I’m posting my Sunday Lowdown a little late because this is Father’s Day weekend, and Biscuit and Dad came down for a visit. Once again, we had a garage sale, which is always fun because you make some money and meet a bunch of lovely weirdos. The small subdivision nearby also had a garage sale. Theirs was Friday and Saturday (mine is Saturday only). I walked over on Friday and didn’t find much, though one woman had several American Sign Language (ASL) resources. I ended up buying a pocket dictionary.
It’s a terrible idea to learn ASL from a book because this is a 3-D language we’re talking about; however, I wanted it to help me with the speaking part of ASL-English interpreting. For example, the ASL sign DIRTY could mean filthy, nasty, pollution, or soiled in English according to the dictionary. That’s the part I need help with. In interpreting we call this one-to-many and many-to-one. Basically, one sign in ASL may mean lots of things in English (like DIRTY). Or, there are many signs in ASL that could represent one word in English (like “run”). We use the word “run” in English to mean loads of things: run for election, run in your stockings, physically running, water running, a machine that is running, even diarrhea.
The woman who sold me the pocket dictionary has taken ASL classes in person with a Deaf teacher; however, she was saying it just doesn’t seem to stick, or that she was stuck in some way. Last weekend I took a three-hour workshop on gender, sexuality, and relationships in the Queer community, which included discussions of language use. After talking to the garage sale lady, I was thinking of the importance of not only learning language (any language), and not only using it with native speakers/signers, but refining what we mean. Over the weekend, Biscuit, Dad, Nick and I talked about people, places, and events — like you do — and I noticed that were were all carefully adjusting the words we used. Instead of “worthless,” someone meant “helpless.” Instead of someone being “confusing,” they are “different from us.” I absolutely love this, this fine tuning of what we say to get to what we really mean. I truly think it makes us better people.
For instance, in ASL the sign for “parents” is MOM-DAD. But what happens if a child has two moms, two dads, one parent, a grandma, is a foster child, lives with an uncle, etc. The sign MOM-DAD makes assumptions about people; presumably one assigned female at birth and the other assigned male and that both are in the child’s life functioning as legal guardians. I learned some more cautious signs from an interpreter in Illinois, like CARE+AGENT (AGENT means “person”). This sounds awkward in English because we don’t often say “caretaker,” but if you sign it, you’re basically saying “the person who takes care of someone else.” You can directly avoid all the “Yes, I’m the foster mom, but we’re in the process of adoption,” or “I’m not their dad, but I am the legal guardian because my sister is terminally ill” or whatever. When we’re asking, “Who is your legal guardian?” that’s a big question for kids. It sounds so cold. If we ask, “Are they your mom and dad?” we may end up with a personal backstory that isn’t relevant and the child feels forced to share.
I remember being in elementary school when a little girl suddenly had a new last name. She lived with her grandparents, who were her legal guardians, and then they adopted her. We kids had loads of questions, like where are your mom and dad and why do you live with your grandparents and why did you change your name, and why don’t your parents want you. Although we were curious because we recognized something as “different” and perhaps as a threat to our tiny world (children always point out differences, don’t they?), language could have possibly changed her situation. Some people even tormented her, accusing her of lying that her last name could change. What if we all had caretakers (non-gendered) instead of parents (mom and dad)?
Maybe you’re thinking, “This would never happen” or “I like being identified as mom/dad; I’m proud of that.” I have questions to follow up: “What if you made a small change and started using non-gendered language, even though it can be hard?” and “Are you proud of being a mom/dad, or are you proud that you care for and love your children?” Some people are the biological father but get called “the sperm donor” because he’s not in the picture. Even language like “bio dad/mom” and “real mom/dad” enters my world frequently because I’m married to someone with two fathers. I get confused because I think of his “real dad” as the guy who raised him, but most people hear “real dad” and think I mean the guy with whom my spouse shares DNA.
Long story short, language can be fine tuned to fit what we really mean. Soon, I’ll be sharing a book review of a memoir in which the author thought her half-brother was her step-brother. But if they were raised as siblings, does it matter if it’s half- or step-? Is a step-brother someone you say goodbye to if the adults divorce? Is it so easy if you’ve grown up together? And some people out there don’t even count half-siblings as “real” siblings, separating themselves into tribes based on who shares DNA and begrudgingly admitting they share some DNA with another sibling.
