I saw an interesting article a few weeks back. Did you know that during the 19th century almost all adoptions were handled informally? The example used in the article was that if a woman was pregnant and wanted to place her child she did with whomever she wanted. Generally the child was placed with a family member or someone from her local town. There were no agencies, counselors, attorneys or facilitators. There were no legal papers, and the government was not involved.

It was late in the 19th century that closed adoption came about. Children... more

If searching there are some that feel that closed records are an inconvenience and in doing a search it did not build character as the adoptee attempted to overcome enormous obstacles.

Some feel that closed records are a violation of human rights and individual freedom. Many feel that the fact is that an adult has a right to his or her genetic origin. The adoptee never consented to the situation and would benefit not just as the age of majority but all through their life from the information that is now held secret.

Some feel very strongly... more

Carrie Craft of About.com posted a blog on October 10, 2006 in regards to Adoption Sensitive Language. You can read her blog on this subject at http://adoption.about.com/b/a/256943.htm.

As we have seen here as well as on the Daily Basterdette, online mailing lists and other places through out the adoption community, adoption language is a highly controversial subject.

The past couple of weeks, I have received emails privately, and comments on the blog here regarding the... more

The article acknowledges and validates that natural parents matter to the child and that the long term emotional impact on the donor babies is unknown but many like adoption triad members are asking the age old question of why.

The article also questions what happens when adult rights clash with children’s needs and how these conflicts should be resolved. A study is underway called The Revolution in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adult Rights and Children’s Needs. She argument is that in the rush to redefine parenthood and... more

This article speaks of the first generation of sperm donor babies who are now adults. Although sperm donor babies are not products of adoption, many of them are interested in finding the men who donated their sperm for their very existence. I think that these people who are now adults puts a whole different spin on search and reunion.

The article starts out talking about a female named Rebecca who was a sperm donor baby who is... more

The prefix of birth, although the most commonly used and accepted in the adoption community there are some who feel it is not respectful to whom it is applied. If I am understanding correctly, these women feel that the term “birth mother” reduces their motherhood to an event in time which ended at the child’s birth and their significance and the term “biological mothers” reduces their level of unfeeling donors of genetic material. The reality is that these women never stop feeling like their child’s mother and no legal event can change that.

In... more

Language in general is revolutionary and more awareness ahs become of the fact that adoption triad members are varying and sometimes conflicting perspectives in regards to the term birth mother, natural mother, and first mother.

I think that there are several adoptive families that understandably do not want to feel different. They may dislike having their status repeatedly pointed out to them.

Whether we like it or not, adoption is not the same as having a natural or biological family. The fact is that adoption is not going to... more

A majority of those in the adoption community are fighting for truth and along comes someone like the organizers of this conference who want Betty Jean Lifton to expunge the term birth mother from her speech at a conference because there are people in the audience who find it offensive. Betty Jean’s books, all of them, use the word birth mother as do almost all other respected writing on adoption. After all, wasn’t she initially invited as a keynote speaker based on her writings?

As I have said before, Betty Jean Lifton has incorporated... more

I would like to note that Betty Jean has a full speaking schedule booked for the rest of the year and into the next. Although Betty Jean was apologized to and re-invited to the conference, this does not erase the fact that the organizers tried to silence or forbid her from using specific terms in the first place.

On the blog link listed above, a poster in the comments who is a member of Adoption Crossroads and a conference volunteer conceded publicly that should have made it known up front about the use of the word and that the situation... more

When Betty Jean Lifton objected to the language Joe Soll replied, "Please don't use the word. ....what does it cost not to use it?"

Three days after receiving her initial language instructions and his initial reply, Betty Jean Lifton sent an email to Joe Soll telling him she would not change her terminology. She had no problem if women wanted to refer to themselves as First Mothers or anything else, but she didn’t want their language inflicted on her. She reminded him of the provenance of “birth mother“ and that it is the accepted popular and professional... more