Adoption terminology considered offensive?

Question

I don't understand why the term "natural mother" is so offensive to some. I hear people say that to call a woman who relinquished a "natural mom" automatically means the adoptive mother is unnatural. Why does one automatically mean the opposite for the other? One is natural, one is adoptive. By nature it can only be my natural mother who gave birth to me.

And as for first mother - well, I don't understand the offense to that either. Some women have parented for months or years before relinquishing. Why then are they just reduced to being only a "birth" mother when in reality they were the mother first.

Answer 1

i try to be fair, so i know at times i will use natural, first or birth to describe my mother. I have come to the conclusion that some people will not see eye to eye on this. So, i have decided to start using biological mother or biological family. This may be offensive to some. I don;t know. Adoption in itself is already a charged subject.

Answer 2

we have a simple solution... birth mother is the Tummy mommy and I am just plain MoM.. we refer to the tummy mommy by name. I was told early on that children get confused with the term mother used in plural ( ex: birth, natural, adoptive, real MOTHER)...

Tummy Mommy has worked very well... and we often talk about her by name and I tell my son often how well she took care of him in her tummy...

Answer 3

In the case of birth mothers who were mothers for awhile, then yes, they could be a first mother. But I was not and saying that assumes that I was. As far as I'm concerned, her adoptive parents were her parents at the hospital after her birth. My family and I spent about an hour with her before her parents were invited in and joined us.

Perhaps I'm just cold, but I really don't see myself as a mother. Hopefully someday I will be. But I'm not yet. I gave birth. I'm not a mother. There is a distinct difference.

As far as natural mother goes, it's really the same as saying real mother. Adoptive mothers are hurt when people refer to the birth mother as the real mother. But you know, I'll ask my girl's adoptive mother what she thinks.

PS- when I don't have to distinguish btwn myself & her AP, I call the AP, parents, mom & dad. She calls me by my name, not any sort of mom. I hope that continues. I'm perfectly happy with our relationship being more like aunt & niece than anything else.

Answer 4

thanks for this question.

i am a first / natural mother. how anyone can say that carrying a baby is not "mothering" is beyond me. if it were not for this very critical time of 9 months of nuturing and caring, there wouldn't be a child!

anyone who has "happily" given up their child for adoption and all is great, isn't by any stretch of the imagination normal. the loss of a child is horrific. in those cases, i would have to say.... thank goodness they aren't parenting that child. they aren't emotionally or mentally competent. there's a "chip" missing. i've seen more emotion from women who miscarried at 6 weeks. it doesn't ring "true" to me, or it's just unnatural. in the very, very few cases where there has been a successful "open" adoption, i can understand that they would have a more positive experience. i know i felt not GREAT, but my outlook was much better when the "open" adoption was being honored. i still think there needs to be reformation in adoptions, so that any mother who wants to keep her child may do so.

i have to agree with the poster who doesn't use the term first / natural father. it is a whole different topic. most women wouldn't have gotten pregnant if it weren't for a man doing whatever they did.... lastly, they obvisouly weren't around or the first mother wouldn't have been put in a situation of having to give her child up. very rarely are the men involved during the pregnancy.

i refer to myself as first / natural mother. i refer to the AP's as my daughter's mom and dad.

edit: WHEN I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL, I WAS "MOM", WHY CAN'T I JUST BE THAT AGAIN? I DIED THAT DAY I GAVE MY DAUGHTER UP AND A MILLION TIMES SINCE.

i do appreciate the ones who are open to how we feel. it's nice to feel acknowledged. so, i thank all the kind people who try.... it's all about trying.

Answer 5

hi am a young mother of one and i totally dont have anything against all that you said. only if i chose to will it bother me.

having a child is a beautiful experience and no one can take that buzz away, the memories away, the bond you and the baby have. no names can be less to me in the eyes of a child. even if his foster parents are rich and have it all, a child will always have respect and love for their birth parent unconditionally even if they took them up for adoption.

being bitter about things has unfortunately caused such tention where the foster parent longs to be called mum, to be the 1st, its all a personal illness. a child is a child ,love them and stop rating yourself.and you shall get all that you want.

Answer 6

I never used to take offense to the term birth mother. In that past 4 or 5 years however my views have changed dramatically. Natural is how I now choose to refer to the mother who brings a child into this world.

