Flutterby™! : Dan as parent-hater 2001-07-10 15:45:29+00

Dan as parent-hater

2001-07-10 15:45:29+00 by Dan Lyke 51 comments

Dori recently commented that the tone of Flutterby seemed "anti-breeder". I replied that while that was mainly my opinion, if we make the distinction between parent and breeder, and that parents seem a rare breed in this culture, then yes, it was. And I'm not alone. An article in this morning's Salon, titled Save lives! Defy nature! takes on the attitudes that have created apologists for Andrea Yates and the idea that children are a right:

This part-time job of parenting has overtaxed our school system, and believe it or not, our universities as well, where teachers are forced to assume the role of surrogate parents and all the problems associated with it.

It's an interesting rant, but he missed several important points, including the reasons why most people who have multiple kids did so.

- Gender balance: most of the people I know with three or four kids did so because they wanted a girl and they had only had boys or vice versa. Is there any culture that's been able to cut back to one couple/one child that doesn't get its gender ratios screwed up the way that China seems to be headed?
- Religion: it stuns me that he didn't mention this one at all. In my experience, most of the people who have more than four kids tend to do so for religious reasons. The Yates's are just one example. If you start limiting the number of children that people can have, you're going to start hearing the screams of people complaining about religious discrimination.

But my biggest problem is, who decides? He tiptoes around the concept, but his overall message is that people other than the parents themselves should have a voice in whether they should be allowed to reproduce. And while I've known people who've gotten pregnant where I cringed at the thought of what kind of life that poor kid was going to have, I'm not comfortable making that kind of decision for others. I have no doubt, though, that other people (Dr. Laura, for example) would be more than willing to put in their two cents. Who would you want to be making those decisions?

There are some people who can be wonderful parents to five kids. And there are others that I wouldn't trust with a dog.

Thoughtful, intentional parenting? Absolutely. But if you start limiting conception, someone's in charge of the decision making. And I know for sure, I wouldn't want any of those doofuses in DC to be anywhere near this one.

Dori, I am not interesting in simply making "anti-breeder" comments. I am interested in a discussion of society's interests vs. individual interests regarding parenting. I see that as the crux of the issue and I will submit parallels in how society deals with other personal interests which potentially harm society.

- Gender balance: most of the people I know with three or four kids did so because they wanted a girl and they had only had boys or vice versa.

Lots of people want lots of things, but that doesn't mean they have the right to get them at society's expense. I'd like not to pay for sewer or garbage service, but I can't dump my raw waste and refuse on my front lawn. It is not in the interest of society to fully allow me to decide how and when to dispose of my waste, neither is it in society's interest to allow me, alone, to decide the "gender balance" of my household if I cannot support and nurture the kids I have. Surely we can agree that ill-parented children will likely develop into a nuisance and a danger to society? It's easy to see, then, that society has EVERY right to demand I comply with certain conditions in disposing of trash, managing my waste, -and- parenting to try to assure that I do not create a nuisance and danger to others.

most of the people who have more than four kids tend to do so for religious reasons.

Certain Moslems consider Jews infidels. Some consider killing Jews an honor and privilege. Should we allow this in the name of religious freedom? Clearly not.... so we realize society can limit religious freedoms when they impinge on the rest of society. I submit having kids that will grow up ill-nurtured and ill-supported can be limited in the same way society prohibits religious practices which harm the rest of society.

But my biggest problem is, who decides? He tiptoes around the concept, but his overall message is that people other than the parents themselves should have a voice in whether they should be allowed to reproduce.

Again, I say.... of course. Society limits and requires training for those who fly, those who teach kids in school, etc. because performing those activities requires special attention, training, and dedication. Does parenting require special attention, training, and dedication? If so, it follows that society has the need and right to restrict parenting to those society concludes are willing to meet the special challenges parenting presents. Is is not ridiculous that merely teaching math or reading to kids in public school requires a certain educational background and a state certificate but the infinitely more complex and important task of parenting requires NOTHING?

Granted, who decides is tricky. Do those who use medication decide what drugs they receive? No, a licensed physician decides. Why? Because meds are dangerous if misused and prescribing them requires skill and knowledge of the nuances of their effects. I submit children are dangerous if mis-parented and parenting requires skill, care, and knowledge that not everyone possesses. Should everyone be allowed to prescribe their own meds? No.... that's clearly dangerous. Should everyone be allowed to parent? No.... that's clearly dangerous too.

Can society collectively decide who should parent? Society has created acceptable social structures for deciding who can practice medicine, who can fly, who can drive, and even who can teach kids in public school. Is parenting LESS important to society?

First of all, topspin, not "society," but rather "the government." Have no illusions about what entity will be enforcing these limits you seek.

Second, you are wrong. The government does NOT decide who can drive. The government decides who can drive on public roads. On private roads or land, the owner decides who can drive. Why, because the rest of the public is out on public roads, too, and the government has a compelling interest in protecting the rest of the public DURING THE ACT under discussion.

The government does NOT decide who fly. If we assume you were just being sloppy and meant to assert that the government decides who can pilot an aircraft, then you are STILL wrong. The government only requires licensing of pilots for craft over a certain weight limit. Ultralights do not require a license. Heavier craft represent a much greater danger to the rest of the public, and crossing that weight threshold, creating a significant danger to the rest of the public DURING THE ACT is what invokes the government's interest in limiting participants to those deemed qualified. See http://www.cyberskies.com/ultralight/whatsanultralight.htm for details.