I will stop here for today and say that I had a lovely weekend with Biscuit, Dad, and Nick. Nick was gone all week at a conference, so I ended up going out for trivia and bingo, a book club and spooky movie discussion. I filled my days, too, with homework and interpreting practice. And all week, in the back of my mind, I was really focusing on wording and language use, paying attention everywhere I went.
Grab the Lapels 
I agree about the importance of using just the right terms for things. For example I use the word “partner” for my son’s new wife as well as for my daughter’s long-term girlfriend–each couple have been together for about the same length of time, and just because it’s easier and more conventional for the male/female couple to marry doesn’t change the relationship I have to either of the women my children love.
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Yes, this is interesting Jeanne. My son has a partner, but my daughter is going to marry. I haven’t worked out yet what I will do. It will partly depend on what they want, I suppose. But, it begs the question of what I do. Do I speak of my own husband as “partner”? I am feeling more and more old-fashioned when I use the term “husband” to describe him (particularly when I am talking to people who don’t really know him and may not even know his name) and yet I feel self-conscious using “partner” because it feels like I’m pretending to be with-it, and I hate pretence. Yet, I suppose I have changed other language with the times so I guess it’s not pretence!
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One of the things I’ve done for a while is to avoid identifying my husband or partner solely by his relationship to me unless that’s the only context that matters. I also try to avoid using pronouns, whenever possible. I use the person’s name.
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I totally know this conundrum! I used to be so proud to have A HUSBAND, but then I realized, after gay marriage was legalized in 2015 in the U.S., that I was proud of something I did not earn. We signed paperwork and a judge basically said okie-dokie with his signature. Boom, done. I’m embarrassed to say I once asked a man how long he’d been married to his husband. When he responded, “We’ve been together since [and said a date that was many years ago,]” I replied, “No, I asked when you got MARRIED.” I did not even think that he could not get married when he met his now-husband.
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It’s so easy to put your foot in it isn’t it… And you feel so embarrassed because you know you are a person who believes in justice and equality but can still be so oblivious to the life others are experiencing.
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I struggle with the word partner because all it conjures up is westerns and buddy cop movies. I tend to ask, “Is that your person?” Or say, “This is so-and-so’s person.” I know that one is weird, but people oddly fall in rhythm with it when I say it. Maybe because it fits in with other language patterns: this is my cat, this is my house, this is my person.
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While I don’t object to “my person,” I wouldn’t use that terminology for some of the same reasons we’re talking about. Early on in our marriage, when I was just 22, I shied away from identifying the person I married as “mine.” The cats who live with me are not really “my” cats and if I call them that, I’m asserting ownership which–at least to some people–implies the right to assert my will over theirs. I’m perhaps a little kooky in thinking that we should not say we “own” animals but that we “adopt” them.
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Oh, wow, this is a great point! I know Jackson Galaxy, the guy known as the Cat Daddy and did the show My Cat From Hell, always referred to people with cats as guardians. I will confess I am possessive of my man person. Maybe I should not be. 😐
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Love this! Words do matter! I like the idea of having a non-gendered non-biological word for the person or people who raise you. I could have used it for my mom’s situation. Her biological mother abandoned the family when she was young and so my mom was raised by her grandmother. She called her mom and thought of her as her mother and would get angry is anyone said otherwise. And her aunts were her sisters. Her dad was still in the picture though, helping to support them all because Granny’s husband was dead. So when I was a kid and my mom had tried to explain to me the twistings and turnings of the biological and social family tree I was utterly confused. So Granny, who I was told was my grandma was really my great-grandma and the woman who abandoned the family was Granny’s daughter. And there are still threads I don’t understand. So being able to say something like “caregiver” would have been really great.
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I want to say your story surprises me, but it does not. So many people I know go into detail about who their family is, as if they owe us an explanation. I know people who have married parents who haven’t lived together in years because they don’t believe in divorce, so their mom and dad are together, but not really. Then, I know someone whose mother is alive but not well nor cognitively present due to severe trauma, so yes, that’s “mom” but she does not function like a mom, so I get the explanation. I’ve heard many times “Yes, I have family but I cut them out of my life, so not really.” It’s all so complicated, so I’m glad that my post landed clearly. I was worried that I was rambling, but I’m really trying to tie together things I’ve read and experienced and am thinking about during the week. I know there is that famous quote, apparently from Eleanor Roosevelt, about great minds discussing ideas, average minds discussing events, and small minds discussing people. I started to realize that my Sunday Lowdown had become the average mind kind of post. It didn’t feel right.
