Any discussion of parenting and government runs headlong into criticisms (many of them well-founded) of the “Nanny State” that increasingly controls and circumscribes our freedoms of action and thought. In addition, the oft-stated Progressive position that children are the property of the state, which has unsurprisingly given rise to an increasingly visible and active “parents rights” movement resisting this ideology, tends to make the suggestion that government has any parental role in our society exceedingly suspect in the eyes of many, which is a mistake.
Government has had, and will continue to have, an obligation to protect all of our children from physical and psychological harm or neglect, which can be readily accomplished without usurping the prerogatives of parents and duly-appointed guardians if the representatives of the state recognize that child rearing techniques will vary quite a bit based on the cultural, religious, and lifestyle norms of parents. There is no “one size fits all” approach to successful parenting, nor should there ever be a specific set of governmentally-approved values that must be transmitted to a child.
Recent efforts to introduce racialist and gender ideologies into our nation’s schools, which are often teaching values and behaviors that are wildly at odds with what parents are modeling in their own homes for their children, are clearly an intrusion on parental rights. Imparting knowledge and encouraging thoughtful discussion is a primary mission of our schools; indoctrination into a particular world view clearly is not. This must also be the guiding principle for all government officials and agencies when interacting with parents and their children or developing policies that affect our nation’s young.
There is, nonetheless, still a tricky and treacherous gray area regarding where and when government officials must step in to protect the best interests of a child. Unfortunately, it is often the case that child protective services operating at the state level are not up to the task of determining the difference between tough love and actual abuse because of their biases and blinders, but governmental overreach can be avoided if parents have sturdy and well-defined paths available for pushing back against unwarranted intrusions into their homes and lives. Almost every aspect of the difficult and delicate relationship between parents, children, and government is a balancing act that can easily veer into difficulties if bureaucrats and government proxies become too heavy-handed or privilege the brute power of the state over the judgments of a child’s parents or other parenting family members.
It is always important to keep our eyes open for situations where adults are taking advantage of the innocence and trust of our young. Anyone who works closely with children must be held to the highest standards of professional conduct at all times—and always be aware that they are not the actual parents of the youngsters in their care. Caring for our nation’s young is an incredible privilege and responsibility, and those who presume it is appropriate to introduce their troubles, traumas, fetishes, and fantasies to impressionable children and adolescents need to be officially encouraged to find other lines of work—as quickly as possible. Government policies, programs—and the government employees who manage them—provide important legal protections and educational opportunities for our nation’s children, but these must never supersede the legitimate rights of parents to raise their families free of unnecessary interference.
One of the most vexing flash points in our society today is battle between those who believe our young should be compelled to parrot governmentally-approved dogma and those who understand that the ability to think for oneself is the most important skill America’s children must learn if our nation is to survive and thrive; how this conflict is resolved will determine, to a greater extent than we today fully understand, the future of American democracy and the health of our society’s key institutions.
Woefully misguided government efforts to circumvent parental authority in order to indoctrinate a generation of obedient little Wokesters have instead produced frightening rates of childhood and adolescent despair and escalating societal discord. Implacable extremism is the inevitable result when reasoned discussion and respect for differing views are abandoned in the service of zealotry. It seems outlandish to continue as we are without a full stop for a thorough, unflinching examination of the consequences of turning a generation of children into the unwilling subjects of a science experiment driven by a desire to promote a social, cultural, and sexual Great Leap Forward—heedless of the many risks involved.