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 Positive
Adoption Language (PAL) is vocabulary concerning adoption
which has been chosen to assign the maximum respect, dignity,
responsibility, and objectivity to the decisions made
by birthparents, adoptive parents, and adoptees concerning
their family planning decisions. Using PAL helps to eliminate
the emotional over-charging which for many years has helped
to perpetuate a societally held myth that adoption is
a less than optimal alternative for all involved - that
in being part of an adoption one has somehow missed out
on a "real" family experience. The use of this vocabulary
shows those involved in adoption to be thoughtful and
responsible people, reassigns them authority and responsibility
for their actions, and, by eliminating the emotionally-
charged words which sometimes lead to a sub-conscious
feeling of competition or conflict, helps to promote understanding
among members of the adoption circle.
Let's begin with the concept of family.
In our society, people have historically been considered
to be members of the same family when one or more of several
conditions are met: they are linked by blood (birthfather
and son). they are linked by law (husband and wife), they
are linked by social custom (woman and her husband's sister),
they are linked by love. But as the concept of family
changes somewhat in modern America, it is important that
we consistently acknowledge that any two people who choose
to spend their lives committed to one another are indeed
a family. A couple who has chosen a childfree lifestyle
and a single parent with children are just as much a family
as are a married couple who has given birth to six children.
We don't blink at the concept of two
non- genetically related people being members of the same
family if one or more of the other criteria are met -
except in adoption. Though an adoption parent and child
are linked by law and love, the fact that they are not
connected by blood has often meant that some people are
unwilling to acknowledge their relationship as genuine
and permanent. Thus they use qualifiers ("This is Bill's
adopted son") in situations where they would not dream
of doing so in a non-adoptive family ("This is Bill's
birth-control failure son" or "This is Mary's caesarean
section daughter.") They tend not to assign a full relationship
to persons related through adoption ("Do you have any
children of your own?," or "Have you ever met your real
mother?" or "Are they natural brothers and sisters?")
They assume that adoptive relationships are tentative
("Will the agency take him back now that you know he's
handicapped?" or "What if his real mother wants him back?")
Adoption is a method of joining a family,
just as is birth. It is a method of family planning, just
as are birth control pills or abortion. Though the impact
of adoption must be acknowledged consistently in helping
a person who has been adopted or who has made an adoption
plan to assimilate this factor positively, adoption should
not be described as a "condition." When it is appropriate
to refer to the fact of adoption at all, it is correct
to say "Kathy was adopted" (referring to the way in which
she arrived in her family.) Phrasing it in a present tense-
"Kathy is adopted"- implies that adoption is a disability
with which to cope. In an article or situation not centering
on adoption (for example during an introduction, in an
obituary, in a news or feature story about a business
person or a celebrity) it is usually inappropriate to
refer to the adoption at all.
Preferred terms to use in describing
family relationships using PAL are as follows:
Birth parent, birthmother, birthfather
- terms describing the man and woman who conceived and
gave birth to a child. All of us have birthparents,
however, not all of us live in the custody of our birthparents.
Parent, mother, father, mommy,
daddy - terms used to describe the people who raise
and nurture a child.
Terms to AVOID
in describing family relationships:
Real parent, real mother, real
father, real family - terms which imply that adoptive
relationships are artificial and tentative.
Natural parent, natural child
- terms which imply that in not being blood related
we are less than whole or that our relationships are
less important than are relationships by birth.
One of your own - a term which
implies that genetic relationship is stronger and more
enduring than adoptive relationships.
In describing the decision making process
birthparents go through in considering adoption, it is
preferred to use terms which acknowledge them to be responsible
and in control of their decisions. In an age of increasing
acceptance of out-of-wedlock pregnancy and single parenthood,
today's birthparents are generally well counseled and
well informed about their options. Increasingly, as agencies
take on the role of facilitator and mediator rather than
lifter of burdens and grantor of children, the phrase
place for adoption is also being questioned. The preferred
terms to describe birthparents' adoption decisions are
make an adoption plan, or choose adoption.
It is best to AVOID the commonly heard
but emotion-laden terms that follow. Rarely is a child
abandoned. Birthparents today do NOT surrender or release
or relinquish or give up their children to adoption (except
in the rare cases where parental rights are INVOLUNTARILY
terminated after abuse or neglect) Using such terms conjures
mental images of babies being torn from the arms of unwilling
parents. Children are not adopted out or put up for adoption
(a term which came from the old orphan train days of the
late 1800's when city foundlings were taken to the country
and displayed on train platforms for farm families interested
in taking them in as extra laborers.)
In thinking positively about adoption,
it is best not to refer to a birthparent who decides NOT
to make an adoption plan as keeping her baby. These are
women who decide to parent their children rather than
to make an adoption plan, so that the preferred terminology
would have you say "After considering her options, she
decided to parent her baby herself."
The process by which families prepare
themselves to become parents in adoption is often referred
to as a "home study." This term implies a judgmental process
of screening out. While this has indeed historically been
a part of the adoption process, today more and more agencies
are coming to view their role as less God-like and more
facilitative. The preferred positive term, then, in describing
the process whereby agency and prospective adopters come
to know one another and work toward expanding a family
is parent preparation.
As prospective parents consider the
way in which they will adopt, they may choose to adopt
a child from another country. In the past this has been
referred to as foreign adoption. It has been suggested
by those working in the adoption field that because the
word "foreign" has negative connotations in many other
usages, it may be perceived negatively by many in an adoption
context as well. The preferred term is now international
adoption. Similarly, adopters who choose to parent one
or more of the many waiting older children, sibling groups
or children facing physical, emotional or intellectual
challenges are said to be parenting children with special
needs, a term seen as less damaging to the self esteem
of these children than the older term hard to place.
Frequently, news stories refer to "reunions" between people
who are related genetically but have have not been raised
in the same family. In most such instances these encounters
do not carry with them the full spectrum of understanding
that the usual use of the term reunion implies (a re-meeting
or a seeing again). Most adoptees join their families
as infants, and as such they have no common store of memories
or experience such as are shared in a reunion. While children
adopted at an older age may indeed experience a reunion,
the more objective description for such a meeting with
birth family members by a person adopted as an infant
is to describe it as a meeting.
This short poem by Rita Laws attempts
to point out humorously the impact of NEGATIVE language
in adoption.
FOUR ADOPTION TERMS DEFINED
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
child.
Adopted child: a natural child, with a real parent,
who is all my own.
POSITIVE ADOPTION LANGUAGE, however,
is very serious business. Just as in advertising we choose
our words carefully to portray a positive image of the
product we endorse (selling Mustangs rather than Tortoises,
New Yorkers rather than Podunkers) those of us who feel
that adoption is a beautiful and healthy way to form a
family and a responsible and respectable alternative to
other forms of family planning, ask that you consider
the language you use very carefully when speaking about
those of us who are touched by adoption!
Pat Johnston is an adoption and infertility
educator/trainer, the publisher at Perspectives Press
- the infertility and adoption publisher, chairman of
Indiana's Adoption Forum Coalition, a member of RESOLVE'S
national board of directors, an active volunteer for several
national groups working in the infertility and adoption
arenas, and the author of several books. This article
may be copied for a newsletter, distributed to journalists
or in a symposium packet, etc. without additional permission
as long as its author's name and her business address
are included with it.
Perspectives Press
P.O. Box 90318, Indianapolis, IN 46290-0318
(317) 872-3055
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