Are you seeing a common thread here? The goverment gets authority when the act contains significant dangers to the public during their occurence, and additionaly, they occur in a public space using a public resource (roads or airspace).

Reproductive sex represents no danger to the public during the act, nor does it hinge on a public resource. Look elsewhere for support of your hope to have the government make reproduction a crime by default.

At some point you realize that the rational intelligent people that should breed, do not, for fear that they will not do well. Parenting.... I really feel there are no right answers and have personal proof that following the 'society sanctioned course(s) of action' in raising a kid can lead to just as much disaster, if not more, than not.

I wouldn't normally plug my own weblog so directly like this, but the item WAS directly inspired by Dan's, and I thought y'all might like to see/participate in some of the ensuing discussion.

Pete, if you cannot tell the difference between reproductive sex and parenting, PLEASE do not engage in either activity.

Government control of one requires government control of the other. Funny how that works out, especially when you propose making reproduction illegal by default.

Pete, if parents could raise their own children on their own land and not impact society, much like your driving on private property example (modulo emissions issues), more power to 'em. The problem is that those kids locked in a closet for 18 years will eventually escape. Or be killed by the abuse, which raises a whole 'nother set of ethical questions. Even parents, let alone breeders, aren't currently aware of just how much the rest of us are doing to subsidize their hobby.

Dori, I definitely don't have a reasonable proposal for government intervention, which is why I'm happy for now to propose societal changes. You've got a kid, so you probably don't get it, but nobody should ever say "when you have kids...", a phrase I hear way

too often[1]. The default expectation should be not

having kids, and doing that doesn't require changes in law, it requires changes in culture, and it requires those of us who care that real parenting be the issue be loud and strident and obnoxious with our opinions.

And I'm with Topspin on both the religious issue (we try to come down hard on other forms of religiously motivated violence) and the gender balance one, where our goals should be removing the cultural reasons for parents to prefer one gender over another.

[1] In one case recently, with a parent who's doing many of the right things and whose kid I actually think is really cool, it was all I could do to avoid pointing out that all the kids who arrived at that party made special effort to come talk to me before pointedly ignoring most of the other adults and running off to the room with the video games. The ones asking me the questions about adolescence and growing up and sex and life because you're so out of touch with their reality that they don't even have the words in common with you to share their problems and concerns? Yeah, if you wanna call 'em "your kids", that's fine; just shut up with your self-righteous "when you have kids of your own" tripe.

Relatedly, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has barred David Oakley from having more children for five years for not paying $25,000 in child support for his 9 children. Frankly, I think at this point we should just be able to go after the son-of-a-bitch with hedge clippers.

How you expect to be taken seriously after posting this sort of bigoted claptrap is beyond me.

Uhhh, shmuel, unless you're able to completely divorce Zionism and Judaism, something that even the most liberal Jews I know struggle with, I don't know how you could contradict Topspin's statement.

Dan, babies aren't particularly dangerous to anybody. Once they do hit the 18 year old escape from the closet phase, they are what we call "adults," participants in the whole deal--voting, arresting, jury duty, draft responsibilities...

When they represent minimal danger to other people, they are largely outside the legal framework that holds adults responsible for their actions. Once they become dangerous, they are also held responsible within that framework.

Oh, and while "their hobby" may be an amusingly snide and dismissive way of referring to the process that created and sustains the human community you live in, it falsely implies that the vast majority of people that do reproduce or intend to are the freaks involved in some trivial whimsy, when in fact the tiny fraction of people that choose never to reproduce are enforcing their own evolutionary triviality.

Welp, it happened. We knew this conversation has been coming for sometime, I had hoped we would have evolved Flutterby to full threads and quoting before the levee broke but C'est l'vie...

For my entrant into the frey. I'm frustrated with both sides. Yes "breeders" are a super odious challenge and this goes to my general personal accountability rant. I would agree with Dan that society/goverment (btw Pete society forms gorment) should change to discourage reckless creation of life without means of support(time/money/love). We need to be extreemly careful here, as a society we can't even decide a simple biological question like "when does life begin". Deciding a much more complicated and subjective question like "what is reasonable parenting?" should not be addressed by a goverment.

At some point you realize that the rational intelligent people that should breed, do not

This type of behavior does not really solve our population problem but DOES dilute the next generation. IMHO these people are actually hurting more than helping the future.

I'm having a little trouble with this conversation. I can't disagree with anyone's arguments. That isn't really what's troubling me, I've seen and agreed with both sides of many arguments before. What is troubling me is that this argument is beginning to sound an awful lot like the argument regarding pet ownership.

shmuel, I was merely citing an example of how our society does not support any and all activities under the blanket of religious freedom and I was suggesting that the "religious reasons" argument for having more kids than a family can nurture and support might also not be acceptable by society.

There is discussion and disagreement among Islamic clerics about the ethics of killing non-soldiers as martyrdom. I fully realize there are disturbing viewpoints from some Jewish rabbis also. I suppose I should cite "opposing examples" to avoid being labelled a bigot?

