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Posts Tagged ‘Education’

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Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child

In 04 Fr. John McCloskey on 2013/08/01 at 12:00 AM

by Anthony Esolen – published by ISI Press, 2010

A Book Review by Father John McCloskey

Perhaps the cattiest quote of all time was Mary McCarthy’s summation of Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.” After finishing Anthony Esolen’s Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child (ISI Press, Wilmington, 2010), I would apply McCarthy’s quote to Professor Esolen, with the crucial substitution of “a truth” for “a lie.”

Anthony Esolen is a graduate of Princeton, professor of English at Providence College, and translator and editor of the Modern Library edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy. A man of erudition and one of the world’s experts on Dante, Esolen signals with this book his presence in the top rank of authors of cultural criticism, following in the footsteps of Richard Weaver, Walker Percy, Russell Kirk, John Senior, Christopher Lasch, and Roger Scruton. A father and a man of strong Christian convictions, he nourishes a great love of the West—and of that America that anyone over 60 remembers and anyone under 50 knows only through old movies. And he thinks that West is rapidly, and permanently, fading away.

He’s targeting an audience of educators and parents. He wants to save the imagination of children from a culture of death that, even when it permits physical survival, kills the human imagination.

If we loved children, we would have a few. If we had them, we would want them as children, and would love the wonder with which they behold the world, and would hope that some of it might open our own eyes a little.

We would love their games, and would want to play them once in a while, stirring in us those memories of play that no one regrets. We would want children tagging along after us, or if not, then only because we would understand that they had better things to do. Yet, for the first time in human history, most people are now doing things that could never interest a child enough to want to tag along.

In ten chapters Esolen outlines the techniques being used to destroy the imagination of children. Similar to C.S. Lewis’s adoption of a devilish persona in The Screwtape Letters, in each chapter Esolen poses as an educator, parent, or government official expressing the outlook and pushing the agenda of quasi-totalitarian brainwashing to ensure the “dictatorship of relativism,” as Pope Benedict describes it.

In his persona as the destroyer of youth, Esolen writes:

We must then kill the imagination. The ideal of course would be to cease having children, but that might have some adverse effect upon long-term economic prosperity, besides threatening certain industries with extinction—the manufacturers of tasteless clothing, for instance, and the importers of refined sugar. Since we must have children, we should be sure to subject them to the most efficient and human techniques to fit them for the world in which they will live, a world of shopping malls, all the same everywhere, packaged food all the same, paper pushing all the same, mass entertainment all the same, politics all the same… I am sure that judicious application of three or four of these methods will suffice to kill the imagination of an Einstein, a Beethoven, a Dante or a Michelangelo.

In his first chapter, “Why truth is your enemy, and the benefits of the Vague,” Esolen in the pose of his evil avatar advises:

How then do we do away with the facts? The first thing is to keep the memory weak and empty… That is because a developed memory is a wondrous and terrible storehouse of things seen, heard and done. The developed imagination remembers a strain from Bach, and smells spinach cooking in the kitchen, and these impressions are not separate but part of an unified whole, and are the essence of creative play… The Greek lad knew his poetry, which was for him also history and moral training, only by memory.

Come to think of it, when was the last time your children or grandchildren ever recited anything for you? For that matter, can you yourself remember (much less recite) any poems, speeches, or passages from novels without the help of immediate access to the Internet? Yes, in this case the majority of us are also victims.

In the “Threat Outside the Door,” Esolen’s anti-imaginative persona observes that few parents grasp the danger of children playing outside.

The most enlightened educators grasp it and have taken steps to ensure that their own children are left to their own devices outdoors as little as possible. They have shortened summer vacation, parceling out free days here and there through the school year. As for the school day itself, both parents and educators want it to be as long as possible.

Parents will accept all of this. Canceling years out of their children’s lives, which otherwise would have to be genuinely lived (with all the risks that that genuine life must run) sounds like a perfectly safe proposition. It also frees the parents. They may, with a clear conscience, go forth bravely and be “themselves” along with millions of others who are being themselves, working at jobs that don’t need to be done among people they don’t really like. That is the Real World, and the routine of the school day and the night of homework prepare us for it.

