Happy Parent B’s Day

Once upon a time – but not so long ago as legend; nor so timeless as a fairytale – this Sunday used to be known as ‘Mother’s Day’. It was a quaint custom in celebration of the patience, kindness, goodness and sacrificial love of those who bore us, nurtured us and guided us in the way that we should go.

But then came the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition with more than a hint of Labour’s inclination for social engineering. They decided that the traditional family – a husband, a wife and children – was a bit passé. And they decreed that marriage need no longer require a male and female of the species, and that two men or two women might enter into nuptial bliss and consummate their union without prejudice or discrimination.

And so it came to pass that all expressions of gender upon official forms and documents were expunged, in case a declaration of marriage might be presumed to be heterosexual. No more ‘Husband’ or ‘Wife’ on marriage certificates; and no more ‘Mother’ or ‘Father’ on birth certificates. The state was compelled to be gender neutral, and the statute books were amended accordingly: all presumption of biological complementarity ceased.

And so ‘Husband’ and ‘Wife’ became ‘Spouse 1’ and ‘Spouse 2’. And ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’ became ‘Parent A’ and ‘Parent B’.

It remains to be seen how long it will take the Government to realise that ‘Parent B’ is appallingly sexist and insulting to those erstwhile mothers. For who determined that the female progenitive contribution should be recognised merely as the ‘B’ component? Does not the slight of ‘B’ perpetuate the primacy of ‘A’? Is not the matriarch still subject to patriarchy? And what of ‘Parent C’, which will surely come as a consequence of imminent court rulings which will decree that a child may legally have three parents?

There was a time when might have looked to the Holy Parent B Church to intervene.

Who now can rid us of these meddlesome politicians?