Other bloggers in this blog have written about Positive Adoption Language and the impact of adoption words. I’m hardly a “word usage Nazi” on the warpath for political correctness, but two things this week have left me wishing our culture would be just a little bit more sensitive to my children.
One usage of adoption language not mentioned much in the above blogs is the use of the term “adopted” when there is no purpose for it.
There may be a reason to mention adoption in a story involving a family with genetic illness, or when adoption explains a condition such as an attachment disorder. An in-depth story of a family may tell the story of how a child or sibling joined the family through adoption. As with other conditions, one should speak of “a person who was adopted” or who joined the family by adoption, rather than labeling the person.
(This is similar to the way one should write about a person with a disability, not a “disabled person”. The disability is one part of the person’s life, not the defining part.)
In a story completely unrelated to adoption, which does not tell the story of a family’s life together but only mentions adoption as a label, the “adopted” label only serves to point out difference. This is how I’ve seen the label “adopted” used this past month in all the stories about Patrick Swayze’s death. The TV Guide published a column from the “TV Pipeline” at Tribune Media. It listed the actor’s survivors as his widow Lisa Niemi, his mother Patsy, and “two brothers, one of whom is fellow actor Don, and an adopted sister.” Wikipedia lists his sister’s name thus, “and a sister Bambi (who was adopted).”
The trouble with this is that it’s the same way obituaries list the family members and then a foster sister or a “dear friend” or “so-and-so, who was like family”.
Adopted family members are not “like family”. They ARE family. That is the difference between adoption and foster care, housemates or friends.
I am not at all disparaging the love that comes from friendships and foster care. (I also know that some foster parents would adopt their foster children if it were financially feasible to do so. Inadequate adoption subsidies often don’t equate to the medical and other care paid for by the state for a child with special needs. One more way our system leaves kids in limbo without the reassurance of a permanent family.)
Still, adoption is a legally binding permanent commitment. Children who have been adopted are full family members should not be made to feel different than other children.
Please see these related blogs:
Life and Death: Patrick Swayze and Willie Aames
Patrick Swayze Renews Wedding Vows