Originally reprinted from
http://www.originscanada.org/honest-adoption-language-short-summary.html . See the original article for a table of language terms.
Using Language that Respects People Who Have Lost Family to Adoption: A Short Summary of Honest Adoption Language
by Bryony Lake
Over the last 30 years, adoption industry social workers have developed terminology to "sell adoption," even going to far as to publicly admit that it's like selling cars! They call this "Respectful/Positive Adoption Language." It is respectful of adoptive parents - but only those who believe the industry sales pitch that they will be "the ONLY parents" an adoptee will ever have or need. For an example of how this wishful thinking is being promoted by the industry and its customers, see
http://www.perspectivespress.com/pjpal.html, written by adoption-industry worker and adoptive parent Patricia Johnston.
What is lacking in "Positive Adoption Language" is any respect for the family members who were separated from one-another by adoption: respect for mothers who grieve for their lost children; respect for adopted persons who lost their natural families; acknowledgment of their loss and respect for them and for their experiences.
Lack of respect has been reinforced by social workers and others in the adoption industry, who have found that it is easier to promote public acceptance of adoption if one can dehumanize the mothers who have lost children to adoption.
One way that mothers have been dehumanized and demeaned is by the introduction of the term "natural mother" about thirty years ago to replace the original term "natural mother."
The term "natural mother" [birthfather, birthparent, etc.] was first used by adopter Pearl S. Buck in 1956*, and promoted in the late 1960's by social workers to mean "breeder" or "incubator," as those adopting felt threatened by the original term "natural mother." It was also was coined specifically to imply that we *were* mothers at the time of our children's birth but not afterwards, and that our role in our children's lives is solely reproductive - as living production units, producing a child for adoption. This attitude towards unmarried mothers, as being sources of babies to sell, is evident in the industry's writings:
"Because there are many more married couples wanting to adopt newborn white babies than there are babies, it may almost be said that they rather than out of wedlock babies are a social problem. (Sometimes social workers in adoption agencies have facetiously suggested setting up social provisions for more 'babybreeding'.)" Social Work and Social Problems, National Association of Social Workers, (Out-of-print) copyright 1964
"... the tendency growing out of the demand for babies is to regard unmarried mothers as breeding machines...(by people intent) upon securing babies for quick adoptions." - Leontine Young, "Is Money Our Trouble?" (paper presented at the National Conference of Social Workers, Cleveland, 1953)
However, our relationships with our children did not end with their birth. We are still mothers and thus parents of our children, even if they were taken by the industry and given to others to raise.
Many women who have lost children to adoption feel their loss as a rape. These mothers feel the trauma of this reproductive exploitation every time they hear the term "natural mother," as it denigrates them and other exiled mothers into being merely incubators for their children, used and discarded after their babies were harvested from them by brokers.
In many support groups for exiled mothers and adoptees, members are beginning to become aware of the semantics of these words, and to by consensus use language that does not traumatize other members, and to not use language that was coined by the adoption industry in order to demean natural mothers or the mother/child relationship. This means any "birth-" terms to refer to exiled natural mothers or their child(ren).
Ask any adoption agency, and they'll tell you that the corresponding term to "birthparent" is "parent," not "adoptive parent." That, in industry eyes, adopters are the ONLY parents once the child is adopted, hence the natural mother is seen as only being relevant for having served a genital purpose.
As for the term "birthfather" - men cannot give birth. The male equivalent of "natural mother" would be "ejaculation father." (similarly, the male equivalent of "tummy mommy" would be "dick daddy). Even MacLean's Magazine recently confirmed this in their headline article "Who Is My Birthfather?", using the term to refer to an anonymous sperm-donor in an artificially-inseminated conception.
The term birthchild [son, birthdaughter, etc.] was coined to imply that the relationship of adoptees to their natural parents ended at birth, and thus the adoptee is a "product" produced by "breeders" who aren't their parents, and that their ONLY "true" parents are adopters. This is part of the sales-pitch that the industry promotes, in order to sell babies to people who want "a child of their own." Adopters don't pay $30,000 for a child they must share ... they pay for a substitute for a child "of their own," one that the industry tries to sell as being as close as possible to that theoretical "natural child" the adopters were unable to conceive.
The TRUTH is that in reunion, exiled natural mothers and their lost children find that the deep spiritual and emotional bonds between them have never been severed, despite years of separation. Thus, the b-words are wishful thinking on the part of the industry (adoption lawyers, social workers and agencies) and their customers.
* Information provided courtesy of Karen Wilson Buterbaugh and used with her permission.
Compiled by Bryony Lake, Origins BC Coordinator, July 2003
Copyright © 2003 Origins Canada Supporting People Separated by Adoption
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