Woman Wants To Change ‘Father’s Day’ To ‘Special Person’s Day’

Seven Network

A woman who wants to change ‘Father’s Day’ to ‘Special Person’s Day’ so children without dads won’t feel left out, has been labelled ‘offensive’.

Early childhood activist and university academic Dr Red Ruby Scarlet is pushing for the name change along with many other campaigners.

During an interview on Australia’s Today Tonight, Dr Scarlet denied it was a case of political correctness gone mad.

You can watch the full interview here:

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Dr Scarlet told host Rosanna Mangiarelli:

If we think about children’s rights and how they get to participate in a community and feel a sense of belonging, sometimes shifting the language around those emotive and important days can be significant and more inclusive than the current way we describe them.

There is a whole range of different family structures. We have single parent families, satellite families, extended families, lesbian and gay families.

The campaign has been receiving support from families without fathers and many schools have also adopted the idea.

Seven Network

However, the idea has also received plenty of criticism, with Dr Scarlet continuing:

There’s a lot of Australian research that has actually informed a lot of international research that has demonstrated children’s capacity to be really inclusive once they know about these ideas and they think, ‘Wow, why are people seeing this as a controversy?

Why are we calling this political correctness when it is in fact about our rights?

There has been a backlash but the backlash hasn’t necessarily come from families in those communities, it’s people outside those particular contexts.

@DavidElliottMP / Twitter

One of the people to criticise Dr Scarlet, according to the Daily Mail, is New South Wales Liberal minister David Elliott, who reportedly said:

Can’t believe that someone who professes to be ‘enlightened’ would advocate such crap.

People still celebrate fatherhood even after their father and grandfathers have passed away, in fact for many people Father’s Day is a wonderful time of reflecting and remembering.

Dr Red Ruby Scarlet — you are the offensive one. Maybe we should start a campaign to address that.

I have just one question. What about Mother’s Day?

UNILAD