My experience with Looked After and Adopted Children is that they have much in common when we look at their birth family stories. The most significant aspect is a story of neglect and/ or abuse which begins before their birth. The histories of the men and women who have their children taken away from them are sad and painful. I have compassion for them. I can see the horror in their stories and understand that they were not equipped to become good enough parents. They lacked positive role models, nurture and care themselves, they often experienced abuse and neglect too; how could they possibly know how to parent well having no experience of being parented well?
Parent, Mother, Father, are terms that can have different meanings and importance, they can be perceived differently. In our world, a Parent, a Mother, a Father, gets to carry this title whether they do the job well or not. I struggle with this notion of Birth Parent, Birth Mother, Birth Father, and that men and women who could not meet their babies’ needs are referred to as such simply because of biology. I am incredibly challenged by the concept of a ‘Tummy Mummy’, as well as Birth Mum and Birth Dad. These men and women were not Mums or Dads, they didn’t know how to be; they couldn’t be. The responsibility for this may be shared by a flawed system that didn’t meet their needs, however, in the here and now, I do not feel we are doing the children we are working with a kindness by using these terms.
I think of Parent, Mother, Father as more than biology. I think of Mum and Dad as suggesting a bond. I think a ‘Tummy Mummy’ evokes warmth and nurture, yet Adoptive Mother sounds cold. We’re presenting a very distorted impression through using these terms.
Life story work explores the birth family story. We find out about these men and women who became ‘Parents’ and could not fulfil that role well at all. When we consider psychoeducation and a baby’s needs, these ‘Mothers’ and ‘Fathers’, ‘Birth Mums’ and ‘Birth Dads’, are seen as lacking, failing and not good enough. This narrative is incomplete and paints an unhelpful picture.
I shared these thoughts of mine with a teenager recently as we were exploring her life story. I shared with her my idea that birth parents shouldn’t be called ‘Parents’ because they didn’t ‘parent’, and that when we explore this, we see them in a negative light, and this feels unhelpful. This is a young person who referred for some time as both her birth and adoptive parents as Mum and Dad. It was confusing and promoting a fantasy with regards to the role of the birth parents, who did not meet her needs as parents. The language did not help her acknowledge how different an experience she was receiving from her mum and dad. I felt we needed a term that gave a clearer and fairer label. This teenager amazed me when she suggested “Life Giver”. I think that is beautiful. The term “Life Giver” celebrates the role these men and women had in our children’s lives as a positive one. It is a term that conveys gratitude to them for creating the lives of children who are loved and cared for by their mums and dads now, children with hope for a bright future, children who are now safe. We will never have to explain that they were not a good enough “life giver”. It is a term that can simply be positive.
I invite you all to add Life Giver to your vocabulary; I am curious as to how the energy might shift when we begin to think about honouring the Life Giver, instead of looking at all the ways in which the Birth Mum and Birth Dad failed their baby. It seems kinder. The stories will still be shared, but we will not be stripping away value from a birth parent, we have a Life Giver, a person who created life and could not parent because they didn’t know how.
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