Recently I was discussing a few well publicized, recent parenting catastrophes with a well known child development expert. "I'm sick of
kids being neglected and mistreated!" he said passionately and angrily. "I've decided we should make all parents earn a license before they are allowed to become parents. After all, it's OK for the state to mandate basic requirements be met before it allows us to drive a car. The same goes for practicing medicine. Why not then for the most important job of all to get right - being a parent? If we required a license to parent, we could provide child development and child rearing classes to everyone
before they actually have a kid to raise. I'm convinced we can diminish the amount of child abuse and neglect in this country through this measure."
My colleague cited a book he had just read on the subject. I don't think I can really represent the position fairly, so if you'd like to read a more detailed rationale for the granting of parenting licenses, read the author's own words:
THE RATIONALE FOR LICENSING PARENTS by Jack C. Westman, M.D.
Sounds like a good idea, right?
**********
To be honest, the idea horrifies me and I told my colleague so. "What's the matter?" he chided. "Afraid to bite the bullet to protect the rights of innocent children so they will not be abused and neglected and to be born into a world in which they are loved and cherished by competent parents?"
I've been thinking a lot about his opinion and his stinging criticism of my unwillingness to go all the way to protect kids. Is he right?
**********
I hope not, although I must admit I agree with the sentiment behind his modest proposal. Prospective parents should learn about child development and what constitutes basic parenting skills. (Frankly I don't understand why these aren't part of the basic curriculum taught in all schools to all kids.) And, alas, it is true (albeit rarely) that some parents just shouldn't keep having kids (as with a patient of mine whose first five kids are in foster care due to neglect and now she just had her sixth.)
**********
But even if we wanted to, could we really weed out those who will become rotten parents?
I have been surprised so often I highly doubt it. Take Millie who was a stone cold neglectful cocaine addict when her child was an infant and who, against all odds, turned her life around and got clean and has been a great mom to her four kids since. Or Sally who, after doing OK with her first, had a second child who somehow sent her into a tailspin and turned her into an impossibly neglectful, depressed mom.
Secondly, can adequate parenting skills be taught? Or more importantly, can inadequate parenting skills be overcome by a simple course in child development? I wouldn't bet on it. Can we
teach someone not to abuse their kids? Would that it was so simple! Can we
teach parents to love their kids? Just what would taking a course for the license ensure anyway? Just what would it teach?
Thirdly, who gets to decide and just where would you draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable future parenting skills? I would bet the bias against poor and minority families would especially play out here, as we denied them the right to parent in far greater numbers than we would economically advantaged parents.
Finally, just how would we as a society enforce the lack of a parenting license? The ways to do it seem to me to be too intrusive and horrible to contemplate (forced adoption? jail time?).
**********
Some human rights seem more untouchable to me than others and the right to procreate without government interference has to be close to the top, even if you are not likely to be a candidate for mother-of-the-year.
As usual, extreme cases tend to lead to bad ideas and a license to parent is one of them. Far better to devote enough resources to help families in trouble: high quality early child care and public school, universal health care for children, opportunities for economic self sufficiency, more programs to help hopelessly inadequate parents, and more safeguards for kids who are exposed to such parents.
But "No" to authoritarian government intrusion into the lives and reproductive biologies of all families.