What mystical oracle powers are they that compel lawmakers and judges to presume any better decision making abilities than parents? If parents are not abusive, as the poster assumed, why would anyone even consider that he might know their childrens’ needs better than they do?
What is so remarkable to me is that the notion of parents raising their children with their own values sends people scurrying for the society police, while the notion of being an imperialist emporer and forcing their will is a way of expressing philanthropy and goodness.
Society has run amock when it assigns to its magistrates and arbiters the business of parenting. Children are not wards of The State.
So you don’t think that when the method that the parents use to raise their children would render them essentially unable to function in the world then their custody should be revoked? I don’t see how this case is any different from that of parents who tie their children to the potty and leave them there for years.
What is going to happen to these children when their of college age or so? I mean I assume that they’re not going to just live in their home for their entire life right? Parents have a right to raise their children the way they want, but theres a point where what they’re doing is considered abusive, and I feel what these parents are doing crosses the line.
I don’t think that, in reality, the state SHOULD take the kids away from the parents in this case. The sentence about not being able to draw a line between legitimate and excessive sheltering should have made that clear.
What I meant by the “Emperor of the World” sentence was a rhetorical method, another way of saying “If the world were exactly the way I think it should be…” Another way of expressing the same “in a perfect world…” concept is positing a world run by a wise Philosopher King, a la Socrates & Plato.
We clearly cannot have an all-wise ruler: paraphrasing Jefferson, men are not angels nor ruled by angels. Therefore, I agree that the opinion of the government, even if supported by the majority, should NOT be imposed on the parent-child relationship if the parent is not abusing or neglecting the child in an objectively measureable way (not feeding them, beating them, etc.).
Even if I rephrased the original question with the proviso that nothing can be done nor should be done about the situation, the underlying question remains: do you think that the situation I described is a good or bad thing, and why?
“How are these people any different than the Amish and other conservative sects of the Mennonites (well, some are more conservative than others)?”
Well, for one, the Amish(and highly conservative Mennonite sects) exist as communities. Essentially it’s a group of them living together as a separate sort of sub-society. Which is a little bit different from simply separating oneself completely from society. Secondly they have a strong tradition wherein the children don’t actually become members of the community until they’re around 21. The teen age years are considered times to, well, experiment. I seriously doubt that the parents are considering this as an option in this case. Only after the children-of-amish-parents have gone through a phase of seriously experimenting with mainstream society are they allowed to make the decision to become Amish. (Remember the whole Amish-dealing-cocaine thing? Well, the people who were part of the drug dealing ring were in this phase)
So yes, there is a pretty significant difference between the Stepford parents, and the Amish(and conservative mennonite sects).
Define “abusive” for me, willya? You have an idea of what qualifies as abuse, yes?
Why should the government (read: we, the people) get involved in childraising at all? Hey, if parents want to beat the crap out of their kids, why should I care? None of my business . . .
I was just wondering how you go about making judgments when there is no outcome yet? What I see is a bunch of sniveling whiners complaining that these people are choosing to raise their kids differently.
The worst thing that will happen to these kids is that when they do leave the nest they will find that the world is a whole lot worse than they could have imagined. It seems that they will have the skills to function. They could go to a Christian college, take jobs with companies that hire from such places (my brother got his first job this way - much more liberal branch of christianity, btw.) and find a conservative church.
WRT Amish. My understanding is that there is a tacit understanding that teens will experiment. The church fathers do not condone it. They have come under fire for hypocrisy for overlooking indulgences. But I must apologize, when I read the other thread I thought that there was a group of christians doing this, not just one family. Sorry.
There is a verse in the Bible:
It does seem that these folks are teaching their children to be as shrewd as doves as well as innocent as doves.
I think there is are number of Christians lifing like this. Quoting from the article itself:
There are about 20 million evangelical Christians in the U.S. today; together with fundamentalists, who tend to be more withdrawn from public life and more theologically conservative, they make up about 25 percent of the American population.
(I hope I did not violate any copyright laws by quoting that. If so - Sorry!)
I don’t think that the reporter is saying that 25% of the US is raising their kids this way, but if it is worthy of a profile in the Sunday NYT Magazine, doesn’t that alone indicate there is some sort of movement happening? Perhaps not, but I know myself, just from research connected with my job, that Christian homeschooling and courting is becoming ever more popular; the reporter also says: Only 6 percent of conservative Christians educate their children at home, for instance, though the numbers are growing.
It may not be a fully fledged social revolution, but this sort of lifestyle does seem to be gaining ground, among certain segments of the population.
“WRT Amish. My understanding is that there is a tacit understanding that teens will
experiment. The church fathers do not condone it. They have come under fire for hypocrisy for overlooking indulgences.”
Well, sort of. See, teens aren’t actually, well, Amish. The Amish are part of the Anabaptist tradition, a believers church. Essentially the church fathers have no real bearing in what the teens do, as the teens are not part of the church until they are baptised(which generally occurs around age 21 or so, after the period of experimentation). It’s been my experience that the criticism of them pretty much only comes from people who never quite caught on to this. (of course thats just a personal observation, i’m sure it’s false in some cases)
I believe the family in question is inflicting a grave injustice upon their children. I also believe that it would be a greater injustice for the state to dictate how parents may raise their children beyond situations of clear abuse or neglect. The grey area here is quite large, but I feel the burden is and must remain on the state. For a government to override the wishes of the parents it must be able to demonstrate clearly that the children are suffering objective harm.
[insert Churchill paraphrase here]
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
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