Ohhhhkaaaay... so the approach you're taking is to ignore what was written in the original passage and set up an entirely different straw man. Let's see what we've got.

Let's look at the first sentence again, keeping in mind the original context. This time around, I'll belabor the obvious and break it down into small words, okay?

The context here is the question of religious freedom in the United States, established by Dori in response to an omission in the original article. Given that some religious groups require people to have lots of children, and that the separation of church and state is firmly established here, how can Mr. Hill overlook that consideration in his analysis of the situation here?

In response to this, Topspin replied that there are limits to religious freedom. After all, "Certain Moslems consider Jews infidels. Some consider killing Jews an honor and privilege. Should we allow this in the name of religious freedom? Clearly not..."

Assuming that this statement is not a complete non-sequitur -- which I assume because I prefer to give Topspin the benefit of the doubt -- it needs to be relevant in the context at hand. Clearly, the point isn't that there are lone Moslems who don't like Jews, but that according to the Moslem religion itself, killing Jews is an honor and a privilege. Without that, there would never be a free exercise of religion issue here in the first place.

Further, for the hypothetical to make any sense, it would have to be a religious obligation for Moslems here in the States to kill Jews. Without that, there would be nothing for us to allow or deny, and the question would be a logical absurdity.

Of course, none of this is the case. In fact, historically speaking, the most stable Jewish communities over the past couple of millennia were located in Islamic countries, where Jews were treated better than their European counterparts. Counter to what Topspin said (rather than the way it's retroactively being spun), there is no Muslim belief that killing Jews per se is a Good Thing. That is what was claimed above, and that is not the case.

The article linked to does nothing to support the question at hand. Yes, there's plenty of violence in the Holy Land these days, but that's hardly relevant here. Putting aside the fact that religion isn't close to being either the cause of the struggle or its driving force (a fact alluded to in the article, in fact), there's obviously a large difference between national battles and actions taken on an individual level. The point there isn't to kill Jews for the glory of Allah; the point there is to win a war, and ultimately to be able to live fulfilling lives in Palestine. (An oversimplification, surely, but it'll serve for present purposes.)

A parallel situation would be this: America required many of its citizens to slaughter members of the German nation. This much is historical fact; it happened in both World Wars. Following Topspin's reasoning, one could therefore say, "Certain Americans consider Germans infidels. Some consider killing Germans an honor and privilege. Should we allow this in the name of cultural freedom?" going on to explain that while, left to their own devices, a good American would kill whatever Germans he could get her hands on, we have laws to prevent that. This would be ridiculous, of course. So is what was actually said in this thread.

That this wasn't pointed out earlier I can only attribute to a clear ani-Islamic bias here in the States. Equating Islam with terrorism is routine in the media and popular culture; that this was chosen as an example hardly seems accidental.

Finally, to reply to Dan's reply, while I don't see what relevance it has here in the least, it would depend on how you define Zionism. The land of Israel has religious significance. The modern State of Israel has none at all. The current struggle there concerns only the latter.

(I find it curious that he says that even the most liberal Jews he knows have trouble divorcing the two, as it's the most liberal Jews who are the most likely to conflate the two. Assuming that he means religiously liberal, and refers to State-based Zionism, that is; otherwise disregard this parenthetical aside. If your Jewish identity isn't defined by religious law, what better to replace it with than nationalism?)

Surely we can agree that ill-parented children will likely develop into a nuisance and a danger to society?

But overall, no, I don't agree with this statement. Many people I know (including myself) think that they had a rotten childhood and their parents shouldn't have been allowed to raise a goldfish. But that doesn't give them or me the right to be either a nuisance or a danger to society.

we realize society can limit religious freedoms when they impinge on the rest of society. I submit having kids that will grow up ill-nurtured and ill-supported can be limited in the same way society prohibits religious practices which harm the rest of society.

Shmuel's already disagreed with you about your one example, so can you come up with another?

OTOH, the gov't has made exceptions to rules that are imposed "for the good of society" for members of religions that require them to break those rules: the Native Americans and their sacramental use of peyote, for instance. Would it help society any if the gov't kept people down to one child per couple if certain religions were allowed exemptions?

I definitely don't have a reasonable proposal for government intervention, which is why I'm happy for now to propose societal changes.

I don't have any problem with societal changes, just governmental ones (my libertarian streak is showing).

OTOH, the segments of society that I think that are most in need of cutting back on the number of babies they're dropping ain't reading either Salon or Flutterby or going to any parties that we're likely to be attending--so how do you reach them?

You've got a kid, so you probably don't get it, but nobody should ever say "when you have kids...", a phrase I hear way too often.

Tom is the last fertile male in a fairly traditional Italian family. We just got married. You do the math.

The default expectation should be not having kids, and doing that doesn't require changes in law, it requires changes in culture, and it requires those of us who care that real parenting be the issue be loud and strident and obnoxious with our opinions.

I can't necessarily disagree with this, but I can make one suggestion: be really, really darn clear about what it is that you're being "loud and strident and obnoxious" about. If you're perceived as simply being anti-child and anti-parent, it's easy for people to tune you out.

