[bajj]

I have been thinking a lot lately about the word natural. I must be honest, it used to really bristle me to hear that word when someone was referring to my children's First Parents.

I equated their use of natural mother for the First Mom with my being fake, or not real, or any of the other things that would come to my mind. I am not an unnatural person, and I would automatically assume that was being implied.

However, I have been wrestling with this a lot lately. Yesterday when I was driving around running errands, I started thinking about how the word natural would set me off. My thoughts took several directions, so I will try to stay focused here.

I think I am hopefully, finally learning that it is completely ok for someone to refer to my children's First Mothers as their Natural Mother. I no longer feel that negates my place in my children's lives. My boys know who I am to them. They also know who their First Mother is to them.

I'm not real sure where I'm going with this. Anyone care to discuss it?

[loveajax]

I don't use it, though I believe anyone can refer to themselves as anything they want. To me, it's more about what term you use with your kids. Do you feel comfortable referring to their birth moms as their "natural mothers"? If you do, great. I have thought a lot about terminology, etc., and imo at the end of the day, it is the relationship/respect that matters. If DD's birth mom asked that I refer (or have DD refer) to her as DD's natural mother, I would consider it (out of respect to her). Though I would probably tell her why it makes me uncomfortable (I can't help but do a compare/contrast thing with words). Does that make sense?

I understand as a community birth/natural/first moms, etc. may have reasons to want to be referred to as one thing or another. Of course, that is their right imo.

[aclee]

I feel the same way about the term "natural". Our adoption worker actually corrected DH and said that saying "natural" was incorrect when referring to biological children. She said it was a term that did lead many to feel that being an adoptive parent is "un" natural or strange in someway. She said most adoptive parents would take issue with it. Is she right? I don't know...I just know she didn't like the word, and even though she corrected DH as nicely as she could, he felt stupid for saying it. I don't think it's a term that he'll ever use again. He did use it to indicate that his parent had originally perferred we try to have a "natural" child though. Same shoes, different foot really.

I would also like to believe that I'll come to a place where this term wouldn't bother me if it was what our eventual child's birth mother wanted to be called. Our social worker was an amazing lady. She was an adoptee and she had an adopted daughter. She said in many ways, knowing her child's birth mother (they have an open relationship) was so much easier for her because she was R, not birth mom, or first or natural. Now that her child is getting older and they are talking more about adoption, they are using more "terminology" for adoption, and she said that even for HER (a social worker, and adoptee etc) it was very hard for her to hear her adopted daughter refer to her birth mom as even birth mom, she was so used to hear R. I think anything with mom attached to it has the potential to pull heart strings for us adoptive moms. Personally, I prefer the term first mom. I think it's the most respectful to her place in an adoptive child's life. She was first. Not just birth, and not the only "natural", she was first. Just how I feel though. I think it speaks volumes about you as a Mom that your willing to discuss this and work toward being more comfortable and secure in your adoption.

Take Care!

[srusse24]

I can understand where the term natural mother would feel inappropriate. It is as if becoming a mother through adoption is not natural.

I much more prefer the terms firstmom or birthmom (though birthmom seems so impersonal to me).

It is "real mom" that gets under my skin!

[Mommy24]

I am a First Mom, I don't know why exactly, but I dislike Natural Mom so much. It is icky to me, not sure why.

[crick]

It used to bother me a bit....but now it all depends on how it's said and who uses it. If it's said with the intention to diminish me, then it bugs me.

Otherwise I try to look at terms as what everyone is comfortable with and respect it. If a person posts referring to themselves as a First Mom, then that is the term I will use if needed in my response. In turn, I hope that others will refer to me as how I prefer. I would never refer to myself as the 2nd mom or an adopter and would expect others discussing things with me or in response to posts etc., to not use those terms to refer to me.

[ocracoke]

Ani,

I believe that everybody is allowed to pick their own title in this adoptive world. That being said I have to say I would never use "natural" to discribe any of the people in my adoption process. My objections (for me) are on so many levels. You already mentioned the argument of birth mom being natural so does that mean adoptive mom is unnatural. Giving birth is natural, so adopting is unnatural? I think in semantics you have to look at the opposite if you are naming. What is the opposite of natural parent? Logically speaking it would be unnatural. The woman who gave birth to me and raised me for 5 years of my life was not a natural mother. She did not parent. She did not care for her children. She gave birth -- over and over and over again. To me she is my birth mom -- that is what she did. For my adoptive mom I don't think parenting came naturally for her either. She worked at it. Struggled with it. But she does love me and she did care for me. I think that calling my first mom/birth mom "natural" is an insult to her and I am not willing to do that.

