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Parent 'titles' (eg mum, dad) and genderlessness


Thoenix

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I was wondering if anyone here knew of any words for 'parent' that were genderless other than, obviously, 'parent.' You know, how a kid calls a parent 'mum' or 'dad' or 'papa' or 'mummy' or whatever? Is there a language in which the word for this is genderless? Or does anyone know of a word for 'parent' in general, in another language, that would be appropriate for use as a title? Something as snappy as mum or dad.

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I just refer to my parents by their first names.

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I know these words in Romance languages, Japanese, and Mandarin are all gender-differentiated, but that's the extent of my personal knowledge. (I also know that inasfar as evolutionary linguistics is an exact science, Proto-Indo-European probably had gender-differentiated parental titles as well, since I've seen words for "mother" and "father" analyzed for their prototypical forms in that particular language subgroup before.)

Honestly, I suspect that the word you're thinking of probably doesn't exist, given how language patterns work and the different historical roles played by fathers and mothers, plus the issue of gender as being one of the most salient of human characteristics--most languages are probably going to differentiate between male-parent and female-parent without a reason to include a category of androgynous-parent. You may need to invent one, or simply bypass the parental title issue and be called by your name. Wouldn't be hard to invent one, either--think about all the very different variations on words for parents even within a language (mama, ma, mother, mom, mommy, mum, mummy; da, dad, daddy, father, papa, pa; I can think of even more for grandparents) and just twist one so that it doesn't necessarily mean anything but preferably is still easy for young children to say. For instance, you could use something like "fafa," since I don't think that particular combination of sounds means anything otherwise. You may want to keep in mind how the made-up title might change as the child ages, though--for instance, I called my mother mama when I was very young, mommy when I was a bit older and could speak better, and now I normally address her as mom.

If a gender neutral parent title does exist, incidentally, I would try to look at the languages of cultures with a very high degree of gender equality. Native American languages might have something, but I seriously doubt Farsi does, for example. If there isn't much differentiation between genders, it's not as necessary to immediately mark them out as linguistically different than it is if there's a very gender-differentiated society.

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Don't know of any. You can always try coming up with a word.

Haaha, I like that idea. Making up words is fun. Anyway, this thread is interesing. I never thought about genderless people wanting a new term instead of Mom/Mum and Dad.

*Is going to try*

(Mom/Dad combos)

Mod, Moda, Damo, Momda,

(Mum/Dad )

Mud, Damu, Muda, Mumda

(Mother/Father)

Mofa, Hermfa, Mofaher, Famoher,

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50 Cent Piece

This is halfway related, but I want to be called Boogie by my bff's future children instead of Auntie. So maybe something like that, completely random but easy for a kid to say? Abo, Dana, ect.

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I like Mumda. :)

Medusa and I are actually coming up with our own language to teach our kids (in addition to English of course) and so we're going to come up with our own words entirely to express the more specific relationships that we experience. So you can take it as far as you want. For example if you ever wanted you could come up with words for ideas like "not quite a parent not quite an aunt/uncle" or other ideas like "secular godparent" etc.

Nika

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wow, I had never really thought of that! :o As for me, I guess I'd be fine with "mum", even if it's generally seen as feminine, for some personal reasons:

-I've lived my life without a father, so I don't see the need to add any elements of "fatherhood" into my parenting/title (as my whole concept of fatherhood is lacking)

-'Cause mum was my only parent, for me personally the word "mum" could be a synonym to "parent". Besides my mum is a quite "androgynous personality", if you can say so... she hardly knows what androgyny is (not long ago she asked me, 'cause she had heard the word, and I explained briefly :P ), but I mean that she definitely aint a typical womanly woman (rather a tomboy :) ) so for me the word "mum" doesn't include that much feminine vibes.

As for others... maybe it could be just a random nickname that shows affection? For me it feels that using the first name somehow lacks any extra affection... Well, for instance I use various affection-filled nicknames about my cats -_- The other cat's "real name" is Kiksa, but I almost always call her Piku :lol: That random nickname just popped into my mind without any consideration! I also call my best friends by their random nicknames, to the degree, that it feels really weird to use their real names when I talk with them :D

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prettyeyes

I seriously just had this conversation with my girlfriend. XD She was all, "So if we had kids I would be their mom... But what would you be?" And I was like, "Uh... *long pause* Their Maaaaaather!" :lol:

In all seriousness though, if I ever found myself in a position of parenting younglings, they would probably end up calling me some childlike version of my name, like Noey.

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Elliott Ford

I seriously just had this conversation with my girlfriend. XD She was all, "So if we had kids I would be their mom... But what would you be?" And I was like, "Uh... *long pause* Their Maaaaaather!" :lol:

In all seriousness though, if I ever found myself in a position of parenting younglings, they would probably end up calling me some childlike version of my name, like Noey.

