From the Radio Free Michigan archives ftp://141.209.3.26/pub/patriot If you have any other files you'd like to contribute, e-mail them to bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu. ------------------------------------------------ 'BIG BROTHER' AFTER MOM AND DAD EXPERTS SEEK LICENSE TO MONITOR PARENTS ======================================= By Don Feder of HUMAN EVENTS Jack C. Westman, you are one scary dude. A professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, Westman would be Dr. Death for the American family if his prescription for licensing parents is adopted. In his new book, LICENSING PARENTS: CAN WE PREVENT CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT?, Westman declares what others in the child abuse industry have only intimated: Parenthood is a priviledge, not a right. After sighting the usual inflated statistics of childhood trauma, Westman bemoans the fact that today any man and woman can procreate without demonstrating the "minimal competence" needed to get a driver's license. Aside: Why do liberals assume that state certification is a quality control? Only 40,000 highway fatalities and several million collisions a year demonstrate government's inability to weed out automotive incompetents and motorized maniacs. Back to Westman's pernicious proposal, implementation of which "won't compromise the right of each woman and man to conceive and each woman to give birth," he assures us. That assurance is contradicted several chapters later when basic qualifications for parenting are promulgated. These include an age requirement and a promise to support and care for the child. "The third, possibly optional [note how slyly this is slipped in], criterion would be completion of a parenting course or its equivalent." Here, presumably stupid middle- class parents would be disabused of their prejudices and indoctrinated in the latest parenting techniques of academic theorists. The license could be revoked at any time, not in a criminal but a civil proceeding. Instead of the state being compelled to prove abuse or neglect, families would be required to demonstrate a threshold level of "parental fitness." SLAPPING HER CHILD GETS MOM ARRESTED Just how insidiously this might work can be seen in the Kivi case. In July, Georgia resident Lynn Kivi was arrested when a store clerk reported that she slapped her bratty nine-year- old in the mouth. The child confessed he had it coming. Other than a momentary sting, there were no ill effects. Still, after admitting that she struck her son, the 35-year- old woman was arrested, handcuffed and charged with a felony (cruelty to children) that could have resulted in a 20-year prison term. On realizing the absurdity of the situation, the authorities dropped all charges. Under Westman's parent licensing law, the state would be relieved of the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt. After creating a suspicion in the minds of administrators, Kivi would be compelled to demonstrate parental competence. Her children could be seized and farmed out to foster care. Then again, her family might be subjected to such modest intervention as home visitation - regular supervision by teams of officious social workers over months or years. Having been bombarded with tales of all-too-real tragedies, the public thinks it knows what experts mean by "abuse." For these innocents, Dana Mack's article - "Are Parents Bad for Children?" - in the March issue of COMMENTARY is required reading. Mack points to the ever-expanding definition of abuse and neglect in books like TOXIC PARENTS and WHEN PARENTS LOVE TOO MUCH. Besides life-threatening beatings, according to the experts, child abuse can include spankings, too many breakfasts at McDonald's, restricting TV viewing, constant scolding, with- holding affection and too much affection (thought to foster dependence). SPANKING CHILDREN BECOMES 'ASSAULT' As for physical punishment as mild as a swat on the behind, James Garbarino, of the Erickson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development, insists: "Assault is what it is. Let's not call it discipline." Perhaps Garbarino will be one of the eminent authorities called on to devise the criteria for parent licensing. Professionals believe most families are sick and in urgent need of therapy. Mack quotes an article in a popular parents' magazine that advises: "If we live in America in 1992, we are more than likely the product of a dysfunctional family system, carrying our pain into our new family." Interventionists have some powerful allies in the Clinton Administration. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno - described by her hometown newspaper as "part crime fighter, part social worker" - says it's up to the federal government to make sure families are "taught parenting skills." Westman's scheme will find a receptive audience among the legion of social planners, child-protection bureaucrats and politicians eager to mount a final assault on the ultimate bastion of freedom. G. K. Chesterton observed that the family is "the only check on the state that is bound to renew itself as eternally as the state, and more naturally than the state." Parent licensing is a mandate for government to regulate, manipulate and ultimately eradicate our best hope for preserving decency and liberty. Source: Human Events Dec. 2, 1994 ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Radio Free Michigan archives by the archive maintainer. All files are ZIP archives for fast download. E-mail bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu) Other sites are invited to mirror these files, with attribution to RFM.