Should Parenting be Licensed? A Very Tricky Question.

The Government should not even be involved in giving out Drivers' Licenses, let alone Parenting Licenses. The ultimate goal here is less Government involvement, not more. And who are these gatekeepers who will be responsible to administer such a program? A bunch of hypocritical crappy parents of course.

[edit on 10-8-2009 by SphinxMontreal]

reply to post by fraterormus


Well the closets were not nice. It was very small and maybe only big enough to fit a few jackets in. And it doesnt matter if the closet had a golden rug and furniture, 6 month old twin babies shouldnt be left alone in a house by themselves for the whole night, especially in a small closet.

Originally posted by SphinxMontreal
The Government should not even be involved in giving out Drivers' Licenses, let alone Parenting Licenses. The ultimate goal here is less Government involvement, not more. And who are these gatekeepers who will be responsible to administer such a program? A bunch of hypocritical crappy parents of course.

[edit on 10-8-2009 by SphinxMontreal]

Does anyone really understand what they are saying - when they say less government?

Humans left to their own devices?

Yes, good idea. Let's force parents to take classes on how to raise their children, the Uncle Sam way. Why stop there? How about how to dress the uncle sam way, how to eat the uncle sam way, how to spend the uncle sam way. Let's just invite obama, and pelosi, and every one else into our homes so they can affect our every day lives even more than they have. They're already doing such a bang up a job with everything else. Let's do it!

Oh great, let's make parenting have a license requirement so that they can micro-manage our lives even more. Bravo! Of course not! Driving is a product of human invention, you have to learn to operate it correctly so that you don't end up crashing into everything. Parenting is natural, seeing as humans have been able to do it since the beginning. There are abuses, yes, but there will always be people out there who aren't fit to be parents. But why punish all the good parents out there for the actions of a few? This isn't a tricky question at all, it's an easy one to answer and that is no way.

This would give government agencies more control, and it's bad enough that these people can show up at your door and snatch your kid if they even think you are mistreating your child even if there is no proof. Also, even though other licenses, such as the drivers is pretty cheap, who knows what they would charge for parenting so the sky would be the limit and something tells me they would not make it cheap. So it would be yet another way to make money off of us.

As a newly politically aware person, I have been discussing this EXACT subject with many of my family members and friends over the past year.

I proposed people being temporarily sterlized at a certain age and having to pass a licensing course involving

1. Mental Capacity
2. Financial Stability
3. Emotional Stability

Also, how about these countries you see on TV where they keep popping out babies so their stomachs and swell from hunger and the flies can buzz around their faces (which makes for great "send money now" commercials)

Why not limit them to 1 kid per breeding pair until they figure out how to make more food?

I am a libertatian, yet I am very much for breeding licenses and selective breeding

reply to post by LexTalionis


I always thought Libertarians were all about respecting peoples privacy? If that's the case then how could you be a Libertarian and support this? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything, I'm just genuinely curious. I can see the reason's why people are for sterilzation, and I'm around the examples on a daily basis, but I still personally have a problem with it. Maybe it's because I feels like a major personal violation of a humans right, but that is only my opinion on it. I guess I'm even more biased toward sterlization even more so lately because I have a little one on the way this winter.

reply to post by kiwifoot


Firstly, you are comparing having children to a car. Bad comparison.

I have to ask. Do you have kids?

criminal background check

I know I did not go into an explanation as to why this is a bad idea. So here you go. A few great example as to why this is such a bad idea...

1. War veterans. Many come home very violent with PDS., and yet have no past criminal record. They wont even show they have PDS until something makes them snap. My dad had this from Vietnam. Made him a very irritable person when I was growing up. We did not get along, and fought very much. My brother and sister paid the price fot it far worse than I because they were not his kids and he had to raise them. Not to mention he was a little 21 year old kid with all this stress being placed upon him directly after the war. But do you or the state have the right to determine if he is a worthy parent?

And actually the state did. They took my much older brother and sister away at a young age. Just as they should have. Proof as to the system that is already in place working. No need for a newer larger much more expensive one.


2. Having a child can literally change your life. It did mine. Stopped partying, drinking heavily and pretty much all drugs and bad habits for the most part. Made me realize what is important in life.

