DO NOT CALL ME BIRTH MOTHER

By Kathleen Hoy Foley

“You will NOTrefer to Kathleen as birth mother. Or biological mother,” Phil, my husband, warned our attorney, his voice revealing the twenty five years he spent patrolling the streets of Trenton. The cop voice I call it. The voice I’d heard him use only on rare occasions, the few dreadful times our daughters were threatened by eminent danger.

I froze and stared at him through a fog so dense with anguish and confusion and such relief I could not see or hear anything but his words, echoing, echoing…You will NOT refer to Kathleen as birth mother. Or biological mother.

My knees buckled and I collapsed into a kitchen chair. Oh my God. Oh my God. I kept staring and staring at him hearing only... You will NOT refer to Kathleen as birth mother. Or biological mother.

Oh my God. I swear there was light and Phil’s hand, solid and strong, piercing that fog, reaching out to me in rescue. That is the image that flashed across my mind. In reality I sat at the table weeping.

I never knew I had a choice. Never knew that I did not have to accept being violated by that despicable stigma affixed to me as a teenager. Birth mother—a slur that branded me a slut; a whore. The label that blamed me for getting pregnant from rape. The label that ignored the rapes; turned my torment into a hot and heavy teenage romance with me unable to keep my legs closed.

Getting pregnant was what I deserved for wanton sexual escapades. Just punishment for my sexual lust. I was to confess my sin—I did. Do my penance—I did extra just to make sure. And my sins and my secret shame would be washed away by a confidential adoption. That is what they promised—Catholic Charities; my mother. Do my penance and I would be free. I believed them.

Over thirty years later my confidential records were breached and a stranger—the adoptee—was wreaking havoc in our lives. Which is why Phil was on the phone with our attorney and I was listening to him say what I had never in my entire life heard before. There in our kitchen, that tiny moment in time, me fifty years old, I slowly began to see that I was not required to stigmatize myself any longer; that I did not have to join society and continue to condemn myself with the label Birth Mother; a label so vile, it made me retch.

I looked up at Phil when he sat down at the table across from me.

“Rape is not making love,” I finally managed, giving voice to what I had never been able to speak aloud. “Being forced to breed did not make me a mother. They don’t call girls who had abortions, mothers.”

“I know,” Phil whispered. “I know that.”

That scene in our kitchen was several years and many tears ago. I am no longer that terrified woman in hiding begging forgiveness for what happened to me and taking the blame for all of it.

Now I commit social suicide by admitting that I despised what grew inside me all those years ago. That it was the rapist growing in my belly, forcing himself into every part of my body, penetrating every single cell; the panic of his presence invading me overpowering. I wanted only to get rid it. I wanted to kill myself. That is how it was. That is the ugly truth. And I shout it because the agony of silence is worse than the pain of speaking.

So do not dare refer to me as birth mother. Don’t try Biological Mother, either. Or even call me Parent to what gained life from my ordeal. And do not be cute by using Mom, as in Birth Mom, Bio Mom.

Biological Source is a description I can force-feed myself, grudgingly accept. It is, after all, the truth and nothing gets to change that. However, I prefer Biological Cunt. Biological Cunt speaks my personal truth. It does not fake a smile and make nice.

Rape and Biological Cunt—dark, secret wounds you will never see by looking. So mind your manners and do not call me birth mother. Should you, I will be in your face like a woman gone rabid. And Phil will be right beside me. Waiting. With that cop voice of his. Just in case you missed my point.