ADOPTION AND DOCTOR WHO

As a young adoptee, I really connected with the Doctor. They’ve always been a character that has struggled with loneliness and yearned to feel a sense of belonging, and not just because they’re an immortal time traveller. These were feelings they had growing up
on Gallifrey, they felt out of place and like an alien among their own people, which are very adoptee-coded traits. It’s common for us adoptees to have feelings like that because of not growing up with our birth families, the people we came from and who look like us. Abandonment issues are also common for us to have because of being separated from our birth family for multiple reasons, which can make future relationships with people difficult because we’re scared of being left, and as a result can make it hard for us to feel a sense of belonging.

Adoption and found family are core themes of Doctor Who, and have been since it started in 1963, with how the Doctor adopts companions and continues to build family around them – it’s something they really can’t help doing. I think a big motivation behind this is their need to feel wanted which stems from abandonment issues, which have been a part of the Doctor’s character since the start of the show. When Ian and Barbara wanted to leave, you could see that deeply affected the Doctor, and it’s always the same whenever their companions leave as they hate endings and goodbyes. From Jo to Adric to Donna to the Ponds and 13’s Fam; they hate being left behind and losing people.

In Series 2, The Girl in the Fireplace (2006), written by Steven Moffat, it was revealed that the Doctor struggled with loneliness in their childhood, which again is common for us adoptees to feel because of that initial loss of our birth family and not looking like our adoptive family, so it can be quite a lonely experience, especially without support.

In the Series 8 episode Listen (2014), also written by Moffat, the TARDIS lands in a barn on Gallifrey, and the Doctor’s companion Clara exits to find the young First Doctor alone, hiding under the covers of a bed and crying. An unnamed man and woman enter, so Clara hides under the bed and hears the woman tell the Doctor that he didn’t have to be alone and is very welcome in the house with the other boys, which suggests that he was living in a children’s home and wasn’t in the care of his birth parents. This parallels Clara’s love interest, Danny Pink, who earlier in the episode is seen as a child in a children’s home.

In Series 10, the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) met Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie), who was being fostered because her birth mum had died when she was a baby. This story arc beautifully and truthfully showed the feelings of loss that can come with being care experienced, which you can still feel even if your birth parents haven’t died. From numerous references throughout the show, we know that the First Doctor had a family – a mother, father, siblings, and grandparents have all been mentioned – so as the Doctor was in a children’s home, it’s a fair assumption that he was eventually adopted by a family and moved in with them at their the house perched halfway up a mountain, the home which the Third Doctor mentioned in The Time Monster (1972) was where he lived as a little boy.

In Series 12, The Timeless Children (2020), written by Chris Chibnall, the Doctor being an adoptee-coded character became reality. On Gallifrey, in a database called the Matrix that stored the lived history of the Time Lords, the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) was shown hidden memories that revealed she had an unknown number of forgotten incarnations as a being nicknamed the Timeless Child, before what the Doctor and we, the audience, believed was their first incarnation played by William Hartnell.

In this forgotten part of the Doctor’s history, they were found as a young girl completely alone next to a monument under a wormhole to another universe, by a space explorer called Tecteun. She decided to adopt the Doctor, and after years of exploring the universe together, she brought her to Gallifrey and raised her. The rest of the reveal is quite lore based, so to skip to the end, after an unknown number of incarnations, the Doctor had their mind fully wiped and were regressed back into a child: the First Doctor, and the rest as they say is history.

The Timeless Child reveal means that the Doctor’s origins from their native planet and species to their genetic heritage and birth parents are now a mystery to the Doctor and to us, the audience. The show’s titular question “Doctor Who?” has never been truer and more personal to the Doctor because they don’t know anything about their born identity. For many adoptees, identity, and the question of who we are is such a profound thing because we don’t have all of the details about our birth families, so the question of who we are is something we’re constantly wondering and asking ourselves throughout our lives, echoing the question Doctor Who? Chris Chibnall revealed that the story arc was partly inspired by him being an adoptee and seeing that the Doctor being an adoptee fit with the character. On a podcast with Reality Bomb, Joy Piedmont interviewed Chris. A quote that really stuck out for me was when Chris said that “adoption as an idea is baked into Doctor Who when you look at it”, and I’m so thankful he showed that in his era.

In Series 13 (2021), the Doctor goes looking for answers about her missing past and gets to meet her forgotten adoptive mother Tecteun, which is a very psychological and explosive showdown. Unfortunately, not every adoptee has a happy adoption experience or good adoptive parents, and the Doctor is one of those adoptees, at least with their first adoption experience. Tecteun represents adoptive parents who are narcissistic, manipulative and see themselves as saviours, which the Doctor calls Tecteun out on, as when she found her next to the monument, she just assumed she’d been deposited through the wormhole and was lost, and didn’t even try to find out the exact reason as to why she was alone, because she could’ve had a life waiting for her to get back to and birth parents coming back or looking for her. Tecteun understands this and pushes the emotional knife into the Doctor further by saying “you think you could’ve been something else, someone else” and the Doctor responds by saying “maybe, I’ll never know” this scene beautifully captures and represents the pain of the fact that as adoptees we could’ve had another life with our birth family, and the constant questions and what if’s we have of that other life, which has so many different possibilities. Tecteun also represents adoptive parents who conceal the truth of their child’s adoption from them which should never be the case, as everyone has the right to know their own life and identity. Tecteun was the one who ordered for the Doctor’s memories to be fully erased and for them to be reset back into a child.

