Bio parents: What term do you prefer to be used?

Pip

I tend to refer to myself as mother because that is what I am and was given the chance to be a mother to my son after I found him. I also use natural mother and that's what my son's adoptive parents refer to me and that was their choice - it wasn't something we discussed. First mother is a term I occasionally use as a compromise.

Main reason I dislike birth mother is that it reduces me to one bodily function of giving birth. Reality is that I went through nine months of pregnancy and bonding with my son plus I wanted to raise him. However I hate it even more when people put BM instead of birth mother as that reduces us to bowel movement which is even worse.

kidmindi

I'm an adoptee and an adoptive mother. I used the term "real mom" for my bio mom when I was a teenager. It hurt my adoptive mom but in my teenaged brattiness, I didn't care.

When I became an adult and met my bio mom, I simply started refering to her as my mom. My adoptive mom was also my mom. The same way I say "my son" to refer to one of my 4 sons. If further clarification is needed, I use a first name (for both moms and sons lol)

When I am refering to my daughter's bio mom, I generally use the terms other mother or first mother. When I have used those terms, sometimes people who are not around adoption have no idea what I am talking about and I have to say "birthmother". But I usually follow that with "but we prefer to call her our daughter's other mother"

Motherhood is not just the act of giving birth. A woman become a mother the second she conceives and, in my opinion, is forever a mother after that. Adoption does not end a woman's motherhood of her child.

Andraya - Snark's Sister

Natural.

My motherhood didn't begin when I gave birth and it didn't end there either.

gypsywinter

The term 'birth mother' does not make me angry, does not sending me screaming in horror to hide in some corner, nor shrivel up and cry. For me, personally, I cannot identify with that term. That term did not even exist for me in 1964, legally, emotionally, physically, whatever. My surrender doc simply says..."Mother"...no qualifier, no dis-qualifier. All of my children were born of and thru me...I delivered all of my children into this world via labor and delivery. The difference between the first one and the other 3.... I surrendered my *parental rights* of my firstborn....I did not surrender my *motherhood*. For me 'birth' anything denotes one event in time, with no other connection, no other meaning other than the birth event. I am not a birthing machine, I am not a breeder nor a simply a vessel...I am a woman, I am a mother.

Do adoptees like being called...Birth Son, Birth Daughter? Is that how you would like your natural mother/father, nfamily to refer to you as? I have not and will not refer to my adult child...as a 'birth child'...YUCK! But to each their own...I am only speaking for myself...not for any other mother that lost her newborn to adoption nor any adoptee that chooses to call their natural mother/father, family, etc..as "birth"...that is your choice.

Being gestated in and born of your own mother...is as Natural as it gets, as in the natural creation of the human species. Adoption was not created by Nature....that is a man-made event/process. The legal transfer of *parental rights*, under contractual man-made law.

Carol c

Just plain "mother" or if any other differentiation is necessary, I prefer "first mother".

Birth implies that was all I did - it negates the 9 months I carried my child and the 42 years of loving and support I've had for my child since the day of his birth. It just feels insensitive to be called a birth thing...

Matt

Good Question! I see that you beat me to it! I will make sure to read all of the answers , So i can understand where they are coming from! I have used the term "birth mother" my whole life, I never thought that there was anything bad or negative about that term, Up until a little while ago when I got an ear full for using that term in my question. Its clearly a word that some do not like at all, So I would also like to know why that term makes them so angry...... And what term would they prefer...

I can understand that if adoptive parents use that term in a negitive way describing the mother of their adopted child... like she is just the birth mother, I can understand them getting upset , thinking that that term means being a baby machine or something along those lines, then i understand and I agree..... But if the person using that term is an adoptee , Then why would you attack them? The adoptee was the one that was given up for adoption for what ever reason. So why is it a bad thing for an adoptee to use that term, Especially if that adoptee has had a horrific adoption, And is not one of the happy happy adoptees that claim that their adoptive parents are their only real parents.... That is what I dont understand..

7rin

I'm the adoptee, and I use bio. fam., but everyone else around me uses the industry standard birth, 'cause obviously that's the only part that's important. :/

Sunny

If "birth"implies an action. A single event.

Never mind that my mother's DNA (and all that came before her) is in EVERY CELL IN MY BODY. I am a humanoid--they can't take that away from me.

And if my mother is defined by a singe event (birth) then my adoptive mother must be referred to an an "infertile mother" cause she didn't birth me, right?

mommyoftwo53

Everyone I know also says birth or biological parents (including my sister and my step-dad) and then call their adoptive parents their actual parents.

cathrl69

I think often what people find offensive is the use of anything at all, rather than just "parents" or "mother", because it implies that the simple term doesn't apply.

Sometimes you do need to use something. If you're talking about the mother who gave birth to you and you want that to be clear, you can't just use "mother" because it isn't specific enough if you have more than one mother.

But that doesn't mean you have to use it every time.

It's a bit like that troll on here - has anyone seen her? Every question she asks is about what her "white husband" does or doesn't do. Every time he's mentioned, "white husband". And it's really, really offensive - and she gets a bunch of responses saying "and what about your black husband?". But if someone was asking a question specifically about a mixed race marriage and used "white husband" once, it wouldn't be offensive because it would be a piece of information, not a label.

I hope that makes sense...

Cleopatra

Honestly it doesn't bother me one bit because I know who I am and so does my son. I know he sees me as his natural mother and that's all that counts. I don't care if the rest of the world labels me as an incubator.

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