When you are discussing adoption with others, how you talk about adoption and the language you use can set the tone.  So much of the old adoption language was negative and has a negative connotation.  People often use this language without realizing how it can make a Birthparent, adoptive parent or adoptee feel.  It is up to us to teach others positive adoption language in the way we speak about adoption.

When talking about Birthparents, many people will refer to them as the natural parent or real parent.  This somehow gives the connotation that adoptive parents are not real or are somehow unnatural.  A friend of mine is an adoptive mother.  She went to the Emergency Room a few years ago.  When the nurse was filling out paperwork, she asked how many children she had and my friend said one.  When she asked how many live births she had, my friend said none.  After the nurse gave her a strange look, my friend explained that she had adopted her child.  The nurse then stated, “well we will just go back up and mark this one 0″.  Pretty much meaning that if you didn’t give birth, then you aren’t a real parent and that’s not her child.  My friend took that opportunity to give the nurse some adoption education.  People often say “does she have her real mother’s eyes” or “where is her real mother?”  Her real mother is right there having the conversation!

When you are talking about your adopted child, they are your child.  If you have biological and adopted children they are all your children.  Some people will ask which ones are yours, meaning that the adopted children are not yours.  They are all yours!  Along these same lines, your child was adopted not your child is adopted. Adoption is not a condition, it is an event.  It happens, it’s done and they are your child.

A child is placed for adoption not put up for adoption.  The term “put up” refers to the orphan trains that traveled through the Midwest in the early 1900s.  Children were “put up” on platforms at the train stations and families could come view the children, check them out and take home the ones that they wanted mainly to be used as farm hands.  “Put up” has a very negative connotation.

When a Birthmother makes an adoption plan, she does not adopt her child out, give the child up or give the child away.  I hate when someone says “she gave up her baby for adoption” or “I don’t know how anyone can give their baby away”.  It makes the baby sound like a thing, like a sweater that you can just give away.  When a Birthmother chooses adoption she makes an adoption plan.  She loves and cares for her child.  She is not just giving them away.

This is just a few of the many negative adoption terms that are floating around today.  As an adoptive parent, you do not want your child/children to feel as though adoption is a negative thing.  You want them to feel loved, to feel secure.  One of the ways you can do this is to help others to use positive adoption language and to take any negative connotation out of the adoption process.  It starts one person at a time, but it is a change that needs to be made.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 13th, 2006 at 5:24 am and is filed under Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.