how my mother’s alcoholism had affected our family. He began to apologise, as he recognized many of his failings - how he often didn’t protect us and chose to codependently protect her instead. His apologies to me, an adult woman, erased my lingering resentments. I let go and forgave him. If he’d known how to do better, I believe he would have. It was amazing to me how much his validation of my childhood reality healed old wounds. I’d advise any parent, who has the opportunity, to make the effort to make amends to their grown children. It can go a long way in healing fractured relationships.
69
This article gives harmful advice. If someone has been abused the first priority is to connect with your anger about it. Job's daughter is afraid to feel her anger so she will never heal. I suspect there may be many people like that.
47
I think it's important to fully know and accept the truth of who our parents are and how they treat(ed) their children. If said treatment was abusive on any level, in any way, forgiveness is important, too. It's important for the adult "children" so they can move forward in life without bitterness. The parent is not absolved, but the adult child is free. Forgiveness is an inside job.
30
While dating a very smart and accomplished woman between my marriages several years ago, she suggested that we see a family counselor. I was taken aback, since everything seemed to be going very well. Her point was that we could use a head's-up about what might upset the apple cart down the road. Like I said...she was very smart.
So she, I and my two boys met with a counselor, who ended up offering some wisdom gleaned from her experience: in the typical family/step-family dynamic, she had seen that things worked best when the same-sex parent was the disciplinarian and the opposite-sex parent was the nurturer. In her view, this arrangement set the stage for healthy adulthood and promoted good odds for strong marital attachment down the road...which made a lot of sense. It meant that a step-mother for my sons would end up in a nurturing role and that would likely mean an easier path.
So when I hear about troubled or dissonant relationships between a parent and an opposite-sex child, it's hard not to feel inclined that there will be substantial adverse long-term ramifications. Steve Jobs may have been brilliant (or at least brilliant in taking others' ideas and commercializing them), but it appears that he could have used a reboot in some of his personal life. Good on his daughter for allowing herself to outgrow his shortcomings.
37
@Tad La Fountain
Your transmission from the counselor is so incredible wise and right, it seems to me. (I had never, ever heard it before.) Thank you for the gift.
But one thing is certain - Brennan-Jobs doesn't now need her aunt and her father's widow to publicly criticize her idea and remembrances of her father, whom she knew longer than either of them. Must they rub salt in the wound?
81
In my opinion, forgiveness is overrated. Sometimes when a child who is emotionally abused grows up to forgive, the forgiveness is a symptom of the damage done to the child. Narcissistic parents train their kids to make excuses for them, to give them the same permission for their bad behavior they give themselves, and to feel obligated to forgive.
I feel sorry for Lisa. She's doing the best she can, but that doesn't mean she's a healthy role model.
102
It seems like this applies to all parents and children, regardless of gender.
8
I was surprised by the description of the daughter/father relationship in the expert opinion of Professor Nielsen here. None of it resonates with me and actually more accurately depicts the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters. If anything, in general, father's seem far more tolerant and less judgmental toward their daughters.
74
I agree Z.M. I find that fathers are much harder on their sons than daughters.
1
...thanks, well done, both by you in this article and the author about her life so far.
3
This 49-year-old daughter is desperate to have a relationship with her 82-year-old father, after a 40-year estrangement due to his third marriage. Years of therapy helped me to understand and forgive his choice to forsake me for her.
But his absence in my life has
caused a pervasive sadness to this day.
Forgive her? Not yet.
26
Moreover Lisa, you need to be comfortable with yourself first. You are not at fault for anything that happened in your life. And please put a smile back on your face as you used earlier.
I always admired Steve Jobs. But I have such great parents, the world's best, and extremely smart too. I will never trade them for a person like Steve Jobs. His life itself was traumatizing for him i.e.. And it continued to his first born daughter. Talk about Irony.
Whatever happened, cannot be undone, so Lisa please be happy. :)
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I read a piece a number of years ago that said the 'best' relationship in the nuclear family is between father and daughter.
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I'm glad that Lisa Brennan Jobs has been able to forgive her father for his poor and (in my opinion) abusive) behavior. I can't help but wonder whether Laurene Powell Jobs and the other members of the family will forgive Lisa for her book.
Their statement that Lisa's portrayal of Steve is not the husband and father that they knew reminded me of how my mother handled my father's alcoholism after his death. There were many times in my teenage years that my mother confided in me that she wanted to attend AA meetings for help. After my father died, when I tried to talk about how my father's drinking impacted me (he was often scary and abusive when drunk) she said, referring to herself and my sisters "We don't remember him like that." I got the message right away: drop it. Now that my father was dead, my mother wanted to re-write the family narrative minus any embarrassment, pain or shame.
I find it sad that Lisa's family, with the exception of her biological mother, are throwing her under the bus. Their statement says a lot more about them than it does about Lisa or her book.
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@megan "re-write the family narrative" — nailed it. Everyone wants the right to tell the family story as he or she would like to be known and have others accept it. However, that's not how it works. People will believe what they want. There are as many versions of a family narrative as there are members of a family. Godspeed to Lisa in telling her story. As for forgiveness, that is something she needs to do more for herself than anyone else.
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@megan It is tough to grow up in a family of perpetual deniers of reality, glad you had your mother for a while--but revision seems to happen often after death.
I admire my father and my Aunt still insisting 'til grave or now getting there, that their father was a major jerk and remained one all his life. I only met my Grandfather twice, an indicator.
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Crikey, another article on this? It would be cool to see some space devoted to less entitled authors...
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I’m sorry. How is she ‘entitled’? She grew up on welfare.
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@Dudesworth At least it's not about Zuckerberg.
Reading that his wife and sister are disturbed by Lisa's portrayal of her father. Excuse me ex-wife and sister.....your relationship with your ex and your brother are going to be vastly different from the relationship between Lisa and her father. she was on the receiving end....you were not....so respect her interpretation as what she experienced. No one is perfect...not even your ex or your brother, so stop trying to make him out to be and accept that there were other sides to him that you were not privy to.
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There is no model of perfect parenting.
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@Ed, perhaps, but there are clear examples of abusive parenting and I think it's safe to say that Steve Jobs provided one of them. My dad invalidated me and my sisters at every turn but Jobs beats him in this area by a mile.
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@Ed
Maybe not, but there are models of very, very good parenting.
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“They may be terrible at reading and responding to other’s feelings and social cues. This does not necessarily mean these fathers don’t love or care about their daughters — or that they are self-absorbed narcissistic men. They are simply inept communicators.”
Yes, it does mean they are self absorbed. As a parent, our task is to raise confident children who know they are loved. Excusing the behavior of fathers who put themselves first instead of relating to their children on the child’s level (as the latter do not have the capacity for mature self-analysis) is wrong in every way. I sincerely doubt the author would cut mothers the same slack. Curious, too, how the author fails to discuss how many damaged and angry young men are out there...by and large, it wasn’t their mothers who filled them with self-doubt and anger.
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@SW Thank you for this comment, I was trying to come up with a similar sentiment but you've said it perfectly.