Every Saturday is Father's Day: the push to rename Father's Day, Special Person's Day, has received a great deal of backlash. Image: Getty

So fatherless children don’t feel left out

An Australian academic is pushing for Father’s Day to be renamed Special Persons’ Day.

Dr Red Ruby Scarlet, convener of Social Justice In Early Childhood Activist Group, explained on news programme, Today Tonight, that shifting language around important days can help the community become more inclusive.

“If we think about children’s rights and how they get to participate in a community and feel a sense of belonging, sometimes shifting the language around those emotive and important days can be significant and more inclusive,” said Dr Scarlet, who has a doctorate in early childhood studies.

I see red: Dr Red Ruby Scarlet is an advocate for changing the language around significant family days in Australia. Image: youtube

There are a huge range of different family structures, Dr Scarlet continued, and she believes there are better ways to describe emotive events around families than the way we currently describe them.

"We have single parent families, satellite families, extended families, lesbian and gay families,” Dr Scarlet said, who's real name is Miriam Giugni.

But not everyone agrees with Dr Scarlet and the backlash has been fierce on social media.

“People still celebrate fatherhood even after their father and grandfathers have passed away, in fact for many people Father’s Day is a wonderful time of reflecting and remembering,” Liberal Party MP David Elliott wrote on Facebook. “Can’t believe that someone who professes to be ‘enlightened’ would advocate such crap.”

And this from Adam Myles on YouTube after viewing the Today Tonight interview. "So will she also be pushing to rename Mother's Day? As a father I am offended by the idiocy of these so called "experts", this kind of thinking is what is wrong with our country at the moment, stop wrapping kids up in cotton wool and let them learn life's lessons before they become the next "it wasn't my fault" generation."

Gary Orsum on YouTube called Red Ruby a 'lunatic' for arguing that Father's Day is 'harmful to children'.

And while Jill Tideman does not have a father either, "that does not mean I can detract from the day and still think of him, or take flowers to his grave. What next?Another nutty professor," she posted in the comments section under the interview.

Regarding the backlash, Dr Scarlet insists that it isn't coming from the growing number of schools and kindergartens in the communities who have embraced these types of change, but "people outside these context groups."

“Early childhood centres work closely in their communities and they negotiate these events with the families who are attending the centre,” she explained. “The backlash hasn’t necessarily come from families in those communities.”

Dr Scarlet also said that a growing body of research, Australian teacher research for example, demonstrated children’s capacity to be really inclusive once they are presented with these new ways of thinking. "Why are we calling this political correctness when it’s about our rights?"