What rights are parents really fighting for?
The constant presence of parents is making abuse worse
What I am about to say will sound like a conspiracy theory, but please know that there are real conspiracies out there. The statistical evidence on child abuse is very real. In the United States, parents of a child are the most likely abusers. During the pandemic, when education went virtual, abuse went underreported. Teachers are the people who most often put an end to child abuse. We are the reporters of neglect and physical violence against children. We are heroes and should be honored for our service, but are targeted by parents who protest too much, and project their faults on to everybody else.
![OK Groomer. Ron DeSantis wants to know when underage girls have their menstrual cycles. Why? Is he lining up dates for Matt Gaetz? OK Groomer. Ron DeSantis wants to know when underage girls have their menstrual cycles. Why? Is he lining up dates for Matt Gaetz?](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F72862bc8-9665-4c57-809a-edc1e7d50ac0_666x375.jpeg)
You would think that the parents who complained about having to provide education for their children at home would have been so grateful to teachers when their kids returned to school, but that just didn’t happen. Teachers are under constant scrutiny from parents’ rights groups that want to point fingers at everyone else and call them groomers and pedophiles, and now there is a law in Louisiana that requires the Ten Commandments be placed in every classroom, because nothing quiets abused children like “Honor thy mother and father.” But what has made things so much worse for kids today is that they just cannot get away from their parents. I have never been more grateful to have grown up as part of the latchkey kid generation.
While social media is definitely a factor in the surge of mental health issues plaguing kids in this country, I think it is the ever-present parent and orchestrated prevention of teachers doing their jobs that has contributed the most. Sadly, there has always been child abuse. But in previous decades, at least kids could find momentary escape from their abusers, get educated about what is happening to them through the very books parents are trying to ban, and know that they can count on teachers to help them.
I count myself as a teacher even though I have retired due to disability. I mainly taught adults in a college setting, but I also worked in after school programs, and with both 4H and Girl Scouts. Even though my work with minors has been limited, I still had to intervene to get a child out of an abusive home environment.
It is frightening to teach in a K-12 school. School shootings are very much a real threat, and without serious efforts toward gun control, they will only get worse. Parents pose a more likely threat. I once saw a disgruntled parent pick up a school administrator by his shirt collar. Security was called, and the situation was diffused, but I got the impression that this was a pretty regular occurrence at that school. It was one where I helped out with an after school program. Parents who have to work until 5 p.m. should be thankful this programming exists, but too many try to exert control over their kids even when they are not with them by exerting control over other adults who serve as caregivers and educators.
I will admit that as a child free individual, I have called for parents to shoulder more of the economic burden of education by picking up the tab for transportation. I absolutely hated riding the bus as a kid. I think that the only kids who enjoy riding the bus are bullies who know all too well that the school bus just provides them with a canned hunt of the vulnerable. But having parents drive their kids to and from school, creating long lines of traffic and air pollution, is not a great solution. This doesn’t only replace bus transport, but also walking and cycling.
Too many people have been programmed to see a problem when they see kids walking or cycling, unchaperoned by an adult. It doesn’t seem to matter the age of the child either. Police reports reflect that children deemed old enough to babysit are not even given the privilege to walk by themselves.
The more we build prisons around kids, the more kids will behave like prisoners. God help us all. No one comes out of a U.S. prison rehabilitated. Prisons in the U.S. are criminal factories. That is the product they produce.
Parents’ rights extremists are producing a generation of traumatized, depressed people who are unable to think or do for themselves. If these are the people who will become our leaders and caregivers, then we should all hope not to make it to old age.
I am not saying that all parents are this way, but the parents’ rights parents are bullying other parents to the point that they must move to other states. The bully parents are obstructing other parents from seeking medical treatment for their kids in the same way that they are obstructing teachers and librarians from doing their jobs. The children of parents’ rights people would likely be better off in foster care.
I have to wonder if parents’ rights folks are part of a growing number of parents who regret having children. The societal pressure to procreate is certainly unhealthy, but it is only worsened by this expectation that children be under constant parental surveillance every minute of the day. Good grief! Stranger danger isn’t any more of a threat than it ever was, but instead of educating kids about it the way it has been done for decades, must we go to the extremes of demanding that parents never take their eyes off their children?
The most well-adjusted adults I know have all been allowed a good deal of autonomy in their formative years. They had been left to take care of themselves and siblings for hours at a time. They had several hours of unstructured, unsupervised time with friends each week.
I have thought about volunteering with 4H and Girl Scouts once again, but the trend towards all waking hours being structured and planned disgusted me. When are kids able to form friendships with their peers? The whole scenario presented in the movie The Parent Trap could never happen today. Kids aren’t allowed to be alone together - away from the gaze of adults - ever. Ew. Do these adults who claim to be so afraid of grooming/pedophilia even realize how fucking creepy they are? Poor kids. I feel so sorry for young people these days.
We used to sing, “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other gold.” Kids aren’t being allowed to forge new friendships these days, and the “old friends” are just old people. Seems to me that is what grooming is. What a mess!
You make a lot of really good points. I think this points to the larger problem of no institutional trust. I know some people who kept their kids out of school because of vaccination requirements to attend (this was pre-covid).
There's also a fundamental fear and distrust of strangers in the US that I haven't encountered in other countries. We grew up with an over-representation of the handful of kids that got snatched off the streets. Sometime in the '80s or '90s, network news realized that people would tune in for that, when statistically speaking, kids are far more likely to be hurt or abused by family members or close family friends.
The bus was a nightmare for me, but if it'd been up to my parents to get me to school, I'd have never gotten there. Did I like it? No. Am I grateful to have had access education without their support? Yes.
I would also be considered a latchkey kid (single mother) and many of my friends, even the ones with two parents. Also grateful for my free range upbringing. And my mom was a school librarian and teacher, and they don't shit for respect, especially now.