If you remove the terms "Mum and Dad"

[BigWoollyJumpers]

Has this been discussed elsewhere - it must have been.

But, it just occurred to me, reading some Stonewall rubbish in an article. If you remove the terms "Mum and Dad", what do children call their parents?

They can use their names for sure, but that's a bit harsh and unloving in a young child. Do they call them Birthing Parent 1 and Birthing Parent 2? Lacks a bit of emotional context I feel. Or perhaps Person A and Person B? It all becomes disassociated, non-emotional language. They might as well be robots.

In discussing your parents with other kids "my parents" is of course universal, and can be used for Lesbian and Gay parents. I think it is pretty standard, in those cases anyway to have two Dads, or two Mums. Never been a problem.

So in the home, what is Stonewalls suggestion for say, a four year, to call their parents.

Schools have done this for ages, using parents/carer/caregivers

Laziness then. Why not Mums and Dads, Parents, Grandparents and Carers.

That would be helpful.

(Unless it's all made up. Or something like that.)

Because it would be hard, nigh on impossible, to include every permutation that way.

One way of looking at words like 'mum' and 'dad' is that they are used in two quite different senses in the real world. One is the biological sense, i.e., that 'mum' is the female human being who has given birth at least once, and that 'dad' is the female human being who has sired a child at least once.

The other is the use of those words in the sense of social roles where they can also refer to adoptive parents or often to any adult female and male people who are a child's sole caretakers.

Lots of words have more than one usage in this manner. In fact, I began my understanding of the trans concept as a demand to be accepted in some (but not probably all) social roles of women and men as the sex a trans person identifies with, but I also assumed that the biological definitions would stay intact and that statistics would be collected on those etc.

This is not how things went, of course. The demand is to erase the biological concept of 'mum', while 'dad' is just fine and can be left as it is. The sexism of this movement is pretty breathtaking.

Mums could be called:
"My birth-giver"
"My assigned female-at-birth parent"
"My uterus-having parent"
"My menstruating parent"
"The parent from whose body I was birthed"

Dads could be:
"The assigned-male-at-birth who impregnated the body that gave birth to me"
"My assigned-male-at-birth parent"
"The parent who fished turds out of the birthing pool while the other parent birthed me"

I think stonewall are bullshit but when i talk to my class of little ones i say ' your adults' because i have children who have lost their mother to cancer, children who have never known dad and children living in the care system.

Individually i will say ' is jackie / mum/dad/ etc picking you up?"
This is just kindness and common sense

OK - How about MDPGC++ 😉

Oh fgs , Stonewall is ridiculous and has lost its way but this sort of hyperbole isn't helpful. Stonewall isn't mandating what children call their parents.

it's just use more inclusive language when addressing a broader audience.

I think that's condescending to children in general. If you announce "Now, children, don't forget to ask your mums and dads....", then that also covers kids with two mums or two dads. It also clearly covers kids who are looked after by grandparents as their GP will be either grandMOTHERS or grandFATHERS. How else do you explain to little ones who their GPs are other than 'Granny is Mummy's Mummy' etc.?

All other adults in loco parentis will be either women or men, so they're obviously acting in the role of mummy or daddy, whether their form of address includes it - e.g 'foster MUM' or 'step DAD' - or not. Children will know what you mean - just like a wheelchair user or a blind person at a conference will know what the speaker means by 'let's walk through the agenda and see if we're all happy with that' and will be very unlikely to be upset or offended, where clearly none was intended whatsoever.

If we're going to be anally inclusive about it, we shouldn't call children's carers their 'adults' as some very young children may have been born to teenagers who are still not yet adults.

Why does 'being inclusive' almost always mean deliberately excluding the majority and just expecting them to understand that their feelings simply don't matter?

Absolutely definitely NOT foster mum or dad.
What about kids who live in a care home?

I really really think this is not the issue to get tiled about when there is so much other bullshit happening.

I think that's condescending to children in general. If you announce "Now, children, don't forget to ask your mums and dads....", then that also covers kids with two mums or two dads. It also clearly covers kids who are looked after by grandparents as their GP will be either grandMOTHERS or grandFATHERS. How else do you explain to little ones who their GPs are other than 'Granny is Mummy's Mummy' etc.?

A teacher referring to "don't forget to ask your mums and dads" quite clearly DOES not cover children looked after by grandparents. How could you possibly think that? If anything it's emphasising the difference. Children know what grandparents are- as you say "Mummy's Mummy" that is not the same as their own "Mummy"

And even if your logic were applied, do children looked after by aunts or uncles or even adult siblings have "Mums and Dads"

Inclusive language would be " don't forget to ask the grown-ups at home"... (Skelligsfeathers- do you think that would cover a care home situation?)

Asi I said , I / we ( in my setting) use ' your adults'. It covers every situation.
Kids in foster care are very often still seeing birth parents even if only occasionally. Referring to their foster carers as mum or dad could be both confusing and distressing for them.

Isn’t it down to individuals . I’m Mum to my kids, and at school was always referred to as Mum. And when I call kids at my schools parents I say is that x’s mum or dad or brother etc. Not one person has ever said refer to me as Jane not mum

I understand that primary schools use grownups because children are often picked up by other adults like childminders or step parents. It would take too long to name every possible adult.

The person who said that it's only female words that have to change made me wonder if Stonewall allows parents to use "daughter" or am I supposed to call her something else like XX-child. She is 19 so old enough to say if she were non-binary or trans.

But that's not the point Skelligsfeathers was making. Your example is individuals talking to individuals, who presumably already know how to address each other.

Although, I don't follow your last point. I would have said "Hi, it's Kimiko, Algernon's mum" I'd be very surprised if the other person called me "Algernon's mum" . They may well have done when talking about me to their own child but that's different.

Sorry, I missed your earlier post. I agree "your adults" or "the grown-ups" is far more preferable.

They can use their names for sure, but that's a bit harsh and unloving in a young child

That's bollocks. I'm not saying we should stop using 'mum' and 'dad' but there is nothing wrong or 'unloving' about using your parents' first names, at any age.

Yes, “Stonewall” is not inclusive of other boundary markers such as fencing, barbed wire, brickwork, privet and a great many others.

So divisive 😊

I am obviously very old fashioned then. I wouldn't ever allow my children to call me by my name, at any age. I also have friends who insisted their small children called me "Mrs Smith", so as to not use my first name, or some call you "Aunty". It's about respect I think.

How can you have two birthing parents, though? Only one parent (progenitor) gives birth to you.

So, dad is ok for AOC, but Mother is offensive, and can only be referred to as dad's spouse.
Now that is offensive; AOC may as well referred to mothers as the 'dad's human incubators'. That is handmaiden stuff.

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear that they have taken such a “adult wants over children’s best interests & needs” stance.

Whoever would have guessed children well-being came so far down in their list of priorities.

< insert sarcasm emoticon >

I am obviously very old fashioned then. I wouldn't ever allow my children to call me by my name, at any age. I also have friends who insisted their small children called me "Mrs Smith", so as to not use my first name, or some call you "Aunty". It's about respect I think

It has nothing to do with being old fashioned. I am a 1970s child of strict parents - my father preferred us to use his first name. He is a child of the 1940s and always used his own mother's first name.

It has nothing to do with the use of honorifics or not, either. I agree people are often over-familiar with people they don't know well - whether children or adults. But within the close family circle, the name you use is not, or at least, not necessarily, a reflection of the type of relationship you have with your parents.

As a woman who had adopted asked when she was confronted by all of the "birthing parent" nonsense, "Then what am I to my children?"