Diane Robertson
Parental rights come naturally from the conceiving, birthing and rearing of children. It’s not just a natural right, but a biological right. Children are tied to their parents through care and through genetics. Parents not only have the right to their children because they created them, but because better than anyone else, parents, and this includes adoptive parents, know their children.
Parents have an intimate knowledge of their children in a way that no other adult could possibly have. Some of that knowledge comes naturally through biology and genetics and much more from living with their children and associating closely with their children from the moment they are born.
Better than anyone, parents know:
- Their children’s sleep habits
- What they will and won’t eat
- The typical contents of their diapers
- How they pronounce or mispronounce their words
- What makes them happy
- What makes them sad
- What makes them laugh
- What makes the cry
- If they are clumsy or coordinated
- How they react to strangers
- What they like to read
- What they like to watch
- How they act when they are tired, or angry, or hungry, or wet, or cold
- What they think about the world
- How they will react to different school assignments
The list could be infinite.
More than any other person in a child’s life, parents are at the cross roads. Parents are there when:
- The child is born (duh)
- Every or almost every medical procedure
- When the child is ill
- When the child starts school
- When the child has a first date
- When the child graduates
- When the child gets married
- When the child has their first child
Again, the list could be infinite… and not applicable to any other adult. In fact, no other adult on the planet cares about being there and knowing about anyone else’s child in even a one thousandth of the detail that the parents do.
For example, school teachers, who spend some significant time with children, actually know very little of these details of each of their students, and they will not be there at most if any of the cross roads of the child’s life. Think about this: unless the class is very vocal, it isn’t very likely that a teacher would be able to recall the favorite color or favorite food of each student. But the parents can without pause.
Scotland, however, has decided that parents are not good enough. They have passed a law in which each child in the nation will have a “named person” assigned to them from birth until 18 years of age.
This “named person” will be a health worker from birth until school age and a teacher there after. This means that not only does the “named person” have very little internal knowledge of the child they are named to, but the “named person” could change yearly. Oh and these “named persons” that will have some significant authority over the children will be over a lot more children than even the most fertile of couples in Scotland.
The government cannot do a better job at raising children than parents. God has already named two people to raise and care for children. They are called mother and father. Sure when that fails, it is nice to have an institution in place to care for children. But ask a child who loves them the most and you are guaranteed not to hear, “the government”.