Should parenting require a license or parenting courses?

[Skippy88]

I think it would be great but hard to implement. The way I see it happening is make it totally optional and put some kind of incentive to take the course just like how you can get discounts on insurance if you take a driving course. Maybe have the course right at the hospital for the convenience factor.

[Grizzly Willy]

How this poll isn't 100% no to both is pretty perplexing.

I have to agree. Our school systems are fucking horrible, and expecting the government to be any better at teaching people how to raise children, especially with threats of persecution if one refuses, is mind boggling.

[vindicatorx]

I don't think the classes should be required but I do think the license should be put into effect.

What happens when you have a accidental birth? Fines, removal of government aid, possible removal of child.

Just because you can have kids doesn't give you the right to have them. I fail to see how you need a license to drive, get married, hunt, fish, own a firearm but everyone thinks oh hey it's completely cool for you to have a bunch of kids you can't support and fuck them up. I'm sorry but where I grew up I see this shit all the time the white trash in Wal Mart calling her 3 year old a "fucking bitch". If they do this shit in public how much worse is it at home?

I see the cycles shitty parent raises kid to be trashy and then they proceed to have shitty kids who they mistreat.
When I worked for the Corrections Department I had multiple lineages in jail. I had 3 generations all arrested on different days, a whole family mom, dad, brother, and sister all in jail at the same time. Yeah I'm sorry some of you think this behavior is acceptable cause personally I do not.

[Iso]

It's harder to get a dog than it is to get a baby, too many retards become parents these days. Programming their kids the wrong way...and they contiune the cycle.

Then you have people who get like 7 kids, and suddenly need all these benefits. Or people who get kids to get certain benefits, pure selfish reasoning.

I don't know, I had a talk with a bunch of friends a while ago, and I had to almost slap some of the girls in the group, some of them seem to care more about themselves become mothers and doing mother stuff than focusing on the kid itself. Kinda like how you would carry around a guitar to look cool, even if you didn't play..nor care about guitars :l

[Woebegone]

It's inevitable. The smartest people lived 2500 years ago. It's been a downward spiral since.

http://www.popsci.com/science/articl...cist-thinks-so

I don't know if you actually read the article and noticed how disputed his hypothesis is.

Also I'd suggest that ANYONE who thinks we're 'devolving' reads up on, for example, "The Flynn effect": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Essentially it's about IQ scores going up ever since we started measuring them, and how the tests have been repeatedly revised so that the average stays at 100. Ofcourse this does not mean that we are getting collectively more intelligent, there are many other possible explanations, but any claims about us getting dumber are equally hard or harder to substantiate.


EDIT: As for the topic itself - an absolute no on both accounts. We've been having babies and raising them for.. I think it's 200 000 years. To suggest that you'd now need a license to do it is absurd.

[lilatia]

Yes, license only. Many many people should just not be allowed to have or even be near children and I don't even mean the usual creeps like pedophiles and such. That being said if you actually need to take a class to do something that should just take a common sense, patience, and a decent set of values then just do not even bother to have kids.

[Windfury]

So the majority of this forum gets completely hysterical at the idea of the government taking their guns, but they're totally fine with the government forcing you to raise your children how they tell you to. Interesting logic is interesting.

[Aeka]

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ire-a-license/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...icensed-parent

As the title says, should parenting require a license or parenting courses?

1. Parenting is one of the most important roles a human being can fill in their lives. A parent's behavior has a direct impact on not only a child's immediate physical and psychological well being, but also that child's ability to one day become a healthy, functioning adult member of society.

2. Bad parenting is very expensive to taxpayers. Neglected and abused children often end up as wards of the court, costing taxpayers millions of dollars each year due to the state being responsible for providing food and shelter for children who end up in the system. Children who develop psychological disorders become less productive members of society as adults as well--abused children are less likely to continue on to college and graduate school, make less income, and are less productive at work in comparison to their peers. The fiscal cost of lost productivity from American workers due to depression and depressive-related disorders alone is estimated to be in excess of $31 billion per year.

3. Bad parenting is arguably more dangerous than drinking, flying a plane or driving a car, yet all three have an age requirement and 2 out of 3 require licensure. Why not parenting?

4. Regulation of who can or cannot parent would potentially be extremely difficult to do and can be very expensive, and may be seen by some as invading upon our basic human rights.

To do this, you need to replace the word "parenting" with the word "sex."

[Thunderball]

No law will take the human right to have children (assuming the human is physically capable). It's not something you can permit, you can only accept the fact that there is a child. The only thing for the state to regulate here is how the children should be cared of.

[Shiny212]

In an ideal world.

[outflow]

This reminds me of a few year's ago when my local council was planning to take my friend's unborn child of him when it was born because his partner had mild learning difficulties. She seemed perfectly normal to me.

