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Parental Rights

I just responded to an e-mail that is part of a conversation I’ve had with a local woman on the issue of parenting rights. What do you think?

Question Excerpt – “several of us who have been dealing with agencies who have been pirating our children”

My response:

I’m not sure I can do too much to support your cause. I definitely believe that there should be limits on how much government gets involved in the lives of consenting adults, but when it comes to protecting children I probably support more government attention than you do.

I’m not sure of all the subtleties of your views, but from our prior conversations I gather than you feel that parental rights should not be “second guessed” by government. The problem I see is that there will always be a subset of parents who don’t act in the best interests of their children, although the societal measures of “best interests” will always be debatable.

So, let me offer a couple of examples that I’ve seen arise in the public debate over the years:

  • If a parent’s religious convictions would deny a child standard medical treatment, I would support state intervention.
  • If a parent’s physical punishment of a child resulted in broken bones, internal trauma, severe bruising, or even certain emotional trauma – I support state intervention.
  • A parent should be allowed to raise their child in the faith of their choice, but a sound education is critical to any child’s ability to join the adult word productively. If “home schooling” doesn’t meet certain minimum academic standards, the state should intervene.

I would agree that our Constitution does not give the federal government a mandate for programs like “No Child Left Behind” and has created a burdensome bureaucracy, but the US Constitution also leaves many issues of social order and public welfare to the state and local governments. I think it is a completely acceptable function of state and local government to enforce the local community’s view of the public good when considering minors. Consenting adults should be fairly free to act on their own conscience in the privacy of their own homes, but the vulnerabilities of children justify state oversight.

So, I suspect that our views may be different on this topic. When I see a phrase like “agencies who have been pirating our children,” I’m afraid that I can’t quite see the issue in those extreme terms. There will always be isolated cases where the desire to protect the child’s interests creates a heavy-handed government response, but I’d prefer to see the system err on the side of the child’s interests than to err on the side of the adult’s.

Thanks,

Michael Smith


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Comment from Vita:

I suspect that some of the second-guessing is influenced by budgets and staffing or the lack thereof. One can only try ones best, but sadly, mistakes will be made.


Posted by Vita    May 29, 07:50 AM    #

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