Mum? Dad? Whatevwer next?

[4GS]

How many same sex couples with kids are out there then?:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles /news/news.html?in_article_id=511209&in_page_i d=1770

[WaldoMcFroog]

More to the point, surely a school would already know if a child had same sex parents, because surely they're listed as the emergency contacts for the child?

[Loosehead]

Yes waldo but I think they are referring to the general usage of the terms. Usual stuff, "Mum/Dad" may confuse those with 2 mums or 2 dads. You couldn't make it up!

[Supernick]

It's guidance, nothing will change. It's just there to make teaching staff aware that times are changing and there are new issues that teachers may have to deal with.

[whiffey]

What they never get round to advising on is the physical aspects. To be born, a child requires a female mother and a male father. I would be interested to know how they will respond to inquisitive children who ask 'What do gay couples actually do to each other ?'

[ruby27]

Schools should have a policy where they recognise that children will come from diverse backgrounds/family and that language should not be tolerated that encourages general bullying and specifically homophobia. Hardly radical.

Even the Daily Mail only appears to be reporting this, rather than having ' go'.

[daffy654]

When my mum and dad divorced my mum "turned" lesbian. If I hadn't been placed into local authority care along with my 3 brothers and 3 sisters we would have had "2 mums". As I was so young at the time it didn't seem odd at all.

[indiechic]

3 sets of lesbian couples have children at my son's school, I babysit for one of the couples kids sometimes. Their eldest daughter is 11, she told me she didn't like her biological mum's partner, this had nothing to do with her being a woman, she talked about her like my brother did our stepfather when he was a teenager. She didn't have the mickey taken out of her butmaybe thats because it's so open.

It probably is wrong to assume. My eldest comes home from school a bit upset when they have been talking about dads living at home. We have to have a big chat about why some dads dont live at home.

Fortunately my kids have grown up around gay men and women. single parent familiers and those that have a "traditional" unit, so I really hope they would never pick up on this and buly anyone for it.

Goodsy x

[ludwig]

I'm surprised they're recomending the term 'Mum and Dad' be replaced by the word 'parents' - surely the use of the plural is going to upset and traumatise all the single parented children out there.

[sp1814]

whiffey

I think yours is a bit of a moot point. I can't think of any instance where primary school children are taught the mechanics of heterosexual sexual liaisons, let alone gay sex.

The idea is odd, to say the least!

[R1Man]

ruby, schools should have a lot of things but they don't. They can't stop; bullying full stop so why do you think this area will be any different?

[sp1814]

R1Man

Just because you can't eradicate bullying completely is no reason to do nothing at all.

And remember, this is a no-cost idea. All this is is proposals for an alteration in language. The word 'parents' can be synonymous with both same sex and male/female parents.

In fact, it's a bit of a non-story.

[ludwig]

Yes it is a non-story. Teachers generally speaking are usually fairly well educated and sensible people. They're quite capable of determining the correct words to use when communicating with their pupils without some twit telling them which are the 'bad' phrases they need to avoid.

[fairkatrina]

This is daily mail hype over nothing. And as for explaining the mechanics of sex to 5 year olds who want to know how two daddies have a baby, how many kids think that single parents have concieved immaculately, and that's with Biblical precident being taught in schools!