I am starting with the word "birthmother." I said that I was going to write a series of articles that I will use to reference in future blog posts.  When I started searching and blogging, I used this term.  I realized about six months into my search that it is offensive terminology.  It is the same way for adopters.  I will use that in a post later.  I have not liked the term, "birthmother."  It relegates my mother to serving only one purpose, to give birth to me. In my mind, she is so much more than that. She is a wife, a daughter, a mother, and a sister.  She is not only a mother to me but to my brothers as well.   I feel the same with my adoptive mother.  I only use the two distinctive words in my writings.  I do not feel that women who have relinquished their child should be defined solely on that one term.  I define both my adoptive mother and my birthmother as my mothers.  Right now, only my adoptive mother is in my life.  My natural mother is not for whatever reason that she has chosen/not chosen. 

According to Faux Claud, it was Pearl Buck that created the term birth mother.  It was two words not one.  It was Lee Campbell that brought the two words as one when she formed Concerned United Birthparents.  According to Claud, the adoption industry gave only two options at that time, biological and birth.  It really bugs me that the adoption industry and the NCFA has made these decisions for our mothers.  The industry never asks us living adoption what we think.  It is time that they do. All the historical texts from prior to the sixties defined a "birthmother" as a natural mother.  E. Wayne Carp made a note of it in his book, Family Matters. 

Through the years, I have met many a natural mother.  All the mythology that the NCFA has put out about them is all false.  These women are so much more than their status as relinquishing mothers.  These women are not crack whores.  They are not sluts.  They are women.  Great, beautiful, intelligent, vibrant, alive, and very real.  They are not mythical creatures that deserve hidden stature. They do not deserve to be sentenced for having a baby.  I met one relinquishing mother in Del Rio who was the City Treasurer.  She was hardly the negative description that the NCFA used against birthmothers.  I read the First Mother Forum.  The authors of that blog are hardly those negative connotations as well.  I believe one of them is an attorney.  Hardly the slut of mythical proportions. 

What the NCFA and others do not realize is that these mothers are no longer being silent.  I am glad that they speaking out.  I am glad that they speaking for themselves.  I have learned alot from these women.  They are fantastic women.  Many of them have helped me heal a wound that I did not think could be healed. 

So when you use the term "birthmother", be respectful.  Learn what it means to these women.  You might grow as a result.  If you are a searching adoptee, realize that your "birthmother" is something more than that.