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#Post#: 19342--------------------------------------------------
Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: MartinSR Date: September 6, 2019, 5:43 pm
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How to call the person who is responsible (either by the family
ties or by other commitments) for taking care about a child. I
mean one word or phrase which may mean the parents, foster
family, professional staff - whoever is engaged in taking care.
My son is preparing a poster for an international conference and
needs to write (in a very few words) that the people who care
about the child with disabilities should be properly educated.
He refers a few time to these people, so he needs one short
expression. In Polish we have "opiekun" from the verb
"opiekować się" = "to care about". He found a word
"caregiver" (or "carer"), but it sounded too professional to me.
We checked in the dictionary and found this word is rather
reserved to the professional healthcare workers.
I suggested him to write "parents (and other people caring about
the child)" in the first place, and repeat only the word
"parents" wherever he would need it.
Do you have any other suggestions? Is there an English word
which encloses all people who may be involved in caring about
the child?
#Post#: 19346--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: NealC Date: September 6, 2019, 6:01 pm
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In the U.S. someone legally responsible for a child is called a
"Guardian". When we were in school we had to have reports from
the school or notes from the teacher signed by a "Parent or
Guardian" and brought back to school. Letters from the school
were addressed "To the Parent or Guardian of student NealC".
#Post#: 19347--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: MartinSR Date: September 6, 2019, 6:19 pm
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Thanks Neal. Yes, I think it would good choice when talking
about the legal responsibility for the child. My son told me, he
will have about 5 minutes to present his poster in public, so he
can say then, that he meant a parent, guardian o any person
involved. Thank you.
#Post#: 19356--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: Nikola Date: September 7, 2019, 1:16 pm
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I can't say I heard the word "guardian" much in the UK, other
than in reference to the newspaper. The most common phrase in
the schools I worked in was "parents and carers".
#Post#: 19360--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: MartinSR Date: September 7, 2019, 6:36 pm
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Thanks Nikola :)
#Post#: 19363--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: Chizuko hanji Date: September 8, 2019, 6:49 am
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When I heard the word, "Guardian" for the newspaper for the
first time, and I thought it was about people who like gardening
and I had believed it was magazines of about plants and flowers
for a long time. Seriously!
One day, I saw a real Guardian at a book shop, I was surprised
and took it. It astonished me in another way. I didn't
understand the contents. It was too difficult.
#Post#: 19364--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: Nikola Date: September 8, 2019, 6:54 am
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[quote author=Chizuko link=topic=1356.msg19363#msg19363
date=1567943355]
One day, I saw a real Guardian at a book shop, I was surprised
and took it. It astonished me in another way. I didn't
understand the contents. It was too difficult.
[/quote]
Chances are it was just misspelled. They have that kind of a
reputation.
#Post#: 19404--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: SHL Date: September 11, 2019, 4:18 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=MartinSR link=topic=1356.msg19342#msg19342
date=1567809805]
How to call the person who is responsible (either by the family
ties or by other commitments) for taking care about a child. I
mean one word or phrase which may mean the parents, foster
family, professional staff - whoever is engaged in taking care.
My son is preparing a poster for an international conference and
needs to write (in a very few words) that the people who care
about the child with disabilities should be properly educated.
He refers a few time to these people, so he needs one short
expression. In Polish we have "opiekun" from the verb
"opiekować się" = "to care about". He found a word
"caregiver" (or "carer"), but it sounded too professional to me.
We checked in the dictionary and found this word is rather
reserved to the professional healthcare workers.
I suggested him to write "parents (and other people caring about
the child)" in the first place, and repeat only the word
"parents" wherever he would need it.
Do you have any other suggestions? Is there an English word
which encloses all people who may be involved in caring about
the child?
[/quote]
Neal‘s suggestion of using the word guardian was one I was going
to suggest, but notice the phrase is technically „legal
guardian.“ A guardianship is a legal proceeding whereby someone
substitutes, usually temporarily, in for a parent or parents and
takes on the parenting role for a child pursuant to a court
order and has all the legal rights of a parent, but doesn’t
adopt the child and become a parent (like say both parents end
up in jail for something and grandmother comes along and
petitions to be the child’s guardian). I’ve done a few
guardianships myself for people, but I avoid them at all costs
(unless I am penniless) because they are a nightmare with the
paperwork involved.