My personal reasoning is that I did far more for my son than just give birth to him. My body created him, many women are able to "conceive" by means other than s*x. In essence this is not natural, nature did not intend for zygotes or embryos to be transferred from one body to another nor did nature intend for sperm and egg to meet in a petri dish. My son was created in the "natural" way ( as was I ), through intercourse resulting in sperm meeting egg. My body nourished him through those crucial months in utero. The end result was my body giving birth but the actual process was far more involved. The term birth mother implies, IMHO, that both my mother and I did little more than spit out a baby. In the same sense I refuse to use the term first mother, a child has only one mother (get out your thumbs people). Yes I was the first mother he knew but the bond goes far deeper than that. I am who he bonded to in the maternal sense, his adoptive mother will never be able to recapture the bonding we shared. I spent the formative stages of his brain's development encouraging and accelerating his growth and learning through my actions and nurturing. This simply cannot be passed to his adoptive mother. The bonds are there, hardwired into his brain.

So you see, in those first 40 weeks inside me and the 21 months I raised him, I did far more than just donate my biological material. I was more than just a vessel to give birth. I was then and always will be his natural mother.

Answer 7

As an adoptive mom, I try to use several different terms at least a little bit with my daughter (she's 3 1/2), because she will hear all of them and I want her to hear them first from me, when I am available to explain and help her to understand. And I want her to feel comfortable talking about having been adopted. In addition to the terms I've seen mentioned, I have sometimes used "other mother" (not too much, seems kind of dry at this age), tummy mommy (because that is a big deal at her age and she sees her friends' mommies with babies in their tummies) and China mommy (that term is confusing in our family, though, because she had a foster mommy in China for more than a year, so there are 2 China mommies).

My favorite term is first mother, or in our case "first mommy," because it is both neutral and descriptive (we use the term "second mother" for her foster mom as well). I try to use it in a warm way, because I think having warm feelings about her mother will help my daughter to have warm feelings about herself. But I try to mostly be neutral about it, because my daughter is the one who gets to (and has to) come to terms with her feelings about her mother and being adopted. It is her experience and her "relationship" with her first mother, and I expect that she will have different feelings and mixed feelings as she grows up.First Mother seems by far the most neutral term to me, because it doesn't come with any value judgements. I don't reallly understand what people mean when they say that this term isn't accurate because the woman has not performed the duties of a mother -- because for one thing, carrying a the child in your womb for 9 months and giving birth certainly are important motherly roles, and for another the other terms use "mother" as well, so I don't get the difference.

My personal least favorite term is birth mother, because it reduces the mother just to the fact of the birth, and but for hard circumstances she would have simply been the mother/mommy. I do use it sometimes, though, among other adoptive parents or just the general public, because if I say first mother I sometimes have to explain and sometimes I just don't feel like it. Mostly I still use first mother with other adoptive parents, and do it very consciously to educate them. But some people do not seem to be educable. Sigh.

Oh, and um, "Birth Father"? Say what?

No, wait, my least favorite term is "biological mother." It just seems so clinical and somehow disrespectful. It feels to me as if it is really reducing the connection to just genetics and dismissing everything else. Although now that I'm mentioning it, I could see limited situations (medical) where I might use "genetic mother."

(Okay, "biological stranger" is even worse, but that one is just so completely bizarre to me that I just want to dismiss it. That woman was just whacked, and I can't believe the NCFA published it--no respect for them whatsoever. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see the first 2 links below.)

My basic view about all sorts of terminology is that people should get to decide what name they want to be called for themselves. So if someone decides to go by a nickname or change their name, then I try to call them what they want to be called. It only seems respectful to me. And that applies to groups, also; group members get to decide what they want to be called. Though that gets to be more complicated because no group of people is monolithic and so there is often more than one term that members of a group prefer (for example Black and African American). But I certainly don't want to call members of a group by a name that is offensive to a large number of them (so I of course never use the N word, even though some African Americans do). And if I have a choice, I don't usually want to offend other people either, because it shuts off discussion. Though for me the feelings of members of the group always take precedence.  

So in this case I have heard from a number of women who have lost children to adoption that they prefer the terms "natural mother" or "first mother" or just "mother." And since "natural mother" seems to be quite inflammatory to some others (especially some adoptive parents), and just plain mother is potentially confusing, I try to use First mother.

I have no idea, btw, what First Fathers wish to be called. I don't remember ever running into one discussing this, so I just use the parallel term, First Father. I know that in some cases the father really only contributed sperm in a one night stand, but in our case (adoption from China), we just have no idea what really happened, and in many cases the child actually has 2 married parents and older sibling(s) as well, so I just find it simpler and more respectful to use the same term.