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One of my children has a biological father who is not me. When she was an adult I helped her find her biological father – whom we had always known and referred to by name – and they formed a relationship. How much ‘dad’ was in what she felt for him I can’t say, but I do think we need a special word for the parents who raised us.
Likewise, I am the biological father (and friend) of a woman who was adopted out. I am not her dad, but she is my daughter. How language can deal with that I’m not sure.
Meanwhile I am reading bellhooks. I cheated and looked at the start of your review – I think she argues round in circles, uses her conclusions to support her arguments – and I was interested you found her old fashioned, and maybe out of date. That might explain some things.
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There are SO many adopted people in my life. One is Nick, who was adopted but not on paper, and later found his biological father, who then married his biological mother.
Another was the best man in our wedding, whose bio father was apparently visiting from Saudi Arabia and stopped by in Michigan, leading to a baby.
Another knew she was adopted her whole life and ended up finding her bio mom, who was just as disappointing as her adoption mom.
I recently left a comment about how I often ask people, “Is this your person?” meaning “Is this your partner or spouse?” I’ve called Nick my “man person” since I met him, though I dropped the “man” part because not everyone has a man person. Sometimes they have a woman person, which has too many syllables, and sometimes they have a “person” with no gender, which, when I started saying “man person” was not an openly practiced identity in the U.S.
Most often, I just ask, “Who are you?” Too many times in past years I’ve asked, “Is this your grandma?” only to discover is was the kid’s (now) angry mother who likely gave birth in her late 30’s/early 40s or the super “no no no, I’m just the fun aunt!” answer, during which the person feels the need to explain that they never want kids but they don’t hate them, and that’s none of my business.
Yes, I think you assessment of hooks is spot on.
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If there’s one thing I love talking about, it’s language. Regarding your conversations with your family, I grew up with that mantra “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”. I hated that. I understood the intention to encourage kids not to care about teasing and bullying with names, but names do hurt. I hate name-calling and labelling (particularly negative) of any sort. So I have always tired to think of other ways of describing others. But, no matter how hard one tries, there are always new things to become aware of, including “new” relationships as you describe here like two-mum or two-dad families. They are both parents, and English has a word for that – parent – but as you say, signing includes gender assumption in its sign. SO fascinating.
I do think there’s a necessary distinction between “half-brother” and “step-brother”, and that’s to do with biology. You can, technically, have a child with your step-brother with no particular risks, but not with your half-brother. How we define incest is another thing. Is it incest if it’s with a step-brother you grew up with? Technically not, I think, but socially it can be seen so. But, what if your respective parents got together, after you grew up, and then you met each other and got together? Or, if your respective parents met and married after you were married, suddenly your husband/partner would become your step-brother!! In these situations step-sibling means very little. But, this whole business of half-siblings is tricky for children born of sperm donors because, theoretically, they could partner up with a (genetically) half-sibling without knowing.
Re Nick, I always use the term birth-mother or -father for the biological parent, and mother/father (mum/dad) for the one who raised the person. “Real” is such a subjective term. (I say “always use” because I have friends in this situation, on both sides of the parenting spectrum.)
Finally, I would find it hard to give up the term “mum”. Theoretically, I take your point, but I think “mum” is a special relationship – one that has to do with the caring, not the birthing. And, I’m happy for it to encompass all types of “mums” rather than do away with it. But, that’s just me!
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I remember reading about people in China kidnapping little girl toddlers off the street to raise alongside their biological toddler son because the way things were going with the One-Child Policy and the cultural importance on having a son, there were no girls left for boys to marry when everyone became adults. Therefore, in that case, people were literally raising children together so they could become married. That makes me wonder if the only thing telling us not to fall in love with the people who grow up with us and raise us in our homes is someone telling us not to. This is where the icky stuff starts to creep in. I read just this morning a question in an online discussion forum: why is gay marriage okay but incest is not, if everyone is a consenting adult? And everyone jumped all over that post, pointing out that in a homosexual relationship, no one is hurt. In an incestuous relationship, there is often a power dynamic that is the source of abuse that has coerced the victim into falling in love and continuing to see his/her/their abuser.