Shmuel, I think if we updated Topspin's statement to "Certain Moslem sects which believe that it's okay to kill Zionist Jews", we'd be well within reality and have an example which makes Topspin's point. But even without that it doesn't take much looking to find an example of Christians who believe in violence to their ends:

So even if you disagree with his particular example it's clear that there are religious sects which endorse violence, and that many of us, while defending relgious freedom within the United States, don't defend it to the point of violence.

As for the liberal jews and Zionism, it's mainly the liberal ones that I hear choking over "Next year in Jerusalem".

Dori, a partial list of the things I want to be "loud and strident and obnoxious" about:

A lot of this discussion is based on the idea that parents are "responsible" for their children in both senses of the word: they have the discretion to decide how they're brought up, and they are accountable (morally if not legally) if they abuse that disrection. The debate here, primarily, is over how much weight we should give the discretion compared with the accountability.

This seems like a projection of the principles governing private property (I can do what I want with my property, until it either hurts someone or places someone at risk, at which point I and only I am held responsible for the damage) onto family relations. This shouldn't be surprising, since for the past hundred years, the principles governing private property have been projected onto pretty much every other human relationship, even if we still don't live under a libertarian's idea of "pure capitalism".

Is there another way to model the relationship between children, their parents, and other people in their community?

I suspect that when talking about Zionism, Shmuel and Dan say different thinks when they say "liberal Jews".

A large number (I can't guess the proportion) of politically liberal Jews who are not Orthodox are uncomfortable with Zionism. *Among Orthodox Jews*, the "liberals" are the "modern Orthodox", affiliated with such institutions as Yeshiva University, and modern Orthodox leaders are generally pro-Zionist (I can't think of any who would deny that the existence of the State of Israel is A Good Thing). However, a number of other prominent Orthodox rabbis are anti-Zionist. So Dan is probably thinking of the former liberals, and Shmuel the latter.

There are also all sorts of gradations of religious Zionism (ranging from "it's good that there's a State of Israel that Jews can live in" to "every acre of land we occupy brings us one step closer to the Messiah") and anti-Zionism (ranging from "the secular State of Israel has no particular religious significance" to "the secular State of Israel is an abomination that no Jew should have any involvement with"), and an Orthodox Jew's liberality on other issues is not a very good predictor of his or her position within those spectra.

Sorry to be so off-topic, but I felt that I needed to subtract some clarity from this discussion. :-)

Pete, I'm not hurt by a baby, I'm hurt by my assumed responsibility towards that baby. Not being hurt by the baby presumes the ability to at least stand aside during infanticide, whence my comments about not being serious about abortion through the 55^th trimester.

So, babies are not dangerous. The process that makes babies is not dangerous beyond the participants choosing to be involved. So where is the justification for making child bearing illegal by default? (I know you've abandoned this tack, Dan. I ask because others have not.)

And Pete, you're right too, pragmatism is a philosophy, one which a lot of people who claim to espouse other philosophies practice. Thus it's important to speak of pragmatism as both a practice and a philosophy, and, if one doesn't want to regularly get thrown through bar windows, use it to mean practice when not otherwise qualified.

By the same token, "you don't have a kid, so you probably don't get it". Couldn't I say that about all the stuff that annoys you about people who have kids? In fact, when I was childless, I had some great ideas about what parents should do with their kids or why they shouldn't have had kids in the first place.

Then I had my first child and I had to re-think a lot of those things because, no matter how hard I tried, I ended up doing exactly the same things that those people I had ridiculed before did.

I am sympathetic with your frustration about the "default expectation". Hey, the default expectation in the (protestant, rural) area where I grew up was that everyone was going to get married. Even after I did get married, when I tried to talk about this my frustration with this predjudice, people still didn't get it.

No one should try to make a "default assumption" about anyone else's life -- it is their life and they have to live it -- but culture ends up helping us to do that anyway.

So, you are frustrated that parents get tax breaks. Meanwhile, I can assure you that if you and I make the same income, you have far more disposable income than I do, so that the tax break that I get does not compare to your disposable income. If you can be angry that I get a tax break, do I get to be angry that I have to spend far more money on my children than I get back from the tax break? Of course not. We each make our own choices.

Eh? What makes you so confident that you understand humanity better than their parents? Perhaps both of your understandings are warped in opposite directions so that neither one resembles reality. Or, perhaps, you are both blind men describing an elephants. (http://www.wordfocus.com/word-act-blindmen.html)

The reality is, no one is any good at this parenting thing. You will always be able to find fault with parents. It isn't that hard. Any good, new parent goes into the process with hope, enthusiasm, and plenty of ideas of how to do it better than anyone else.

Dori-- But overall, no, I don't agree with this statement. Many people I know (including myself) think that they had a rotten childhood and their parents shouldn't have been allowed to raise a goldfish. But that doesn't give them or me the right to be either a nuisance or a danger to society.

It can be shown that neglected/abused kids are more likely to be arrested later for violent crime and other criminal activity. It's hardly news that victimized kids are more likely to victimize others in later life. I don't think it's fantasy to suggest those whose "parents shouldn't have been allowed to raise a goldfish" face a greater risk of having problems later in life.

Now this isn't meant as a personal attack, but as a starting point for discussion. What made Dori turn out responsible and reasonable while many other kids raised by marginal parents don't? Your guess, Dori, is BETTER than mine, but I think we all wanna pull society toward that outcome and away from a cycle of clueless parents raising more clueless parents.

