apostrophes making assumptions....

[AnimatedDad]

I got a message from school this week about parents' evening. I replied by discussing my parent's evening.

I think we're both right because I'm a single parent.

It's an evening for all the parents. Unless there is only one child at the school and it is yours, then I'm afraid YABU.

But it's an evening for all the parents - so parents' evening.

Our school use no apostrophes at all.....

But the event that you are attending is called Parents' Evening. If it was laid on specifically for you as an individual, then it would be called Parent's Evening.

Wow - a school that gets this right - very rare!

six impossible.... yes, so I think that means that while they were right, I was too because my reply only concerned my single evening as a single parent.

Hmm. Trying to think of a sentence where parent's evening would fit. Tell us what you said

The child could say "My parent's evening yesterday was spent going to Parents' Evening."

... but it's parent's evening for my child tomorrow.

I'm not convinced by your argument. The school have organised an event that they are rightly calling "Parents' Evening", and so if you are talking to them about the event, you need to refer to it by that title. You might want to create an alternative title as a protest (?) / reminder (?) to show there are single parents, but it doesn't change the nature of the event.

Parent's evening may be grammatically correct when referring to what one parent does around 7pm.

However, the event is a "parents' evening" because it is for all the parents of all the children at the school. It doesn't matter whether your child has one, two or ten parents, the "parents" (plural) refers to the multiple children not how many happen to be in your own family.

I fear your point may be lost, unfortunately, and ironically there's now a teacher at the school commenting on the fact you don't know when to use an apostrophe ;-)

You're wrong, sorry.

Besides, it isn't your parent's evening anyway, unless you're dragging DC's DGP along.

This is why some schools prefer "parent-teacher conference"

We call them family and school meetings.

You're wrong - sorry! Agree with the others.

The plural parent doesn't refer to two parents of one child, it refers to many many parents of many many children.