# Adoption: Why say Mom and Dad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2010, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506 "2010-01-19T02:33:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/201 "2010-01-20T19:44:52Z")
" I cannot properly disdain you, unless you label yourselves in correct genetic order, please !" “Eet is not too much for a Tsarini to demand, Dawling!” ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/202 "2010-01-20T19:46:54Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > There simply is no way, NO WAY, that you can convinced me that a fully hinged person truly believes that adoptions occur by adoptive parents stealing children away from families, forcing those stolen children to suffer the “mental rape” of calling the parents “Mom” and “Dad,” and denying the stolen child access to the child’s “genetic heritage” (whatever the hell that is). > > No sane person believes that. Even if a person thinks that out-of-family adoption is not a good thing and that all children should be kept with biological relatives no matter the situation, the above belief is simply not rational. And she knows that it’s not rational, which is why she hasn’t even attempted to rationalize it, despite being asked to over and over. ---
**Author:** ![cuberdon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/45deac/32.png) [@cuberdon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cuberdon)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/203 "2010-01-20T19:59:03Z")
ZPG, you have over and over used phrases like this one: “forcing them to call unrelated people Mom and Dad against their will” It has been explained to you, also over and over, by adopters and adoptees both, that it is not “required” by the parents. Are you going to acknowledge this? Because it seems like you either haven’t read the multiple posts that make this point, or you are completely ignoring them, or perhaps don’t believe them? Only you can tell us what you really think. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/204 "2010-01-20T20:40:28Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Once again from the top, why MUST the adopted kid call you Mom or Dad? They don’t have to. Most children call their parents Mom or Dad. This is, after all, technically correct. I am my children’s father. (I have the paperwork to prove it). > [@](#): > > I’ve known plenty that didn’t want to. There our experience differs. There are several children in my extended family, adopted and birth. None of them have any issues calling their parents “Mom” or “Dad”. I wonder how widespread you believe the problem to be. > [@](#): > > Children are very much loved and cared for and they are allowed to use the proper titles for their relatives. But as was pointed out a while back, “dad” is the proper term for your father. > [@](#): > > Why is it so insulting to admitt you didn’t give birth to a child? It isn’t insulting at all. The problem is that giving birth is not a necessary part of becoming a parent. What _is_ insulting is the accusation that I kidnapped my children and am mentally raping them because I love and care for them. But I am starting to get the impression that this insult is intentional, and that you are trying to provoke the hysteria you mentioned in your OP. If that is your intention, you will need to try a little harder. If not, I apologize. > [@ZPG Zealot](#): > > You don’t seem to be able to comprehend what it means to belong to a family, not just a mother and father. Family means generations stretching out across time and space. It’s a web of aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., who are connected to you, who love and help you. No, I rather think it is you who doesn’t comprehend. Put it this way - you mentioned uncles and aunts who are part of your extended family, who are connected to you and love you and so forth. Quite true - I have had the same experience. I loved my aunt (now deceased) very much, but we were not genetically related at all - she married my mother’s brother long before I was born. But it was entirely accurate for me to refer to her as my “aunt” because that was what she was. One does not have to be genetically related to a person (as you correctly point out) for that person to be your aunt. It is the same with parents. See how it works? Now you will have to excuse me - I am off to circle the edges of the neighbor’s family reunion and see if there are any fat kids left unattended. _:licks chops:_ Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/205 "2010-01-20T21:01:02Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I know plenty of kids that call their adopters either godparents (to distinguish them from their biological parents) or Auntie and Uncle to explain that they are not living with the people who gave birth to them, but have a family relationship to them. My sister raised four of our distant cousins (she was their legal guardian). They called her Cousin because she wasn’t their mother, but it was always a title of respect. If Auntie, Uncle and Cousin can be terms of respect instead of strictly biological terms, why can’t Mom and Dad be too? ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/206 "2010-01-20T21:07:14Z")
> [@LouiseE](#): > > ZPG, you have over and over used phrases like this one: > > “forcing them to call unrelated people Mom and Dad against their will” > > It has been explained to you, also over and over, by adopters and adoptees both, that it is not “required” by the parents. > > Are you going to acknowledge this? Because it seems like you either haven’t read the multiple posts that make this point, or you are completely ignoring them, or perhaps don’t believe them? Only you can tell us what you really think. I have known enough adopters who insist to the point of beatings that adopted children refer to them as Mom and Dad. I’ve had to call my Favorite Detective more than once to rescue a child whose adopter asked me if the child was “possessed” because they did not want to call the people that did not give birth to them Mother and Father. The only thing worth acknowledge is that it doesn’t happen among all adopters, but the possessiveness so many adopters have toward those titles does make me wonder if it happens much more often. