An excellent response to one of my recent posts got me thinking. What should we call it when a woman is considering adoption for her baby?

If you didn't see it, here's what my fellow blogger Jan wrote:

I have gotten so much grief from some for using the term "give up". However, I prefer either "give up" or "relinquish". "Give up" - that is how it felt to me. The term "place" thankfully did not exist in my era.

"Placing" sounds like such a logical, reasoned and positive decision. I do not believe that to usually be the case. "Placing" tries to sound less harsh, but, I think the reality of giving your child to others to raise IS harsh. I would rather us be honest and not try to "pretty up" the terminology to make the decision better than it really is.

A lot of people, especially adoption workers, do say "place." I say it myself from time to time, but I'm never entirely happy with this term. When you think about it, "placing" really is a wimpy, inadequate word. "I placed my baby for adoption" makes the child sound like an inanimate object, a football, some thing you pass from one person to another. It’s also too impersonal--far too bloodless for this deepest and most cutting of decisions.

"Place" doesn’t take into account the sobbing, the heartsickness, the fear or the bottomless loss.

When talking to my son, I try to say "entrust" rather than "give up," because I don't want him to get the idea I ever gave up on him. (He’s a very smart kid, so he understands the word and what it means when I say “I entrusted you to another family.”)

I also like to say "entrust" with the public to try to get them away from the all-too-common belief that birthmothers are heartless women who never wanted their babies in the first place. "Entrust" also helps people understand all the thought and agonizing care that went into making the decision.

But no matter which way you try to slice it, relinquishing is very definitely a giving up. It’s a defeat by forces bigger than you, and a surrender to those forces. It’s the point at which you say, “I don’t think I can do this,” or “I don’t think I should try this,” or “No one will help me do this.”


Many in the adoption community want to change the way we talk about relinquishment. They advocate using “positive adoption language” that makes things sound prettier. They’d like to see everyone in the world stop saying “give up a baby for adoption.”

But the general public isn’t complying, and probably never will. I think the average Joe is on to something by continuing to call it "giving up" a baby. We in the adoption world have good reasons for wanting to soften up the reality, but the cold hard fact is that for the expectant parents, adoption is a surrender.

Unless you are one of those rare birthmothers who feels 100% in control of and empowered by her decision and the resulting consequences, “giving up” is the most accurate term.