Too Safe to Live Free
To fully understand where I am going on this issue you may want to read my previous blog “Living Free”.
I admit I’ve never been much of a rule follower. It’s gotten me into my fair share of trouble through the years. Now that I am raising children of my own, I try to do my best to be a law abiding citizen; however some of the recent laws being forced upon us are stirring up my rebellious nature.
Ronald Reagan said it well, “Man is not free unless government is limited.”
The more laws we pass, the less free we are. Because of fear (or sometimes loss), this generation of parents seems to be obsessed with making new laws to protect us and our children. What we are not recognizing is that these laws do not really protect us, they enslave us; and the parental rights that we have to raise our children the best way that we see fit are slowly eroding.
One friend of mine doesn’t feel comfortable allowing her child to use swings. Some friends decline vaccines for their children. Another friend insists gluten should be removed from everyone in her family’s diet. Some friends have strong opinions about car seat safety. Wonderful! Skip the swings and shots, eat tofu, and keep your kids rear-facing as long as your heart desires. These choices must remain exactly that, choices!
But for the love of life, please stop trying to force the rest of the world to agree with you by implementing more laws. It is the parent’s job to decide, not the government. People always think new laws are a great idea, when they agree with the laws. What most don’t realize is that with every law, your freedom is stripped away a little more.
Think about an issue that is important to you. Vaccines? Religious freedom? School choice? Do you want the government deciding these things? What if laws were passed forbidding pets? What if the government decides the number of children you should have like they do in China? Or what about laws restricting the food we are allowed to eat.
Sugar is not a necessary part of our diets; let’s do away with that crop. Please, God never let it be illegal to eat chocolate. If one of you sweet readers ever try to get that law passed, my fury will be upon you forevermore.
My friend’s daughters play softball. She told me that this year all the players were required to wear fielder’s masks in the field. If that rule ever trickles down to baseball in our town, that’ll be the year my boys hang up their cups and play something else. Hear me! There is nothing wrong with fielder’s masks for the parents who WANT their kid to wear one. But because of those parents who don’t want their kid to feel like the only child doing it, laws are being passed that force other parents to do things that they feel are unnecessary at the very least.
NJ just passed a stricter car seat law. My Facebook news feed rejoiced over this one. My question is why we need stricter laws. If you want your child to be rear facing longer than the suggested time or in a five point harness until college, than do just that. Why do we need a law making it mandatory for everyone?
I read an article about parents in Maryland who allowed their 6 and 10 year old children to walk home from the park together (about a mile) without adult supervision. This may be totally out of some parent’s comfort zone (mine included) but they were on a sidewalk, in a safe neighborhood during daylight hours. This was something every child that grew up in the 80’s did and we lived to tell about it. Now the police saw this as child neglect and made the parents sign a pledge that the children would remain under constant supervision or the children would be removed from their care. Below is her statement:
“Parenthood is an exercise in risk management. Every day, we decide: Are we going to let our kids play football? Are we going to let them do a sleep¬over? Are we going to let them climb a tree? We’re not saying parents should abandon all caution. We’re saying parents should pay attention to risks that are dangerous and likely to happen. Abductions are extremely rare. Car accidents are not. The number one cause of death for children of their age is a car accident. We take them in the car anyway because we realize that some risks are worth taking.”
Our fear of gunmen entering schools has re- opened the issue of gun control. We are afraid, so we are giving away our rights to bear arms. Our founding fathers gave us that right for a reason. They came from countries where citizen’s couldn’t protect themselves and where the government controlled too much of their lives. So they wrote our constitution to ensure we would not deal with the same slavery they dealt with. Yet, because of our fears, we ignorantly are trading our freedom for more laws that will never make us safer.
States are trying to pass stricter vaccine laws forcing parents to vaccinate their children. I understand that in order for vaccines to work properly most of the population needs to participate. Rather than forcing people to do something they feel is dangerous or unethical, the government needs to convince parents that this is necessary and indeed safe. It needs to remain the choice of the parents. We must be able to decide what we feel is best for our children. It is the force, or the law, that strips away our freedom, our independence.
In North Carolina a few years ago, a school state health inspector made a child eat a school lunch of chicken nuggets instead of her sack lunch because hers didn’t meet state health guidelines. The sack lunch consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich on white bread, potato chips, a banana and apple juice. The school said it was missing milk, a key part of what is considered to be a healthy meal.
Really? Are you kidding me that this sort of thing really happens? Why are the health inspectors inspecting lunches that come from home? What our children eat for lunch should be no one’s business but our own; the parents. If I deem it healthy, the state should not get to veto my decision. Where is the freedom and independence in that? Next the government will be mandating what we feed our children at home too.
A friend told me that this is happening in her district too. The teacher examines everyone’s sack lunch and decides if it is missing any key ingredients. If so they provide them for the child and charge the parents. Our government gives parents the right to choose to kill their unborn child but not the choice of what they can feed their child for lunch. We have some seriously mixed up priorities!
I read two accounts where new laws are written to make it illegal for parents to take their children for counseling to help them deal with sexual or gender identity issues. I’m sure it would be well within my rights to have my boys speak to someone who would tell them that if they feel like girls, they really are. How can it be illegal for a counselor to tell my boys that they are in fact boys, regardless of the way they feel? Again, is it me or are we losing our minds?
Although many Americans have no conviction on these issues, making laws to preclude parents from seeking help for their child is removing your rights too. You may agree with this issue, so you support the law. The fact that the government is controlling this, will eventually affect you as well. Why should the government be able to determine the counsel the parents feel is best for their child?
Even laws on issues you agree with, steal your freedom to parent. They set the standard that it is the government who is in charge of deciding things like what your children can eat, what they can talk about in counseling, where they can walk unattended, how they can travel, and how we can protect them. You have to think beyond that one law to the next logical step. If the government controls this issue, what will it control next?
The American Pediatric Association suggests that children do not have any more than two hours of screen time a day. I would think that most of us parents would agree with that recommendation, however do we need a law passed to make it illegal to watch more than two hours of TV a day? What about the day when you were up with a sick child all night and television is the only thing keeping you sane? Do you want your TV to turn off after two hours because someone other than you, the parent, says it should? Of course not! Then why are we so excited to see more laws passed in other areas of parenting?
There are as many opinions on issues as there are people. If everyone pushes to get a law passed on something they feel strongly about, we have lost the freedom to breathe. How about instead, we chose to live in a society where parents get to decide what they think is best for their children. You are the parent. You can raise your child however you want. When fear passes laws, no one wins.
I realize that I may have offended everyone in this blog: my conservative friends, my liberal friends, maybe all my friends. Know that my intention is not to offend. I want us to be aware of the reasons we are so eager to applaud new laws. Think beyond the temporary reason you might agree with the law, to the lasting effects of raising children in a world where we have no say on how to raise them. That to me is scarier than heights, ticks and even spiders. And that is saying a lot.
So the next time you are asked if you support a law on a ballot, think twice, maybe even three times. Do we really need this law? Or is it pushing us further and further away from the freedom and independence that we celebrate in America? If so, vote no and live free!