to be really surprised that the school assumed these things?

[JessieMcJessie]

I emailed a local school to ask about visiting because we are thinking of sending our son there. My email didn’t state my title and referred to “we” and “our son” but didn’t say explicitly that his other parent was male, or that we were married.

The email came back “Dear Mrs McJessie” and asked me to give my husband’s full name if he was joining me on the visit.

AIBU to be very surprised that they just assumed that I (a) went by “Mrs” (b) was married and (c) was heterosexual? In actual fact they were correct on all three counts, but that’s not the point- I thought that people were a bit more careful to assume nothing in this day and age.

Our school pulls shit like this. It gives a very hetero-normative vibe. It’s old fashioned and could be alienating for people, or just BORING to be reminded with every administrative interaction of your ‘other ness’. Complaining about this makes you look nuts though and you need to be a bit brave or willing to be the dreaded “that parent”.Small things add up so you should! I did at our school - except about spelling mistakes on the newsletter. Not the same obvs! But small drop drop drops of sloppiness, carelessness or patriarchal assumptions all add up.

It could be just a random connection Jessie. Maybe your sister does the receptionists hair or you used to live next door to the work experience girl.

Anyway, I see you are not going to contact the school about this. Are you still considering sending your child there?

well I'll go against the grain and say the school should have known better - I say this as a single mum who never married and split up from my DP before our DCs started school- this was clearly lost on the school who cheerfully referred to my (absent) DP as my 'husband' throughout. I was more irritated than offended though

Natalia your examples of assuming that a person working in a shop is not deaf, or assuming that the person behind you in the queue for the loo is not disabled are ones where assumptions have to be made for practical reasons (I will speak normally to the shop assistant/I will not suggest that that person jump the queue). However there was absolutely no need for the school to make any assumptions about my marital status, title or sexuality. Not one of those was relevant to the response. Therefore I don’t buy the argument that they took statistics into account when making the assumptions. They still risked getting it wrong when there was no need to do so.

Dione , yes, we will visit the school in a couple of weeks’ time.

Incidentally, I had also emailed two local state schools. Both replied to me this morning. Both addressed me by my first name and neither made any reference to my husband.

And finally, I have had some more back and forth with the independent school about visit dates/times and from the second email the lady there started to address me as “Jessie”, even though I had not expressly asked her to do so. We’re obviously chums now .

Green Tulips
I would expect

Dear Mx McJesse (or Dear JessieMcJessie)

Please can you confirm your partners full name if they wish to accompany you?
Yours
Mrs Thingy from the school

simples.

And I had an interesting time when, after many years of trying to explain that I didn't share the same surname as my husband or children, the school sent a letter addressed to

"Mr husbands surname and Ms name of DD's best friends mother" (Ms BFM)

I replied with a jokey letter thanking them for alerting me to the affair that DH and Ms BFM were having, but please note that I still had parental rights and DH and MS BFM had not yet moved in together so could they please correct their records. (Ms and Mr BFM/F were actually family friends and there was no affair)

Lots of red faces and huge apologies. Strangely they never got it wrong again.