Are you a mom, a dad or a parent? Words matter

Goodbye, mom and dad. It was nice knowing you, but we are now moving to a genderneutral world where you don’t really fit in.

Sigmund Freud is spinning in his grave at the news, but you’re just going to be parents from now on, in official provincial laws and documents.

The Ontario Liberal government has a plan to make language and documents as gender-neutral as possible.

The All Families Are Equal Act, now being discussed in committee at Queen’s Park, has enraged some people for this very reason, because it is replacing the words “mother” and “father” with “parents” in a number of laws.

The act itself is bringing some reforms that are widely agreed to be long overdue. It will ensure that couples who are gay or transgender, or who use surrogates or other nontraditional means of reproduction, will have an easier time being recognized as the parents of those children.

Society moves forward. But as we embark on our wellfounded, well-meaning wish to be inclusive of a vulnerable minority, let us also respect the power of words, and of history.

The same people who had misgivings about the sex-education curriculum are now flagging the loss of “mother” and “father” in the government’s vocabulary.

They don’t have a problem with non-traditional parents, like a same-sex couple, being recognized as “parents” if that is their wish. But they don’t see why that means we have to lose the terms “mother” and “father” on forms, or in laws like the Vital Statistics Act or the Change of Name Act.

It seems like a tiny little thing, but it’s actually very important.

There are plenty of people who grew up in a world of Dick and Jane, husband and wife, pants and skirts. These people are being asked to get accustomed to a lot of change that’s happening very quickly.

Why make it more difficult for them to adjust than is necessary? Why berate them if they say they’re uncomfortable? Do you think insulting them is going to make them cheerfully sign on to the new order? It won’t. It will just make them angry and alienated. Look south of the border to see what that could be like.

Adding a gender-neutral option to the “male” or “female” designation that’s on a driver’s licence is not taking anything away from anyone. But removing the “mother” and “father” option from a school form, and forcing everyone to say “parent” instead, is an attempt to erase a description of the most powerful relationships we experience, which are at the core of our being.

The people who really don’t like the government would tell you that this move is an attempt to undermine the traditional family in society, and replacing it with the authority of the state. They said the same thing about the sex-education curriculum.

There can’t be any doubt that the government and the NDP politician who sponsored the bill, Cheri DiNovo, intend for it to strengthen and be inclusive of all kinds of families.

But inclusiveness cuts both ways. It needs to be extended to the so-called right-wing people who don’t agree with you, too.

So let’s really be inclusive. Put it all on there. Mother. Father. Parent. Guardian.

Let people describe themselves to the government in whatever way makes sense to them.

In some ways it isn’t much different from the annual tortured discussion about whether the big tree with lights all over it is a “Christmas” tree or a “holiday” tree. Words matter, more than we think.