The Doctor finds all of her stolen memories stored in a Gallifreyan fob watch, which was kept by Tecteun after she’d erased them. At the very end of the series when the Doctor finds herself alone, she decides to store the fob watch in the TARDIS and not regain her missing memories, so they still don’t know anything about their origins. Looking at this from an adoptee’s perspective, I think one subtextual reason the Doctor did this is because she’s scared of the answers, specifically the answer as to why she is a foundling. With abandonment issues being common for adoptees, I think she’s terrified of the possibility that her birth parents didn’t want her and abandoned her at the monument where Tecteun found her, or that her birth parents were killed, meaning she won’t ever be able to find and reconnect with them, so I think that fear of the unknown and abandonment are holding the Doctor back from finding out the answers which I really understood.

With Russell T Davies’s triumphant return as Showrunner, the Doctor being an adoptee has been continued. In the second 60th special Wild Blue Yonder (2023), the Not Thing version of Donna (Catherine Tate) teased the Doctor (David Tennant) about the fact that he isn’t from Gallifrey and doesn’t know where he’s from.

In the latest Christmas special The Church on Ruby Road (2023), the new Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) meets his new companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) who was found on the doorstep of a church as a baby. Carla Sunday (Michelle Greenidge) fostered Ruby and later went onto adopt her. In present day 19-year-old Ruby is on a long-lost family style programme with Davina McCall, as she wants to find her birth parents.

When I was watching this special, I just couldn’t stop smiling because of how brilliant the representation of adoption and foster care was. Carla, her mother Cherry (Angela Wynter), and Ruby have a very strong and loving relationship with each other, showing that love and connection in the context of a relationship aren’t defined by sharing DNA.

I’ve seen some people say in response to the Timeless Child reveal that the Doctor is no longer a real Gallifreyan, and that there was no point in them saving Gallifrey in The Day of the Doctor (2013) because it’s not where they’re from. As adoptees we’re sometimes asked if we know or are going to meet our real parents, in reference to our birth parents, suggesting that what makes a family real is DNA. You unfortunately hear a similar thing said to people who’ve lived in one country all of their life but come from and were born in another country. Not being the biological child of your parents or not being native to the country you’ve lived in your entire life doesn’t make you less of a real (family name) or (country name).

So, while the Doctor may not be a native Gallifreyan, that doesn’t make their connection to the planet, people, or their Gallifreyan family any less real than if they were from there, their connection to Earth and its people is proof of that, it’s where they’ve lived for thousands of years and have built a huge family of their own. As the Thirteenth Doctor’s companion Graham O’Brien said in Resolution (2019), family isn’t just about DNA, or a name, it’s about what you do. It’s the same reality with Ruby, while she doesn’t share DNA with her mother Carla and grandmother Cherry, their connection and bond, in the context of a relationship is real and valid.

Even with a positive adoption experience with great adoptive parents that doesn’t mean there aren’t any negatives, because to be adopted means to be separated from your birth family which is a traumatic event no matter how young you were, which is the reason for abandonment and attachment issues. So, it’s important that adoptees and adoptive parents have support even after the adoption has happened because without support, that can lead to poor mental health for adoptees.

I think the perfect response as an adoptee with a positive adoption, to someone who asks you if you know or are going to meet your real parents is by saying that we see them every day we go home, because our adoptive parents are our real parents, they’re the ones who look after, feed, comfort, guide, and put up with us, all the things that birth parents do with their biological children, so to see this truth shown in The Church on Ruby Road with the Sunday family was brilliant.

This was absolutely a positive adoption experience as Carla fully supported Ruby’s decision to search for her birth parents which was great to see, she never discouraged or made her feel like she was being ungrateful, because it’s not an either-or situation where an adoptee has to choose between their adoptive family or birth family, both can be a part of their life.

There’s a scene in Ruby’s home where the Doctor sees the pictures of all 33 children that Carla fostered over the years and says to Ruby that she has the biggest family in the world, which draws a nice parallel to how the Doctor has fostered and adopted companions. Historically, adoption and foster care hasn’t had the best representation in media, but in The Church on Ruby Road it was handled with care and sensitivity, so thank you Russell.

The moment when the Doctor shared with Ruby and Carla that he’s adopted was wonderful and made me unashamedly tear up. I’m looking forward to seeing the Doctor and Ruby’s relationship because they can bond over being foundling adoptees and are able to understand each other’s feelings, so I think they’ll be great for each other, as adoptees knowing other adoptees really helps. I’m part of Adoption UK’s service called Connected, which have different age groups that meet every so often and do a specific activity. Led by brilliant youth workers, it’s a great place for adoptees to make friends and if they want to, talk, and share about their experiences. It’s really helped me in so many ways and allowed me to understand more about myself as an adoptee. I’m on the Youth Council and will be advocating for better support for adoptees and adoptive parents. Ruby’s adoption story arc continues in the new season of Doctor Who on May 11th, so don’t miss it!

As mentioned in the blog Chris Chibnall did a brilliant podcast with Joy Piedmont where they talk about Adoption and Doctor Who from 19 mins, 30 seconds in, I definitely recommend a listen. Here’s the link to it: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/reality-bomb-a-doctor-who-podcast/id672090945?i=1000608613123