AdopTalk

And now to reply to Karen's comments:

I am NOT encouraging the use of the term birthmother. I am stating the fact that it is used in dozens of books, hundreds if not thousands of article, policies and legislation....and that many mother shave used it to define themselves for 30 years and that change is hard.

It just IS. I neither encourage nor discourage anyone doing what they feel best for them.

What I do encourage is:

- open minds
- sensitivity
- making an effort to learn each others' point of view BEFORE condeming it
- trying to understand one another

It's a mtter of style to achive change. I beleive that telling people they are wrong is not a way to efect change. All that creates is anger and defensivebess. If you read my article in full, you would note the following paragraph, in addition to admitting that the name was chosen as a concession and as the lesse rof evils:

"Think about Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale which many of us have read, and began to think about language and words and how they shape things. Can you not equate being a birthmother with being a Handmaid? The “birther” of a child for another? Does not the word add to that mental picture of a woman who births a child for another, like a surrogate?"

I am trying to help people take baby steps. You cannot undo thirt years in a split second. it just doesn't happen that way.

Besides which, my bottom line is that there are much bigger fish to fry than getting hung up on this. I am sorry that muy saying these things in an effort to help build bridges and help us all end the exploitation, has caused you or anyone any harm. I am trying to do undo harm and hurt that we are all causing one another by being angry with each other instead of our real enemies. Again, just a different style.

I hope you decide to join the conversation...

Your comments are welcome and will be posted! Yours, and everyone elses!
 

""am stating the fact that it is used in dozens of books, hundreds if not thousands of article, policies and legislation....and that many mother shave used it to define themselves for 30 years and that change is hard.""

And I would ask why is that?? From what I understand the CUB Org. takes credit for that term, so please let's not put the onus on any those that you mentioned 'as if' they came up with that term all by their little lonesomes and we have to teach them something or unteach, when it was a CUB founder or some such that was the Creator in the first place.

Why didn't we just leave it originally as was, plain ole mother.. at least that's what my surrender doc says from 1964... Not Birth, not Natural just plain ole mother.. You are saying that the 'change is hard', well maybe if some 'mothers' weren't so hell-bent on acquiescing to adoptors in their group/org. some decades ago, this debate would be a moot point. Today there would be no debating/discussion/criticism/condemning/anger or defensiveness..We simply would all have been Mothers who lost our babies to adoption. The person who coined that term from CUB, only further separated us from our own motherhood, by placing the disclaimer of 'birth' in front of the word mother.. For 34 years I walked thru this world before I got on the internet, believing I was a mother, not a parent that raised a child, but I was a mother, plain and simple, because I gave birth to my own child.. Jeez, what a surprise to me that in 1996 upon entering cyberspace, I found out I was no longer a mother but a Birthmother!! What's that??!! Since I knew absolutely nothing about my own loss thru adoption and the machinations of that adoption behind the scenes, OK, guess these ladies know more than I.. But I did my homework, I did my research, outside of other mother's posts on any number of online groups.. And I surely did not like what I was reading.

""began to think about language and words and how they shape things.""
And maybe this is exactly what the creator of the term 'birthmother' should have taken into account some years ago. Rather than just thinking in the here and now and how to put salve to adoptors feelings, better she should have thought to the future and the consequences to a huge population of mothers, who would more than likely be united now, and not divided.

And I surely do not appreciate you referring to any mother, most notably myself, as a 'birther', a 'surrogate', some mythical creature out of a quasi-science fiction book..

That term 'birthmother' I believe is a more denigrating term then 'unwed or unmarried mother'. You want to build better bridges, you want to fry bigger fish?? Then I would implore you to drop the 'I' as in.."" I am trying to do undo harm and hurt ""
"I" cannot do that alone, but "We' can!!

Sincerely, Illegitkid
 

illegitkid,

when you signed that surrender you became something else besides just "mother". Natural mother and biological mother were the terms used at the time.

I would ask you how you were treated when you signed that surrender. Did the fact that you signed as "mother" mean you were fairly counseled, given real options, told the truth, treated with respect? I don't think so.

Does the fact that I use the term birthmother mean I love my kid less than you love yours, or feel less connected to him? NO.

If you do not like to be called a birthmother, how would like to be called a biological mother, the term that was beginning to be used all the time when Birthmother replaced it?

Find a more important fight than what name to use, if you really want to work together with others for adoption reform.
 

Illegitkid says: "Why didn't we just leave it originally as was, plain ole mother.."

