Birth Family

An adopted child's birth family consists of those who are biologically related to him or her. These are people who may have lived with or raised the adoptee prior to placement or it may be as condensed as a child's birth mother. The term is often extended to include an adoptee's siblings, parents or extended family members. This is obviously something created for the adoption community that allows one to discern between the roles of a birth family and adoptive family in discussion pre- and post-placement.

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Before an adoption is finalized, a future adoptee's birth parents will have their parental rights voluntarily or involuntarily terminated. The adoptee's original birth certificate will no longer be valid and will be filed in a sealed adoption record along with information about any known siblings at the time of adoption. An adoption decree will be issued by the judge at the time of finalization and the adoptee will receive a new birth certificate with his or her adoptive parents' names on it.

Outside of the legal realm and adoption community, it's also extremely important to adopt a kind of terminology that allows adoptive parents and adoptees to talk about a child's birth parents in language that is relatively neutral in tone. For example, referring to an adopted child's birth mother and father as members of their "real family" is considered to be negative adoption language because it negates the legal and emotional bond that comes with an adoptive family.

Birth families do not have legal rights or responsibilities to a child once he or she is placed with an adoptive family and the adoption is finalized. However, some birth family members may choose to engage in an open relationship with an adoptee after placement. A young birth mother who placed her infant with a family may write once a year or ask for updates about the child on occasion. It's unlikely for these interactions to be in-person or frequent. If these relationships are present in a post-placement situation, a child may end up wanting to search for his or her birth parents and, consequently, family members. Having positive language that never puts down the birth parent is equally imperative to the "name-calling" boundaries of birth and adoptive family identities.