In “real life”, I’m a technical writer, so I have opinions about words. Because versus since. Choose versus select. Apostrophe “s” versus just plain “s”. This is my life.
Which is why I love writing for Adoption Blogs.
Sometimes, the worlds do merge, and I find myself drawn into discussions of adoption terminology. You see, I really do like words. No, I actually love words. And I want to use them as correctly and precisely as possible. I’m by no means perfect. I can’t claim to know everything there is to know about the words we use to describe adoption and the parties in it. I can, however, lend a hand, and share the information I have learned in the past five years of our adoption journey.
I’ll start with my biggest pet peeve. “BM” stands for “bowel movement” or sometimes “breast milk”. It doesn’t stand for “birth mother”. Many birth mothers find the abbreviation offensive, and many forums and sites do not allow its use. To abbreviate “birth mother”, use “bmom”.
Speaking of birth mothers, a woman isn’t a birth mother until she has placed her child for adoption. While she is pregnant, she is an expectant mother, like any other pregnant woman. “Expectant mother” is commonly abbreviated as “emom”. I’ll also argue that she is not “your birth mother”, as in, “Our birth mom wants us to be at the hospital.” She is a child’s birth mother, as in “Our son’s birth mother is coming to visit.” However, even I admit to using the shorthand sometimes. I’m trying to get better.
In recent years, the term “first mother” has gained acceptance as an alternative to “birth mother”. I’ve seen so many opinions on this term, I could probably write an entire post about it. Briefly, some women who have given birth and placed their children feel that “birth mother” is too detached from who they really are. They didn’t just birth their children, they carried their children for nine months, and continue to love and care for them, even if they aren’t actively parenting them. Some adoptive mothers feel that, if the biological mothers are the “first mothers”, that makes them the “second mothers” and find that unsatisfactory. It’s a charged topic for some people. Some people are more flexible. The bottom line – use the term that you and your child’s biological parents feel is best.
We also tend to forget that there are two birth parents – mothers and fathers. When referring to both of the birth parents, “bparents” is the usual abbreviation. “Bdad” for birth father is also used. Yes, a man who hasn’t yet placed a child and terminated rights is an “expectant father”.
Birth parents don’t “give up their children for adoption”. Birth parents “place their children for adoption”. When I think “give up”, I think of the Baby Scoop Era, when unwed mothers were expected to relinquish their children and never think of them again. (Yeah, that worked.) Birth parents who “make an adoption plan” may choose to “place” their children for adoption, or they may choose to “parent” their children.
Turning to adoptive parents, until we’re actually parenting, we’re “prospective adoptive parents” or “PAPs”. Until about one month ago, I’d never seen any objection to that term. However, I was recently in a discussion about the term “BM” in which one adoptive mom said she really hated “PAP” because it is the abbreviation for the Pap smear, a test for cervical cancer and other diseases of the female reproductive system. Note the lowercase letters. The Pap smear is actually named for George Papanicolaou, the man who came up with the test. I’d be interested to know how other people feel about this acronym.
On the Internet, there are many commonly used abbreviations, and someone usually asks what they are about once every quarter. The most common abbreviations are:
- DH = Dear Husband
- DD = Dear Daughter
- DS = Dear Son
- FD = Foster Daughter
- FS = Foster Son
- ICPC = Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children
- TPR = Termination of Parental Rights
Adoption.com maintains a comprehensive Adoption Glossary.
Finally, have you ever been asked if you adopted because you “couldn’t have children of your own”? It comes as no surprise to adoptive parents that our children are our own. What do we say to these people? I like the following quote, attributed to Ann Landers:
Natural child: Any child who is not artificial.
Real parent: Any parent who is not imaginary.
Your own child: Any child who is not someone else’s.
Adopted child: A natural child, whose parents are not imaginary, chosen by us, and is now ours.
