One of the things which they cover in our adoption preparation classes is the use of respectful, or positive adoption language. There is, in our culture, something called “Adoptism”, which is a lot like any other “ism”, where people are prejudiced against a certain group of people. Just like many other “isms”, this often is something people aren’t even aware of. But it’s very obvious in questions asked of the child, such as “have you ever met your ‘real’ mother?” It’s the idea that adoption is a second-class way to build a family, and adoptive parents are lesser parents than those who bring children into their families biologically. So one of the important ways we can combat adoptism is to promote the use of positive language when talking to families built through adoption and when talking about adoption in general.
What people using such statements don’t realize is how much pain they can cause members of an adoptive family. An adopted child does indeed have two families, each important in their own right. Our blog title is in fact based out of this language—an adopted child has both a “first” family and a “forever” family. The goal is to be respectful to both situations, and to talk about them in a way that let’s everyone know that an adopted child is being loved and cared about by both families.
Below are links to some articles we have found about positive adoption language that we will be using when talking about adoption. We don’t necessarily think everyone should memorize these list of terms, but we did want to make sure everyone close to us understands how the way we talk about adoption can affect those in the adoption community. We would also happily discuss any questions anyone has about this topic.
http://www.perspectivespress.com/pjpal.html
http://fellowshipzone.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=1634&p=19832