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/207 "2010-01-20T21:13:26Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > There simply is no way, NO WAY, that you can convinced me that a fully hinged person truly believes that adoptions occur by adoptive parents stealing children away from families, forcing those stolen children to suffer the “mental rape” of calling the parents “Mom” and “Dad,” and denying the stolen child access to the child’s “genetic heritage” (whatever the hell that is). > > No sane person believes that. Even if a person thinks that out-of-family adoption is not a good thing and that all children should be kept with biological relatives no matter the situation, the above belief is simply not rational. Adoption is big business. > **[U.S. Adoptions Fueled by Guatemalan Kidnappings](https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=4787761&page=1)** > > U.S. demand for Guatemalan children is so high, kidnapping babies is rampant. [http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3368486,00.html](http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3368486,00.html) [http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/poor-indian-kids-kidnapped-for-adoption-in-australia-scam-unearthed\_10087270.html](http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/poor-indian-kids-kidnapped-for-adoption-in-australia-scam-unearthed_10087270.html) > **[Meet the Parents: The Dark Side of Overseas Adoption](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/meet-parents-dark-side-overseas-adoption/)** > > A Midwestern kid's family believes his birth parents put him up for adoption. An Indian couple claim he was kidnapped from them and sold. Who's right? ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/208 "2010-01-20T21:14:39Z")
There is so much wholesale lunacy here that I had to group it together and respond, rather than doing it piecemeal: > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Because those of who value our extended families like to know when the adopters are around. We like to keep a close eye on all our young family members in case the adopters decide they need another child. I’m sorry that you reside in a culture that has a consistent problem with kidnapping of infants. Your reference to living in Yugoslavia makes me think of the Slavic stories of Baba Yaga kidnapping children or the Slavic stories of children being taken from Polish or Gypsy families and given to others, depriving them of their heritage or birthright. However, outside of the folklore fairy tales of changelings or the horrors of oppressive governments stealing kids (including Australia’s treatment of aborigines, the Irish orphanages, and several cases from the US and Canada during the early 20th century) this is not the norm. No one I know who has adopted looks at other kids and says, “Boy, just wait til those people turn their backs. I’m gonna steal their kid, take it home, force it to call me Dad and then tell it how grateful they should be for me!” Remember, statistically most kidnappings are perpetrated by family members, not strangers. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > You don’t seem to be able to comprehend what it means to belong to a family, not just a mother and father. Family means generations stretching out across time and space. It’s a web of aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., who are connected to you, who love and help you. And if your mother and father aren’t there or just not a good fit with you, it doesn’t matter because the family is there and will always be there and will help you find the place for you. My family is my wife, son, daughter and all the babies we had that were stillborn or miscarried. I have my parents, my in-laws, my sister, my nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles. Until recently I had my grandparents. I have friends, including the ones who adopted my daughter’s biological sibling. I also have a friend who is a single mother and, because she is always at our house and vice versa, we joke that we are the Mormon family like in Big Love (without any of the special benefits, of course). My daughter knows and has met her other biological siblings that were adopted by other families. And she knows that her birth mother is still alive in another state living with a grandmother. At times when my biological family isn’t available because of distance or conflicts I have countless friends I can turn to. In some cases they are more family to us than my blood ties. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > My culture isn’t the one that takes babies from their mothers, gives them to strangers, changes their names, and denies their heritage. Let me tell you about how the babies were “taken”. The birth mother (BM) was raised by her mother and step father (SF). She has a borderline personality disorder and is emotionally about 13 years old according to psych evals. SF sexually abused BM starting at age 11 until she left home at 18. Mother knew but never stopped it. BM got married to an illiterate alcoholic and has a daughter and son. She leaves hubby and moves back in with her mom and SF. He sexually abuses the daughter and beats up the son. DCFS takes them away because BM is not protecting her kids and they adopted by non-family members. The adopting parents maintain contact with BM but she soon stops communicating with them because she goes back to hubby and gets knocked up two more times. BM leaves hubby again and moves in to a friend’s basement. Friend hears BM threatening to put bleach in the baby’s bottle and calls DCFS. DCFS takes those kids away and they are adopted by a different non-family member. Adopter tries to maintain contact but BM goes back to hubby again where she gets knocked up with our daughter and her twin. Knowing that she will lose the kids if they are born in IL she skips back to her mother (SF is fortunately dead at this point). Babies are born premie and the brother dies. BM comes back to IL, can’t find hubby so moves into a shelter. When she visits the psych clinic to pick up her meds she again makes a comment about bleach in bottles. Our daughter is taken from her. BM gets pregnant again. That one is taken from the hospital and our friends wind up with her. BM gets preg one more time (she’s like a freaking rabbit) and runs off to her mother. The state investigates but, because she now has a support structure (mother is on welfare, BM is on medical disability for her psych issues but they have a church that helps with food and transportation), they do not take away this little boy. This is a woman that psychologists said was incapable of parenting a house plant (true quote), was late for a parental visitation because she stopped to give a trucker a blowjob for 10 bucks (yes she admitted it to us. Did I mention that she was 32, had lost all her teeth years before because of neglect and took her dentures out for the trucker?). No one took her kids. No one stole them. She lost them because she couldn’t take care of herself, let alone a baby. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Google Georgia Tann or Lila and Willam Young of the Ideal Maternity Home. There are plenty of modern day versions of them operating now. Sorry, that was 60 years ago. Give me a recent cite. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I would consider taking a child away from their family, forcing them to call unrelated people Mom and Dad against their will, and denying their heritage, to be a daily mental rape. So little girls in China who are abandoned because of their gender should be left there just so they can speak Mandarin as their primary language? Yeah, that’s so much better for them. :rolleyes: And, one more time with feeling, no one is forcing these kids to call them mom and dad. I know people who adopted older kids (10 and 12) and they never told the kids that they had to be called mom and dad. The kids called them by their first names and that was fine because those kids had known their parents. They also adopted a brand new baby who never knew her parents because she had been abandoned. That baby called them mom and dad. Why is that wrong? > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > And I suppose their biological mother just sprang forth from a divine egg with no parents or brothers and sisters of her own and was then able to miraculously self-fertilize herself (Hey, she must have had ovaries and testies what an amazing mutation)? I told you about BM’s mother (father was long dead). Her sister is a meth addict constantly in and out of jail and rehab. Her brother is in a long term nursing home because he crashed his truck while drunk and has been incapable of caring for himself for the past 15 years. You want them taking care of a kid? Look, \*\* ZPG\*\*. You obviously feel a great deal of mistrust for adults in general and parents in particular. You really need to find someone to help you come to terms with a view of humanity that is outside the realm of reality. There is a high level of paranoia in your statements. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/209 "2010-01-20T21:19:18Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I have known enough adopters who insist to the point of beatings that adopted children refer to them as Mom and Dad. Turns out there are shitty adoptive parents just like there are shitty biological parents. The question is, why are you so willing to say these things about all adoptive parents based on the people you’ve encountered? Give the things people say about Roma and kidnapping one would _expect_ you to be more sensitive to this kind of thing. Instead, you’re tossing around these things with no regard for how inaccurate and insulting they are. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/210 "2010-01-20T21:21:07Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > There simply is no way, NO WAY, that you can convinced me that a fully hinged person truly believes that adoptions occur by adoptive parents stealing children away from families, forcing those stolen children to suffer the “mental rape” of calling the parents “Mom” and “Dad,” and denying the stolen child access to the child’s “genetic heritage” (whatever the hell that is). > > No sane person believes that. Even if a person thinks that out-of-family adoption is not a good thing and that all children should be kept with biological relatives no matter the situation, the above belief is simply not rational. And finally from the Dope itself [http://boardstest.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=527219&page=2](http://boardstest.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=527219&page=2) Please read theMightAtlas’s post. “We went through the China program, and (this is a few years ago) we paid out about $4500 to various officials or “guides” in China (and I mean literally over the desk and through the payment windows) and came back with receipts for about $600. That was after we had paid out many times that stateside to attorneys and social workers. My wife happens to be Chinese. The agency folks kept reassuring us parents that cash payments are simply the way things are done in China and there was nothing underhanded about what was going on. We knew this was not true (checks and bank drafts are the standard way to do business there nowadays, especially for amounts like these” ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/211 "2010-01-20T21:24:18Z")
Slypork, check out the post just above yours for information about more recent organized criminal activities. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/212 "2010-01-20T21:25:16Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > And finally from the Dope itself > > [http://boardstest.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=527219&page=2](http://boardstest.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=527219&page=2) > > Please read theMightAtlas’s post. > > “We went through the China program, and (this is a few years ago) we paid out about $4500 to various officials or “guides” in China (and I mean literally over the desk and through the payment windows) and came back with receipts for about $600. That was after we had paid out many times that stateside to attorneys and social workers. My wife happens to be Chinese. The agency folks kept reassuring us parents that cash payments are simply the way things are done in China and there was nothing underhanded about what was going on. We knew this was not true (checks and bank drafts are the standard way to do business there nowadays, especially for amounts like these” All that means is that the government officials there like to be bribed by rich foreigners, it doesn’t mean the babies were stolen. They were adopted out of orphanages, like babies all over the world (such as myself). ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/213 "2010-01-20T21:29:14Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I have known enough adopters who insist to the point of beatings that adopted children refer to them as Mom and Dad. I’ve had to call my Favorite Detective more than once to rescue a child whose adopter asked me if the child was “possessed” because they did not want to call the people that did not give birth to them Mother and Father. The only thing worth acknowledge is that it doesn’t happen among all adopters, but the possessiveness so many adopters have toward those titles does make me wonder if it happens much more often. So you _do_ live in Mordor! Well, most of the rest of us do not, and our experience is so different from yours that you might as well be speaking about a different planet. And this is an international message board, and most of us live in nice happy first-world countries where this sort of nonsense is either vanishingly rare or nonexistent, which makes your tendency to generalize about the world from your experience in Mordor doomed to reach incorrect (and insulting!) conclusions. Here in the states we have various problems, but kidnapping babies and beating them until they call you “Mommy” is not really among them. ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/214 "2010-01-20T21:29:22Z")
I would expect in those situations that there are wider problems occurring than whether a particular title is being used. It is certainly not unknown for adopted children to say ‘you’re not my father/mother’ as a way to hurt them, and for parents to react to this. But it is usually not the real issue, and not a tactic only used by adopted children, biologically related children have been known to do it when they’re upset as well. I would say it is not particularly _important_ whether adoptees call their caregivers mom and dad or guardian or santa claus. What its generally important though is they feel they have a parent figure, regardless of the title used, mom and dad are simply convenient ways to show the child that those particular people have taken on that role/commitment for them. But a title does not of course in itself guarantee that there wont be problems, any more than it does for biological parents. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/215 "2010-01-20T21:50:04Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Actually, the kind of adoption in which people take a completely unrelated child and make the child legally “theirs” is NOT pretty universal across hundreds of cultures across thousands of years. In fact, it’s rather rare. Throughout history, children were cared for and raised by people other than those who gave birth to them, but rarely was the biological history altered. What you described is not what is commonly referred to as an adoption. Adoption is a legal term, whereby the legal parental rights are transferred to another person other than the biological parents. What you describe are the kids being cared for by another family member because the bio parents for whatever reason have decided they won’t or can’t. I highly doubt in these cases that a legal adoption has occured. ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/216 "2010-01-20T21:58:20Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I have known enough adopters who insist to the point of beatings that adopted children refer to them as Mom and Dad. I’ve had to call my Favorite Detective \*\*more than once to rescue a child whose adopter asked me if the child was “possessed” \*\*because they did not want to call the people that did not give birth to them Mother and Father. The only thing worth acknowledge is that it doesn’t happen among all adopters, but the possessiveness so many adopters have toward those titles does make me wonder if it happens much more often. **bolding mine** Ding, ding, ding! Bingo! We have an answer!!! Any culture where the idea of “possession” is so commonplace that you have encountered it more than once is not normal! I’m more afraid of my things being repossessed than I am of my daughter being possessed. This is the same kind of lunacy and backwards thinking that believes raping virgins will cure AIDS or killing an albino is OK because they are witches. Do you also believe in the evil eye? According to [this site](http://www.luckymojo.com/evileye.html): > [@](#): > > A mother takes her little toddler to town and someone sees the child and says, “Oh, how pretty she looks! She is just adorable.” **The admiring person may gaze overlong at the child.** If the mother does not take an immediate pre-emptive step – spitting onto the child, denying before God that the baby is attractive, or asking the person who praises the child to touch her or spit on her – the evil eye then begins to operate. By the time the mother and child get home, the child is sick to her stomache and crying. She is flushed, sweaty, and may have diarrhoea. Soon she becomes dehydrated and may be very ill indeed. The mother takes her to a conventional doctor, but “nothing can be done.” She finally calls in a local healer – usually an older woman – who diagnoses the true cause of the problem and then performs the cure. bolding mine again. Or is your name not **ZPG** but really Lilith, the child stealing/killing witch? :eek: You made a statement in another thread about being enslaved because you had a uterus. Lilith said to Adam, "Why must I lie beneath you when we were made from the same dust and therefore are equal?” You have no problem with infanticide and Lilith she seeks her revenge upon God by strangling newborn children while they sleep (He punishes her for not returning to Adam that she will lose 100 of her offspring each day). :mad:Out! Out foul beast! You defiler and evil woman! You consorter with demons! > [@](#): > > 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in [a] the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. \*\* Deuteronomy 18:10-12\*\* 😃 Or maybe you are just someone in desperate need of some serious psychiatric help. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/217 "2010-01-20T22:01:46Z")
