Should You Have to Get a License to Raise Children?
- Thread starter Blatherscythe
- Start date
What right does the state have to tell people if they can have kids or not? They can choose to withhold benefits and such, but the Government has absolutely no right intervening on personal, family matters. If people want kids, that's their business. We're not in such an economic crisis where a new baby could cripple us, so the test would be arbitrary, pointless, and downright wrong. Not just unethical. Wrong to the point of 'get that probe out of my ass'.
I like the idea and thought of the same thing.Blatherscythe said:
The only problem is you would get cries of outrage with things like "Having children is biological right" and would add significant weight to the government becoming too controlling thing.
Completely agree.Mr.Mattress said:
And who is to say what method of child raising is the best? Is there even a "best" way to raise a child? Obviously negelecting them is bad, but what is the best way? Children are raised in different ways so nobody can say one way is the best. How would you campare them anyway?
So this "child liscense" is a bad idea. Logistically hard to enforce (are you just going to search everybody's house for children every so often? Ever hear of the 4th amendment?) and morally questionable (What if they fail? What if they refuse to take the test? What if they pass the test and still abuse children? What about accidental pregnancies? Why should the government tell us who can have children and who cannot?).
I usually would say no to stuff like this, but after working at McDonalds for months and seeing the amount of skets coming in wearing their pj's in the afternoon is disgusting. Plus the amount of parents who believe the way to raise their children is by shouting at them.
I think people should have to attend classes which teach them how to raise children.
I think people should have to attend classes which teach them how to raise children.
I was inclined to say yes, but in the end making reproduction a privilege and not a right sounds pretty oppressive. What would happen if there was an accidental pregnancy? What about cases of rape? Would the answer for that be a legally-demanded abortion? I don't think that would go over well...
Agreed. Reading the proposal, I kept thinking that it smacked of the Orwellian (i.e it would probably never work).Mr.Mattress said:
As other people have pointed out, taking a test would fail to take into account the subjectivity of raising a child (outside of the,"hey make sure you feed it moron" aspect), but in addition to that: passing a test and acquiring a license doesn't suddenly make you infallible in the ways of parenting. People would still neglect, or make mistakes. We all have driver's licenses, yet there are still thousands of car accidents every year.
Yes, we sometimes hear about parents neglecting their children and the child dying, and it probably happens a lot more than we hear about it, but to reiterate what Mr.Mattress said, there are still millions of parents out there doing it right, compared to the few thousand that are an active danger to their kids.
No.
1. There's no practical way to enforce it. What are you going to do to parents who have a child but no license? Force the mother to have an abortion? Take the child away? Okay, great, so what do you do with the children you take away?
2. Parenting is an experience. You can read all of the books and watch all of the DVDs ever produced on the subject and still be a novice. Most of the things about parenthood you learn as you go along.
3. The test could never be objective. What if one of the questions demands (hypothetically) that parents teach children that homosexuality is evil, when the parents disagree? To answer honestly - no, they'd teach their kids to be open-minded - would lose them the right to reproduce. Would you like to be told how to raise your children?
4. For that matter, what would the grading system be? Pass at 50%? 65% Okay, which questions did they get wrong? The ones on feeding, clothing? The ones on education? Does that mean a parent who got 100% is somehow 'better' than a parent who only got 70%?
5. If the test is a standard test, everybody is going to know what the correct answers are. There would even be books on the subject. Does that make you a good parent, or good at taking tests? For example, I aced my GCSE German exam, but I can't actually speak a word of the language and wasn't interested in ever doing so.
6. What about couples who want to adopt? Should there be different tests for adopting a young child, a teenager?
7. There's a horrific situation in China at the moment with their "one child only" policy - thousands of female children being killed in favour of having a male child instead.
I love that people in support of this license cite a tiny, tiny minority of society. What about all of those parents out there doing a great job? Where's the credit for them? Oh no, all parents are idiots, moving along.
(Also, I might add, there have been a lot of great people in history who came from shitty families - Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Charlie Chaplin. Alternatively, there are children who came from lovely families who are revolting - Paris Hilton was given everything and in return is wasting her life (does that make her parents bad parents or good parents?) or as a personal example, I have an uncle who was loved and nurtured and given all he wanted by his parents, and turned out to be a lech and a borderline paedophile. *shrugs*)
1. There's no practical way to enforce it. What are you going to do to parents who have a child but no license? Force the mother to have an abortion? Take the child away? Okay, great, so what do you do with the children you take away?
