If you’ve read me for any length of time or talked to me for more than two minutes about adoption you know that I don’t employ use of the phrase “gave up” when referring to mothers who have relinquished their children for adoption. Some birth mothers do. That’s fine. I do not. I don’t like it. I won’t like it. You can like it. But this is my reality: it really upsets me.
The phrase itself infers that I just threw in the towel and said, “Oh, heck with it.” It also infers that my daughter was something to be handed off easily, without much deliberation. That’s simply not the case. I rarely stop to debate the semantics of this phrase. But it was thrown in my face this morning by a non-adoption blog. Not even talking about adoption.
A breastfeeding blogger whom I’ve had a chance to discuss things with over the past year posted about an article regarding mothers, breastfeeding and “giving up.” She said that she doesn’t like the phrase. That it’s a “negative phrase.” That she tries not to use it when talking with people and has even gone so far as to apologize for using it because she didn’t want to offend another person.
Have you, birth parent readers, ever been apologized to because someone used the phrase “gave up” and it upest you? Yeah, me neither.
But here’s this awesome mother, recognizing that referring to someone’s life battles in a negative tone serves no good. No good. Here’s an awesome mother who wants to support other mothers. She wants to see them succeed at what they are doing and she wants to encourage them to keep at it. And you know how she does that? She asks questions. She looks for the positive even in the midst of the bad times. And she is an amazing resource to so many women.
And so, my question: why is this so hard for the adoption world to understand? Why are birth parents chastized when they say, aloud, that they don’t like the phrase “gave up.” Why are they told to simply accept whatever terminology is thrown their way? Why are we forced to accept the negative? Why doesn’t anyone want to help us find the positive in the midst of the bad times?
I did relinquish rights to my daughter. She was adopted by an amazing family. But at no point in the past five years have I ever “given up.” I just haven’t. Read through this blog and find the point where I threw in the proverbial towel. You won’t find it. You can’t link to it. It doesn’t exist. I’ve been upset. I’ve been distraught. I’ve been downright angry at times. But I have continued working on my own healing. And I have continued working on the relationship(s) that I have with my daughter and her Mom. And I will continue to do such things.
The moment I give up is the moment I stop breathing. I agreed to be in this for life, just like every parent on the face of the earth.
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“Why are birth parents chastized when they say, aloud, that they don’t like the phrase ‘gave up.’”
All I can really say is that, although times change a lot more slowly than we’d like sometimes, there ARE people out here who are trying very hard to do all of this the right way. The agency we work with is very big on using appropriate terminology, and when I talk to others, I always correct their words and their misconceptions.
Btw, I started reading you a while back, when we were just beginning to look into adoption. As of yesterday, we are tentatively “matched.” I think of you often and try to imagine what this must be like for the young woman carrying that baby. She is parenting one child and placed another one 2 years ago, so she actually has a lot more experience with this than we do, but still…I find all of this just mind-boggling, and I definitely don’t want it to be any harder for her than it already will be.
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I also don’t like the phrase “gave up” and no I’ve never been appologized to for the use of that phrase.
Reading this actually helped me put my finger on something that happened recently. I was talking about my son to a group of people who were not “in the know” and as I was about to explain my boyfriend jumped in and did it for me. I thought I was mad at him for telling MY business but didn’t think I should be because he didn’t share anything I wasn’t about to anyway. But turns out I’m mad about the WAY he shared my business and the terminology he used. Now i feel justified in being upset with what he did and now i know what to address with him. THANKS!
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Thank you so much for broaching this subject. I have “placed” (the term I usually use)twice in my life and every time someone asks about me “giving up” my children it makes me cringe, down deep.
Z went to live with his new parents only 3 weeks ago and every day I hold on just a little bit tighter to not giving up. I fought with ever fiber of my being to give him the best life possible and when someone uses that phrase, it makes me sad. Sad to think that someone might say that to HIM someday…”why did your birth mother give you up?”.
My Mom was adopted and I’ve met my birth grandmother. She suddenly found herself single, with three kids. Poor and struggling, she did the only thing she could for my Mom, my aunt and my uncle; she allowed them to have a full and healthy life in one home, together. “Giving up” would have been subjecting them a life of possible neglect at the hands of her struggle to make ends meet.
Ok, I’m riled up now. And no, no one has ever apologized when they used the phrase “give up”. To the ‘outside’ world, it’s potato/po-tah-to, never mind the way it makes us feel and sound.
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I’m the same. I don’t like the term “gave up”, because I never gave up. In the same way I don’t like the term “surrendered” because neither did I do that. I can be ok with others using those terms, just that I don’t.
I think people blame us for our situation. And, so, then they don’t apologize.
It’s good to hear that we are not in the fight alone. I have found many allies with people who do not have an adoption connection, but who do have children.
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Whenever someone asks me why our son’s birthmother “gave him up” or says “I can’t believe someone would give him up!”, I reprhase with a, “She PLACED him for adoption because…”
To me it’s a big difference. I don’ tknow if some people would think it’s much better or still as negative as “give up”, but I feel it is more appropriate in our situation.
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So the WE channel has a new show called “The Locator”. I can see it coming a mile away as he walks up the sidewalk in the commercial. The camera looks over the shoulder of the person answering the door and he says,”Hi my name is Troy Dunn, and I was asked to find you by the daughter you gave up.” Breaks my heart and turns my stomach every time.
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