I realize defining "ill-parented" is like trying to define porn.... we all know it when we see it. Those of us who work among the public watch countless clueless parents yelling their kids into submission, teaching passive-aggressive behavior, etc. From your goldfish reference, I suspect you also know bad parenting when you see it.

I keep coming back to the silliness that we expect the government to certify that schoolteachers are specially trained for the task of instructing children, but God forbid the government should require parents to be specially trained. Am I to suppose a parent's responsibilities for teaching a child are less important to society than their 3rd grade teacher? Which do you think has the greater liklihood of steering the child away from later social problems: a person who spends a few months with the child or a parent?

As Mark pointed out, parenting is a tough gig and all parents feel they fail at doing it as well as they could. Required parental education for an endeavor which is so important to society and is so difficult to do well doesn't seem, to me, an unreasonable invasion by govt.

Now you're edging closer to reality, topspin. Not quite there yet, because requiring it of parents still works out as "illegal without, therefore illegal by default."

One way to end up with educated parents is to make education about parenting part of the required school curriculum and complete it before puberty, meaning that your pool of pontential parents would already be exposed to the information. Another would be to incentivize the education of new parents, using the goverment's favorite carrot, the tax code, instead of the stick of law enforcement. Parents get their tax cuts only if they attend the classes and perform to a certain standard (though that does raise the specter of our nation's discriminatory history of "literacy tests" at polling places).

Topspin: >> I don't think it's fantasy to suggest those whose "parents shouldn't have been allowed to raise a goldfish" face a greater risk of having problems later in life.

Here's the rub, Topspin, I know some parents that shouldn't be allowed to raise goldfish but do an excellent job rearing their children. How one relates to animals and how one relates to their children are often in no way comparable. That is the reason for my statement above about this argument being troubling for me due to the way it resembles the discussion of pet ownership.

Much of my problem with how our society deals with parenting revolves around the notion that "when you have a child, you'll just know what you're supposed to do."

I submit that one doesn't know instinctively how to parent. We seem to agree it's a complicated undertaking and it's full of pitfalls. One must learn many complex tasks beyond just diapering and discipline and be tenacious in raising the child 24/7 and the final outcome is damn important to society.

We, as a society, seem to teach parenting the same way redneck idiots teach their kids to swim: toss 'em in the deep end and watch 'em learn. Trauma and troubles be damned, they'll "catch on in a little while.... after they sink and flounder a little."

What's worse, this method of "teaching" parenting seems somehow sacred to some folks. "Require help and training for new parents???? Why that's unAmerican and violates my rights!" Maybe I am unAmerican and maybe I wanna trample individual rights, but the notion that parenting comes natural to humans seems primitive.

Govt enacts a system of building codes and construction permits which require construction on private land to meet certain specifications, even if that structure is a private dwelling. Is raising a child less complicated than raising a building?

Topspin: >> Maybe I am unAmerican and maybe I wanna trample individual rights, but the notion that parenting comes natural to humans seems primitive.

The notion of breastfeeding seems awful primitive to me also and, hey, it is. Women have breastfed their infants since the beginning. Haven't they? Does being primitive mean that it is wrong or no longer relevent?

Some parts of parenting are instinctive. Not all parts but some. Some parts of parenting are intuitive. Same disclaimer. Then you have the parts that are mimiced (mimicked?). That's what you do with your child because that was the way you were raised and you turned out alright. Didn't you? Anyone with a reasonable level of intelligence will do alright meeting a child's physical needs based on the above three parts of parenting. The rest of parenting comes directly from one's personality and, for lack of a better term, moral character. It's this "the rest of parenting" that will be instrumental in whether or not the child grows up to be a good citizen.

Now, I can understand parenting classes helping a parent do well at meeting a child's physical needs. What I can't understand is how parenting classes are going to change one's personality or one's moral character. If you don't have the moral character to care or if you don't have the personality to maintain a child's discipline at the level that that individual child requires there is going to be trouble. No parenting classes can change that.

What is this discussion about? Is the concern poor parenting or overpopulation? The implied difference between "parents" and "breeders" conflates and confuses the two issues.

If the concern is simply overpopulation (which seems to be Dan's main concern) then the restricting people's right to reproduce is surely the answer. He suggests attempting to change culture to acheive his goals.

If the concern is poor parenting (as topspin seems to say), then education /appears/ to be the answer. However as Larry says, no parenting class can give the parent the moral character to /care/ about their child. (I understand education as primarily the transfer of knowledge. Knowledge does not necessarily change attitudes or behavior.)

What can we do about poor parenting? topspin seems to want society (read "government") to have the ability to license parents before their reproductive organs are activated. A government-sanctioned chastity-belt, if you will.

Dan (if he is in fact concerned about poor parenting and not just upset because children exist) seems to want to restrict (through cultural changes) the number of children a person is allowed to have. Never mind that this is a primarily a restriction on women's reproductive choices.

In the end, it does not seem to me that either proposition is tenable. Which leaves us in the current mess we are in where people can continue to have children as they choose regardless of poor parenting or population problems.

From my own experience as the father of three (yes, three) children, it was not until I had my third child that I realized how much time and energy it takes to be a parent. I think that all three of my children are better off as a result -- certainly my daughter is better off and gets more dedicated fathering than if I had stopped after her birth.

