Is "it's" parents" often used regarding people in British English?

For Brits, a "dependant" is a person who is dependent on someone else. (For example, a child is dependent on its parents. Therefore, a child is a dependant on its parents.)

Is "it's" parents" often used regarding people in British English?

Thanks!

tanguatlay wrote:

For Brits, a "dependant" is a person who is dependent on someone else. (For example, a child is dependent on its parents. Therefore, a child is a dependant on its parents.)

Is "it's" parents" often used regarding people in British English?

Thanks!

It's...with the apostraphe...is not a possessive form. It's is the contraction of "it is" or "it was."

The possessive form, which is what you are looking for in your question, is its. (Without the apostrophe.

"Its parents" refers to the child's parents.

Is "its parents" a common usage among native speakers to refer to a person's parents? In the above sentence, "its" refers to the child's parents.

Thanks!

I never noticed that before.

A child is an object. You would say, "every child should sleep in its own crib".

A student is a person. You would never say "every student should sit at its own desk".

As a native speaker, I don't understand the difference. But there clearly is one.

It’s roots are in a patriarchal society, children were literally the father’s possessions, and his wife too for that matter.

The student teacher relationship is much later, our oldest schools only date back to the early 1500s and the language reflects that.

I think that this only happened in English.

It and one as gender-neutral pronouns
Further information: It (pronoun)
Whereas "he" and "she" are used for entities treated as people (including any entities that are being anthropomorphized), the pronoun "it" is normally used for entities not regarded as persons, though the use of "he" or "she" is optional for non-human animals of known sex[25] (and obligatory for animals referred to by a proper name[13]). Quirk et al. give the following example, illustrating use of both "it" and "her" to refer to a bird:

The robin builds its nest in a well-chosen position ... and, after the eggs have hatched, the mother bird feeds her young there for several weeks.[25]
The pronoun "it" can also be used of children in some circumstances, for instance when the sex is indefinite or when the writer has no emotional connection to the child, as in a scientific context.[25] Quirk et al. give the following example:

A child learns to speak the language of its environment.[25]
According to The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing, it is sometimes the "obvious" choice for children.[26] Examples given include:

To society, a baby's sex is second in importance to its health.
but also the more colloquial

When the new baby comes, it's going to sleep in Lil's room.

Generic he and she

Further information: He (pronoun) and She (pronoun).
Forms of the pronoun he were used for both males and females during the Middle English and Modern English periods. "There was rather an extended period of time in the history of the English language when the choice of a supposedly masculine personal pronoun (him) said nothing about the gender or sex of the referent."[28] An early example of prescribing the use of he to refer to a person of unknown gender is Anne Fisher's 1745 grammar book A New Grammar.[29] Older editions of Fowler also took this view.[30]

The customer brought his purchases to the cashier for checkout.
In a supermarket, a customer can buy anything he needs.
When a customer argues, always agree with him.
This may be compared to usage of the word man for humans in general (although that was the original sense of the word "man" in the Germanic languages, much as the Latin word for "human in general", homo, came to mean "male human"—which was vir, in Latin—in most of the Romance languages).

"All men are created equal."
"Man cannot live by bread alone."
While the use, in formal English, of he, him or his as a gender-neutral pronoun has traditionally been considered grammatically correct,[31] such use may also be considered to be a violation of gender agreement.[32]:48

The generic he has increasingly been a source of controversy, as it appears to reflect a bias towards men and a male-centric society, and against women.[33] The 19th and 20th centuries saw an upsurge in consciousness and advocacy of gender equality, and this has led in particular to preferences for gender-neutral language. The usage of generic he has declined in favor of other alternatives.