As to why "natural mother" might be offensive. Well, you know, it sort of bugs me as well, but I can't put my finger on why. I came up with one theory, though. I do think it is because some people feel that saying natural mother implies that the adoptive mother is "unnatural," although I want to stress that I have never seen those who use "natural mother" use "unnatural mother," and have frequently seen them deny that they intend any such juxtaposition of terms. So my theory is, that for some (NOT all) adoptive mothers who have come to adoption because of infertility, the term natural mother strikes a little too close to home, because they themselves sometimes feel a little unnatural sometimes. And you know, maybe that is the problem for me also. My experiences with "natural" motherhood were distinctly "unnatural" (multiple ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages as well as failed ivf and ivf miscarriage), so maybe I'm defensive about that. It doesn't feel like it consciously, but there is still pain there for me, so it could be. Or it might just be that it also seems like a kind of "dry" term, and maybe ambiguous, so I just prefer first mother. Plus I don't want to offend other adoptive parents, either.

A lot of us come to adoption with feelings of loss and pain, so feelings run high and we can get defensive. I think we should try to be gentle and understanding of each other, and that includes using terms as respectfully as we can.

ADDED: Sunny, I don't like the term birth mother either. I did say that pretty clearly (though I admit it could have gotten lost in all the other stuff I said). I also think it is too distancing, and too clinical. And then the parallel term is "birth father"--say what?

And regarding "tummy mommy" -- okay! okay, I'll stop!  I really have maybe used it once or twice, and it has always been kind of uncomfortable. I probably shouldn't have put it in here, because it isn't a term I have really liked much, but I have used it, so I felt it was honest to include it. And you do have to take into account that she is only 3, so tummy is the term I use with her, along with uterus and womb. Kids this age are very curious about this stuff, adopted or not, but probably especially adopted kids. So I usually say something like "You grew inside your first mother's tummy, in China" (in the context of a whole conversation, of course). But I get that "tummy mommy" can sound disrespectful, so I will make sure not to say it again.

ADDED 2: And I don't get upset about "real mother" either. I know for sure I'm not imaginary. To my mind, all 6 of my daughter's parents are real. Her first parents in China will probably only be real to her in her heart and her fantasies, and that is sad, but I try to make them seem as real  as possible.

ADDED 3: Any woman who is pregnant and might (or might not) be considering relinquishing her child is simply "mother."

ADDED 4: I'm not offended by the term "natural mother," when other people use it. It just isn't the term I prefer to use myself. I might think about using it with my daughter, along with all the others.

Answer 8

"Natural" products are real by most guidelines.  Making it seem, to me, that the woman who raised the child all its life is NOT a "real" mom because she adopted instead of had the child naturally.

"First" mother offends the h**l out of me because I was NOT a mother to that child.  I carried him.  I did not hold him, change his diaper, or even come within 10 feet of him after he was born.  

I am a mother now, and what I do now is nothing like what I did then.  

He has ONE "Mom" and it is not me.  It is the woman who was with him through all his aches, pains, joys, and heartbreaks.

Who died and made YOU the person we have to justify anything too?  Are you a birth mother?  Do you know anything besides your narrowminded little opinion?

Re. what I call the sperm donor who got me pregnant... Well, Yahoo won't print those kinds of words.

Answer 9

i dont find this offensive at all. birth/natural, its all the same to me. the only one i contest is 'real mother/father'

my birthparents are my mom and dad. my 'real' parents are the ones that nursed my fevers, tended to my cuts, gave me away at my wedding, supported my 80s hair and bad behavior, you know, parent stuff.

i love my birthparents with all my heart, but they are 'jim and lori'. mom and dad are just that, mom and dad

Answer 10

By the same token, if there is a "biological mother," then there is a "non-biological mother."  If there is a "birth mother" or "life mother," there is a "death mother."  LOL

I have been seeing this same discussion for a decade.  "Natural mother" was always the accepted term until the adoption industry realized who their true client was, and started kowtowing to them.  They chose a term that would distance the child and adoptive family from the child's family of origin, and serve to make the adoptive mother feel more comfortable in her role (despite her behavior, good or bad).

Everyone has a natural mother -- the woman who carried us for +/- 9 months and gave birth to us.  Adopted and non-adopted people alike have a natural mother - even if we don't like her.  Even if she did a lousy job.