So, guardian has a particular legal connotation to it that
probably is okay to overlook as a substitute word for parent.
But it always calls to mind the legal formalities in my mind.
As an alternative, you could just use the word „caretaker.“
Who’s the child’s parent or caretaker? Caretaker is not a legal
term and carries no legal significance. It might be someone a
parent has dropped a child off with while the parent is unable
to care for the child (for example, the parents are unavailable
for any reason and drop the children off with the grandparents
or one of the child’s uncles or aunts for awhile to look after
the child).
You are correct in that you cannot use the word „caregiver“,
because that word refers to someone looking after usually a
sick, disabled or older adult, usually in some kind of care
facility.
#Post#: 19406--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: Nikola Date: September 11, 2019, 5:09 pm
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[quote author=SHL link=topic=1356.msg19404#msg19404
date=1568236695]
As an alternative, you could just use the word
„caretaker.“ Who’s the child’s parent or
caretaker? Caretaker is not a legal term and carries no legal
significance. It might be someone a parent has dropped a child
off with while the parent is unable to care for the child (for
example, the parents are unavailable for any reason and drop the
children off with the grandparents or one of the child’s
uncles or aunts for awhile to look after the child).
[/quote]
I'm confused. I always thought a caretaker looked after a
building, not children. Ah, OK, I just looked it up, it's the
American equivalent for the British "carer". That's funny
because in the UK, caretakers fix things around the building.
HTML https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/caretaker
#Post#: 19407--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is there a general word for people who care about a child?
By: SHL Date: September 11, 2019, 9:16 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1356.msg19406#msg19406
date=1568239766]
[quote author=SHL link=topic=1356.msg19404#msg19404
date=1568236695]
As an alternative, you could just use the word „caretaker.“
Who’s the child’s parent or caretaker? Caretaker is not a legal
term and carries no legal significance. It might be someone a
parent has dropped a child off with while the parent is unable
to care for the child (for example, the parents are unavailable
for any reason and drop the children off with the grandparents
or one of the child’s uncles or aunts for awhile to look after
the child).
[/quote]
I'm confused. I always thought a caretaker looked after a
building, not children. Ah, OK, I just looked it up, it's the
American equivalent for the British "carer". That's funny
because in the UK, caretakers fix things around the building.
HTML https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/caretaker
[/quote]
Yes, that’s right Nikola. I also looked up your British word
carer in my German dictionary, since I had never heard that word
before. A couple definitions, die Pflegekraft, der Pfleger, seem
to fit our caretaker definition used in the US, but then it
gave an odd alternative translation, die Begleitperson, and next
it and states: „ (esp. Br.) (person who accompanies a disabled
person, e.g., to an event).“
So, that last definition seemed a bit odd to me. So, I’m not
sure how exactly the word „carer“ most often is applied in the
UK.
In the US, to my knowledge, the word for the person who is the
maintenance man for a building and looks after it, is sometimes
called the „building superintendent“ or the „super“ for short.
It’s actually a term I’ve only heard applied in a few TV shows,
or movies I‘ve seen which were set on the East Coast of the US.
Neal would probably be in a better position to say if this term
is still applied frequently in the New York area or not. Out
where I am, one rarely hears any particular word for a building
superintendent used. Usually the person in charge of these
duties has an official title the employer gives them, which
could be any number of things. The term „building custodian“
used to be used, but I cannot say it still is heard very often
because a „custodian“ is a word referring to a cleaning person
in a building, especially a school. Someone cleaning the toilets
and so on. Janitor was a word also used, but people have fiddled
with the vocabulary over the years to find a nice euphemism for
someone occupying the allegedly lowly position of being a
cleaning person. I suppose there was some sort of supposed
stigma attached to job or something.
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