Which is not to say that everyone should have three kids, but that is what works for me. Some parents will be best as the parent of one child, some with four, and some people will prefer to remain childless. Any cultural or societal/governmental mandate is misguided at best and destructive at worst.

Exactly how do propose to enforce mandatory parental licensure? Our government hasn't been particularly effective at stopping the production of illegal drugs--what makes you think it will be effective at preventing the production of illegal babies? Also, at what cost? Given the enormous collateral costs involved in the "War on Drugs", I'm wary of a similar "War on Bad Parents".

Perhaps you support fines for unlicensed parents? People who have too many babies aren't known for their planning abilities. How likely is a potential fine to dissuade them? It seems that the people who are most likely to be dissuaded by fines are also those most likely not to be problem parents in the first place.

Compulsory use of long term contraceptives like Norplant? Compulsory abortions? Compulsory tubal ligations or vasectomies? Personally, I would not want to allow some government bureaucrat that level of control over my body.

Building codes and licensure exist as much to protect cartels as they do to protect the safety of consumers. (For evidence, see this Cato report: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa079.html). I think that a Parent Licensing Board would be another route for governmental parasitism, without doing much to decrease the problem of bad parents.

Have you considered voluntary organizations? For example, I like CRACK(Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity) Project Prevention, which pays drug addicts $200 to get long-term or permanent birth control. See http://www.cashforbirthcontrol.com/ for details.

When CRACK

[link elided, formerly www.cashforbirthcontrol.com] first got media exposure I looked around to try to make a donation, and got a reply that they had as much money as they needed for the moment. But I think that they've got the right idea.

I'd also like to see the subsidization of parents reduced, we can actually take steps in the right direction without penalizing parents if we just don't subsidize them so heavily.

The War on Babies... DEA/ATF/OB/GYN goon squads kicking down doors, guns drawn, screaming like Sam Kinison "WHERE'S THE BABY'S ROOM? WHERE'S THE BABY'S ROOM?" and all looking like Randall "Tex" Cobb in Raising Arizona, trophy rattles swinging on bandolier loops beside primed grenades...

CRACK turned down your money? That's odd. At a minimum, they could've put it into an interest bearing account until they needed it for future growth.

I agree with you--I think that subsidies for children should stop (state-subsidized schools, WIC-like programs, tax deductions for children, etc). However, as was no doubt apparent, I'm highly skeptical of the virtues of parental licensure.

I'm seeing general agreement that uncaring parenting sucks, but I'm noting a "well, yeah, it sucks, but there's nothing we can do about it" sorta attitude. That's why I suggested a discussion of individual interests vs society's interests as related to parenting is warranted.

Americans give up several personal freedoms to live as a society. We can't legally take whatever drugs we want. Most of us can't legally just park our van on the street and begin living there. We can't legally smoke cigarettes wherever we wish. We can't legally go nude wherever we wish.

Those rules (ostensibly, at least) have roots in society's need to keep order and maintain safety. Many of us would disagree with some of those societal restrictions, but we mostly adhere to them because we either fear the consequences or respect the idea of society. None of us like restrictions, but... by and large... we realize the need.

So what can we, as a society, do about uncaring parents? Moving some child subsidy money toward funding for required parental education is analogous to "give someone a fish and feed them for a day; teach them to fish......" If done gradually, this would probably be a positive investment.

Larry brings in the point that education cannot change the moral character of a parent and force them to care. Regardless of any educational requirements or parenting guidelines society might try to enforce, some folks will not obey. There we reach a dilemma. What do we do with folks who continually "don't care" about other societal rules, but haven't shown themselves to be extremely damaging to society? We commonly revoke societal privileges unless those folks adhere to the rules (whether they care about them or not.) Larry is correct. We can't force folks to care about their parental responsibilities, just as we cannot force them to care about ANY of society's rules, and sometimes society is forced to take unpleasant actions against those folks.

None of us would suggest that "well, yeah, this guy's had 6 reckless driving tickets, but what can we do?" We know we can revoke his public driving privileges. Dan cited an example of a judge ordering a guy not to have more kids for 5 years because he won't support the 9 kids he already has. Is this unreasonable? Would it be unreasonable if he only had 7 kids? 5? 3? 1? And can society truthfully only define "child support" in terms of money?

topspin, my understanding of Roe vs. Wade is that the government cannot intrude on a woman's reproductive choices. If I'm correct (please, let me know if I'm not), then licensing of parents is clearly unconstitutional.

The other ugly aspect of this is that when Governments tried to restrict who could give birth and who could not, we ended up with eugenics. On this, Margret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood wrote:

(emphasis mine. fwiw, PP's Marget Sanger Bio shows their points of disagreement with her philosophy. This is not one of them.)

The reasoning behind Roe V. Wade (in a crude summary) is that in the early part of pregnancy, say the first 6 months, it's not obvious to the community that she is pregnant, therefore all aspects of the pregnancy are a private matter of the mother's discretion. The justification for the RvW decision does not flow from any right specifically related to reproduction.

