Adoption Terminology

There is an entire language around adoption, some follow it some don't, but below are a few terms that I find worthwhile:

• PAP -- prospective adoptive parent (that's me right now!)


• parent -- not adoptive parent


• the child -- never the "adopted child" -- adoption is only a process and ultimately an event; it is how the child becomes part of my family, but does not define the child


• birth or biological mother/father -- not the "real" mother/father -- I will be the child's mother and I'm real


• birth or biological children -- not "own" children


• child placed for adoption -- not an unwanted child