Other chapters deal with such subjects as patriotism, narcissism and sex; distinctions between man and woman; and the “kingdom of noise.” This book is unfailingly witty and also maddening, reminding the reader of what was our American culture and calling us to take action—whatever that might be—to both conserve and retrieve the rapidly disappearing West. More and more clearly we are facing, as C.S Lewis named it, “The Abolition of Man.”

First appeared on American Spectator Online, July 14, 2011.

©CatholiCity Service http://www.catholicity.com  Re-published with permission.

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Parental Rights:The Guardian of Freedom

In 09 Mary Summa, JD on 2013/05/01 at 12:00 AM

By Mary Summa, J.D.

In 2007, soldiers abruptly entered a home in Germany and took a young boy because his mother chose to home-school him.1 In Scotland, in 2009, the government took custody of a couple’s three and four year-old children because a government bureaucrat had deemed the children “too fat.”2 In September 2009, Swedish authorities stopped a plane about to take-off to remove a seven year-old from his parents because they refused to put the boy in a government-run school.3 These events abroad should give every American pause. In many parts of the world today, families are at the mercy of the government.

Research demonstrates that the traditional, intact family is the best environment to raise children. The intact family is also the protector of political freedom. As communities succumb to the power of the government, the family unit serves as the last barrier between freedom and tyranny. Until recent years in this country, the government befriended the family. Correctly, courts have stepped in and protected children from the small minority of parents who have threatened their children’s well-being.

For the vast majority of families, however, courts and legislatures have protected their autonomy and respected the inherent rights of fit parents to raise their own children as they deem appropriate. Yet, as government’s thirst for power and control increases, the family has become a target. If this assault is not confronted and stopped, precious freedoms will be diminished and eventually lost.

What Are Parental Rights?

Parental rights are powers vested in parents to conceive and rear children free from government control. These rights, recognized by the courts, include: the right to the custody and care of minor children, the right to establish a child’s residence, and the right to direct a child’s moral and spiritual upbringing, education, and medical treatment.

With these rights, come responsibilities, and parents are charged with the responsibility to educate, discipline, support, and protect their minor children.4 These powers emanate from the family—the basic unit of society—which historians and anthropologists believe has existed in every known human society.5 The family is not a creation of government.6

English Common Law adhered to the belief that marriage and family are institutions established by God. Therefore, rights emanating from that institution—parental rights—are natural rights that government was obliged to protect. Parental decision-making was limited by the State only in cases where the parent placed the child in clear and present danger, a strictly interpreted doctrine called the Parens Patriae Doctrine.7

Throughout colonial America, only fathers could enforce these rights. Fathers retained the custodial rights of children, and mothers had little authority to enforce custody or other parental rights.8 In 1944, with the Supreme Court’s decision in Prince v. Massachusetts,9 parental rights were recognized for both the mother and the father. Those rights, as the court recognized, “reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.”10

The family is not a creation of government.

America’s History – Protecting Parental Rights

Traditionally, the U.S. Congress and state legislatures have restrained themselves from trampling on the right of fit parents to rear children free from government control11 When they did stray from this basic tenet, the Supreme Court struck down these laws as unconstitutional. The Court has protected family autonomy and parental rights as being guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment12 and the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment13 to the U.S. Constitution. The courts have recognized that the right to conceive and rear children is a “basic civil right of man,”14 and a right “far more precious … than property rights.”15

In the early to mid 20th Century, the Supreme Court vigilantly protected the right of parents to educate their children as the parent deemed appropriate.16 In 1925, in Pierce v. Society of Sisters,17 the Supreme Court struck down a state statute requiring children to attend public schools. Parents in this case had chosen to send their children to parochial schools, which under state statute violated compulsory education laws. In Pierce, the court stated:

The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.18

Later in 1944, in Prince v. Massachusetts,19 the U.S. Supreme Court, although recognizing the state’s interest in an educated citizenry, underscored the paramount rights of parents to direct the religious training and upbringing of their children:

The custody, care, and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder. And it is in recognition of this that these decisions have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.

In Wisconsin v. Yoder,20 in 1972, the Supreme Court affirmed this common law principle by preventing the state from forcing Amish parents to send their children to school beyond eighth grade. Recognizing family autonomy in the areas of education and religious upbringing, the court rejected the State’s argument that it had a right to “save” the child from the decisions of the parents. The court stated:

The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.21

Without exception, the highest court held fast to the principle that fit parents, not the state, have the primary role of raising and nurturing children. Under the doctrine, Parens Patriae, the State can pierce this wall of protection only when the parent places a child in clear and present danger of harm.

