Pronouns at nursery

Actually this could be fun. Half my family come from a country where the language doesn’t have this. So I’m used to being called she, or sometimes he. Sometimes both in the same conversation.

You could of course change it on a daily basis.

The pronouns we use in our family are I, my, you, yours, they, them their, our, her, hers, him, his.

I would. At least for the pets.

if the staff ever question you about it you can say ‘I’d never thought about personal pronouns until I was filling out your form and inspired by you I did some research, discovered that pronouns do not mean gender any more and I realised that chi/chis/chisself suits our chihuahua far more than she/her, thank you so much for introducing me to the concept’

I'd love to put this and then say if they need any other help on basic grammar then I'd have to question their ability to run a nursery.

Single female = she
Single male = he
Multiples of either sex = they.

As someone upthread said, many toddler’s favourite pronoun is ‘my’ (as in ‘my do it’) or they just use names.

The thing that strikes me about the family pronouns thing is that the families who do use different pronouns will be chomping at the bit to tell them all about this. They can just assume everyone else is using standard English and most of them may be a bit perplexed by the question.

There are also, as always, real inclusion issues in this crap. It makes things much harder for parents who speak little English or struggle with literacy to access early education and support their child. Using simple standard English and not muddying the waters with pronoun use (or similar linguistic gymnastics) is actually the most inclusive thing you can do.

What toddler uses other people’s pronouns anyway? And most nursery workers imitate this in my experience: ‘Look Daddy’s coming to pick you up. Can you see daddy? Daddy’s over there’ etc

But you've used she and her pronouns in your example. What if (shock horror) those weren't your preferred pronouns?!

Think how upsetting if would be to find out nursery had mis-pronouned you in your absence

I'm told Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian all use the same language for men and women. Those aren't one of the three languages I use, so could be a load of rubbish

I’d change nurseries. This shows that they might be more concerned with gender ideology than child safeguarding.

Lists like that are actually a very old viral joke on tumblr, its a random blogging site getting on for a 15 year old if not older. It's absolutely full of jokes and satire pages. Anyone can blog anything on tumblr - to test this theory I've literally just submitted a random word to the web based form that the blogger provided on your link, to submit a 'new' pronoun, and it's been accepted. That list does not provide a list of 'pronouns' beginning with C, it's a list of random words

It's a bit of a leap to jump to the conclusion that because someone may respect another person's choice of pronoun, or make an effort to refer to someone in the same way the child does, that it means they are denying/fudging anything.

Oh, well said! 😄

Seems a bit harsh are we really saying that from a 'male looking' picture with pronouns they/them, we can extrapolate the nursery worker is deliberately attempting to hide their sex, apparently for the purposes of grooming?

But why would you or anyone, in a childcare or education setting, seek to deny or fudge sex-based reality?

If the man that identifies as "they" wishes to do so in his own time, then crack on and good luck to him.

But when working with small children in a nursery - then no, he does not get to push and entrench his own political views. Whatever they may be.

I work in a nursery, and my feeling is that this question is in the paperwork to show inclusion /respect for family members' preference rather than implying some sort of gender-based agenda in their daily care of the children. Not that it is comparable, but similar to how with a 2-dad family in our setting, we correctly refer to one as "dad" and the other is "daddy" , just as the children do at home. Or if a grandparent is picking up a child, we use their preferred term be it granny/gran/nan/nana/nonnie/whatever

Yes, this.

I would want to know if they are following sex based safeguarding procedures or if calling yourself ‘they’ magically removes the .

OP seems trapped with:

All sexed based except one male looking they/them.

Yes, and it's so easy to tell.

He is male, but seeking pronouns that hide and confuse that fact that he is male.

To hide this from parents of small children.

Will this man also seek to confuse small children, as well as their parents?

It has to be said. The word "grooming" comes to mind, even though this particular individual may seem pure as driven snow.

OP has stated, no choice of nursery provision.

Some areas don't. It's alright to swop nurseries in an urban/suburban area and you have choice, But in some more rural or less populated areas, you really don't have much or any choice.

OP is correct to question this.

I wouldn't send my DS there.

Just leave it blank.

"We use the normal sex-based English pronouns. Why is this even a question?"

Or in whatever language in which you exist. All languages distinguish between women and men.

However I would ask that the "he/him" not be left alone with my child, if I had a small child.