I say yes. You may not be parenting a child, but you are still that child’s parent.
Perhaps if English had a more detailed vocabulary I’d feel differently, but I had 7 grandparents, only some of whom were related by blood.
I’d personally say no, any more than a divorced man is still a husband. They were a parent, but parent is a signifier of an entity relationship (you can’t be a parent without someone else being a child), and the entity they had the relationship with is no longer existent.
So when my youngest reaches adulthood, I will no longer be a parent?
A divorced man has chosen not to be a husband, we did not chose not to be parents.
And yet I’ve never once heard anyone refer to an adult they raised as their ex-kid. :dubious:
They will still be your child. This is child in the relationship sense, not the age-differentiation sense. So always “a child of” not just “a child”. There is “child” related to “parent” and there is “child” related to “adult”. They are not the same word, really.
Not every divorced man made that choice, nor did every ex-parent not choose. It’s irrelevant to the distinction I would wish the language to convey.
See above about two different senses of “child”.
You’ll just no longer be their parent?
Just out of curiosity, do you have children?
Right. Let’s follow this through, then. After my death, if I go first, my child is still a child of mine. So it stands to reason that it if goes the other way, I am still a parent of hers. For that matter, the relationship remains equally factual after we’re both gone.
No, you’ll still be their parent.
That’s irrelevant.
I disagree. I think the word “is” is wrong here, as it implies existence
Aaah, but think about this - o we say, for instance, “Henry VIII is the father of Elizabeth I”? No, we say “Henry *was *the father of Elizabeth”.
I’ve heard the former construction countless times, actually.
So no then?
I suppose we can quibble vagaries of word use, but the OP is specifically labeled a philosophical question. As a state of being, once you’re a parent, you remain a parent. The death of your child doesn’t make you not a parent any more than a vow of celibacy restores virginity.
Like I said, it’s irrelevant. But yes, I am.
Virginity isn’t an entity relationship like parenthood, it’s a property of a single entity.