What's your name for your adopted child's birth parents?

[Janni]

We need to prepare our adopted DD (aged 3) for contact with her birth father, whom she last saw a year ago. Her contact with him was positive and we hope it will be so in the future.

Are there any approved phrases for describing a birth father to young, adopted children? We have used the expression 'tummy mummy' for her birth mother and are tempted to say tummy mummy and daddy, plus their first names.

We are wondering how other people approached this subject?

No real advice but think that tummy mummy is a lovely way to describe birth mother to a child

Thanks, Lazylou - it seems to work as our little girl is very aware of pregnant tummies! It's harder to explain birth fathers though!!

We are also struggling with this - ours had first contact with mum since being placed yesterday and they still call her "mummy" although at times the younger two also call me mummy so its all very confusing. We have used birth mum but its quite a hard concept and if I just use her name they don't recognise it as such.

Dad is more difficult - not only was (is) he a difficult character but "birth" dad just doesn't quite work.

I don't like the term "Real" either as that suggest we are unreal.

We had a tricky yesterday as they found out that their little sister (who is in foster care elsewhere) is only a half sister and the concept of her dad was really difficult as who is her father in relation to them?

MBop

I'm not so keen on "first" mummy as it implies to me that its the first a possibly infinite number!

I would use birth mother for an older child.

My social worker advises using their names where possible - no idea why but I think thats what I'm going to go with along with a description of DS growing in her tummy.

I think its differnt when you have childrne who have significan texperience of a birth parent and already call them something (like Mummybop). Mummybop - you may find as time go on that they start calling her something else. Time will tell. I think its quite reasonable for you to call her by her name when they're around.

How did they deal with the contact by the way MummyB?

Contact went OK - we told them on Monday and they were reasonably OK and mostly excited; the youngest was upset and confused but we cleared the diaries and made sure each had time with us.

They older two were quite upset when they got back as they were given more infomration about their birth family which contradicted what they thought was true and which is difficult information - we all ended up sat on the hall floor just listening to them for quite a while once they got back.

The eldest is being quite subdued, the youngest is unsettled and had her first nightmare for a few weeks and our DS is acting out a bit, but seeking lots of reassurance. I think we just have to continue to give them space over the next few days.

I found it quite tricky - watching them go off to se etheir birth mum left me feeling left out - but I do stil believe that no contact would be worse for them, especially the eldest who has so many memories, both good and bad.

Bop

We used tummy mummy and tummy father initially. DC has no contact or photo of BF so we have changed to the formal 'Birth Father' but as dc has letterbox contact and photoes and possibly early memories of BM we use her nickname. Dc understand who BM and BF are.
What do people do about birth siblings in other families? We initially called them 'X/Y your tummy brother/sister' but now realise it is better just to use their names. This is to avoid confusion in small talk type conversations now dc can join in!

Thanks for all your replies.
It's nice to know others are wrestling with these issues!

We have just used birth mother and birth father for DD, plus trying ti all be comfortable using their Christian names. Surnames we do not use, although if she asked I would tell her in a very matter of fact way. Fortunately we don't know any significant people with the same Christian names so there is no confusion over who we are talking about if we ever do.

DD has two birth/half sisters, who are just referred to by Christian name. Fortunately we have gone on to have two DSs so again there is little confusion there. Also we don't have any contact with any of these people, so at the moment it's only life story and general chat when they are discussed. There is no face to face stuff to contend with.

We do the same - use their Christian names

On being a grown up who was adopted, i always found it easier to refer to them by there first names. I feel that my parents also foud it easier refering to them by name rather than mum/mother/birth etc.

not an easy question to answer Issy you done well

Issy - if you feel you could have handled it better, why don't you say to her in a quiet moment "that was a very important question you asked me and I've been thinking about it a bit more and..." fill in the ... yourself od couse!

Glen - that interesting that you feel more comfortable with first names - its what my social worker recommends. We have a name which we are pretty sure is false but I think I will use it anyway (with a caveat in a life book somewhere to point out that she may not have given her true name)