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Original poster

“Birthing parent” language in work policy – inclusive or erasing women?

216 replies

InvisibleBumble · 17/12/2025 20:25

Our workplace has just emailed all staff about changes to parental leave. Throughout the email they repeatedly use the term “the birthing parent”. There is no mention anywhere of women, mothers or maternity leave.

I’m honestly really uncomfortable with it. In trying to be “inclusive”, it feels like women - and our lived experience of pregnancy, childbirth and recovery - are being erased from a policy that is specifically about leave after giving birth.

I’m not anti-inclusion, but I do struggle with language that refuses to even acknowledge women or mothers in this context. Childbirth is not a neutral experience, and maternity leave exists for a reason.

It’s really bugged me, but I’m nervous about pushing back at work in case I’m labelled difficult or “not inclusive enough”.

Am I being unreasonable? Has anyone challenged this kind of language at work, and if so, how did it go?

OP posts:
Ddakji · 17/12/2025 21:38

justpassmethemouse · 17/12/2025 21:23

Inclusive language by definition doesn’t exclude anyone. I’m sure there are other things to worry about 😊

The erasure of women from motherhood might not feel important to you though if you gave it some thought you might work out why it matters.

Hankunamatata · 17/12/2025 21:37

Nope nope nope.
Women give birth.

MimiSunshine · 17/12/2025 21:37

TreesOfGreen99 · 17/12/2025 21:32

I think it’s clumsy language, but means it’s inclusive for a same sex couple where one mum is giving birth.

Is it though? In the admittedly small sample so I’m not say it’s representative, of lesbian parents I know. They all refer to themselves as mothers (mummy) because they are, so wouldn’t ’birth Mother / birthing mother’ be accurate?

OP, I’d be suggesting that ‘mothers or birthing parents’ is used for “inclusivity” reasons. I’d also be asking at the same time if the current proposed wording had been assessed for accessibility purposes?
As a PP inferred, i strongly suspect it wouldn’t meet expected standards.

FrightfulNightfull · 17/12/2025 21:34

Out of curiosity was paternity leave mentioned or just non-birthing parental leave (because the latter phrase could apply to ANYONE who hasn’t given birth and who isn’t the parent just to a newborn and hence I’d wonder if the policy would be rife for abuse/testing by someone applying for leave as a “non birthing parent” who had children who were say 12 years old)?

gogomomo2 · 17/12/2025 21:34

I suppose they need to consider that sometimes there are 2 mothers, only the one giving birth gets certain rights

TreesOfGreen99 · 17/12/2025 21:32

I think it’s clumsy language, but means it’s inclusive for a same sex couple where one mum is giving birth.

AnotherEmma · 17/12/2025 21:30

YANBU at all. It's been everywhere for years. Erasing the words "woman" and "mother" when talking about the one thing that only FEMALES can do. And it's not for the sake of "inclusion", either - the language excludes people for whom English is not their first language, or have learning difficulties, or who might struggle to understand it for another reason. The only reason for erasing "women" and "mothers" is to placate a tiny number of trans rights activists who want to appropriate the words and who take offense at women and mothers using them for themselves.

The sad thing is that I'm sure the vast majority of trans people - including trans men (ie trans-identifying females) - actually have no problem with women and mothers being referred to as such.

dementedpixie · 17/12/2025 21:28

Only women give birth so the 'birthing parent' is the mother, so why not just say that

AccidentallyWesAnderson · 17/12/2025 21:27

Is this shit still going on? Thought that was so 2023.

Krakinou · 17/12/2025 21:27

Ask them about parental leave for the ejaculating parent.

Dozer · 17/12/2025 21:26

It’s not ‘inclusive’. The opposite: these experiences are due to biological sex.

justpassmethemouse · 17/12/2025 21:23

Inclusive language by definition doesn’t exclude anyone. I’m sure there are other things to worry about 😊

Dozer · 17/12/2025 21:22

My work did this with the miscarriage and baby loss policy: no use of the word ‘woman’. I complained, it wasn’t changed

MissMountshafft · 17/12/2025 21:20

Birthing parent sounds fine to me

MuyPuy · 17/12/2025 21:19

Has your workplace got an affiliation to Stonewall? They came into my workplace and made them change all the policies to this gender neutral offensive language