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I tend to go with the flow depending where I post, so sometimes I'll use bmother/mom, nmother or first mother. If I use bmother, I'll use the prefix for amother as well. I prefer bmother to birthmother because I think of the "b" as referring to both birth and biological mother.
However, I find "birth woman" to be just plain offensive. Certainly, anyone using it is doing so to be disrespectful.
I tend to go with the flow depending where I post, so sometimes I'll use bmother/mom, nmother or first mother. If I use bmother, I'll use the prefix for amother as well. I prefer bmother to birthmother because I think of the "b" as referring to both birth and biological mother.
However, I find "birth woman" to be just plain offensive. Certainly, anyone using it is doing so to be disrespectful.
I find woman used in any sort of compound, as in "the woman doctor" or "the painter woman" to be at the very least, coarse. "Birth woman" is no exception.
This morning, one of my colleagues said she needed to quickly fly home to Germany, where her father lives. He's in hospital and not expected to live much longer. I said it was good that she was getting to see him one last time and say good-bye, and that I'd never had that chance with my parents.
"Neithet of them?" she asked.
"Not any of them" I responded.
Of course, she had no way of knowing that I've had three different sets of patents, so she was simply befuddled by my comment .....
I don't think it's appropriate for people to call first mothers, "birth woman". Every adopted child has a first mother and adoptive parents that don't acknowledge that a first mother exists is in denial. Adopting a child and birthing a child are two different things and I don't know why some people want to perpetuate the myth that they are the same thing. Adopted children have a history and identity before being adopted and to deny that is not living in reality.
I will call her whatever I wish to call her. She is not my mother. End of story.
I find woman used in any sort of compound, as in "the woman doctor" or "the painter woman" to be at the very least, coarse. "Birth woman" is no exception.
I agree Nim. It is coarse to say the least. It is my feeling that referring to a mother as "birth woman" is a purposeful attempt to remove the term "mother" from the context. Which says more about the person using the term than it does about the person to which the term refers.
Of course, people can refer to anyone however they like.
I agree Nim. It is coarse to say the least. It is my feeling that referring to a mother as "birth woman" is a purposeful attempt to remove the term "mother" from the context. Which says more about the person using the term than it does about the person to which the term refers.
Of course, people can refer to anyone however they like.
Yes. It's crazy to me that the term "adopter" was considered a pejorative, but birth woman isn't? It's certainly okay for an adoptee to refer to their family however they see fit (as non-family if that is what they wish), but for adoptive parents to disrespect adoptee's families to such a degree? So hateful & demeaning.
In all my (mumble mumble mumble) years on earth, I've never heard anyone use the term "birth woman". Is it really such a common occurence?
I don't hear it often, usually you hear egg/sperm donor.... but all of them are particularly special terms used by someone who is desperate for some cognitive dissonance. That's for sure.
Yes. It's crazy to me that the term "adopter" was considered a pejorative, but birth woman isn't? It's certainly okay for an adoptee to refer to their family however they see fit (as non-family if that is what they wish), but for adoptive parents to disrespect adoptee's families to such a degree? So hateful & demeaning.
On these very boards, I have been corrected for using the term "adoptive parents" to identify that I am referring to my, uh, adoptive parents. Apparently, I was supposed to use "parents" and everyone on the internet would know to which parents I was referring. As a reunited adoptee, all four of my parents are currently active in my life. As such, clarification is sometimes needed.
It intrigues me that "adoptive parents" is considered inappropriate by some parents who adopted children yet terms like "birth woman" used by adoptive parents in a dismissive manner is considered by some to be perfectly acceptable.
I think that I will start referring to the mother who raised me as "adopter woman" as this would be the linguistic correlation to "birth woman."
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