As an adoptive mom the term continues to bristle me. For all the reasons above. However, my daughter's situation is very different then mine was. She was obviously loved and cared for by both of her parents until they were no longer able to and made the difficult decision to place her for adoption (18 months). Her mother (who we refer to as Amaye -- which means my mother in her native language) died a day before her father (who we refer to as Abaye -- which mean my father in her native language) placed her for adoption.

My daughter has 2 mothers and 1 father. I have a woman who gave birth to me and a mom. I refer to my birth mom as birth mom or by her first name because those are the titles that she has earned.

JMO,
Samantha

[feelingreyt]

I don't like the term "natural" mom. That would make my bio children my "natural" children and my ason, my what, "unnatural" child. No, the sound of that just doesn't sit well with me.
I use birth mom or first mom when I am talking about the adoption. That being said, his first mom wants to be called by her first name when he is old enough to talk. We will deal with the terminology of it all as he gets older.

[loveajax]

Samantha, just FYI, my DH really "bristles" at the term "natural mom" as an adoptee. He thinks it is insulting to his mom (a mom). Just his opinion. I like the names for your DD's birth mom and dad. (I wish DD's birth parents were Ethiopian...I like them so much!).

For some reason, I used to get "mad" when I saw the word "adopter." Now it kind of cracks me up (I'm not sure why...I'm deranged!).

[Kat-L]

Originally Posted by srusse24

It is "real mom" that gets under my skin!

That gets to me, too. Or "Don't you want any kids of your own?".

Well, if these kids aren't "my own", why are they calling me Mom?

[bajj]

No love, I don't use that with my children. My 6 year old prefers the term Birthmom and has asked me to use that, so I do. Much like crick, I try to use the term that the people around me will be less offended by. I am just commenting how it no longer offends me to hear someone refer to their First Moms as natural.

ETA: For me, it comes down to, no matter what anyone else says, you can't negate my place with my kids, and I can't, nor would I (and I know you guys wouldn't either) negate their First Parents place, either.

[WLD]

i have never had that term used to me, and i'm glad, i don't like it. My preference in regards to my ason would be using 'first mom' but i don't really have that much of an opportunity to use any term. he doesn't want to talk about her and we don't really know anyone else around that is adopted and quite frankly, it just doesn't come up very often. now that being said, i am referred to as the adoptive mother but not that often, usually just to clarify for medical reasons occassionally and it doesn't bother me, that's what i am to them. obviously to my son, i'm mom. in fact he wrote a journal page at school just yesterday about how much he loves mom and how pretty she is. so as long as he thinks of me as mom, that's good enough for me

[thanksgivingmom]

To be honest, I'm not really a fan of "natural Mother" either, but I really dislike that aparents and bparents have to have opposite names. Ex. Natural vs. unnatural, real vs. fake, etc. Of course, I would NEVER call myself A's "real" Mom, that's entirely inaccurate and disrespectful!

I guess it's just that I don't see why we have to be opposites. Does that make any sense? I don't know, this is something I had been thinking about a lot, and I just dislike the polarization that it seems to inspire.

And I agree with Love, the Ethiopian names are beautiful!

[nikkianni]

WLD: Awwwwww get ahold of that journal page and laminate it.

As for the natural mother thing, I don't like it. Not because it offends me on any level or because of its implications. It just immediately gives me the mental image of a woman living in a tree talking to squirrels. Seriously.
We use birth or biological parent when talking about DD's bparents. She herself isn't old enough to make the choice of what to call them yet.
Personally, I believe that anyone can use whatever label they want because that's really all they are. No matter what I'm called, I'm Eve's Mama. And no matter what Eve's bparents are called, they're the ones who created my girl and I'll always love and respect them for that fact alone, no matter what.
As long as these various titles and labels aren't hurtful to any of us, especially DD, I'm OK with them. So if her Bmom someday wants to call herself Eve's natural mom, OK. It's her business if she wants people to ask her if she hangs out with Tarzan.

[bajj]

Originally Posted by nikkianni

As for the natural mother thing, I don't like it. Not because it offends me on any level or because of its implications. It just immediately gives me the mental image of a woman living in a tree talking to squirrels. Seriously.

ROFL!!! Great, a new imagine now.