in reply to The value 1 prints out to the page

It looks like you missed the > on the 'value' key and there should be a semicolon on the end of
 print $query->start_form('POST','/cgi-bin/Signup.pl'),
should be

-value => ["Father", "Mother"],

and print $query->start_form('POST','/cgi-bin/Signup.pl');

grep
grep> cd pub 
grep> more beer