A Few Words on Words in Adoption, Page 3

It's about family

Part of the problem is that many hold dear in their hearts a "Leave it to Beaver" image of what family is. The general public, while enamored of the nuclear family, need only look at their own families to see that the definition of family is changing. One child's familial connections may include parents, step-parents, grandparents, god-parents, foster parents, aunts and uncles, step-brothers and sisters, and in the case of adoption, birth family.

It is important in adoption to define exactly what an "adoptive family" is. For years, adoptive parents were told that they should "take the baby home and act as if he/she were born to you." The theory was, that by severing all ties with the birth family, adoptive parents would be able to create a family "all their own." Babies were seen as "clean slates" and genetic influences were considered minimal at best. The only importance birthparents held during those years were if the adopted child started acting out as a teen-ager. The adopted child then turned from "one of their own" into "a bad seed."

Legally, the language was, and continues to be, language that insulates the adopted person and his or her adoptive parents from the adopted person's birth family. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the sealed records laws that most states still hold near and dear to their hearts.

Pat Johnston, in her article "Speaking Positively: Using Respectful Adoption Language," states: "The reality is that adoption is a method of joining a family, just as in birth." While she goes on to say that "the impact of adoption must be acknowledged," nowhere does she discuss the connections in adoption. The fact is that a child comes into their adoptive family bringing a whole set of family members to whom they are connected by birth. This is true whether or not the child's birth family is known or unknown. The child will always carry these connections in their cells, in their shape of their jaw, the way they laugh, in their temperament and talents. It is, therefore, important to use language that honors all the connections in an adopted person's life.

Inclusive adoption language acknowledges that, unlike birth, building a family by adoption extends the family beyond the child him/herself. In both international and domestic transracial adoption for example, the whole family becomes a transracial family. Or, in the words of Beth Hall and Gail Steinberg, the authors of "Inside Transracial Adoption," "When a family adopts members of different races, each person receives the opportunity to understand and experience life from a new point of view never before imagined. The family as a whole has the chance to move forward to develop its own new form." I would say that this philosophy of transracial adoption is a good starting point for those in all types of adoption to embrace. Adoption should expand our view of family, not restrict it to what we were taught a family to be. In that way everyone who is a part of the one adopted is embraced and everything that it is a part of the one adopted, whether it be culture or country, talent or temperament, is honored and incorporated.

© Brenda Romanchik

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