Some women who have relinquished babies to adoption, might say that you should never use the term, "birthmother." However, that is a whole other discussion. In this post, I am referring to using the term "birthmother" inappropriately before a woman has placed a child for adoption, or in some cases, even given birth yet.

Until a man is convicted of a felony, he is not a felon. Likewise, until a new mother signs on the dotted line relinquishing all rights to her baby or child, she is never a "birthmother." Before anyone asks, no, I am not comparing birth mothers to felons! It is a simple analogy,and I am going to run with it.

A man considers committing some sort of crime. If caught and convicted, he might become a convicted felon. On the other hand, if the man only thinks about acting on his criminal intents, he is a person with bad thoughts and nothing more. Call him a felon wannabe if you would like. However, by no stretch of the imagination is it fair to brand this guy a felon. Considering an act and actually carrying it out are clearly not the same. It would be grossly unfair to call someone a felon because they considered an act that might make them one.

Likewise, a mother deserves the same consideration. A pregnant women is never a birth mother, nor is a mother who has not relinquished a baby to adoption. Labeling either of them a "birthmother" prematurely is a bad practice for many reasons. I won’t go into a long spiel about this, most of you know. However, it is disrespectful and potentially coercive to slap the birth mother label onto a pregnant woman. If she begins to see herself and think of herself as a birth mother, changing her mind later will be that much harder. Hmm, I was bright enough to figure that out, think adoption social workers have not?

This may seem like a small point to some, but it really is important. A pregnant women should never experience any type of pressure to relinquish, subtle or otherwise. The birth mother label can be part of boxing her into a corner, and that should never happen.

As a matter of respect, I would also caution adoptive parents not to call their children's birth mother "our" birth mother. She is your child's birth mother, not yours. To call her "yours" is considered highly insulting to many birth mothers. Okay, I am jumping off my soapbox - for now at least!