Birth Mother

Adoptions

In adoption discourse, the phrase birth mother is relatively new, appearing as the rigid secrecy of the older, closed adoption system dissipates and the more inclusive forms of both closed and open adoption systems gain favor. Because more birth mothers now have some contact with the children they give up for adoption, both the official language around adoption procedures and the family networks involved in adoption required new ways to distinguish between the woman who gives birth to the child and the woman who becomes the child's mother. As noted in the glossary available on the Adoption Council of Canada Website, the term birth mother is largely preferred over awkward terms such as real mother or natural mother, both of which suggest that the status of the adopting mother is somehow artificial.

As the shift in adoption processes and attitudes continues, use of the phrase adoptive mother, with its implication that this mother is a substitute mother, has also faded. Socially, culturally, and legally sanctioned, mothers who adopt reject the qualifying connotations of the adjective adoptive. Although birth mothers have been granted certain cultural tolerance in recent years, they do not have wide social or cultural sanction. Thus, the distinction between the two mothers of an adopted child is made only in the phrase birth mother, the mother who is not the mother.

The term birth mother also refers to pregnant women planning to give their children up for adoption. Today, before birth mothers sign the official documents, the open adoption process allows them to choose their children's families from portfolios provided by prospective parents. They can [Page 130]also make requests about their children's futures; for example, they may stipulate that education funds be established for them or that the chosen parents provide specific life experiences. They can even request, but not demand, particular names for their children.

Open Adoption Contact by Birth Mothers

Birth mothers who enter into open adoption agreements even receive progress reports and are permitted specified levels of contact with their children. In these situations, birth mothers are also allowed short visits with their children at regular intervals for the first few years. As adopted children grow from infancy to early school age, the legal parents can choose to continue these visits if they feel their children are benefiting from them. They can also opt to diminish or cease them altogether. In some cases, birth mothers gradually fade out of the children's lives on their own, while in others, the birth mothers become part of their children's extended families.

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