Saturday, August 14, 2010

"Aparent"-ly

I get some interesting questions in my e-mail and I've decided to answer some of them here on my blog.

Here's one I got a few weeks ago. It was a bit meandering, so I've paraphrased.

What do you call Roo's parents? I have seen in some birthmom blogs their birth child's parents are called the adoptive parents or Aparents. Do you use either of those? I have not noticed it on your blog and I wondered how you feel about it.

You haven't noticed it on my blog because I refuse to add modifiers or qualifiers. P and M are Roo's parents, plain and simple. I call them by their names. I hate cutesy terms like Aparents. If others want to use them, that's fine, I won't judge, but I think, Roo isn't ever going to call P and M her "Aparents" so why should I? To her, they'll be Mama and Dada, Mommy and Daddy, Mom and Dad. They ARE her mom and dad. So I refer to them as her mom and dad. I don't see a need in speaking or writing to specify with an adjective that they adopted her. I'm not her mother, I'm her birth mother. So if I'm ever talking about her parents, I'm sure not talking about myself! (And I am sure as heck not talking about H, either.)

I hope that makes sense. I feel like I used a lot more words than I needed to.

I did get asked once what Roo will call her parents as she grows up. To which I can only say to the asker, what did you call your parents as you grew up? I'm betting you didn't call them Biological Mom and Biological Dad. They were just plain Mom and Dad, right? Or Mother and Father, if you grew up in that kind of family. Why would Roo call her parents anything different?

I love answering questions, even stupid ones. E-mail me at thehappiestsad AT gmail DOT com, or use the little Formspring box in my sidebar.

5 comments:

hope2adoptbaby said...

LOVE your answers to some crazy questions! :)
Shelby

Que and Brittany's Adoption Journey said...

Hahaha! Someone ELSE told me today that they were glad that Liam wasn't a "different color" because then no one could tell he was adopted. As if being adopted was some kind of disease. Duh.

Michelle said...

Great answer!

Unknown said...

YAY! I'm asked that question SO often - whenever someone finds out that I was adopted, they ask, "have you ever met your REAL parents?" There's not much in this world that offends me quite as much as THAT question.

Richard and Tiffany said...

Hi Jill,

I am a relative of Roo's parents and I like to read your blog! I appreciate the education I've received on adoption...I never knew what I didn't know, if that make sense. :) Like when I hear people say they "gave up" the baby for adoption, I automatically think "they really mean placed, right?" or simliar things. So anyway, I enjoy your writing and we sure love Roo!!