And, if surrogacy continues (ugh!) we will have to distinguish between biological and whatever.  In that case, the mother who carries and gives birth would STILL be the "natural mother," even if not the biological mother.

If my mother cried for me on every birthday and milestone, and many times in between, she was more than just the woman who gave birth to me, more than a "birth mother" or "biological mother" or even "first mother."  She was always my mother, no matter who raised me.  Her tears for me did not stop when I legally became someone else's child (nor did mine for her).

Children whose mother died in childbirth - to them, she will always be their mother even if she is now gone.  Their natural mother.  And I think in such cases you will find the child's family referring to her as the child's mother - not even "natural mother."

Frankly, I think adoptive mothers' insistence that their child's natural mother be called something other than "mother" reveals an insecurity problem.  Most emotionally healthy adopters I know call their adopted children's mother simply their "mother."  

As long as everyone is honest, the child knows who is who.

Answer 11

"I don't understand why the term "natural mother" is so offensive to some. I hear people say that to call a woman who relinquished a "natural mom" automatically means the adoptive mother is unnatural."

My sentiments exactly.  Why does there have to be some kind of competition?

Adoptees have two mothers.  It's a fact of adoption.  One does not negate the other.

Answer 12

you know what trips me out. You never see adoptees complaining about being called an adoptee. Or that "adoptee" comes up as spelled wrong on every spell check.  yet you'll see all kinds of first and adoptive parents argue over what to be called.

I have 2 mothers, i call them both mom.

I think the problem with "terms" is there is so much insecurity surrounding the status of motherhood in adoption. Surrounding mothers who have surrendered, and mothers who have adopted.

ALOT of research has been done by NCFA and state agencies and I personally believe that they picked up on the natural urge we women have to reproduce, bear children and raise them, and when any of us can't, the need to fulfill that natural programed urge so many of us have can be sold to "adoption."

The industry has found out how to market to a large percentage of people willing to pay top dollar in order to do, what their bodies aren't letting them. And in my opinion they have definitely invested some time into the language they use and media propaganda they use to support their marketing campaign. If they can lessen the bond between mother and child, by using certain terminology like "birth" terms, then they're feeding into the hopefull dreams of the infertile pap.  It probably helps confirm the sale.

This is how the industry really "works over" all of us. Adoptive, Natural, Adopted.

This is also how they get into the minds of the "pregnant" moms "considering." By beginning to call them "birthmothers" which they aren't, they're mothers at that time. And by showing them families wanting to adopt, all complete with letters telling them how wonderful they are, it can be pretty convincing that its(surrendering your baby) the best decision. Regardless if it is or isn't. Its a subtle form of brainwashing to both paps and expecting mothers. It is the way the industry works.

all of this is of course, my opinion, its not meant to upset anyone here, I type it with low blood pressure, a smile, and I come in peace!

Answer 13

I can understand the term firstmother if the birth mother had actually done some parenting to their birth child. Say they try to parent and realize they cant so they put the child up for adoption or if something happened to them like they died , became a vegetable just could not care for the child/baby.  However not in the case where baby is handed over right away.  My little cousin spent maybe 5mintues with his birthmother before he was given over to my Aunt and her husband.  Sure he lived inside her for 9months but to me being a mother goes far beyond that. What is 9months compared to the rest of the persons life, it’s a very small

You could ask why "birthmother" offends some people. The answer really comes down to that it’s just the way life is something’s people take offensive to , others don’t. What you find offensive the next perosn might not, what they dont find a offensive you may.  Maybe as that one poster said earlier you just refer to birthparents as biological parents. Yes there have been times where I have referred to Genetic father as birthfather. Obviously fathers don’t give birth unless they are seahorses. However it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what someone means when they say birthfather, birthanything.that that is someone genetically “related” to you.

Answer 14

From spy:

"So my theory is, that for some (NOT all) adoptive mothers who have come to adoption because of infertility, the term natural mother strikes a little too close to home, because they themselves sometimes feel a little unnatural sometimes. And you know, maybe that is the problem for me also. My experiences with "natural" motherhood were distinctly "unnatural" (multiple ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages as well as failed ivf and ivf miscarriage), so maybe I'm defensive about that. It doesn't feel like it consciously, but there is still pain there for me, so it could be."

I think you're right about this, and I thank you for your honesty.  But just because you and others like you couldn't have a child naturally doesn't give you the right to take away that reality for us.

