The Dutch Ministry of Education is under fire after reports that it spent €40,000 of taxpayer money on a language guide advising civil servants to avoid terms like “mother” and “father” and instead use more neutral alternatives. The guide encourages officials to refer to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as “You Day” in an effort to make communications more inclusive of “families of all shapes and sizes.”
The guide was reportedly presented as part of a broader anti-discrimination and anti-racism effort within the ministry, but the backlash was immediate. Former Dutch MEP Rob Roos denounced the project in blunt terms, while Education Secretary Judith Tielen, from the liberal VVD party, reportedly called the guide patronizing and suggested it was not an especially good instrument. The backlash was not limited to conservative politicians; critics also objected to the cost and to bureaucratic control over ordinary language.
The controversy did not stop with parental terms. The same report said the guide also discouraged words such as “white” and “Golden Age,” while recommending capitalization of “black” in some contexts involving shared cultural identity. What makes the episode politically potent is that it touches an everyday reality most citizens still regard as obvious. “Mother” and “father” are not obscure technical expressions or exclusionary slurs. They are basic family words tied to the most elementary social relationships.
The controversy reflects a broader pattern across Western Europe: public institutions increasingly framing inherited language as suspect, while expecting taxpayers to finance the exercise. And once language becomes something the state feels entitled to sanitize, the cultural stakes rise quickly.
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