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In response to my post about what a birthmother looks like, I got the following well-intentioned comment:
the only thing that I would like to say is that she is an Angel from above.
I have to disagree. Beyond my disagreement, this a huge pet peeve of mine. I went out of my way in that post to get the point across that a firstmother is human. She is not perfect. And to get personal, I am in no way, shape or form anything remotely aiken to an angel. Frankly, I don’t like being held to that level either. It just stirs up my perfectionist side and ends up making me feel like more of a failure.
Let’s look at the definition for angel from dictionary.com:
an‧gel /ˈeɪndʒəl/
Pronunciation[eyn-juhl] –noun1. one of a class of spiritual beings; a celestial attendant of God. In medieval angelology, angels constituted the lowest of the nine celestial orders (seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations or dominions, virtues, powers, principalities or princedoms, archangels, and angels).
2. a conventional representation of such a being, in human form, with wings, usually in white robes.
3. a messenger, esp. of God.
4. a person who performs a mission of God or acts as if sent by God: an angel of mercy.
5. a person having qualities generally attributed to an angel, as beauty, purity, or kindliness.
6. a person whose actions and thoughts are consistently virtuous.
7. an attendant or guardian spirit.
8. a deceased person whose soul is regarded as having been accepted into heaven.
9. Informal. a person who provides financial backing for some undertaking, as a play or political campaign.
10. an English gold coin issued from 1470 to 1634, varying in value from 6s. 8d. to 10s. and bearing on its obverse a figure of the archangel Michael killing a dragon.
11. Slang. an image on a radar screen caused by a low-flying object, as a bird.
–verb (used with object)
12. Informal. to provide financial backing for.
Now let’s discuss some of the different definitions and how they apply or, rather, fail to apply to birthparents or, really, humans in general.
Looking at definition 1, we are not spiritual beings. In fact, Wikipedia says it better in that angels are supernatural beings. Looking at definition 2, we find the “human representation” usually shown to us during Christmas pageants. In fact, if you do a little bit of research, only cherubim and seraphim have wings in the Bible.
Moving on to definition 3, while I do believe that God sends messengers in the form of human beings whether by prophets or, for example, his Son, I can tell you that I am not one of those people. I can’t even tell you what I’m going to be wearing tomorrow let alone what God is going to be doing in 50 years. Sorry about that. I fail again.
Definition 4 is where some people are bound to get hung up. The whole “angel of mercy” is often how a woman surrendering her child to an infertile family is viewed. She is told that she is selfless. When you combine definition 4 with 5 and 6, all of a sudden, we’ve placed a lot of pressure on one human being to basically be perfect. By insisting that a birthmother is an angel of merc with pure thought and deed, we’re telling her that she can keep that angelic status… until she has an unpure thought or deed. For example, if she goes through a period of self-doubt with regard to her decision to place, her title of angel is swiftly, without question, removed. We are telling these women that they can only be an “angel” if they are constantly 100% and always selfless.
Are you always selfless? I sure as heck am not. I like things to go MY way! I get mad, angry and frustrated when things do NOT go my way. Sometimes I even cuss. Hardly angelic.
Okay, so why did I go through all of this to say that birthmothers are not angels? Seems kind of mean to take away such a nice, positive title, doesn’t it? I’m not trying to be negative. Instead I am thinking about the psyche of these women that we are constantly telling that they are “brave,” courageous or, in this case, angelic. As humans, we cannot be those things at all times.
Please allow the firstmothers in your lives to be human. Some days they will be sad. Some days they will think bad things. And somedays they can be downright selfish. Just like you.
Allow them that right: it’s only human.
Illustration from images.com.
People mean those comments to be nice, but I hate them too! Being brave, selfless, etc. can apply to making the decision to parent as much as (sometimes more) than placing a child for adoption.
I believe that if I had been brave, etc., that I would have parented my son. That MIGHT have taken super-human strength. Angel for walking away? Nahhhh.
Wonderful Blog that really struck a chord for us.
When my daughter was considering adoption for her son, we were perplexed when adoption WEB sites refered to her as an “angel”, a “brave woman”, and a “selfless woman”. We also did not think of her son as a “gift”. She was a very human being (to us), and regardless of her decision, her son would always be a family member.
She kept her son, and is a “brave”, “selfless” mother. In her son’s baby eyes, she is an “angel”. Hmmm – the application of these terms seems to be backwards in our thinking.
Still perplexed,
Happy G’Ma
I wrote a blog about this from the other side of the coin…how adoptive parents are often painted as either sinners or saints…when in reality, we are just people like everyone else.
It is aboslutely impossible to label or classify all adoptive parents or all first mothers as one thing or another.
There are wonderful adoptive parents out there, and there are horrible adoptive parents.
There are wonderful, loving, educated first mothers out there, and there are self-centered, abusive first mothers out there (I know, we’ve dealt with both).
I don’t know why people feel the need to classify people as “angels” or “saints” or in a negative way.
Great post…
I dislike being called an angel too! You hit it right on the nail Jenna.
I can understand this as another part of the triad. As an adoptive mother, the hairs on the back of my neck go up when someone tells me how wonderful I am for adopting my son or how we “saved” him. Probably a similar reaction — ummmmm, no. I’m a human who wanted to parent. I do my best. I slip. There’s no halo, never has been.
I doubt there are many of us who like the “angel” or “savior” label. Those pedestals are way too high up for one thing and the falls are great.
I am in no way an Angel. I am human.
I toss around the label “angel” pretty liberally when talking about friends, family, neighbors, etc. Nobody can live up to that term day in and day out, however different distint actions can be labled as an angel (ie helping someone out in a bind) and I even like to be recognized as such.
When you start using this term in adoption (to an adoptive mom or a birthmom) as a description of an action (ie adopting or placing for adoption), it does not feel as good. That’s probaby because adoptive moms are sometimes (maybe even most of the times) adopting for selfish reasons like wanting to have a family as in my case and birthmoms are sometimes placing babies because they are backed into a corner (not a place where angels may want to be making a decision).