Mathair Áil

Using "Honest Adoption Language" (Language that Respects People who Have Been Separated by Adoption)
by Bryony Lake, reunited natural mother

One thing that survivors of adoption-separation don't often find elsewhere is respect. Respect for mothers who grieve their lost children. Respect for adopted persons who lost their natural families. Acknowledgement of the losses, 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's 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 "birthmother" about thirty years ago to replace the original term "natural mother."
Many women who have lost children to adoption feel their loss as a rape. These mother 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 our email list, members have agreed by consensus to 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).
The term "birthmother" [birthfather, birthparent, etc.] was coined by social workers to mean "breeder" or "incubator," as adoptive parents 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. However, our relationships with our children did not end with their birth. We are still the parents of our children, even if they were taken by the industry and given to others to raise.
Ask any adoption agency, and they'll tell you that the corellary to "birthparent" is "parent," not "adoptive parent." That hence, 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 MacLeans 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 adoptees are no longer the sons and daughters of their natural parents, but were produced by "breeders" who aren't their parents, and that their ONLY "true" parents are adopters. This term denies that any loving parent/offspring relationship can form between the reunited parties.
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), in order to make the "as if born to" promise to their paying customers.
See Diane Turski's article "Why Birthmothers Means Breeder," at
http://www.originscanada.org/why_birthmother_means_breeder.html.

(updated: June 20, 2003)

Mother of the brood……………The Source