Today I watched the Oprah show that I DVR'd from yesterday...she was going to expose a family secret and that caught my attention. The show was basically about Oprah's mother "placing" a child for adoption when Oprah was a young child and her mother never ever told anyone in the family about this secret.
Through out the show every time Oprah talked about this half sister being PLACED for adoption she always would say "given up" or "gave away"...she said this like 10+ times. As I watched this, the story was amazing how all the pieces came together and the 2 sisters were able to reunite, but what I DID NOT like was the terms "given up" or "gave away", referring to the choice that her mother made.
In the adoption world those 2 phrases are so negative and "placed for adoption" sounds so much better & positive.
When I think of saying that I am "giving away" or "gave up" something I think of things that I did not want...old clothes, furniture, a bad habit...etc.
When was the last time that you "gave away" something that you loved & cherished so much????? I know that the things that I love I can not just give away...but rather "place" in the hands of someone who will take care of it, give it all the attention that it needs & love it.
So when you talk about adoption...please try to use the words "placed for adoption"...has a much better ring to it :-)
I know that until we started the adoption process, we (and everyone we know) spoke in the terms of "given up" because that's they way you always heard it. That was the best part about all the training we received, was changing our perspective on adoption, and helping to teach our family and friends those things. Still to this day people look at me weird when I make it a point to say "made an adoption plan" or "placed" when talking about it. I'm really surprised that with all the planning that HAD to have gone into that specific episode of Oprah, that NO ONE pointed out that Oprah should have chosen better words when talking about it. Someone really messed up there!
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