Jenny Colgan: Nicole Kidman's missing children

Novelist Jenny Colgan returns to Alphamummy to blog about Nicole Kidman and adoption.

Okay, imagine Britney Spears got pregnant right now (in fact, apparently her sister just did - fecund lot, those Spearses).

There would be an outcry - a woman whose children don't even live with her having another one. But when it's Nicole Kidman, the coverage is more delighted than appalled.

Don't get me wrong: this isn't about Nicole. She's as private and dignified a celebrity as can be. For all we know there were a million myriad and excellent reasons why her children don't live with her but stay with Tom Cruise. That's their business.

What I do object to, on behalf of my own and everyone else's family that's mixed, is the media's attitude to it.

Every magazine and newspaper in existence prints pictures and discusses Nicole's lovely and "much longed for" baby Sunday, then adds a dismissive one liner as to the whereabouts of Nicole's "adoptive" children. And that word, adoptive, is always, always used.

Excuse me? They're not her 'adoptive' children. They're her CHILDREN, in the same way I have two brothers, not a 'natural' and an 'adoptive' one.

The way the press decides who is a 'good' and 'bad' mother can be utterly disgusting. (Although, Brit, that day you drove on a motorway with one of them between your knees wasn't one of your better decisions).

What is wrong here is the way the press seems to have assumed that there is a difference, and that you somehow feel less bothered about your children if you adopt them rather than give birth to them. I don't know a single family of adoption that believes that to be true, not for a millisecond. It's divisive, pernicious, and it must stop.

And it's wonderful Nicole Kidman is so happy with her new baby. Third children often make mothers feel that way.

Picture: Kidman with Connor and Isabella

Comments

[Paulo]

As an adoptee of course there is a difference between adopted and natural. You'd be a misguided fool to think
anything less. In an ideal world the "my brother is my brother delusion" might work, but not in the real one!

[Whimsey]

"The biological ability to breed does not necessarily make one a good parent."

Indeed not.

And perhaps this is seen most tragically in 'late adopted children' where hideous damage has already been done to them emotionally by their 'real' parents, and the primary task of the adopting parents is to try and rescue them from the harm done to them already. Not that adopting parents are always told just what the poor child has been through, I believe - I'm not sure that's the best policy, is it? Surely if you don't know just what kind of traumas a child has been exposed to, you won't know even that they need to be allowed for, let alone how to try and heal them. But perhaps things are different these days and there is more disclosure about the child's earlier history.

[Cally Ellis]

I really can't be bothered to trawl through all these tedious comments, mostly from people who have no direct experience of adoption, but as an adopted child (of 47...) I find Camilla's comments rather patronising. I have never felt hurt by anyone pointing out I'm adopted. As I always respond to those 'natural' children who wanted to make an issue of it, your parents HAD to have you. My parents CHOSE me. Kids who grow up in loving secure homes feel good about themselves, adopted or otherwise. The biological ability to breed does not necessarily make one a good parent.

[Lydia]

Um, happy mother- what about orphaning? What about irresponsibility? What about girls getting pregant too young?

[Happy Mother]

I suspect it is better for adoptive children to live in a happy , caring and supportive family environment. Where or with whom, is really not the issue. If their adoptive father is prepared to make a full commitment to the children , that is all that matters here. It is a matter for celebration that Nicole is enjoying motherhood , if all birth parents had the same feelings and the financial and emotional resources, adoption would not exist.

[Camilla]

I feel terribly sorry for Connor and Isabelle, at least they have each other.

In regards to the media always making the distinction between adopted and natural children, I can imagine how hurtful it would be for adopted kids to read, I wonder if it should be anyone's business at all. I believe society should make an effort to prevent kids who are adopted from feeling inferior or otherwise by always pointing out that they are adopted.

[Rajan Mehra]

There seems to be a section of the middle class liberals, often with a social science background, who think that biology is irrelevant. It is not. The reason we care for our own children is also the reason the human race exits today. To hold that biology does not matter is simply scientifically unsound.

[Rajan Mehra]

There seems to be a section of the middle class liberals, often with a social science background, who think that biology is irrelevant. It is not. The reason we care for our own children is also the reason the human race exits today. To hold that biology does not matter is simply scientifically unsound.

[whimsey]

I thought Tom Cruise was infertile, and always wished he would 'come out' on behalf of all the men who are also infertile, and feel, completely wrongly, that that makes them unvirile as well. It's a huge stigma for men, and having an action man/heartthrob like TC admitting and accepting his infertility, would have done men a great service.

