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 publically 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.bcadoption.com/articles/aam/RAL.htm, written by adoption-industry worker and adoptive parent Patricia Johnston (published originally at http://www.perspectivespress.com/ourfactsheets.html)

        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; acknowledgement 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 "birth mother" about thirty years ago to replace the original term "natural mother."

        The term "birthmother" [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 "birthmother," 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 "birthmother" 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 [birthson, 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.

See also Diane Turski's article "Why Birthmother Means Breeder," at http://www.originscanada.org/why_birthmother_means_breeder.html .

Adoption Industry Terminology "Positive/Respectful Adoption Language"	Honest Adoption Language:	Comments:
"birthparents"	natural parents first parents parents, mothers, fathers	The relationship does not end at birth. As well, this term dehumanizes mothers into being walking incubators whose purpose is solely reproductive.
parents	adoptive parents adopters people who adopt	An adoptee has at least 4 parents: two natural parents and 2 adoptive parents, and often step-parents as well.
"placed for adoption" "relinquished"	surrendered lost to adoption taken for adoption	A mother seldom chooses adoption for her child - financial, emotional and/or social coercion often play a role - as well as professionals intentionally withholding information from her so she is unable to make an informed decision. See "Were You Coerced," "Not by Choice" by Karen WB, the true first-hand stories of "Losing Our Babies", and "What They Knew and Didn't Tell Us."
"birthson" "birthdaughter" "birthchild"	son/daughter natural son/daughter lost son/daughter son/daughter lost to adoption son/daughter taken for adoption	Children are not "products." We may refer to our lost children as our sons and daughters, even though others may have taken them and raised them, our spiritual/emotional/psychological bond with them endures past years and even decades of separation.
son/daughter/child (when in reference to the adoptive family)	adopted son/daughter	for media and other third-person references. the industry wants all mention of "adopted" removed from newspaper articles. This presents a false picture that the adoptee was born to the adopters.
adoption triad	adoption transaction	The "triad' misrepresents an adoption as solely concerning/affecting 3 equal parties. This renders invisible the power dynamics involved and the role of the 4th party, the adoption agency or lawyer that oversaw and in most cases affected the "transaction." Study after study has shown that the majority of mothers were coerced into surrendering their babies. Adoption is thus a 4-party transaction: two parties (mother and baby) lacking the power/resources to remain together, and two parties (agency and customer) having the financial/social power to obtain the baby.
parented	raised	"parented" implies that the only parents a child has is those who are raising them.
parenting a child	raising a child nurturing a child caring for a child	"parenting" is much more than raising a child, it is also a emotional/psychological/ spiritual bond that comes from pregnancy, birth, genetics, and a clan bond coming from five billion years of evolution.