March 06, 2013

5 Things Never to Say to a Birth Mother

We’ve been posting some really interesting articles on Facebook and Twitter recently written from the perspective of birth mothers. Many illuminate just how much the birth mother goes through during the adoption process – a wave of emotions we can imagine, but which feels much different when reading it in the first person. It got us thinking about all the things people say to birth mothers out of kindness or trying to make them feel better that come off as more insensitive than anything else. Of course we always encourage support, but in the case of the below, some things are better left unsaid.

1. “You did the right thing. Your child is better off with a family who can love and support them.”

Any birth mother who has chosen to place her child for adoption clearly knows that she is not in the optimal place to be parenting a child, but no mother wants to hear that their child is better off not in their care. Birth mothers love their children very much, and would do anything to be able to raise them in happy, healthy, supportive homes. Any references to a child being better off are better left checked at the door.

2. “Someday you’ll have kids of your own, then you’ll get to be a real mother.”

A birth mother is a real mother. She is a woman who carried a child in her womb for 9 months, loved it enough to give it a home and will be indelibly connected to that child for the rest of her life. Kids later in life do not erase the pain of the one placed for adoption. If a birth mother wants to have children at some other point, that is her choice, but it is of not a point of consolation now.

3. “I could never place my baby for adoption.”

That is fine if you could not. There are lots of things many people could not do. But to call that out to the birth mother implies a lack of love, that she is not maternal enough, or even that she just doesn’t care. Every single one of those things is false, and it is no one’s position to judge – especially if they’ve never been in that situation.

4. (Post-adoption) “You had a choice. You didn’t have to do it.”

This is the last thing a birth mother needs to hear. The reminder that this was a choice, that she could have her child with her – these “could haves” imply that she chose wrong, or doesn’t have the right to be so upset. She has the right to be as devastated or as at peace as she wants to. This is by no means a comforting or compassionate statement.

5. “Do you ever wish you didn’t place your child for adoption?”

The answer to that, if you’re really dying to know, is probably “every day.” In general, it is not good to place any sort of emphasis on the past, or how the decision could have gone otherwise. The fact is that it didn’t, that it was made out of true selflessness, and this is something that every birth mother lives with every day.

In truth, there isn’t anything you can say that will console a birth mother or make her feel as if she’s completely 100% happy and content with having placed a child for adoption. Be a shoulder to cry on, a friend who listens, or someone who distracts her with fun things to do and solid companionship. Those are things a birth mother will never get enough of.