Keep mum - it might offend gays
An American school where former tennis star John McEnroe sends his children has banned pupils from celebrating Mother’s Day to avoid offending gay fathers, it was reported today.
The expensive New York private school took the action banning children from making cards or presents in school time after a gay couple persuaded the school to remove the celebration from the curriculum.
Americans celebrate Mother’s Day on May 13, while they mark Father’s Day on the same day as Britain, June 17 - and it too has been banned by the school.
The news was broken to parents at Rodeph Sholom Day School in a letter home to parents last Friday.
In the letter, Cindi Samson, director of the school’s lower elementary department - the equivalent of primary school - said Mother’s Day was not ‘‘a positive experience for all children’’.
‘‘We are a school with many different family make-ups and we need to recognise the emotional well-being of all,’’ wrote Ms Samson.
‘‘Holidays that serve no educational purpose and are not vital to the education need to be evaluated in terms of their importance in a school setting, as the recognition of these holidays in a social setting may not be a positive experience for all children.’’
Ms Samson said: ‘‘The reasoning was several-fold. ‘‘One is, it didn’t serve an academic and educational need. Number two, families are changing.
‘‘Some children were very uncomfortable.
‘‘There may be two fathers, two mothers, the mother may not have custody, it could be a grandmother.’’
The school, affiliated with a Jewish Reform synagogue, costs up to 20,000 (£13,000) a year.
But the ban only affects children in formal school - its nursery school, which takes children from the ages of two to four, will still be making Mother’s Day cards.
One mother said she was not impressed at the move. ‘‘This is an inappropriate and politically correct response,’’ said the mother, who asked not to be named.