Mark, I agree that licensing all parents is probably too far for society to accept, but I think mandatory education and certification in order for parents to receive subsidies might be acceptable. It's not about the biology of parenting-- it's about the sociology. Certification and licensure doesn't assure someone cares about their responsibility, but it does assure they've been trained in the skills needed to perform the task. I think if society has posited that kids deserve to be taught 3rd grade math by someone who has been certified via certain teaching/educational training, society should easily be able to posit that children deserve to be parented by someone who has been exposed to certain parental training.

I'm looking for a way for society to alert parents that there's FAR more to parenting than producing offspring. I think many folks, as you mentioned yourself, don't realize how much time and attention being a parent requires. If we require education for parents, we help folks realize their responsibilities and many would try harder to meet those time and attention demands, as you have.

As for the "tough cases" where parents ignore education and ignore responsibilities, society needs to make some tough choices. Is the risk to society from ill-raised kids greater than the right of a parent? That's a damn hard question, but I think I've already cited a collection of reports that shows neglected/abused kids tend toward a life of violence and criminality. At some point society has the interest of the many to protect at the restriction of the individual, doesn't it?

I'm not against parenting education that might be modeled like like the drug and sex ed that begins young and continues throughout the a person's schooling. I'd also be comfortable with a mantadory high school course on parenting and life skills. However, I suspect implementing such a plan would be as messy and problematic as our current situation with sex ed programs. I have no doubt that the Christian right would make a concerted effort to co-op such an effort and turn it into its equivalent of abstinence-only sex ed and I know I wouldn't like the monogamistic outcome.

Hey, topspin, we already have methods in place to handle parents who neglect and abuse their kids and having just lived through that with one of my son's friends, the system does work. Maybe not perfectly, maybe not consistently, but it did help the kid who sought shelter from us.

I agree with the other comment made about the confusion between population control and parenting control. If the real goal is reducing population, then it probably shouldn't target breeders. It should target everyone. If the real goal is bettering parents, then don't assume all breeders are bad. The best family I've known for years have four kids and a strong Catholic background. Those parents make sacrifices and those kids are happy and well-cared for. The parents embrace their tasks and obligations and find rewards in it. And the boy who ran away to us and wound up a ward of the state? His parents were two-or-fewer types. Again, I come back to the idea that you can't wholely rely on stereotypes to build these arguments.

Ummm Debra, just for my clarity and perhaps some others, my definition of breeders and parents seems to vary from yours. From your last post I gather that you definition of Parents is two or less children and breeders being the group that has three or more children? I have been viewing Parents as those that are responsible with the raising of their children whatever the number. Breeders being the group that have spawned but are lacking in the raising skills. So by those terms:
(Parents eq Good) True
(Breeders ne Good) True
Again, I seem to have been viewing this as more of a quality of population instead of quantity

Debra, I agree that negligent/abuse cases do have remedies, but I suppose I wanna push the envelope of those definitions. I feel parenting has been "dumbed down" (much like the rest of society) to a point where kids are not receiving the tools they need from some parents, but the "neglect/abuse" line isn't crossed. The kid you temporarily housed might have been spared the trauma of a parental problem if the parents KNEW something about how to parent. Maybe not, but there's no harm in TRYING to educate parents and society has LOTS to gain by keeping kids outta "the system."

As for stereotypes, it's not about economics or anything like that.... it's about good, ol' fashioned quality time and involvement. Folks who wanna see parenting as a special and unique responsibility get my praise, whether they have 1 or 10 kids or make lots of cash. Folks who merely "get knocked up and have a baby" then expect "nature to take its course with the child" are reprehensible.

Overall, however, I think parenting has been "taken for granted" in society. Folks seem to think.... "yeah, we had a coupla great kids" without realizing that represents a MAJOR financial and social responsibility. Society fosters that notion via subsidies and I'd like to see that curtailed. I think if more folks saw parenting for the BIG responsibility and time sink it is, there'd be less population.

I started to write a long post about this but decided I didn't want to jump into the fray - still - I feel like I have to say something here:

I don't believe our society is doing a good job of raising parents. The problem is that children learn to parent only from their parents - and if they had a poor example they'll tend to repeat many of their errors. So it is up to society to compensate if we want to improve children's lives. A very simple place to start would be to allow Planned Parenthood back into the high schools. Another step would be to REQUIRE home ec classes for all graduates. Home ec would include things like cooking, laundry, handling a child, child psychology(!), civic activities (how to interact with city hall), dispute resolution (how to deal with bad neighbors), and basic finance. I came out high school knowing how to cook and do my laundry but I didn't know how to deal with any of the rest. I had to learn all of it, including handling a child and child psychology by trial and error.

The only problem I can see is many parents would be scared that their kids would learn in the child psychology portion just how rotten they have been as parents.

The issue that I see here at this point is that you can't just say "Parenting skills need to be taught." That's almost exactly the same as saying "Religion needs to be taught."

You've got people who think that breastfeeding is bad, and people who think that bottle feeding is immoral.

You've got people who think that spanking a child is always child abuse, and those who believe that sparing the rod spoils the child.

And those are just some of the simplest either/or choices around. Cloth or disposable diapers? TV or not TV, and at what age? Computers: good or bad for small kids?

It's really easy to say "Parenting classes should be mandatory." It's harder to say whose parenting skills those classes would teach, and what you would say to the 99% of successful parents who disagree with some aspect of the curriculum.

