July 01, 2005

Happy uh... Parent's Day!?

'Mother's Day' too offensive?
Campus administrator says newsletter reference must be 'Parent's Day'

A pre-school in Maryland has lost at least one customer after a student's father working on the school's newsletter was told he must change a "Happy Mother's Day" greeting in the publication to "Happy Parent's Day."

David Becker of Kensington, Md., had a 3-year-old son at the Kensington Forest Glen Children's Center, which is overseen by the umbrella organization Montgomery Child Care Association.

"My wife and I have always been very involved with the school and with the teachers," Becker told WND.

The trouble began when Becker, while typing the newsletter, changed a hand-written greeting from "Happy Parent's Day!" to "Happy Mother's Day!" After submitting the final draft, a teacher contacted Becker and said the greeting would have to be changed back to "Happy Parent's Day!"

Becker says originally it was one of the teachers who talked to him about the issue. When he asked why, he says he was referred to an administrator.

Becker said he was told: "We cannot say 'Mother's Day' because we might exclude someone."

"I was confused," Becker told WorldNetDaily. "Everybody has a mother. Not everyone has a mother who is alive, but everyone has a mother."

Becker then asked the administrator: "Who would we be offending on Mother's Day?"

The response: "What about families with two fathers?"

Becker then asked about Father's Day. He says he was told: "You can't say 'Father's Day' either."

Retorted Becker: "You are insulting all the parents – the mothers, the fathers, the two-mother families, the two-father families – you're insulting all of them."

The administrator responded, according to Becker: "That's our policy."

Becker says the Mother's Day incident was the "straw that broke the camel's back" and says he won't be sending his son back in the fall.

"I tell the school they can white-out my disrespectful words and my child's registration for the fall semester," Becker wrote in a Washington Post feature called "Life is Short, Autobiography as Haiku."

Wait for it...

Waaaaaiiiit for it.....

"Un-be-lieve-a-ble."


H/T: Mad Mikey

Posted by Kyer at July 1, 2005 03:53 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Uh...Nurturing Adults' Day?

Posted by: triticale at July 4, 2005 11:15 AM
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