The 1960s witnessed a rise in individual rights movements—women’s rights, children’s rights, homosexual rights, and minority rights. Holding their banners of protest, masses marched on Washington, D.C., demanding equality. Rights are a funny thing, though. They are not asserted in a vacuum. Whether justified or not, when a right is asserted by one citizen or entity, another citizen’s rights are modified, reduced, or even eliminated.

The Children’s Rights Movement

The Children’s Rights Movement, some believe, struck the first crippling blow to family autonomy and parental rights when it roared onto the political scene in the 1960s. Despite, some strides in the early part of the 20th Century in the areas of juvenile justice and labor laws, the movement floundered until the Supreme Court changed course in 1967 with its decision in In re Gault.22 In that decision, the Court extended 14th Amendment Due Process protections to children in juvenile delinquency hearings. For the first time in law, the government recognized children’s rights, separate and apart from parents’. Congress, state legislatures, and courts, however, quickly expanded the standard’s original application to justify a plethora of legislation and court cases in the area of child custody, education, health care, and discipline.

This movement has not been confined to the United States. The conflict between parent rights and child rights was never more apparent than with the 1989 United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The document acknowledges the individual rights of children, which may be separate and distinct from and conflict with parents’ rights.

Article 3 gives administrative or legislative authority to decide what actions are “in the best interest of the child.” Article 12 gives to the child “who is capable of forming his or her own views” the right to express them. The child’s views will be given “due weight,” depending on the age and maturity of the child.23

According to Michael Farris, an attorney and chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, the UNCRC dictates two things: “1. Government can override parental decisions without proof of abuse, neglect or harm; 2. Children have legally enforceable rights to complain about parental decision-making in every area of their life, including religious and educational decisions.”24

Parents who are citizens of countries that have ratified the treaty have lost the unfettered discretion to make decisions on behalf of their children. A parent’s violation of the ‘rights’ of their own children could subject the parent to international condemnation or, worse, punishment.

According to a 2009 Congressional Research Service report, 193 countries have ratified the treaty. The United States and Somolia are the only two countries that have not.25 Consequently, U.S. parents, unlike most parents around the world, do not have to answer to bureaucrats or courts for decisions they make regarding the rearing of their own children.

Scripture and history warn that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Creating conflicting rights within a family—in this case, parent against child—will do nothing but weaken the autonomy and strength of the family, and lead to its demise.

Discipline

As mentioned previously, under the Doctrine of Parens Patriae, the government has always had the right to step in and protect the child from unfit parents. According to one law professor, the government has also used this doctrine to assist parents

in discipline. Called “juvenile status offense legislation,” many states still have truancy laws, curfew laws, and laws dealing with children who perpetually run away from home.26 One could argue that traditionally written statutory rape laws provided parents with a “big stick” solution for boys who took advantage of daughters.

Today, the tables have turned. The government is no longer in the business of assisting parents in their inherent responsibility to discipline. Rather, government is partnering with children to punish their parents. Never, until recently, has the government taken such an active role in pitting children against parents.

A 1980 case illustrates this point. In In re Welfare of Sumney,27 under a Washington State statute, the state granted a 15 year-old’s petition seeking “alter- native residential placement.” Despite the fact that there was no evidence of abuse, neglect or parental unfitness, the State granted the petition citing “the best interest of the child.” In his dissent, Washington State Supreme Court Justice Robert Brachtenbach pointed out when the child was asked why she thought there was a conflict in the home, the child replied, “I just feel there is a communication gap there.” Further testimony revealed that the only “crime” committed by the parents was an insistence that their daughter not take drugs … use alcohol … or be sexually active and that she be in at a reasonable hour.”28 In exchange for asking their daughter to adopt a healthy, moral lifestyle, the parents were denied custody.

Health Care

Under common law, children were viewed as incapable of consenting to all medical treatment. Parents had the exclusive authority to make medical decisions on behalf of their children. In emergencies, parental consent was assumed and did not need to be obtained prior to treatment. In cases of abuse or neglect, common law recognized the right of the government to step in and act as the parent to remove the child from harm.

