#their dad gave birth to their sibling and their mom sired. that sibling would call the mom their dad and the dad their mom

[jayrockin]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but what do the different sophonts call their parents? Like a centaur or bug ferret equivalent of mom/dad/etc?

Many things in thousands of different languages. I will explode and die if I have to make that many conlangs so I'm going to talk about English terms. There's gender neutral endearment terms for parents in English, which often originate from tailed spacer communities, like "per," "parry," and "sasa/zaza/xaxa." These sometimes get transposed onto aliens when referring to their familial relationships, since most Anglophones in RttS refer to aliens as non-gendered, as it's considered polite form. With avians dun and bright tend to get slapped on as a prefix to specify relationships, like brightparent and dunparent. With centaurs most humans would probably just refer to the parents by their clan roles. I.e. matriarch and entourage sire. But humans tend to be quicker to gender centaurs since their sexes function similarly to ours, so automatically gendering matriarchs as feminine isn't uncommon.

[yukipri]

Can you please not call Yuuri a mom? He's still a boy, and there's enough variations of dad/papa/pops to go around. A boy giving birth doesn't make him any less a boy. Maybe mother's day is also Omega day.

In this AU, as explained in depth here, gender is not a binary (not that it is in our world either), and is on a double axis. How people perceive themselves and the weight they place on their identity on either or both axes varies by individual and culture. Language, of course, also reflects this.

At least in the context of this AU, “mother” is a general term that usually refers to the parent who gave birth regardless of gender, and is commonly used by (to generalize) beta women, omega women, gamma-omega women, omega men, and gamma-omega men, with plenty of exceptions. Likewise, “father” usually refers to the parent who sired the child, including but not limited to alpha women. Men bearing children is neither new, rare, nor unusual in this universe, and it makes very little sense to me to exclude them from the term “mother,” and vice versa with women and “father.”

Within this universe, there’s nothing in the term that particularly implies femininity, though there may be stereotypes of what we consider “feminine” in our universe that are associated with omegas as a whole. It is entirely possible that certain individuals or perhaps even whole cultures prefer that all men be called “father.” In fact, there are most certainly likely to be languages that have separate terms for all combinations of primary and secondary parentage–and heck, why stop at terms for parentage! Terms for siblings! Extended families! So many gendered words! Gendered pronouns as a whole based solely on secondaries, with unpresented children having their own separate pronoun, and no distinction between primary genders! Languages that have gendered grammar being based on a system of secondaries instead of primaries, or possibly both! Discussions of what terms would best apply to individuals who do not fit cleanly into any of the most recognized six, such as gammas and deltas! Endless possibilities! but ANYWAY let’s reel it back…

Just know that at least among the characters that feature in my works, neither Yuuri nor his mates or peers are uncomfortable with calling his title mother, and it’s an identity that Yuuri embraces and wears with pride. I don’t feel that anything I’ve ever posted has ever implied that Yuuri isn’t a guy. If the context of my usage of the term “mother” was unclear prior to this response, I apologize.

Calling Mother’s Day “Omega Day” would be missing the point just as much as calling it “Woman Day.” Not all omegas are mothers, nor want to be, and not all mothers necessarily identify as women or omegas.

If this bothers you for personal reasons despite my explanations above, I respect that. But Yuuri is “mom” in this AU, period. In order to avoid posts that may squick you in the future, please block my #Future!Verse ABO AU tag, and you will no longer see any more posts in this AU. Alternatively, blocking me should also remove all of my posts from your dash, even when reblogged by others. ^ ^ Good day.