My cousin is raising his daughter as a single father because his girlfriend said she “wasn’t ready” to be a mother when their daughter was six months old and walked out. He’s had a lot of help from extended family, particularly his mother and father. Despite everyone’s efforts, the child (now aged 7) persists in trying to call her Grandmother “Mummy” despite being told all her life “I’m not your Mummy, sweetheart. I’m your Nanna. You have a Mum but she doesn’t live here.” She’s corrected every time she uses the wrong title, but still does it frequently. Therefore I’ve concluded that all adopted and abandoned children force the title “Mummy” onto their primary female caregiver. You shouldn’t blame the adoptive parents when it’s clearly the children who are to blame for attempting to obfuscate their true relationship in order to taint innocent bystanders and swimmers with their ritual impurity. ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/218 "2010-01-20T22:10:37Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Once again from the top, why MUST the adopted kid call you Mom or Dad? I’ve known plenty that didn’t want to. Why is it so insulting to admitt you didn’t give birth to a child? No one except you is saying MUST. I would wager a guess that the older a child is at the time of adoption, the less likely the titles Mom or Dad are used. That is because the child is probably old enough to understand that while the birth parent(s) can no longer care for him/her, that person or couple filled the role of parent (but maybe not all that well) for a number of years. However, many of the adoptions that happen in the US are infant adotpions where the mother (probably single and poor, maybe on drugs) **does not want** the baby. The child is given to (not stolen from :rolleyes:) the adoptive parents almost immediately. The child has no attachment to the bio parent at all, and why should he/she, at least at this point, after all the birth parent DID NOT WANT THE CHILD. As the child grows, why should the adoptive parents reference these mysterious people? It is not only confusing for the child, but also hurtful for him/her to be continually reminded that the biological parents did not want him, even if it was for the good of the child. You are obviously not open to anything but the most strict definition of parent, and that is where your problem lies. > [@](#): > > And what gave you the impression there were many biological parents absent in my family? Well, you’ve said: > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > …my sister raised four orphan cousins… > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I was the legal guardian for my youngest brother for sixteen years. He’s now eighteen. And you’ve certainly given us that impression when you say things like: > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I was raised by my family, not my parents. Come to think of it, I don’t think I spent more than five minutes with my mother until I was an adult. I perferred my aunt and my grandmother. So which is it? Your parents weren’t absent, but they didn’t raise you? Yes, I’m sure that from the age of 0-5 the reason why you didn’t spend time with your mother was because you “preferred” your aunt and grandmother.:rolleyes: > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > Many adults raised me, but I did not (nor did I see a reason to) refer to them as Mom or Dad. > [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I’m currently the legal guardian of record for one of my nephews until he gets over his love affair with extreme skateboarding and doesn’t need someone that can easily be his adult in the emergency room. Sounds like his parents are ABSENT. > [@](#): > > I didn’t spend much time with my mother because our personalities weren’t a good match. She was very social. I would rather read. I was always better with my first aunt, so I spent most of my child/adult time with her. Again, how about from the age of 0-5? > [@](#): > > I became the legal guardian for my youngest brother because my father’s health wasn’t good and social services was trying to take him for adoption. Again, where is your ABSENT mother? > [@](#): > > I have medical rights for one of my nephews because his parents have jobs where they can’t easily drop everything when he takes a spill on a skateboard. At various times other young relatives have lived with me in a guardianship arrangement because their parents’ jobs involved traveling and they didn’t want to change schools or they like the school district where I live more. You fail to see the difference between having family step in to _help_ raise a child, and adopting a child that you raise from only days old as your own. No one has a problem with family helping out (it takes a village), but there is no way you can compare that with adopting an unwanted infant. What do you propose society do with unwanted babies? Do you think an orphanage is preferable to adoptive parents? What you seem to have a problem with is family who don’t step in to help when a family member who should or cannot care for a child becomes pregnant. Why do you attack those who are wililng and able to give that child a good home? I’m neither adopted, nor have I adopted any children. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/219 "2010-01-20T22:23:28Z")
Chris Rock: If he’s callin’ his grandma “mommy” and his mama “Pam”, he’s goin to jail. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2010, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506/220 "2010-01-20T22:30:31Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > The really nifty thing here is that you have **UTTERLY FAILED** to demonstrate that this bizarre characterization applies to the class of “adoptive parents” in any reasonable way. Your failure to do this is probably based in the fact that it’s batshit insane, and utterly false in every conceivable way. There’s nothing I can do to improve on this quote, so I simply present it again in all its glory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adoption-why-say-mom-and-dad/525506.md?page=12)