MachinaForce, just state your motives and points clearly.
In this thread, you’re basically saying, “Parents should have to be screened/tested in order to have children…but not really…but yes really.”
I’m think that if the competency test was put I place, around 60-75% would fail, thus weaning out the unfit in some kind of cleansing. Their kids would have to be raised in child care centers with care that is equal to that of private homes. Then they would be given to parents who have passed the test. The test would also have to be done by school teachers, nannies, and baby sitters. Anyone in child care. Over time people might be discouraged from having kids which might make the system work, since there would be fewer kids and there would be enough resources around.
That’s what I’m saying
What about them? :dubious:
How many parents do you think would be OK with the government taking their kids away from them like this?
The problem with a test that 60% or more would fail is that the 60% who would fail would not support such a test, and since as Velocity pointed out, we live in a democracy…
The only way to implement your plan is a dictatorship. Or to make the test so easy it is of little value and only ends up primarily excluding poor minorities, which is the other effect that hasn’t been much discussed, but tends to be a hot issue in this country.
The other basic problem is that there is no one right way to raise kids and the science of parenting tends to fall into fad science a lot. You can’t really test for something if you don’t know what the answers are aside from “Never put your kid in an oven” and “Don’t be an alcoholic”.
…and yet, some people can’t even get that part right.
Yep, that’s why I brought it up. I’d also require before we even considered taking kids away from their parents for failing a test that existing child services actually be competent. In most states if not all, foster care and group homes are worse than a lot of the parents they are being taken from.
I did read it. Creating orphanages that are better than the average family on a large scale is not a daunting task; it is an impossible task. Because
[list=A][li]Spending more money on something doesn’t automatically guarantee results, and[/li][li]A parenting test that 60-75% of parents fail is going to be a test that 60-75% of orphanage care givers fail, so you are going to have large numbers of orphans and very few care givers. And thus the orphans will almost automatically receive a lower level of care than they would if they were left with their parents. [/list][/li]
Far more than 60% of children turn out all right now, even if they are raised by parents who would fail the test. Therefore, if the test is supposed to improve child raising outcomes, and 60-75% of parents fail the test, the test is not worthwhile.
Something like 9.2% of children in the US are abused or neglected (pdf). That’s horrifyingly high. But I doubt the answer is to take children away from the other 99%.
It’s a solution that is worse than the problem.
Regards,
Shodan
We discuss “disparate impact” a lot. Wouldn’t it be disproportionately poor/minority parents that would be the most likely to have their kids taken away?
<devil’s advocate>
Is that necessarily a bad thing? If disproportionate poverty is something shown to decrease parenting ability, then that seems like all the more reason to require licenses.
</devil’s advocate>
In the real world, this would be draconian and inhumane, but there’s a nugget of truth in there- the vast majority of the really egregious parenting fails I read about are from low income/minority parents. I’m not talking outright child abuse, but rather the people whose children are hugely obese, or out playing at midnight on school nights when they’re 9 years old, or they’re unable to even count by kindergarten, or what have you. Or whose kids have rotten teeth because they give their children soda in their baby bottles.
This would be the sort of thing a parenting licence would be trying to prevent- dumb-ass decisions made through ignorance.
Exactly. It’s like deciding that because 20% of drivers occasionally run stop signs we’re going to change the driving test to fail 60% of all applicants and force them to use self-driving cars, which:
[ul]
[li]We haven’t built yet[/li][li]We’re not sure how they would work[/li][li]Pretty sure they won’t work in all conditions[/li][li]Don’t handle really bad or confusing situations[/li][li]Will cost considerably more[/li][li]Very few people seem to want[/li][/ul]
I wouldn’t expect them to be ok with it, but something about the needs of the many overcome the needs of the few and something like that.
So, you’re gonna take away people’s kids and when they object you’ll quote Star Trek?
OK.
The many determine what we do in a democracy. Is that not working for you?
We aren’t discussing that. We are discussing letting the needs of the very few (incompetent parents) overcoming the needs of the very many (competent parents who don’t abuse their children).
Regards,
Shodan
Well there is also the matter of parents “owning their kids”. Saying that is my child and I can do what I want because I made them, without any regard for the kid itself.
Since no one is saying that, it’s not really relevant.
There are plenty of laws that cover child abuse, vaccination, education, and welfare. This works for the vast majority of families and children in our society. If you want to rework the entire family structure due to potential abuse for unspecified gains you’re going to have to come up with a better reason than a hypothetical attitude.
Isn’t that exactly what we do now?
The first obstacle you’d have to overcome is fixing the birth control problem. More than 50% of pregnancies in the US are unplanned and unwanted.
Once you fix the birth control problem, I think societal pressure to not have children on a whim or “to take care of me when I get old” or other not very good reasons might eliminate a huge chunk of the child abusers and unfit parents. Eliminating tax breaks and other financial incentives will also reduce the number of unfit parents. A lot of child abuse and child neglect is caused by people who can’t afford children having them anyway.
You could also offer parenting classes in school to everyone. Although getting people to agree to that one will be an uphill battle considering a lot of people think it’s wrong to teach things like sex education and science in school.
Seems like a better idea than some arbitrary exam.
Although maybe getting rid of the family system would help.