As the “woke” minority continue to push their leftist and anti-British views, parents in some Brighton primary schools have been given an ultimatum. They must ensure that their staff may NOT use the terms “mum and dad” and the term should be discouraged by children. Can we imagine this being a rule in the 1980s, much less the 1950s?

This nonsensical rule is to avoid “marginalising” those children who do not live with two biological parents.  Apparently children living in a different type of family (and there are children who live with grandparents, or other carers for sensible reasons) will be “stigmatised” or “traumatised” if other children refer to “their own mum and dad or their own grandparents”

Instead children (and we are talking about children from four till 11 years old) are encouraged to refer to “my grown ups” or “the grown ups in my life”. That certainly doesn’t trip off the tongue as easily as “my mum” or “our dad”.

Four different schools in Brighton (government funded schools) have come up with this policy  on their own. It is not currently the official local authority’s position to come up with “equalities policies”. However the local authority has no problem with head teachers banning the words mum and dad from use.

Head teachers insist that the words “the grown ups in my life” are more inclusive. What nonsense! Everyone on the planet has or has had a mum and dad, and while some parents are not around for their children, calling social services, foster parents, older siblings or aunts who are caring for a child, “the grown ups in my life” is completely ridiculous. Changing words doesn’t change the fact that the traditional and best people (in most cases ) to look after their children are mum and dad

Quite reasonably, children are confused after the schools released a document containing these “equality measures”. Parents are angry that their traditional family grouping is being phased out in “new speak” and the conclusion of such a policy comes down to that children belong to the state, all others are simply “the grown ups in their lives.”

Children deal with many grown ups, from their teachers, the shop staff they encounter, the guy at the ice cream van, the postman, to their wider family of aunts, uncles and grandparents. How are they to distinguish one from the other, if they are all to be known as “grown ups”?

The schools maintain that they are refraining from using ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ because of the increasing number of children that are not brought up by their biological parents.

One school stated that “We use the terms parents/carers rather than “mum” and dad” as we recognise that our families are made up of many different people. When children start at  school, they discuss and share what makes a family for them. This allows children to see different family dynamics than their own but also helps them to recognise that it is the relationships that make a family.”

It is an unfortunate fact of life that many children do not have the stability of a traditional family background, but it is completely wrong of schools to normalise alternative situations, such as having two mums or two dads or any non-traditional combination.

But the schools’ position on ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ has left them at loggerheads with Brighton & Hove Council, the local authority which is responsible for supervising them.

It insisted that it had not issued any directive on the matter and schools were free to make up their own minds.

Brighton and Hove council say, “We have a very diverse school population and we want all members of the school community to feel included.”

We would not suggest that a child is who is in non traditional circumstances because of his or her parents’ bad decisions, should be treated in any way differently by the school system.  There is something badly wrong with this country when there are so many children who grow up without (often) a father in their lives.

But changing the wording used to describe parents as “the grown ups in my life” changes nothing.