[delia]

Is the daughter she just had her real daughter ????

[maktub]

According to Halperin in his Hollywood Uncovered book: Tom Cruise was gay. Gay actors can not be heartrobs so Hollywood straigts them up with marriage. Then there is Scientology who cure gayness, and as long as you within Scyentology you are straight (dare anyone say something different). Nicole was married to Tom for a long time, and when they got married she was a no name actress. During the marriage however she outshone Tom but she couldnt get Academy Awards because Scy people cant get a chance to make speeches (on the behalf of church)front of billions. So she needed to divorce Tom,a nd move on. After divorce she got the award which backs up this theory. And moved on. I think she wanted the kids but to leave them with Tom and Scy was one of the conditions why Scy and Tom let Nicole out. Tom then was married to another no name actress. We know the rest.

[Mr Potarto]

I think KatyBoo1 highlights the problem here. People are interested in the dynamics of other people's families. They want to know how the family fits together. Newspapers recognise this and write articles that interest their readers.

It doesn't make it any less insensitive, but I can't see any reason to ascribe the malice implied by Jenny Colgate, I think the journalists are just giving the public what they want.

As an example, look at the opening three paragraphs. You allude to the procreative frequency of a brace of Spears' and the failure of Kidman to hold onto her children.

None of this appears to offer anything to the story - a story that is all about journalists adding irrelevant personal details to their stories!

[annabelle]

In every interview for as long as I can remember, Nicole Kidman has mentioned her "longing" for a "real baby". She'll follow that with a comment about how much she loves her "other" children but how nothing can compare to actually having birth. I'm sure her two children must have felt like an after thought. Now that she has her "real baby", she prances back to work and most likely handed the baby off to the nanny. Celebrities want an image and I think Nicole wants what Tom Cruise has: a family. She married a man she barely knew and one with drug problems at the exact time Katie Holmes was to have her baby. Now that she's proven to the world she can have what Tom has, she's back to work, but not before giving sly glimps of this child at the very time her new movie is being promoted. Any new interview you read today reads like one from 2002; it's still about Tom and her want for a baby. I'm not sure how Keith Urban got roped into this but I'm sure his career will suffer. Now that she has a husband, I predict he'll wind up on the shelf next to her "real baby" until the next photo op comes along.

[Ginger]

No, Nicola 'anyone' cannot 'spawn' a child...there are many millions of us who have fertility problems and may never be able to give birth to our own children.
Whilst I love my stepkids dearly, they are not 'mine' - I didn't carry them in my womb, labour to give birth to them, feed them and change their nappies, watch them take their first steps, etc, etc.
My heart aches for the babies I have not been able to carry to term, and my love for my stepchildren cannot diminish that pain.

[Gipsy]

As someone with both, I can honestly say I love my biological child and step child just as much. Yes, I love my bio child 'differently' but I also love my step daughter 'differently' and my step son 'differently'. Each is an individual person and you relate to each individually. But that's not based on genes, and it doesn't mean you love one less or more.

[whimsey]

Mumoftwo - yes, thank you, that's exactly what I meant! I just got the feeling from Marie Josephine's post that it was HER whom her in-laws fundamentally disapproved of! I may be completely wrong, of course, but it would be one explanation of why they have refused to accept their adopted grandchildren.

They may also feel, of course, that they had, unlike their son, no choice in the matter - that the choice was imposed upon them. But then I guess that's par for the course with all grandchildren unless you actually chose your son's/daughter's spouse for them!!!

On the point that Alison made, I would be scared, I must say, that, had I adopted a child because I could not have one genetically, and then went on to have a genetic child, that I might then feel differently about my genetic child. I would hope to God it wouldn't happen, but I'd be scared it might.

I would suspect that overall it's easier to have either an entirely genetic family, or an entirely non-genetic one, but I'm sure that with love a 'mixed family' is perfectly possible, providing the parents have the strength of character to ensure they are truly 'one family', whatever the genes!!

And I completely agree that it takes more than genes to make a parent. Sometimes the genes in fact can be completely irrelevant.

It's love that makes a parent, that's all.

[Lyndsey]

"Sorry but whilst two children can be equally loved the fact that one carries your genes will make a difference. I say this as a woman unable to have her own child."

