Mother or Birthing Parent

[thaigreen]

Which term do you prefer?

YABU Birthing Parent
YANBU Mother

@HappyDays40

I didn't give birth to my son so mum is fine do people's kids call them birthing parent ir am I missing something. At the moment I just get bro ir bruv and he is 5

I think it depends on if they want money/a lift to town or not, although I did go through a phase of being called cuz 😂

You say this, but I was literally in the labour ward with DP and they still kept mixing us up! And in postnatal.

That doesn’t inspire much confidence in HCPs! But you still had to explain who was who one way or another in ways that would best suit yourselves, and that’s fine.

@Marvellousmadness

Birth parents is what adopted kids sometimes say to refer to their biological parents.

In any other circumstance the word birth parent is weird really . I am a mum. Not the birth parent of my kid

Birth parents are what they might call their biological mother and father. Not specifically their mother

@CecilyP

You say this, but I was literally in the labour ward with DP and they still kept mixing us up! And in postnatal.

That doesn’t inspire much confidence in HCPs! But you still had to explain who was who one way or another in ways that would best suit yourselves, and that’s fine.

Actually, it wasn't particularly fine at all!

@SarahAndQuack "I get that there are real concerns people have over women's spaces and women's rights, but I find this debate really silly. The literature around pregnancy is full of harmful gendered language - I've seen leaflets that talk about how dads might 'help' with the baby, or imply dads need special cookies to do anything with their own babies. Concentrating on 'birth parents' as language seems to me a kneejerk way of distracting us from actual structural misogyny, which is rather harder to solve."

How is it "really silly" to object to the erasure of the word mother in the maternity context? It's part of the current drive to erase the word woman, which is deeply misogynistic. The fact that other things are also misogynistic doesn't mean we should just let this harmful change happen without protest.

I don't think it is part of any current drive to erase the word woman. Sorry, but I really don't.

I take your point that, if this were misogynistic, it would be perfectly fair to focus on this in preference to other aspects of misogyny.

But I really don't think this is misogynistic. It's just an inclusive form of wording. It could actively help some women get better birth care.

But it is part of the drive to erase the words woman and mother, whether you believe it or not.

How on earth would it help women get better birth care?!

@Piapiano

But it is part of the drive to erase the words woman and mother, whether you believe it or not.

How on earth would it help women get better birth care?!

That's not an argument. I don't see anyone struggling to use the word woman, so no, I don't believe you, and you've given no evidence to convince me.

It helps women get better birth care because - despite the hilarity with which some people seem to dismiss the idea that lesbians get discriminated against - actually, same-sex parents routinely do face discrimination and poor care. Explaining who is the 'mother' in the middle of active labour is not practical. We need language that acknowledges that there is not a perfect correlation between 'person who is giving birth' and 'mother'. We also need language that helps prompt health professionals to reconsider their ingrained assumptions about what their patents might be, or look like. I truly believe 'birthing parent' helps do this. It just gives a subconscious cue that you might need to look beyond 'ooh, there is a woman in a dress, bet she's the mum'.

My DP is one of quite a few lesbian mums I know who got shit care, because health professionals insisted on assuming the more feminine-looking woman was the woman giving birth (or the woman who'd just given birth).

It could actively help some women get better birth care.

How could it?

I don't have time to provide evidence but there is a massive drive at the moment to take the words women and mother out of official literature and even legislation.

I do understand that lesbians are discriminated against (one of the reasons why I am GC) but I don't think erasing the word mother would in any way reduce this. What's wrong with birth mother?

We need language that acknowledges that there is not a perfect correlation between 'person who is giving birth' and 'mother'

Birth mother (and other variations) are already in parlance so that seems covered off.

The issue with the term 'birthing partner' is that it attempts to remove a correlation between giving birth and being biologically female. We ALL know, whether we admit it or not, that only biological females can give birth.

I don't think it is part of any current drive to erase the word woman

Then just say the word. Woman

I do understand that lesbians are discriminated against (one of the reasons why I am GC) but I don't think erasing the word mother would in any way reduce this

Exactly

My sisters friend and her girlfriend have a child. Both are ‘mum’ - why wouldn’t they they be?

Line taken from another forum (one that cannot be named). Men can’t give birth… even if they write for the Guardian.

That's a great line

@SarahAndQuack

I don't think it is part of any current drive to erase the word woman. Sorry, but I really don't.

I take your point that, if this were misogynistic, it would be perfectly fair to focus on this in preference to other aspects of misogyny.

But I really don't think this is misogynistic. It's just an inclusive form of wording. It could actively help some women get better birth care.

Well you’re wrong.

Ask yourself who is driving this.

And I’ll bet my bottom dollar it isn’t the one trans man who’s given birth.

It’s part of the calculated plan to erase the word woman so that all our spaces, boundaries and sports can be violated

HermioneKipper

Ask yourself who is driving this.

And I’ll bet my bottom dollar it isn’t the one trans man who’s given birth.

It’s part of the calculated plan to erase the word woman so that all our spaces, boundaries and sports can be violated

Exactly. If this was about being inclusive of trans people, there would be a equivalent attack on the word man. But there very clearly isn’t. We aren’t seeing the terms ‘prostate havers’, ‘ejaculators’, ‘penis havers’ are we? No.

What’s really happening is a concerted effort to decouple the word ‘woman’ from female biology, so that males who wish to do so can appropriate the word woman, along with women’s spaces, despite the fact that they don’t have the corresponding biology.

There are loads of examples of late of 'women' being replaced by various functional or anatomical descriptions, with little comparable alteration re men. The recent Lancet cover, campaigns about 'people with cervices'... that's not 'inclusive' language.

One of the more egregious examples in the the context of motherhood was something talking about 'black birthing bodies'.

Once you've started seeing it you can't unsee it.

Mother / Mum

I’m going to start a campaign to make everyone refer to those with red hair ‘bloody amazing’. Only that term will do. If you don’t use that term, woe betide you (and tinkerbell will die).

'a lot of extreme opinions' @ruggerhug how strange. I thought it was the place of reason and non-extreme opinions on this topic, where the majority opinion can be voiced without it falling foul of any online wokery.

Mother. Stop the absolute crap of changing a term that has pretty existed since the dawn of time.
Snowflakes feel free to berate me! Who cares.
I didn’t push a 8oz baby out of me to be called a birthing parent.
I am a mother.

Just listening to the comments that caused you to create this thread Thaigreen

The people who want to dissociate mother from pregnancy and birth (and thats exactly what they're trying to do, and for their own agenda) are no friends of women and no friends of mothers. I feel sorry for the women in that man's life and particularly his mother because they are no more than support humans for him.

Mum, mother, mam, mamma, mumsy.

They can try to take it away but we're going nowhere.

I really appreciate all the replies and different perspectives on this thread and I’m very glad it has not been sent to the naughty step!

I agree with Benjamin Cohen on one thing - that is we should be asked our views. The nhs should be asking those biological women who have used/are using/will potentially use nhs maternity services whether a wholesale change in language used to describe us is acceptable.

Instead these changes are happening below the radar, influenced by Stonewall an organisation that is not representative of us.