3.Wrongly convicted criminals...dont think it happens all the time? huh..you need a reality check...now these people who did their time have to pay for it doubly by not being allowed to have children because some asshole at the dmv (or where ever you would go for the "license" ) checks there background and deems them unworthy of having children??

What if they did have some accurate charges in their background but are born again christians and desire more than anything in the world to have a child with their loved one. You going to tell them they cant? Who gives anyone that kind of authority? The president? God? Your mayor? That is a big no, no and hell no.

Fees.

How about the good poor people who cant afford all the stupid fees there already are for regular life...now they have to come up with an extra however much? $100, $200, $300?? because some piece of # beaurocrat says they must have a license? Never gunna fly...


Pathetic. Im sorry their guy, but the idea is horrible. I know Im blunt... Probably get it from my father (just to clarify who loved me very much and did the best he can). I get your well placed intentions on keeping children from suffering, but licensing is not the way to go...

Bringing the government even farther into our lives is not the way to go.

Educating and changing the hearts of society is the only way to go...making a big fat bearocracy out of having a child will never work...just like it doesnt work with anything else...

[edit on 10-8-2009 by open_eyeballs]

Originally posted by LexTalionis
As a newly politically aware person, I have been discussing this EXACT subject with many of my family members and friends over the past year.

I proposed people being temporarily sterlized at a certain age and having to pass a licensing course involving

Great post - but I don't think you need to take it "over there".

Planet resources and over population require an intelligent plan.

IMO - the "we should be able to do anything we want" - - is archaic and irresponsible.

reply to post by open_eyeballs


Did I say, these people cannot have kids..NO..did I say they will be punished...NO..I said these people should be helped and guided more than people with no history of ABUSE, and Violence.

Have I got kids?

No mate, but I have been abused, sexually and physically, and I tell you what, your precious right to feel free, and the precious rights of those who maybe don't deserve to have thier background flagged, doesn't mean squat compared to my right when I was 6, 7 and 8 not to be treated like a piece of crap.

It's you who don't know what you're on about mate, quite seriously.

reply to post by kiwifoot

Did I say, these people cannot have kids

No. I didnt say you did. You are saying the government gets to decide who gets to have kids.

Thats a big time no deal.

did I say they will be punished...

Having the legal right to have kids taken away from them is a punishment...

I said these people should be helped and guided more than people with no history of ABUSE, and Violence.

No you said people should be made to have to get a license. Do I need to quote you?

Again, I understand your well placed intentions. there are already programs who try and teach and educate people about child raising. There are abuse classes and child protective services. Why are these not enough for you?

I have been abused, sexually and physically,

That sucks. I know what it is like to be physically abused. It sucks. people make mistakes. Peolpe suck alot of the time, but if you think adding the element of big government eve farther into your life will siolve the problem, well then you got a nother thing coming...

And there are already flag systems for sexual predators and people with violent criminal pasts. All sexual predators that have been convicted of a sex crime have to register in local and national databases...

Plus woman have their own creep "radar"...they get to know there partner, and that usually is eough to weed out the nutjobs... you dont need the government doing it for you...

reply to post by Darth Lumina


You cant be a libertarian and support this..

Its against everything libertarians stand for...

reply to post by LexTalionis

I proposed people being temporarily sterlized at a certain age and having to pass a licensing course involving

1. Mental Capacity
2. Financial Stability
3. Emotional Stability

Also, how about these countries you see on TV where they keep popping out babies so their stomachs and swell from hunger and the flies can buzz around their faces (which makes for great "send money now" commercials)

My view is that anyone with a proper mental capacity and emotional stability would never, ever even suggest such a thing.

A) Mental capacity does not mean you will be a good parent. Some of the most cruel are those whose mental capacity outweighs any capacity for empathy or kindness.
B) Financial security does not ensure you will be a good parent just as financial insecurity does not necessarily mean you will be a bad parent. Not all child abusers are poor by any means, they are in every walk of life.
C) Emotional stability? Now who would judge that? If everyone had to undertake psychological profiling that would in effect mean that most politicians, all of the elite and most high up in business, law and the whole corporate world would never be allowed to entertain the thought of ever having children...so in that case I would think it a good thing.

But how that thought can ever be seen as libertarian is beyond me as it is totally in line with the Nazi eugenics thinking and plans that will soon be enacted upon everyone.