This distancing, while comfortable for women still struggling with the loss of the child they'll never have, is damaging to little adoptees.  We often feel like we weren't born, that we came from agencies instead of women.  This 'birth mother' term sounds so mechanical to me.  Mother as machine.

I am one of the few adoptees who has my OBC, and I can see, right there, who is listed as my mother.  Irrefutable. Unchangeable. Permanent.

Amoms using 'tummy mommy', please, please stop.  It's beyond disrespectful.

Answer 15

I believe it is a personal choice.  I am only offended when someone refers to my child's first mother as "real" mom because it does imply that I am not really his mother, which is unfair.  

We have chosen to refer to our own child's first parents as biological parents - for our own personal reasons.  I use birth parent in this forum because of it being easier & quicker to type to be honest.  But we refer to his grandparents as his biological grandparents also - and they have been fine with that.  Not that we "call" them that but when we are explaining "who" they are, then we will use that.  They are just Grandma & Grandpa like the other grandparents in our family.

Again, I believe it is a personal choice.  I did have to laugh when you said if someone is insulted by "natural" mother because it implies the adoptive mom is "unnatural", then they should also be offended by birth mom because the opposite would be "death" mom for the adoptive parent.  I never quite thought of it that way.  : )

Answer 16

This question might easily be reversed.  Why is "birth" mother offensive when the woman obviously gave birth?  

I actually much prefer "biological" parents.  To me that puts everything in the most accurate terms possible.  

To me, "natural" just seems silly.  I think the reason I feel that way is because the first exposure I had to that term was when it was used to basically mean "b*****d".  I also don't think it's accurate.  To say "natural" mother means that any other mother is unnatural, since "nature" doesn't usually produce two mothers.  

As far as "first mother" or "first families" are concerned.  I suppose it's ok, but I think it can be very confusing in cases where the child is adopted (or placed in an orphanage or otherwise seperated from the biological parents) at birth.  In those cases, I think its ridiculous to talk about the child having had an actual family before the adoption.  It's not to say that if the mother WOULD have kept the child that there would NOT have been a family ther, but the mother did NOT keep the child, so that family never interacted in the childs life.  I think it's just confusing.  

Anyway, I think "biological" is just the easiest way to go.  It's exact, and scientific, and doesn't confuse anything.  It means that this person gave the maternal part of the child's genetics, and that person gave the paternal part of the child's genetics.  That way you don't bias anything.  

I think it's important to remember that (from Garth Brooks) "Blood is thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood"

Answer 17

Before this week, I never knew that there was a controversy over terminology in adoption.  I've always used biological parents...which sounds like I was a science experiment, or occasionally I'll say birth mother, since I was adopted shortly after birth.   I'm not sure what is most respectful, it's more out of need to differentiate between my biological parents and my adoptive parents when talking about adoption issues.  In normal conversation I would never call my parents, my 'adoptive' parents, that would be weird.  

I know you were joking, but I kind of like 'original', or 'family of origin', it is where we came from, after all, we weren't grown in a garden!

Maybe I'll ask my birth mom what she likes best, I never thought that she might be offended.

Answer 18

Wow.  All growing up, I never thought twice about saying "my birth mother" or biological mother......  until I joined Y!A.  Those are the terms that I have always used and I have always referred to my APs are my REAL parents b/c they are the ones who provided for me, were there for me when I was sick or to wipe my tears away when I needed someone the most.  My APs and my bio fam are all cool with it so its very interesting to hear the different view points.  It makes me want to call both sets of my parents to make sure I have not offended either of them by these terms.  Lord knows I hope not. ( The term "first mother" is new to me all together, that's so interesting!)

Answer 19

It's quite simple for me.  I have my parents, and I have my birthparents.  All are equally real, all played different roles in my life.

As for what they find offensive or non offensive, it's my adoption, and therefore my choice as to how I view others in my life.

Answer 20

I think birth mother devalues the mother connection that natural mothers have with their children.  So if you call someone a birth mother, or they call themselves a birthmother, then they don't have to acknowledge that the child lost something, and they didn't leave their child, they just gave their child away because that is what birthmothers do.

Either side doing it, it denies the fact that children at birth, don't know the difference between birth mothers and mothers,.  That children want and expect their mother and having your mother give you away to strangers is a deep and abiding pain for many, many adoptees.

Answer 21

In our case, there is a "biological father." My daughter became my husband's through a step-parent adoption when she was 2.

The reason that we don't use "natural" father in our case, is because there's not a natural bone in his body that made him do anything even remotely father-like for her.