Pronouns at nursery

There are unintended consequences with the "inclusive" pronouns drive.

My kids are misgendered a lot, constantly when younger. Simply because they aren't dressed like total stereotypes. I taught them that most of the time it really doesn't matter. Why would it be an insult for a stranger to think you are the opposite sex, if you believe in equality of the sexes?

Teaching children that a) misgendering is a terrible thing to do and b) you must pay attention to superficial gender stereotypes in order to correctly choose a pronoun goes directly against my value of equality of the sexes. I'd not be happy to find this being taught.

I just couldn’t have such stupid people looking after and interacting with my child.

I’d be tempted to pick loads of neopronouns for each family member (including really special ones for the pets)…

Just to see what happened next.

" we don't require any special treatment with regard to how we are addressed. Using our names ; "[child]'s mum / dad" ; or the usual pronouns for people of our respective sexes will be fine."

I'd probably try and find a different nursery

I wouldn’t have my child in this nursery.

Sounds like it's you who doesn't understand the role of pronouns in grammar. As the word says, they stand in for (all sorts of) nouns. So yes, of course all of us use pronouns all the time but we don't have pronouns.

Great approach and maybe also ask why they are forcing staff and families who may ID as trans/bi to out themselves publicly? The only way to fight officious nonsense is to trump it with more officious nonsense.

All this to pander to one staff member... 🙄

So they're going to take all this time to learn each child's family pronouns?!

I'd settle for them just bothering to learn my name (Hint: it's not Mum)...

It's a serious point that small children go through a stage of being very confused by pronouns. That's why in 'motherese' we often naturally avoid them, even 'you' and 'I' - if you're asking a small child at this stage to refer to them by name rather than 'you', and to yourself as 'mummy'. Doing anything other than standard English usage is only going to add to this.

Id choose another nursery tbh. No preschooler needs that shit foisted on them.

I worked in a nursery where one child would point at himself in the mirror/photos and say 'it's yooooooou'. He knew it was him, but this was learned from family saying 'it's you!'. I remembered him years later when playing with my own children with things like mirrors. It's human habit, but it's funny how children learn to associate it.

I'd just leave it blank. If the nursery raise it, say that just as others have the right to state their pronouns, you have the right not to.

I would be very unhappy if a small child that was learning to speak was encouraged to use "they" to refer to someone who was male. It's unnecessary and putting adult wants above a small child's needs.

😂This doesn't make any sense but I love it all the same!

There's a Beatles' song on Let It Be (by George Harrison) entitled "I Me Mine". I suppose for the family you could use "We Us Ours".

Or you could ask them what they do with children (like one of my grandkids) who, an early talker, for a good while found it difficult to distinguish "I" from "You", "Mine" from "Yours", and so on. (The word meanings, I emphasise, not the concepts of selfhood/alterity or possession.)

"You want a apple" in this child's ideolect meant she wanted an apple; how should her adult respond?

-- "No, you want an apple" elicited, "'Kay! ["yes", in her ideolect, from "OK"], you want a apple." (She wanted an apple.)

"No, I want an apple," also got "Kay! you want a apple!" (The child wanted an apple. And she understood the idea of indexicals, in general terms; she just had them backwards.)

How do you teach a child what "I" means? (What does "I" mean, anyway?) That's what I'd ask this nursery. They're professionals; they should know.

Pronouns, huh?

Definitely leave it blank. It’s very unlikely they’ll ask you any more about it.

Even if you manage to swerve the question of how your own DC is referred to, I'd still be worried about pronoun use in general given that you say there's a "they/them" on the staff.

Will the children be corrected if they refer to this person as "he"? Will they be taught that people can be something other than a man or a woman (i.e. lied to)? It's a real worry how children can be influenced at such a formative age. I think PP who say it's just inclusive kindness and there's nothing to worry about are being quite naive.

I do take your point, but the OP says this nursery is their only option.

Jedi would work for me.

If you don't want to get into it with them, leave it blank. I would guess that is what most people do anyway.

I would leave it blank, I would be surprised if they pushed back on it. If they did I would probably say something like "oh, we just use the normal ones" in a breezy tone. Having said that if the nursery is this into gender I would be keeping a really close eye on what they are saying to your child.

Write “Jedi”