The point of parental education shouldn't be to teach parents "the one way" to parent, but rather to instill the idea that parenting is the most important thing these folks will ever do. The goal is not to get every child raised exactly the same way, but to get every child raised by a parent who truly realizes the enormous responsibility and work of parenting and is trying to meet the challenge.

Courses in religion are regularly taught without endorsing a particular faith. They typically focus on why folks indulge in religion, how important it is in certain cultures, types and specific practices of various religions, and the outcomes of religious issues in society. Replace religion with parenting in the above sentence and it would seem to work.

If a parent doesn't believe in breastfeeding or whatever, fine, but it should be taught as an option some folks use and others don't. That's not offensive; that's reality. Discussions in a parenting class about TV, computers, etc would be WONDERFUL because they get each parent to think and talk about the issues, hopefully before it comes up in their family. That's EXACTLY the point of parental education: getting parents to think more about parenting, helping parents be prepared for the challenges of parenting, and hopefully inspiring them to be very involved in their kid's lives.

What I would say to those who don't like the curriculm is: Get involved. Talk to the class about your parenting ideas. Share techniques you think work/don't work and let's talk about them.

Dan posts an interesting pointer to an article about an "illiterate" teacher complaining about the quality of teachers.

Meanwhile, I think it is sad that those who have zero existential knowledge of parenting are so vocal with their complaints about parents. Since I'm actually experiencing the insanity of parenting three children, I have to say that I have a lot more sympathy for those parents who you might classify as inadequate. There is a lot that goes on during parenting that causes the best efforts to be complete failures. While parents do have tremendous responsibility, what you observe of their children is not entirely the parent's fault.

Regarding topspin's ongoing quest for certification in order to recieve tax breaks (or "subsidies", though I do not recall anyone trying to have more children just to get another subsidy): I'm with Dan. Certification sucks.

In my field (Systems Administration), we have glut of certified people (e.g. MCSE) who have no love of the profession -- they are just here to pick up a check and they've gone to the classes and heard the money was good. Those of us who learned SysAdmin OTJ or in a University Environment more often have the love (and UNIX skills) to avoid vendor-centric solutions -- that is, create better, more reliable infrastructure (when management allows).

In the same way, those who become parents, reguardless of their initial reasoning, and then develop a true love of their children will (I hope) produce better adults than those who become parents and do not have the desire to produce the best possible adults since they do not have the child's best interests in mind.

Certification and classes cannot change this. You can't make anyone love their child enough to really take the child's best long-term interests into consideration.

Mark said: "Since I'm actually experiencing the insanity of parenting three children, I have to say that I have a lot more sympathy for those parents who you might classify as inadequate."

So, Mark, what might we do to better warn potential parents about the pitfalls? One of the reasons I've decided to be child-free is that most of my friends are older than I am, so when I was ready to make those decisions I felt like I'd gotten a pretty good idea of the risks and rewards of raising children. I heard "I wouldn't give them up for the world, but if I had it to do over again..." so many times, I figured I'd take a clue.

And yet you're implying that you somehow got to parenting without hearing all those cautions. How do we improve that intergenerational communication?

Before I became a parent, I was aware (in the abstract) that parenting was not easy. This did not disuade me from becoming a parent just as the possiblity of death does not disuade bungee jumpers from jumping off the cliff: there is some perceived payoff.

I won't go into my personal reasons for being a parent (and, btw, I would do it again). Certainly, I respect those who, for their own reasons, do not have children. rms told me once that he made a concious decision not to have children because he knew he would not be able to do as much work for free software, for example.

What are the pitfalls of parenting? Being a parent means that you have less time, money and energy for yourself. Perhaps you are right and if people really understood what being a parent involved, no one would do it.

What are the benefits of parenting? I think there has been plenty of harping about the pitfalls, but have people really stopped to consider why someone might want to parent, even taking the pitfalls into consideration?

For me, the answer is as simple as this: more love in the world. By this, I mean the type of love that a parent has for a child -- the type of love that is genuinely concerned with another. The kind of sacrificial love that will do something for another even if it costs something from the individual giving.

Forgive me my lack of cynicism when I think that this sort of giving is the perfect antidote for our super-commercialized world.

For anything that has a benefit, there is a cost and a risk involved. The cost here: giving up much of what I would be able to accomplish without children. The risk: ingrateful, rude, obnoxious children.

Few parents I know (even the good ones) really understood the cost and risk when they took on the task, and I've done my fair share of warning potential parents of the real costs of time and energy involved.

Finally, there is always an "us and them" mentality to discussions like these. "Us" in my case is parents and "Them" are those adults who are not parents. There are a lot of (sub)concious assumptions about the "otherness" of them. "They" are selfish, self-centered, egotistical, etc. and it takes effort to avoid labeling "them" with negative attributes and saving a lot of the positive ones for "us".

If I may suggest, I see a lot of the "us" and "them" going on here, but with "us" being childless-by-choice adults and "them" being those who have children. "Why would they have children?" seems to be the underlying assumption. "If only they knew what I know, they could have made better choices." I see this in your query "How do we improve intergenerational communication?" although it is a perhaps only a small part of what is implied.

This assumes that better intergenerational communication is going to lower the birth rate further. Perhaps the the dropping birth rate is the result of poorer intergenerational communication.