Most of us would agree that parenting is the most important job in the world. If you had to fill out an application to get that job would you be hired? While many people instinctively know how to raise a child, many people who become parents have no idea what they are doing.
The 14th amendment to the constitution is interpreted to give people the right to have children and be parents. But something important is missing from the constitution, what about the rights of the child?
It’s a strange balance in our society if you think about how bad a parent is allowed to fail before the state steps in and does something. Many parents screw up again and again, and by the time the state steps in to do something that child or children have been damaged for life. What other job is there in our society that is as important as parenting where we are allowed to fail multiple times before something is done about it? If this were a job you worked at, you’d be fired. If you were in school you’d have flunked out. Yet in the most important job in the world, the so-called rights of the parent outweigh the rights of the child.
So how do we balance the scales here to give children more rights to better parents? If we wait for politicians to solve the problem nothing will ever get done, but there are things we can do to help fix this problem, and we can model them after programs that already exist.
In Minnesota, there is an early childhood family education program that is available to parents statewide. Over 40,000 parents are currently enrolled, which means they are actively doing something to make them better at their job.
There’s an organization based in San Antonio, Texas called Avance that teaches people how to be parents. They have grown to several cities around the country. Minnesota’s program is state-funded; Avance is privately funded.
Overcoming Obstacles provides educators with research-based, award-winning and free life skills curriculum—enough materials for every day of kindergarten through 12th grade. By doing a better job of reaching out to kids we are able to break the cycle of bad parenting and give kids a chance of growing up to be better parents and raise a good family.
Ideally, parent education and life skills would be offered to everyone across the country. But it won’t happen on its own. As a society, we have to acknowledge and take action on the fact that parenting is the most important job, and we can’t expect people to be able to succeed at it without offering support. So let’s do something about this.
Our film License to Parentwill be available for all to see in the next few months. We encourage you to Like our Facebook page and sign up for our newsletter so we can tell you how you can watch this important film.
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