Stop referring to families you help at Christmas as “adopted families”

By Julie MacKinnon 

Christmas is the season of love and goodwill, and it is a caring and generous act to give a helping hand with the basics to a family in need at this time of year. But referring to these families as “adopted families” is problematic—both for the family receiving support and for the adoptive, kin and customary care community.

We have a beautiful three-year-old son through adoption. We have also been paired with a family to provide them with some items to make their Christmas a little brighter, as we do every year. But we will never refer to this family as “adopted,” despite the fact many charities use this terminology. How would we ever explain that to our child?

First of all, adoption should never be equated with an act of charity. It most often occurs after family breakdown or social hardship. It is a means of providing children with a forever family, and that is a basic human right.

Another big difference: Adoption is a lengthy process with many complicated steps, often coming after years of waiting. It is not as simple as registering with an organization and being paired with a family that fits a demographic the next day. Using the term “adopted families” for families who receive seasonal help would imply that adoption is a simple process. I can assure you that it is not—and for good reason. It’s a lifelong commitment.

Christmas can be a triggering time for the adoption, kinship and customary care community, including children who remain in foster care, birth mothers who’ve placed their babies, youth aging out of the system who have nowhere to spend Christmas Day, waiting families yearning for children, and families who’ve had their children apprehended by the child welfare system. Let’s not make it harder for anyone by minimizing those realities and referring to families that receive a one-time donation of food and gifts as “adopted.”

And perhaps most importantly, Christmas comes once a year, but adoption is forever. Referring to families we offer a single gesture of support as “adopted” implies that adoption can be temporary. Adoptive children, like my son, deserve to feel secure in the notion that the families they’ve joined are forever.

So this is a call-out to charitable organizations to stop mis-using the term “adoptive families” in their seasonal campaigns. It diminishes the significance of the term and the complexity and permanence of the act. Why not instead say “Christmas families” or “partner families” or “paired families”? Anything but “adopted.” There’s a world of difference.