Conference thebay::joyoflex

    > "a male parental unit" ... to cover, but not specify, the relationships
    > of Father, Step-father, grandfather, and mother's boyfriend ....
    > Can the learned readers of this conference invent a better expression?
    
    If better means more accurate, how about "male custodial unit?"
    
    Otherwise, if cub scouts can have den mothers, then girl scouts
    could have troop fathers.  Brownies could have chefs....

Hi,

What's wrong with using an "old-fashioned" word like GUARDIAN. You could easily 
distinguish by having MALE GUARDIAN or FEMALE GUARDIAN.

Mitch

    �Now a couple of us have since condidered this term, 'male parental
    �unit', and basically objected to it as demeaning the term .Father'.
    
    I don't think it demeans anything. It's an abomination, true, but
    that doesn't make it demeaning; it betrays a certain linguistic
    insensitivity on the part of the speaker - that's all. `Sticks and
    stones...'. But why must anyone be called a unit? Don't most
    contexts make `one and only one' quality of the individual concerned
    obvious? What's wrong (moving on from .1) with `male custodian'?
    
    More to the point though, I can think of a lot of contexts in which
    the sex of the legal guardian is irrelevant. In those cases, I'd prefer
    `legal guardian', or maybe just `guardian'. Or reword to avoid a noun
    completely: eg `...a helper who is responsible for one of the...'

Hmmm...

I suppose that in the circumstances, "Father figure" has some undesirable 
Freudian connotations...

Well, if they didn't like it, they could just Elektranother one...

It seems to me that the term 'legal guardian' is not quite right.  It implies
a relationship that seems too narrow for the situation being described.  Seems
to me that the mother's boy friend isn't necessarily a legal guardian.  I guess
it depends on the _in loco parentis_ statutes (is that the right term?) that are
in force. (Are there such things?)

_Locus Tenens_ means placeholder.  Perhaps an appropriately abstruse latin 
phrase would be appropriate, but I leave the translation of "in place of the 
father" in more capable hands than mine.

How about simply "parental male", "paternal male" or (gag) "significant male 
person"?

Fatheroid?

    G'day,
    
    
     If geoid means 'earth shaped', I presume Fatheroid means father
    shaped?
    
    I like that one.....
    
    
    I suppose ' a male parent' might have been OK, though I feel Guardian
    has connotations of not being a parent (ie direct familiaral
    relationship) but rather of one placed there to ensure legal
    responsibility.
    
    I often use 'folks' as in 'Will your folks be paying cash for the trip? "
    where either I am unsure of the quantity of, or relationship(s) of a
    young person's parents. I wonder what a male folk is called?
    
    
    derek
    

    This one conjured up mental pictures that are making the guy in
    the next cube wonder why I'm stifling laughter.
    
    I'm from ranch country, and in a situation like this we'll often
    use  a metaphor taken from the farm world, as in "Facilities for
    the heifers are to the left and for the bulls are to the right."
    
    I can imagine a Montana scout leader asking the girls, "Are any of
    you fillies going to be bringing the family stallion to dinner?"
    
    But then we're crude in the mountains . . .
    
    --bonnie

    G'day,
    
    
     Mmmmm but to us non-ranchers, the concept of 'stallion' implies a
    certain level of activity which occurs behind draw curtains... ;-)
    
    
    And _that_ would _***NEVER***_ do within scouting....
    
    
    derek