2. Parenting is an experience. You can read all of the books and watch all of the DVDs ever produced on the subject and still be a novice. Most of the things about parenthood you learn as you go along.
3. The test could never be objective. What if one of the questions demands (hypothetically) that parents teach children that homosexuality is evil, when the parents disagree? To answer honestly - no, they'd teach their kids to be open-minded - would lose them the right to reproduce. Would you like to be told how to raise your children?
4. For that matter, what would the grading system be? Pass at 50%? 65% Okay, which questions did they get wrong? The ones on feeding, clothing? The ones on education? Does that mean a parent who got 100% is somehow 'better' than a parent who only got 70%?
5. If the test is a standard test, everybody is going to know what the correct answers are. There would even be books on the subject. Does that make you a good parent, or good at taking tests? For example, I aced my GCSE German exam, but I can't actually speak a word of the language and wasn't interested in ever doing so.
6. What about couples who want to adopt? Should there be different tests for adopting a young child, a teenager?
7. There's a horrific situation in China at the moment with their "one child only" policy - thousands of female children being killed in favour of having a male child instead.
I love that people in support of this license cite a tiny, tiny minority of society. What about all of those parents out there doing a great job? Where's the credit for them? Oh no, all parents are idiots, moving along.
(Also, I might add, there have been a lot of great people in history who came from shitty families - Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Charlie Chaplin. Alternatively, there are children who came from lovely families who are revolting - Paris Hilton was given everything and in return is wasting her life (does that make her parents bad parents or good parents?) or as a personal example, I have an uncle who was loved and nurtured and given all he wanted by his parents, and turned out to be a lech and a borderline paedophile. *shrugs*)
I would absolutely like to support something like this, just something to control population and see to it that the kids have good lives with people who love them.
But this is, unfortunately, one of those "great on paper, terrible in practice" things. It sounds so good reading it like this and thinking about it - but how would we be able to execute this in a real society? It would just be to hard with an idea like this.
But this is, unfortunately, one of those "great on paper, terrible in practice" things. It sounds so good reading it like this and thinking about it - but how would we be able to execute this in a real society? It would just be to hard with an idea like this.
Bad idea. Sounds like communism! Do you hate freedom? Time for you to eat a guantanamo sandwich!
Just kiddin. Actually i think a licence would be a good idea for many things.
Maybe some classes would suffice, to get the basics down.
Just kiddin. Actually i think a licence would be a good idea for many things.
Maybe some classes would suffice, to get the basics down.
Good idea but it if the parent fails it's not fair on the child to not have his/hers parents. Also care homes would be packed and what would the test include?
I like that, it keeps people from breeding like dogs, keeps children safe, etc.
I think that they should also do a psychological interview, see if both partners intend to stay together to raise the child, what their'e plans are for the child, how they will raise the child, etc.
I think that they should also do a psychological interview, see if both partners intend to stay together to raise the child, what their'e plans are for the child, how they will raise the child, etc.
Terrible idea.
Although there are stories of people neglecting their children, they are the minority.
Also, what happens when the system is abused. e.g. certain people being denied licenses due to political affiliations. Okay that might be a bit far fetched (enough regulations put in place etc.) but I honestly doubt you can judge someone's ability to be a parent through an exam. A person might be perfectly knowledgeable of the necessary steps for raising a child but that doesn't mean they won't neglect their child at some point.
Also the entire idea seems like a step towards 1984 (Yes I know it's a cliché by this point).
Although there are stories of people neglecting their children, they are the minority.
Also, what happens when the system is abused. e.g. certain people being denied licenses due to political affiliations. Okay that might be a bit far fetched (enough regulations put in place etc.) but I honestly doubt you can judge someone's ability to be a parent through an exam. A person might be perfectly knowledgeable of the necessary steps for raising a child but that doesn't mean they won't neglect their child at some point.
Also the entire idea seems like a step towards 1984 (Yes I know it's a cliché by this point).
As a teacher I stand on top of a mountain and scream at the top of my lungs YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES! I know that it is difficult to enforce, but here's the solution, If you have a kid without the license, instant sterilization so that it's your only one, that would cut down on 90% of bad parenting right there.