French Schools To Replace ‘Mother’ & ‘Father’ With ‘Parent 1’ & ‘Parent 2’ To Promote Inclusion

While a lot of countries, including India, are trying to approach the legalisation of gay marriage, the French had done it way back in 2013. However, there were some kinks in their system that prevented the inclusion of gay couples, one of which was smoothed out by Emmanuel Macron’s government this week.

According to the Telegraph, French schools have been advised to replace the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ with ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’ under an amendment to a law passed recently. Valérie Petit, MP for the majority REM party of Pres. Emmanuel Macron, said,

“This amendment aims to root in law children’s family diversity in administrative forms submitted in school. We have families who find themselves faced with tick boxes stuck in rather old-fashioned social and family models. For us, this article is a measurement of social equality.”

Socialist MP Joaquim Pueyot praised the reform as a sign of “respect and dignity” and said,

“You cannot imagine the consequences when children don’t feel treated like the others.”

FCPE (which’s France’s biggest parents federation) called this amendment “a very good thing” and said that it echoed the law that has been passed to protect children who are harassed for not fitting certain criteria.

Apparently, the idea of replacing mother and father with parent 1 and 2 was already denied back in 2013. And since it was passed this time, it left the conservative Republicans and the far-Right fuming. Conservative MP Fabien Di Filippo defined the move as,

“Frightening ideology, which in the name of limitless egalitarianism promotes removing points of reference, including those regarding the family.”

Eric Ciotti, another RW MP said that,

“They swore this was fantasy, that it would never happen. The negation of gender deconstructs the balance of our society.”

Ludovine de La Rochère, president of the Manif Pour Tous organisation that opposes gay marriage, said that the move was “totally dehumanising”. In addition to that Jordan Bardella, head of RN’s European election list said that this is an attempt to “ideologically condition children”.

However, it wasn’t just the Right who displayed scepticism regarding this decision. AFDH (the French association for same-sex parents) warned that ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’ can cause “parental hierarchy”. Jean-Michel Aphatie, editorialist on Europe 1 radio has said that while the change was logical, turning parents into numbers was “very administrative and very ugly”.

What are your thoughts on this move? Let us know in the comments.

Representative Cover Image Source: 1, 2