why do people call the Birth mother and father's either drug addits or sperm donors?

I think that in many cases, people who do this fear the competition from the natural parents. A lot of mom's come here asking if their new husband/boyfriend can adopt their child because the "sperm donor" is a jerk, or ran off, or has never been around, etc. A FEW others are AP's (this doesn't seem to be the norm, although I could be missing it), and in those cases, I think it's the same thing. They fear the competition. What if the child loves the natural parent(s) more? I must talk them down, act as though they are evil people, pretend that they don't count, be as mean about them as possible, so that MY child won't want to find them or like them, and certainly s/he won't LOVE them, much less more than ME.

I think most of the AP's who post here regularly are a lot more emotionally prepared for the future than that. Most of them would love for their kids to find their natural parents, and I would think that at least a large portion are aware that they are good enough parents, and good enough people in general, that their kids aren't going to run for the hills the day they turn 18. So, there's no need for competition. Kids, and adults, have this really cool ability to love more than the people who raised them.

ETA: Some folks also don't seem to understand that even if all the father EVER did was "donate sperm", he is still half of that child, and therefore, he is NOT just a "sperm donor". It's disrespectful to call ANY father that, no matter how little he has to do with his child. He is a part of every friggin' cell in that child's body, so NO, he is NOT a sperm donor! (Any more than the mother is an "egg donor".) Can you get any more disrespectful to that child?

I don't know anything about my daughter's parents (China), however, I choose to believe, until I discover othwerwise, that they were good people that made the best decision they could. My daughter was left in a highly populated area where their risk of getting caught was very high, but they wanted their daughter found quickly. This tells me a lot about them. We speak very lovingly to our daughter about her mama and I do believe that has made a positive impact.

We are currently in the process of adopting from foster care and so far everthing we have been told about the children's parents is that they were drug addicts and the children have suffered because of it. You can't sweep addiction under the rug. If someone is an addict then they are an addict, but that does NOT mean that aparents should be speaking disparaginly about the first parents, if for nothing else than damaging their children's sense of worth and esteem. Many aparents are angry at what the first parent's addiction did to to their children and that is natural, but I don't think it is healthy for the children themselves to have to hear about it. Kids need love and acceptance... leave the fparents issues where they belong... with them.

I highly doubt that any aparent on here is saying negative things about fparents to their children. This is an anonymous place to vent without anyone getting hurt. Everyone needs to let it out sometimes.

It's never a good idea to talk bad about the birth parents or aparents or any parents. My parents divorced when I was 16. My mom never said a bad word against my dad even though there was plenty to tell. It was not until I was 25 yrs old that I figured a lot out on my own and it was then that I knew how hard it was her to keep quiet and I had the utmost respect for her. At 17 I was pregnant and hid myself from the world. I lived the lie and kept the secret but I never said a bad word against my boyfriend who later became my husband. It was just as hard for him to give our daughter up as it was for me. It made us stronger people in the end. We have a son and even though my husband could have been a better father, I have never said a bad word against him. He was not just a sperm donor and I am not a druggie and never have been. It doesn't do anyone any good to bad mouth anyone.

I'm sure not EVERY birth parent falls into those categories, but ALL the children my parents have fostered said their parent(s) abused drugs. Most have NO idea who their fathers are, except for the one set of kids who were adopted after the parents died in an accident.

Why? Because they often are.

My bio mother wasn't a drug addict (that I know of), but she hung out with a prostitute and "married" (common law) a felon/abuser. My bio father WAS a sperm donor, never knew his name and was gone before I was ever even born.

My little brother & sister were also adopted by my adoptive parents, and their bio mother WAS, in fact, a drug addict.

So my answer to your question is: because an awful lot of the time it is true.

Dear Sam,

I think a lot of people who do this, do it for one or more of the following reasons:

1.) IGNORANCE - lots of folks just don't know any better. People who believe stereotypes and stigmas or have a true lack of social graces.

2.) SUPERIORITY COMPLEX - there are some people who simply can't see other people as PEOPLE no matter what you do. Racists, classists, sexists, etc. also behave this way. One can NEVER truly measure another person based on one or two issues or events.

3.) ANGER/JEALOUSY - some people are unable to focus their emotions in a healthy and constructive way. These people tend to project personal feelings into the issues of another person to either justify, validate or blame one another their own insecurities or shortcomings.

4.) FEAR - it is often easier to devalue or minimize one's fears by finding weakness or fault in that which one is afraid of. (This often goes hand-in-hand with number 2.) Issues which should raise compassion or pity in a "normal" situation are twisted and exploited as ammunition against that which we find frightening.

5.) HATRED - self-explanatory, although I don't think I'll ever "get it"

My mother became pregnant with me through an affair. I had contact with the man for 11 years and he is not worthy of being called anything other than sperm donor. The man who raised me (my mother's husband at the time) is my 'dad' in every sense of the word.

I would never call my daughter's parents any such names. I don't know them and never will (she was abandoned). I will not judge people I do not know.

Ummm... Because she was and 36 years later she still is one?

I never thought of her that way growing up wondering about her. It was never the picture in my head or my heart that she was out on drugs while my younger sister was carrying buckets of water from a trailer next door back to their's so she could boil it and bathe the younger two. I never had any idea that I had younger sibs out there being raped and molested, beaten and left tied to a tree at 10 years old while I carried around some idillic vision of my mother like a unicorn out there somewhere in the world, around in my head.

...But she was and she still is and its why my bio-grandfather made her give me up. She doesn't remember who my father is or else she's ashamed to admit it and my younger sister thinks she (sis not mom) knows (in the biblical sense and against her will) who it is and why our mother wont fess up or at least she remembers the face but not a name.

My adopted parents never said one bad word about my biological mother and I'm glad to have contact now and I will try not to pass any judgment but I do know the truth from my bio-siblings and things my mother does admit to.

So sometimes its just an ugly fact that maybe I'm not happy about but I'm still glad I know... and I'm thankful for my life.

Dear Sam,

I personally only address drug use as it relates to the question. I don't, in real life, discuss the nature of why my child was placed in foster care. I don't always think that it is meant as a derogatory statement....just an explanatory one.Because this forum is anonymous, I feel more at liberty to discuss my child's development and setbacks due to exposure in the womb. That in NO WAY is meant to be a slap at his mom. While she is not currently capable of caring for her children, I know she loves them and I know she wishes she could care for them. I have never referred to the father as a sperm donor. I don't know anything about him. What I do know is that these 2 people created this life that I love so dearly.

Well, some ARE drug addicts, and some ARE just sperm donors, just not typically.

The "People" who continue to say those things, have no idea. I think partly because some don't understand why someone would place a child for adoption if there wasn't some SERIOUS life issue like addiction. They don't see the adoptions that are done unnecessarily or can't comprehend why a healthy person would place a child.