Posted by: Alison | 15 Oct 2008 09:08:13

Alison, could you clarify what the difference(s) would be, if not based in love? As an adopted woman also unable to have a biological child I am at a loss to know where that difference would lie. I mean to say, is the difference in how you feel about that child because it does or does not carry your genes? And if so, how does that equate with 'equal love'?
Sorry, I truly don't mean to be antagonistic, just looking for understanding, but if love for a biological child can be equal to love for an adopted one, how can it also be different?
Let’s say the spectrum of the love given can be equalled out, determined by that child's innate qualities such as: adopted child has a lovely personality/beautiful eyes/adorable tendency to mix up words and biological child has quick wit/piano player's hands/your genes. All of which are arbitrarily bestowed (from the child’s POV). Surely that leads into choppy waters: “Well, Simon is a great artist but Fiona has our blood”. Neither ‘Simon’ nor ‘Fiona’ is going to see that as being loved equally.
All children are different, in countless ways, even identical twins. Genes can’t guarantee much, only stack the odds. What of children who are genetically yours and your partner's but who were born to a surrogate? What of children who share the genes of one parent and a donor for the other? What of children adopted at birth or at the age of 2 or 3 or older? How much do all these factors affect the belief that the child is ‘your own’?
Obviously love for any other being cannot be forced or properly measured or legislated for (thankfully) but I feel it is a dangerous thing to try to convince anyone (including oneself) that love is equally given when, underneath, it isn’t.

[mumoftwo]

Sorry for mis-spelling Buddha!

[mumoftwo]

Buddah, I didn't interpret Whimsey's comments like that, I thought she was pointing up that there seems an aspect of punishing the adults here through the children, the son in particular for choosing a partner who already had children (which was obviously not what they wanted). The fact that they didn't respect the parents' requests to treat them all the same, even when the children were little, suggests this might well be the case. How horrible, but luckily Marie Josephine's family are obviously strong in the face of this. It can be divisive, though, my mother in law clearly prefers one of her grandchildren over the other as she is more docile. I find this profoundly upsetting.

Where there is adoption, then the relationship is at least clear in law: they are parents and children in every sense. It's hard though in blended families to know how to treat new people joining the established family though (where there is no adoption). I certainly didn't see my mother's new partner a few years back as a step-father, as I was older and not in need of a new father figure. Similarly, I have friends who don't take the mother role with their step-children, but more of an auntie figure who is one step removed (e.g. for discipline, they would leave it to the father). It's not always straightforward.

[Buddha]

Whimsey your comment is unclear. Surely you are not implying that Marie Josephine shouldn't be affected by the pain felt by her children?

[whimsey]

Marie Josephine, I wonder if the 'real' problem here is not your children, but you, so far as your unlovely inlaws are concerned??? It sounds like they think YOU are flawed (probably because you were a single mother - oh, the disgrace!)and therefore your children are too??? Only the presence of their son's genes in their 'own' grandchild makes him acceptable to them.....

What also struck me about your post was that if nothing else, it's so CRUEL to the two older children for adults to openly reject them like that. How damn mean and petty can you get? Is it the children's fault they don't have their son's genes in them?

[Kate]

Marie Josephine, your story is heartbreaking - I can hardly believe that adults can behave like that. You are rightly proud of your youngest son's reaction to his grandparents' spite - and I think in your position, I would have been tempted much earlier to take the same stance as he has - they accept the whole family or none of it.

[Alison]

Sorry but whilst two children can be equally loved the fact that one carries your genes will make a difference. I say this as a woman unable to have her own child.

[Aurea Eagle]

Oh man! It seems like the truth is jumbled up with the lies!!! very difficult situation !

[Maddilion]

I’m living in Melbourne and Nicole has recently given a lovely interview saying that she was blessed to be able to have brought her two oldest children up in her twenties and thirties and that she is loving being a mum all over again in her forties. Just because she isn't papped with the older two, doesn't mean she doesn't see them, it probably just means she doesn't flaunt the publicity wagon like Tom Cruise does. Remember whose career is flagging fast here.
Who cares what happened in their marriage? Does it really matter? As long as all 4 children, Suri and Sunday included, grow up happy, healthy and as relatively normal as being chased down a street with a horde of people waving cameras at you can be, good luck to them.
I would hate to live my life knowing that as soon as I opened my door people were waiting outside it to see what I was wearing, what I did, following me everywhere - if it was anything other than the media, it would be called stalking. Rather them than me, it's brave of all celebrities to attempt to raise children and have some semblance of family life in that situation, put yourself in their shoes and see how well you walk in them. (Rant over).