[worldvoyageur]

I appreciate the observation.

While I understand the logic of using parent, as a general rule I'm uncomfortable deliberately substituting words with less information when a word with more information is available.

It'd be like seeing a flock of geese fly over and saying birds. If you weren't really sure they were geese, or thought maybe a few were not geese, then maybe you write 'birds'. However, if you saw geese and it would have been striking and obvious if one or more of the birds was not a goose, then more information is given saying geese rather than birds.

If there had been a female engineer at the site, working or at home, I'm pretty sure I'd have known. This was rural China in the late 90s. A live in nanny would have been available at very low cost. Plus, the hunger for engineers willing to live at a camp site in rural China for months at a time was such that had there been any engineer spouses, they'd have had to make a very deliberate decision NOT to work.