Have you never thought that we are all equal? Have you never thought that the world belongs to everyone not just a few select people? And if such a plan came into force it would mean a world full of selfish, smug, self centred unfeeling monsters who believe they are better than, if not everyone else, then at least better than those that have less than them. Better to ask why are those kids starving to death rather than condemning them. I will give you a clue, it has nothing to do with their parents.

Like you said, it's easier to pop out a human being than it is to adopt a dog. I think that will always be true.
I would say yes to a preliminary parenting evaluation however this directly abandons each person's free will to choose to have a child and experience that happiness. It would be too intrusive upon that individual/family. There are too many people who would never agree to such a thing, based simply off of their religion.

Most religions offer pre-marital consulting to couples just for this reason. If a couple cares enough about their future family, they will PREPARE and understand what they are getting themselves into.

I still believe that the way you are raised within your first 2 years of life are critical to how you will conduct yourself and your family in the future.

Say you are raised on McDonald's as a child, you will most likely eat it as an adult. I've seen a young female feed her newborn McDonald's vanilla soft serve. Shocked I told myself: survival of the fittest.

If you're so poor that you even need Government/Taxpayer support to begin raising your first child, than live within your means and do not continue to create new human beings.

But if a person is obviously uneducated and has $ signs in their eyes by squeezing every Taxpayer penny out of the government (and believe me they're out there) and receiving more Taxpayer money for having more unnecessary babies, than I believe that these people should receive a consequence for their actions if they are unable to be responsible for maintaining a specific level of non-government income. There should be a consequence or CAP on baby money and after your 5th baby, there's no more free cash, that's it.

If someone can't handle that and is incapable of maintaining a specific standard of life or poverty level for the sake of their children, then they should be sterilized.


This topic walks the fine line of church and state.

And who do you think is capable of makeing that kind of a decision, I don't know about the UK but here in America we have this idea of rights and the ability to make choices for yourself. If you want children and will love them and take care of them to the best of your ability , thats all the license you need. Being given a license to do something means you've been given permission, Screw that I say!!! I'm a free man and I give myself permission.

Originally posted by zer0pro
If you want children and will love them and take care of them to the best of your ability

There is not ONE unselfish reason for bringing another person into this world.

There is not ONE unselfish reason for having a baby.

You talk about Love. If Love is really the motivating force - - no one who is serious about love would force this world on another human being.

Beyond that - - if everyone was responsible with their Free Choice and Will - - they would make damn sure they had the resources to fully raise and educate a child. And I don't mean working two jobs and leaving the kid with someone else to raise.

Choice needs to be backed by responsibility.

Tricky question? NO, it is not.
Parenting should NOT be licensed. The end. There are crappy parents and some of them breed crappy children.
Hey, guess what, life can be difficult and full of danger. I'm tired of everyone in everyone else's business.
Licensing a natural human function....
Hey, who gets to decide who is allowed to have children? Which one of us is up to snuff to be a child-rearer? Enough with licensing and laws about everything. Let people live.

I find it interesting - - those STUCK on - - "its a natural human function".

That's very modern/today - - - the act and pleasure of sex - - - takes priority over the resulting consequence - - with no thought to responsibility.

Originally posted by Annee[/i

You talk about Love. If Love is really the motivating force - - no one who is serious about love would force this world on another human being.

Whats wrong with "this world" shure its got some big big problems. Hell I am poor, hungry, barely employed and about out of smokes but life is still awesome,and alot of its awesomeness is because of my children. If your unhappy with the world... leave. Whiners and supporters of fascist policys will not be missed anyway.
Beyond that - - if everyone was responsible with their Free Choice and Will - - they would make damn sure they had the resources to fully raise and educate a child. And I don't mean working two jobs and leaving the kid with someone else to . #1 FREE CHOICE = FREEDOM TO MAKE BAD CHOICES. #2 Just because a parent doesn't have every resource at there fingertips does not mean the governmet can do a better job of raising children. No man/woman/government has the right to tell you if you can have children! + accidents happen I have 2 awesome accidents. Also, whats to come of babies born to parents without a "license" humm?? They will be taken from the parents and put in foster care ... we all know how good the system is for children. Will they make unlicensed parents abort mabey? Some manditory sterilization for all those that don't qualify?? That
's where this will get you. (cant get these quotes right to buzy to fix )

[edit on 10-8-2009 by zer0pro]