For as long as anyone can remember, mamá and papá have been among the first words we learn. They appear in countless languages across the world, arising naturally from the sounds babies make and carrying with them a deep sense of security and belonging.

They are more than just labels; they are the anchors of our earliest relationships. Yet, in recent years, these primal words are quietly being replaced. Official forms and educational documents now often use terms such as "birthing parent," "non-biological co-parent," or "guardian one." The reason for this shift is often explained in terms of inclusivity or modernization. But the trend reflects something much deeper, a change in how our culture understands identity, family, and belonging.

Bauman (a sociologist), described our era as one of "liquid modernity", where nothing stays solid for long. Institutions, traditions, and even personal identities are no longer fixed points but fluid arrangements, constantly adapting to shifting circumstances. In this environment, inherited roles like "mother" and "father", can seem too rigid, too tied to the past.

This cultural fluidity has its advantages: it allows for flexibility, for people to shape their lives beyond traditional expectations. But it also has a cost. Words like mamá and papá carry with them the weight of history, the warmth of generations, and the biological reality of life-giving relationships. Replacing them with neutral or bureaucratic terms risks losing not just a word, but an entire emotional and relational heritage.

Anthropologists have long noted the universality of these terms. From African villages to Arctic communities, mamá and papá, or close variations, emerge naturally in almost every language. They arise from the simple, instinctive sounds of early speech, but they endure because they name something essential: the bond between a child and the people who brought them into the world.

In the Christian tradition, these words take on even greater meaning. They reflect the uniqueness of each parent, not merely as a function, but as a person in relationship, part of the mystery of life's origin. The family itself is seen as the "original cell of social life" and a reflection of God's own relational nature.

In the wider culture, however, the last few decades have brought a strong push to rethink, and often to deconstruct, such foundational ideas. Influential thinkers have encouraged society to view even the most basic terms as social constructs, open to reinvention. The result has been a movement toward language that avoids specifying gender or biology, in the name of neutrality.

But neutrality can come at the expense of intimacy. When a birth certificate lists "parent one" and "parent two" instead of "mother" and "father," the effect is not just linguistic. It subtly reshapes how we see family, reducing it to a set of legal roles rather than a living, flesh-and-blood bond.

Pope John Paul II once called the family the "first school of love." If we lose the names that first taught us love, we risk weakening the bridge between the human and the divine. For many, the word father is not just a description of a man's role in a household, it is also a stepping stone toward understanding God as Father.

This is not an argument against compassion, inclusion, or social change. It is an argument for remembering that some words carry more than dictionary definitions. They carry history, culture, faith, and the deep human need to belong. When we strip them away, we may be solving one problem while quietly creating another: the erosion of our shared vocabulary for love, stability, and identity.

Bauman warned that in a liquid society, where nothing is fixed, the danger is not only instability but rootlessness. Words like mamá and papá are not relics from a bygone era. They are part of the scaffolding that holds our personal and collective identity in place. Preserving them is not about resisting progress; it is about remembering that in life, as in language, some anchors are worth keeping.

Claudio Laferla is a religion teacher with a master's in family spirituality.