WRONG! Had Lee Campbell not taken the courageous stand she took personally, and for the organization she was founding in 1976 to be called birthparents, we would be called BIOLOGICAL or BIO-mothers! Would you have preferred that??? That was the alternative we were fighting, ladies. Natural mother was NOT an option! Social workers and professional who wrote about adoption would NEVER have used that term because it was insulting to adoptive parents – who, let us not forgot were then and still are the primary “clients” in adoption. We could have stood on our heads and turned blue, they would not have used it then – and it still won’t be used today no matter what any of you think or want. But, be my guest, please!

Illegitkid says: “maybe if some 'mothers' weren't so hell-bent on acquiescing to adoptors in their group/org. some decades ago, this debate would be a moot point.” I’ve called it a concession, and you – in the same sentence – call it “acquiescing.” How in the world is acquiescing being HELL-BENT on it??? That’s a direct contraction!

Illegitkid says “For 34 years I walked thru this world before I got on the internet”……And that’s my point exactly! Where were you for 34 years…. and who’s FAULT is that? OURS, or yours? Ladies, while many of you were walking around in your fogs of DENIAL, some of us were breaking ground – ground that you now stand on and instead of respecting it as hallowed ground – you spit on it. Well, go ahead…spit…and for that matter go ahead and CHANGE the name if it bothers you so much! Change it already and stop bugging US about it!!!

After waking up, THIRTY FOUR YEARS AFTER THE FACT, and then doing research, Illegitkid says: “And maybe this is exactly what the creator of the term 'birthmother' should have taken into account some years ago.” HELLO? How could anyone take into research available now, thirty years ago? Do you have any idea how ridiculous an argument that is? It’s like asking why the Wright Brothers fooled around with airplanes and didn’t design jets or rockets to the moon! Thirty years ago it was valiant for a woman who lost a child to adoption to speak up publicly – do you get that at all? It was 30 years ago! It was ten years after many of us, including many of YOU, lots our kids because women were just barely beginning to be liberated.

You cannot look back at the history of 1976 with 2006 eyes and ask: why didn’t we fight harder to be natural mothers instead of birthmothers. You might just as well ask: Why didn’t ANY of us – YOU or me – fight harder to keep our kids??? You want everyone to believe that you were totally powerless when your kids were “stolen” from you…yet you expect that WE, or one loan person, Lee Campbell, or a small fledging group of women, should have been brave enough to stand up and demand to be called something they would never have allowed us to be called anyhow! Again – what SHOULD she have asked to be called: natural, original, first? How bizarre your logic is! You cannot have things both ways. The times were so bad for you, but WE should have been stronger and smarter and had crystal balls to foresee the future. It doesn’t work that way. Like MaryAnne said, Illogical arguments!

Do you understand that there was no Internet in 1976? If the Internet was taken away today – where would you be? How would you reach people or accomplish anything? Even with it – what have you accomplished???
 

Illegit says: “I was a mother, plain and simple, because I gave birth to my own child..”


Hmmm…gee: ”mother who gave birth” /
birthmother

birthmother /
“mother who gave birth”

…is there really a difference? Pther than one YOU are trying to make of it? If so, what is it?


Illegitkid, please go back and re-read what I wrote. I made the comparison to Handmaid’s Tale to AGREE that I understood how birthmother coudl be seen being synonymous with birther and thus breeder, if one chooses to look at it that way, which is being done by groups such as OriginsUSA and Exiled Mothers and no one else that I have ever seen, (I welcome being shown if I missed something).

I UNDERSTAND YOUR PROBLEM WITH IT! I DO! I was agreeing with you! I stated here on this blog and elsewhere.

I do NOT agree, however, and no one has swayed me with any kind of convincing argument, that there is any connection whatsoever (let alone cause and effect) between the word and the exploitation of mothers for the children….

THE FACT IS that the exploitation of women for their babies occurred long before the word became popularly used. Baby Boomers are the largest populations cohort and reached our teens after the sexual revolution and before the Pill and legalized abortion and thus created a glut on the “market” of “adoptable” babies at a time when WE WERE CALLED NATURAL MOTHERS, NOT birthmothers!

The term birthmother did not come into use until very late 70’s early 80’s. Therefore, there are no dots to connect the word birthmother with the mass loss of custody of children to adoption. Also, mothers are exploited for babies all over the world, in other countries that do not use the term.
 

Peace to you too Illegit!