If I had allowed myself to continue writing the Sunday Lowdown, I would have added that I know a few people who miss “a mom” but not “their mom” when she is still alive. I’m sure it’s the same with dads, but the people I know all experience this with their moms. I think sometimes there are women who did not want to have children but did, probably out of people forcing norms, and now the adult child just cannot get the mom to be motherly. They don’t miss their mom, per se. They miss the idea of a mom. In that case, people must go out and find women one generation older than they and develop a caring connection.
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I hadn’t read that about China but it makes sense. I thought that one-child policy was a recipe for disaster because you just knew it was going to end up there being more boys than girls.
As for Mums. I think boys do seek out father-figures too, particularly if they don’t have a father around. If they don’t sometimes the mother seeks one – grandfather, uncle, friend – particularly if the boy send to be running off the rails.
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When I used to take a history from children at work, I often asked “who normally looks after you?” or (for an older child who might resent that idea) “can you tell me about who lives in your house at the moment?” – because you’re right about different families having different structures. I use parents rather than mum and/or dad where appropriate. At the same time, most of the alternate terms to parents (caregiver, caretaker) are tasks rather than relationships, which is why I would be resistant to a change in language away from parents. The idea of referring to someone by what they do for a child, rather than who they are to them, seems bleak in the extreme. Even though I don’t have a great relationship with my dad, he IS my dad, not my caregiver. (Frankly, caregiver would be a much less accurate term for him than dad!)
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That’s an interesting point about your dad not being a caregiver. It’s also interesting that the person in the hospital with a child may or may not be a caregiver, either. For example, we learned from an ethical scenario to be careful about one spouse interpreting for the other because he/she/they may be changing the story. For example, if a deaf woman has gone into early labor and her hearing husband is interpreting only to learn that he beat her up, causing the early labor.
I like the way you ask who is in the house or who looks after the child. That might translate over to ASL, but I would have to think about the concept of “looks after” before I can think of a way to sign that.
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I love these discussions because I think they are truly moving us forward as a society. Language is so important, and how we use our words can really make or break a person and their mental wellbeing. I don’t understand some people’s resistance to changing the words they use; if a group of people is pointing out that a certain word is hurtful to them, why wouldn’t we change it? And so what if we have to change what words we use over and over again? Older generations seem to get so frustrated by this, but I’m hoping that younger generations can help lead these folks to a better understanding of why word choice is so critical.
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It goes back and back and back. No one says ICED cream anymore, but that’s what it was and is: iced cream. We just say ice cream. Thus, I think it’s weird to not change what you say based on what society is doing. No one says “thee” or “thou” anymore, and if a guy calls you “m’lady,” you start running and don’t look back.
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LOLOLOLOL
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Often at my girls’ school, staff will refer to “your grown-ups”. As in, “say good-bye to your grown-ups” at drop-off. Or the principal will send out an email addressed to “(School Name) Grown Ups”. That might work best in an elementary school setting but I’ve heard other adults who don’t fit into the “mom-dad” box appreciate it. Your post reminded me that even in my own family, which may look very nuclear and straightforward, there are complex relationships. Peter has siblings he refers to as his bonus brother and bonus sister because his parents took on their care when they were all kids. When I talk about my “real” grandparents, I never mean the literal man and woman my mom got her DNA from but the people who raised her. What makes a family has always meant a lot of different things and it’s nice to see language begin to match that a bit.
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I like that bit about grown ups. I know there have been some really sad results from theme days, especially in elementary school, when students are supposed to specifically bring a mom, dad, or grandparent. Now it’s something like bring a grown up day!
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Those sort of theme days don’t seem to happen anymore – at least not in our area. Kids bring their grown-ups to events and special days – whoever those grown-ups might be! I remember well how left out I felt on grandparents day in elementary school and mine were alive, just lived too far away to come for something like that.
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I understand that schools want kids to have fun days and do something together, but I feel like all it does is highlight whose parents have the time and money to devote to theme days. When I was in school I was never pro-uniforms, but for the same reason as why I don’t like theme days, I now support school uniforms (something like pants and a basic t-shirt with the school mascot or something, not polos and ties).
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