They ended up moving to Ireland to avoid this and are doing perfectly fine now.

Their story was in the paper a few times: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...b-mother-97319

[Thunderball]

Then you have people who get like 7 kids, and suddenly need all these benefits. Or people who get kids to get certain benefits, pure selfish reasoning.

It should be based purely on state demographic policy. If you have a country with a low reproductive rate and a huge immigration problems (like US or most of the EU countries) you should support people who can raise a lot of children. Could be various reasons why people do that but you are not gonna get rich on welfare and you gotta really love kids to do it. Sure, there are some perverts but they are a very small minority, and unfortunately the minority always gets all the attention.

[Kurioxan]

My answer would be... yes, everyone should have parenting courses.
Nothing too harsh, but pointers.
THe amount of abuse, mistreating and neglect done to kids is quite a lot nowadays, and they will grow into that and repeat it all over again.

[Austilias]

The government can take away your kid(s) after they're born, if you are deemed to be an unfit parent due to abuse/neglect etc, so why in theory could/should they not do so before they're born?

I required a police background check for my current job, but in theory the job of being a parent is the most significant/important of all.

I'm personally against the idea, but when you think about it the idea is not without merit.

[Deleted]

Wow I guess those that voted YES have no children..... Why on earth would you choose yes to yet another idea to interfere with our lives? I would say poke the licence where the sun don't shine we have done fine bringing up our children otherwise we would be in a pretty fucking sorry state right now.


Monging idea.....

[poser765]

Driving a car is not a right.

Opening a restaurant is not a right.

Those are privileges. Procreating is a right, and as such needs no other criteria to be carried out. I don't need a permit go to church or to speak freely.

That's my number one issue with this shitty idea. Next, I would like someone to define what bad parenting is. Can anyone do it? My parents took my to McDonald's a LOT when i was growing up. Arguably bad parenting. I turned out just fine without being a burden to the state or society nor would I consider my parents bad for it.

Also, and this is IMPORTANT people, bad parents aren't always bad parents because they lack the education to be other wise. They are bad because they choose to not care about their children. If I am going to abuse my child, or neglect him, it's not because I didn't know that kids need food, it's because I am a crummy person who just doesn't put my kids first. It has NOTHING to do with education, or Licensing.

This is akin to taking cold/flu medication to treat a broken bone.

[Deleted]

parenting classes are a good idea, but not mandatory classes. and license? hell no. how do you even enforce that?

[Noomz]

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ire-a-license/

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...icensed-parent

As the title says, should parenting require a license or parenting courses?

1. Parenting is one of the most important roles a human being can fill in their lives. A parent's behavior has a direct impact on not only a child's immediate physical and psychological well being, but also that child's ability to one day become a healthy, functioning adult member of society.

2. Bad parenting is very expensive to taxpayers. Neglected and abused children often end up as wards of the court, costing taxpayers millions of dollars each year due to the state being responsible for providing food and shelter for children who end up in the system. Children who develop psychological disorders become less productive members of society as adults as well--abused children are less likely to continue on to college and graduate school, make less income, and are less productive at work in comparison to their peers. The fiscal cost of lost productivity from American workers due to depression and depressive-related disorders alone is estimated to be in excess of $31 billion per year.

3. Bad parenting is arguably more dangerous than drinking, flying a plane or driving a car, yet all three have an age requirement and 2 out of 3 require licensure. Why not parenting?

4. Regulation of who can or cannot parent would potentially be extremely difficult to do and can be very expensive, and may be seen by some as invading upon our basic human rights.

How can we know that the people who decide such things make the right decisions? We can't. That's why something like you suggest would never work. People make mistakes and what applies to one person might not apply to another. We don't need even more regulations that don't care about the individual.

[ptwonline]

Not sure how you could possibly enforce it without doing things that could be completely detrimental like taking kids away, cutting off benefits which negatively affects the kids, etc.

The main problem with education campaigns is that the people who really need them the most also seem to be the least likely to partake in them unless forced somehow. This may work for something that is considered a privilege (like driving a car), but for something that is considered a natural human right and almost impossible to stop without invasice interference (pregnancy and childbirth) I don't see how you can enforce it without going to some unpalatable extremes.

The best way seems to be to do it while kids are still in school. But of course some parents get freaked out by anything revolving around sex, so it gets limited.

[isuridedes]

It's too slipper a slope to ever become a reality. Being a parent is not a black and white job where things are EITHER good OR bad. There are plenty of children who grow up in 'bad' households who are themselves quite well adjusted, and vice versa. If one tried to implement mandatory parenting courses it would have to be watered down to such base instructions as "Feed your child", "Don't put pillows on your child's face", and my personal favorite "Don't throw your newborn like a football".

Do some people DESPERATELY need that information? Yes. Do they account for enough of the population to warrant new government programs? I sincerely hope not.