Prettyeyes, if you ever had children, you could make a perfectly awesome DAD :)

You all know Beardless is genderless (and presents as genderqueer)? Well, they decided that no matter what sex or gender or number of other parent(s) their kids had, they were going to be a Dad. Because Dads are cooler. And, in our experience at least, seem to take it better when their child turns out not to be exactly "normal" or wants to do something with their life that's a bit unusal. So, yeah, when we have children, those children will have two Dads, both of whom are trans and one of whom isn't a man. And we're leaving totally open the possibilty of our children having more than two parents. And our kids will totally have a trans uncle or three :)

I guess, even if there isn't a genderneutral word yet, you can always make one or just choose your favourite of the many words available. I know a trans woman whose son calls her Daddy (which is what I want my kids to call me) and gay and lesbian couples who choose words from different languages or choose one to be the mum and one to be the dad.

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please delete this account

i'm not sure if this would count. It depends where you're from i suppose, but when i grew up i never used 'mum' (she haes it) but used Mam. Where i am this is just a dialectal variation of mum, but if it's not near you it could be used?

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i'm not sure if this would count. It depends where you're from i suppose, but when i grew up i never used 'mum' (she haes it) but used Mam. Where i am this is just a dialectal variation of mum, but if it's not near you it could be used?

Lol if you called your mom mam here it might get misheard as ma'am and people would probably think you have some pretty hardass parents.

Nika

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Lol if you called your mom mam here it might get misheard as ma'am and people would probably think you have some pretty hardass parents.

Nika

!

I'm making my kids do that, if I ever have kids.

OT, I like the idea of having some other form of babble representing the parent's name, like lala or something, since at least it would be easy for a young person to pronounce. I was thinking on related terms recently, about a word meaning ma'am or sir that would apply to gender-queer people, or in fact that would translate on the internet, where gender is obscured.

Best,

Nym

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please delete this account

Lol if you called your mom mam here it might get misheard as ma'am and people would probably think you have some pretty hardass parents.

Nika

hmm... well the vowel in mam is quite a short one, it's also a lot more front (if you know any linguistics it's more like [aˑ] than [ɑ:] ), I think it'd be quite hard to confuse mam and ma'am because ma'am vowel is so long.

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Fish That Swims

Maybe you could just replace vowels...Pip? Mim?

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Lol if you called your mom mam here it might get misheard as ma'am and people would probably think you have some pretty hardass parents.

Nika

hmm... well the vowel in mam is quite a short one, it's also a lot more front (if you know any linguistics it's more like [aˑ] than [ɑ:] ), I think it'd be quite hard to confuse mam and ma'am because ma'am vowel is so long.

You got lucky I'm a huge linguistics nerd. With a screen reader that doesn't interpret IPA. I get the general gist of what you're saying but want to know in more detail, lol. Can you give me vowel description or SAMPA?

Nika

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Lol if you called your mom mam here it might get misheard as ma'am and people would probably think you have some pretty hardass parents.

Nika

!

I'm making my kids do that, if I ever have kids.

OT, I like the idea of having some other form of babble representing the parent's name, like lala or something, since at least it would be easy for a young person to pronounce. I was thinking on related terms recently, about a word meaning ma'am or sir that would apply to gender-queer people, or in fact that would translate on the internet, where gender is obscured.

Best,

Nym

I should have been more specific -- I'm just talking about some regions. I know it varies a lot from region to region and country to country. (When I moved from DC to NC it was probably the first thing I noticed. On the flight over. Lol.)

On another note, it would be really nice to have a gender-neutral sir/ma'am.

Nika

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I'm still mulling this topic over, but at this point I think I want to be the "mom" of the family, even though I identify as genderless, because I still feel more like a mom than a dad. Like, I want to be my future kids' mom not because I'm female, but simply because I want to be their mom. Does this make sense at all?

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Elliott Ford

I'm still mulling this topic over, but at this point I think I want to be the "mom" of the family, even though I identify as genderless, because I still feel more like a mom than a dad. Like, I want to be my future kids' mom not because I'm female, but simply because I want to be their mom. Does this make sense at all?

Yes, that makes sense. "Mother" and "Father" are roles just as much as "Man" and "Woman" are and I've never seen any reason why they should sit together so that Mother=Woman.

I want to be a stay-at-home Dad when I grow up. This is, in some way I can't quite articulate, different to being a stay-at-home Mum. Dads can be nuturing and caring - just not quite in the same way as mums. And mums can be hands-on and active - but not quite in the same way as Dads. I suppose really people are just people.

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You got lucky I'm a huge linguistics nerd. With a screen reader that doesn't interpret IPA. I get the general gist of what you're saying but want to know in more detail, lol. Can you give me vowel description or SAMPA?

Nika

Hi Nika, sorry for replying late ^^ (gurr essays!) i've not come across SAMPA much before, it does look like a useful thing though, ( i used this here source if it'll be any help).

mam: more like near-open front unrounded vowel ( { ) and v.short.

ma'am: (where i'm from) more like cardinal 5 - open back unrounded (A) and long.

Also, wondered if you'd be interested in This

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