Should Parents be Subjected to Licencing - Essay Example

?Should Parents Be ed to Licencing? Children are very vulnerable to their parents’ quality of care. How a child grows and develops is very much dependent on his parent’s provision of love, guidance and basic needs. Parenting skills should be honed in order to raise children well to be the kind of persons they have been envisioned to be. La Follette (1980:182) contends that parents should pass the qualifications of good parenting and earn for themselves a license before they can take on the responsibility of becoming parents to their children. If so many other jobs or skills require a licence before individuals can engage in them, then how much more the most important job in the world, which is parenting? In the hands of parents lie their children’s future because how they mold their children will create a great impact on the children’s lives. LaFollette has argued that a license is necessary when the activity to be engaged upon is potentially harmful to others. Much like a driver needs to secure a driver’s license before driving a car because driving is potentially harmful to others, parenting is argued to likewise be potentially harmful to children especially if the parents are not qualified to raise them (183). The second argument for a licensing program for parents is that their competence should be proven in order to ensure a safe performance of their duties as parents (183). What if they are not adept in caring for another individual, especially a young child who is totally dependent on them for all his needs? What if they do not have what it takes to equip the children with the necessary skills to survive when they grow up and go out into the world? What would become of these children? A third argument for licensing is that there should be a reliable procedure for testing such competence (184). LaFollette explains that when the first two arguments are met, that of parenting being potentially harmful indeed to others especially to children, and that the parents’ competence is questionable, then parents become legitimate subjects for licensing. If all three arguments are met, then it becomes imperative to issue licenses to qualified parents. Since children are highly valued by society, their welfare is given utmost consideration. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) declares that "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth" (Article 2.2), Article 2.2 further details, “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members.” This implies that if children are left in the hands of irresponsible parents, then the state will do everything to protect children from any potential harm that may be inflicted by such parents. This is to ensure that they will be kept safe and put in an environment where they can grow and develop into well-adjusted and healthy individuals that can be productive and contributory citizens to society in the future. Studies have shown that children who grew up under abusive or negligent parents have strong tendencies to develop the same behaviors with their own children due to the constant exposure they got when they were young. Anda et al (2005:174) discussed in their study that the traumatic experiences of abused or neglected children often stays on with the victims into adulthood. Some children may never fully recover from the trauma, resulting in lifelong depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. Other individuals may be predisposed to engage in prostitution, pornography, drug abuse, or crime. The long-term consequences of child maltreatment can be so devastating that it has been called "soul murder" (Shengold, 1989:43). In order to prevent this, Article 19 of the UNCRC requires that “States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation including sexual abuse, while in the care of parents, legal guardians or any other person who has the care of the child.” This is why the parenting license proposed by LaFollette is justified. On the other hand, several parents may argue that they have their own rights in raising their own children and that the state should not interfere. This is communicated under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which states that: 1. “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence’’. 2. ‘‘There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right as is in accordance with the law and is necessary for a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of crime and disorder, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedom of others’’. (European Convention on Human Rights :Article 8). Still, when parents use such an argument in defending their rights over the state’s interference with the upbringing of their children, both parents and court should not lose sight of the fact that the children, who are the focus of the dispute may have rights and interests of their own which need proper assessment and deliberation, as this usually gets lost in the adults’ perspectives. (Fortin, 2006:25) Once an individual becomes a parent, it does not necessarily follow that he would instinctively know how to raise a child well. Perhaps, biologically, mothers would know how to address the physical needs of their babies due to the bond they developed from the womb. Benatar (1999:175) argues that mere genetics cannot impose responsibilities for child rearing. Children need a great deal of care to ensure that they are protected from harm. Apart from being kept well-fed, clean and well-clothed as well as provided with adequate shelter and education, they also require instruction and nurturing in order to flourish. Benatar also asserts that the weight of child-rearing goes beyond these provisions related to the child’s interests, but should likewise involve moral education so he himself will not be a potential danger to society when he grows up (176). These requirements demand much from parents, and in order for them to efficiently carry out their duties and responsibilities, they should have enough maturity, stability, patience and access to resources on top of the love and affection they can naturally provide their children. Not all biological parents can say they have all these in order to fulfill the requirements of child-rearing. For some, having the best intentions for the welfare of their children and doing everything they can to address and meet their needs may be enough. Such subjective qualities of parents make it difficult to standardize the criteria for licensing parents. This challenging feat in creating a licensing program strengthens some objections to it. The fact that it is proposed to be implemented even before a parent experiences parenthood of his or her own biological children may be unfair and propagate premature judgment on individuals who may fail the licensing test but actually have potentials in becoming great parents. With regards to adoption, however, it is imperative that thorough evaluation of prospective adoptive parents be done before they can be considered by the adoption agencies. Adoptive parents who are not related to the child by blood may come from various backgrounds, some of which may be inappropriate and may indirectly impact their child-rearing skills. For example, a prospective adoptive parent may have a history of mental illness which may manifest later when the child is already in their custody. This possibility does not exclude biological parents. This raises the question of why non-biological parents need to go through meticulous assessment but biological parents do not. Biological parents have been assumed to have a natural parenting instinct that prevents them to harm their children and ensure their well-being. However, this does not hold true for some who have been found to be unfit parents who subject their children to abuse and neglect. LeFollet mentions that research has found that adoptive parents are five times less likely to maltreat or inflict harm on their children than biological parents. Still, imposing a licensing program even for biological parents challenges the common belief that parents have ownership or natural sovereignty over their children, thus they have the authority to rear them as they please. In any case, LeFollet, like the UNCRC, emphasizes the well-being of children as the utmost priority in parenting, whether by biological or adoptive parents, and he advocates licensing parents as a way to ensure it. Although he admits that such licensing program may not be feasible, he still suggests ways to encourage it such as providing benefits to licensed parents like tax incentives. Non-licensed parents are not prevented in performing their duties and responsibilities in raising their children, but should be open to being subjected to protective services’ scrutiny by the state to make sure that their children are kept safe from harm and that they are good parents. Works Cited Anda, R. F., V. J. Felitti, J. D. Bremner, J. D. Walker, C. Whitfield, B. D. Perry, S. R. Dube, and W. H. Giles, “The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood: A convergence of evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology.” European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 256(3): 174–86, 2005. Benatar, D., The Unbearable Lightness of Bringing into Being, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1999 Fortin, J., “Accommodating Children’sRights in a Post Human Rights Act Era”, Modern Law Review, Volume 69 May 2006 No 3., 2006. European Convention on Human Rights, Retrieved on June 13, 2012 from http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html#C.Art8 Lafollette, H., Licencing Parents, Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 182-197, 1980 Shengold, L., Soul murder: The effects childhood abuse and deprivation. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Geneva, United Nations)1989 Read More