B-words in adoption

Because of the harmful lifelong consequences of separating family members, we use honest, accurate terms such as “mother,” “single mother,” “parent,” “grandparent,” “son” or “daughter” which do not minimize or attempt to deny familial bonds — most specifically, the dyad. If a distinction between family members must be made, please use the prefix “natural.” The term “natural mother” is reality-based and historically accurate. Natural mother was the medical and legal term commonly in use until the adoption industry introduced the “b” words.

Words like these are dishonest from a number of perspectives including the historical, emotional, and psychological points of view. Because the adoption industry has invested heavily in promoting &quotPositive Adoption Language”, words such as these have also gained currency with the public at large. When used to describe pregnant women who are merely considering adoption, these words become weapons. They are coercive. Their implicit message is that the outcome of this pregnancy is predetermined, ie, adoption. These words carry the message that people can become former family. You can have an former husband, but you can never have a former child or become a former mother.

Words like these are also dishonest from a psychological perspective. The “B” term is dehumanizing. The word reduces a woman to a function - that of giving birth. Mothers are not incubators. They are not disposable objects, to be thrown away at will. Motherhood is not a class privilege reserved for women who can afford it. Motherhood os not a social privilege granted only to married women. Motherhood is not a moral privilege granted only to those deemed worthy by an authority figure. To create a class of people — “B” mothers — carries the message that not every woman is entitled to her motherhood. It denies the maternity of millions of impoverished women around the globe. It also denies the maternity of many of our mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers, who may have come to this country as impoverished immigrants.

BSERI decries the use of industry created and promoted “Positive Adoption Language”. We strongly encourage the use of honest, accurate terms that reflect the realities of both mothers and their children.

From The Evan B.Donaldson Institute’s 2006 White Paper titled

“Safeguarding the Rights and Wellbeing of Birthparents In The Adoption Process.”

According to this report, parents who choose adoption for their infants do not have their rights and needs sufficiently addressed in U.S. law and practice - largely because of basic misconceptions about who these women and men are - and they invariably fare better when they have ongoing information about and/or contact with the children they place into new families.
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Executive Summary
Each year in the United States, approximately 14,000 women and a growing number of men make an agonizing parenting decision that they hope will provide their children with the best possible future: They place their babies for adoption. At the same time, policy-makers across this country each year propose and implement measures meant to improve adoption, often based on their perceptions of what these parents want and need. Historically and through the present day, however, adoption-related laws, policies and practices have been made without the benefit of solid research that might answer the most basic, underlying questions: What are the characteristics of mothers and fathers who relinquish their infants for adoption? Why do they choose this path? And how can their needs and rights best be served and protected?

Due largely to the secretive nature of adoption’s past, the state of knowledge about infant adoptions in the 21st century is deficient, at best. There is no broad, concrete body of work on who these women and men typically are, what forces shape their decisions, or how adoption impacts the rest of their lives. We do not even know precisely how many babies are placed for adoption in this country annually. Indeed, though domestic infant adoption is what most people think of when they hear the word “adoption,” it is the least common type in the U.S. today (after adoption from foster care, from abroad, and by step-parents), and it is the type we know the least about.

This factsheet discusses some of the emotional issues that parents face after making the decision to place an infant for adoption, in surrendering the child, and in handling the feelings that often persist afterwards. In addition, it addresses some of the emotional issues of parents whose children are permanently removed from them and whose parental rights are terminated. This factsheet may be a helpful resource for birth parents, as well as family members, friends, and others who want to support birth parents. It may also provide some insight to adopted persons and adoptive parents who want to understand the struggles faced by birth parents.