Why should we care about Adoption
What we think of adoption gets reflected in the words we choose, to describe of it. It is very common to come across phrases like “She is our adopted child / Do you know his Real Parents / I would not like to adopt an older child / how can you adopt an illegitimate child etc.”
Such expressions gain popularity due to their unabated use in films and fiction. Over a period of time, we get conditioned and immune to the insensitivity inherent in such phrases. We cannot event imagine the harm caused by reckless use of such terms. Such irresponsible lingo severely dents the self-confidence of a child who may already be grappling with her identity and seeking an approval as an adoptee in mainstream society.
Think again - there are far nicer and humane ways of communicating what we may actually need to, rather than using words that have coined to sell a drama of a novel. Given below are some of the alternate phrases for common terms associated with adoption. The beauty of using the Positive Adoption Language is that it shifts the focus from qualifying people in adoption or judging them to communication of the underlying fact.
