I got my haircut yesterday. It feels so much better. Really did a lot to help my mood. Amazing what a good haircut can do for a girl’s morale.

Anyway, I was talking to my hairdresser and we were talking about my kids. While relating a story, I mentioned that I was in Kazakhstan adopting my kids in 2001. She looked at me in shock and said “How come I didn’t know that?”. Uh. I dunno. I am pretty sure I had mentioned it before. Then she went on to ask me about it.

Now let me just state for the record that I love to talk about adoption. I am passionate about it and love to evangelize that it’s a wonderful way to build a family. But.. there are certain phrases and things people say that just ruffle my feathers. Sometimes, to the point I am speechless. I realize that many people don’t mean anything by the words they choose to describe adoption… but it still feels like fingernails against a chalkboard. And truthfully, I am unsure of a gracious way to handle it at times.

Here is a perfect example.

We were discussing birth order and she asked me: “Which child is your natural child”. There is nothing unnatural about any of my children. But instead of saying that snarky answer I just used the correct terminology. Emma is biologically related to me.

We were discussing that Dinara and Noah were adopted at the same time. She asked: Are they related? Uh. Yes they are related. One does not have to be flesh of the flesh and blood of the blood to be related. I mean you are related to your husband right? Does anyone question that? But I didn’t share that snarky answer either… I simply said that they are not biologically related.

As you can see, it rarely just stops with one question. Because unless one does get snarky, people just plow through asking lots of personal information. This next one is the real kicker though. The one that just really grates on me. “So Kym, do you know why the kids mom’s gave them away?” Correct term is “birth mom”. I am their mother. And hello… this is private information. It’s none of your business. Why would you think it was? It’s private information that I don’t discuss with strangers or even close friends. Secondly, they weren’t “given away”. The connotation of this is that they were unwanted, when in fact, we don’t know the answer to that. Most birthmoms in ideal situations would want to choose to parent their children. It’s not a matter of “not wanting”. The correct term would have been either “relinquished to the state or orphanage” or their parents made an adoption plan.

I answered this question by telling her “We don’t talk about the kids birth parent situations because we feel it’s private and their story to tell when and if they choose to share it”. There there was uncomfortable dead silence.

I try to not be confrontational about these issues because I don’t want people to feel that I am not willing to talk about it. But on the other hand, I also want my children to have positive adoption messages conveyed to them, versus them having to deal with the emotions that would come from the negative alternatives. We feel blessed that we choose to build our family via adoption. The words we use and allow others to use around our children say so much about our values. We want our children to know that adoption is a great way to build a family just as birth as a great way to build a family. One is not better then the other.

So if you have a minute to review… here are some examples of positive adoption language.

Positive language……………….Negative language

Birth Parent…………………..Real Parent, Natural Parent
Birth Child……………………Own Child
Born to unmarried parents……….Illegitimate
Termination of Parental Rights ….Give Up, Taken Away
Make an adoption plan…………..Give away, give up, put up
To Parent……………………..To keep
Child in need of a family……….Adoptable, available child
Parent………………………..Adoptive parent
International adoption…………Foreign Adoption
Child in need of adoption……….An unwanted child
Adoption Agreement……………..Surrender
Child with special needs………..Hard to place
Genetic/Birth relatives…………Blood relatives
Was adopted……………………Is adopted

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