My good friend Kat is a worker in primary schools and she explicitly talks to small children about "your adult" or "your grownup" which avoids assuming parenthood or gendering stuff.
While Kat has two now adult children of her own, she is the sort of very maternal person who happily borrows children to enjoy while giving the main caregivers (there's a word we don't use in the UK but I know from US writing) a rest and has learned the scripts for "Oh, I'm not their parent" conversation cos she's actually a lot more socially awkward than most people realise cos she's so adept at scripting.
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My good friend Kat is a worker in primary schools and she explicitly talks to small children about "your adult" or "your grownup" which avoids assuming parenthood or gendering stuff.
While Kat has two now adult children of her own, she is the sort of very maternal person who happily borrows children to enjoy while giving the main caregivers (there's a word we don't use in the UK but I know from US writing) a rest and has learned the scripts for "Oh, I'm not their parent" conversation cos she's actually a lot more socially awkward than most people realise cos she's so adept at scripting.