Abortion. In 1976, in Planned Parenthood v. Danforth,29 the court found unconstitutional a statute requiring parental consent for abortion. Again, in 1979, the Court proclaimed that parents did not have “an absolute and possibly arbitrary” right to veto a child’s decision to obtain an abortion.30

In 1992, however, the Supreme Court changed course and allowed to stand a state statute requiring parental consent for abortion with a judicial bypass, which allows a judge to sign off on a minor’s abortion in place of her parents in some circumstances.31Over the past 18 years, states have responded to this opportunity to restore parental authority over their children’s healthcare. According to a September 2010 Guttmacher Institute report, 34 states require some parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion. Of these states, 20 require parental consent only—two of which require both parents to consent; 10 states require parental notification only—one of which requires both parents to be notified; and four states require both parental consent and notification.32

In 1995, incidentally, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted a statute requiring parental consent for abortion. The law is flawed, however, because it does not require authenticity of the signature by a notary, thus, allowing forged signatures to meet the consent requirement of the statute.33

Contraception. Over the past 30 years, legislators at both the state and federal levels have aggressively weakened parental authority in other areas of children’s healthcare, including healthcare associated with sexual activity. The U.S. Congress has led the charge. Since its inception in 1970, there have been no “parental consent” requirements on monies for Title X of the Public Health Service Act or federal “family planning.” In the 1980s, regulations were promulgated to give parents the right to consent to contraceptives and other services provided by Title X funding. In the 1990s, additional administrative and legislative attempts were made to return to parents their rightful authority to control the health-care of their children. While valiant, all these efforts ultimately failed legislatively or by court challenge.34

State legislators have made some strides in protecting parental authority in relation to minors’ access to contraceptives. According to a January 2011 Guttmacher Institute report, 21 states and

How to Protect the Family

To rebuild the wall protecting family autonomy, we should:

• Enact a marriage amendment in N.C. defining marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman, which serves as the first step to protecting family autonomy.

• Enact federal and state constitutional amendments on parental rights, including an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to bar enactment of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

• Repeal no-fault divorce. • Repeal state laws that deny parents the right to decide all medical

decisions for their children, including drug and alcohol treatment, STD treatment, abortion, and contraceptives, except in cases of emergency and with a judicial bypass if required by case law.

• Expand parental choice in education, through means such as education tax credits.

D.C. give minors unrestrained access to contraceptives without parental consent. Twenty-five states allow a minor access to contraceptives only under certain circumstances without parental consent, and four states require parental consent before a minor can receive contraceptives.35

STD Treatment. Attempts to maintain parental authority over other healthcare related to sexual activity have been less successful. For example, all 50 states and D.C. deny parents the right to consent to their children’s STD services. Eleven of those states retain the right for parents if the child has not reached a certain age (12 or 14). Eighteen of those states allow, but do not require, physicians to inform a minor’s parent that he/she is seeking STD testing and treatment. Although one state requires the physician to inform the parent if the child tests positive for HIV, the other 17 states do not.36 A child may be infected with the deadly HIV virus, and in 49 states, parents are not even notified.

School Health Clinics. For years, children’s rights advocates have further eroded parental authority by setting up healthcare facilities in schools. These clinics have been funded by a menagerie of federal, state, and private funds. Trumpeted as a way to provide better care for children, these facilities are used as referral centers for abortion. On March 25, 2010, Fox News reported that a 15 year-old had used a school-based clinic to obtain an abortion without notifying her mother. The mother reported that her daughter had been told that if she told her mother, the mother would be financially responsible for the abortion. If the daughter kept it secret, she was told the abortion would be free. Without any parental involvement, the school-based clinic called a cab for the girl, which took her to the local abortion clinic where an abortion was performed.37

In March 2010, the federal government authorized the expenditure of taxpayer dollars to further undermine parental authority in the area of their children’s healthcare. With the passage of the new federal health care bill, Congress authorized a

Parents are primarily responsible for directing the education of their children, and have the inherent right to decide whether that education shall take the form of public, private, parochial, or home schooling.

specific program for school-based clinics.38 While the law could have required parental consent for services, it did not. Undoubtedly, these clinics will provide all kinds of services, including contraceptives and abortion referral services, without parental consent.39

Education

Parents are primarily responsible for directing the education of their children, and have the inherent right to decide whether that education shall take the form of public, private, parochial, or home schooling. The Supreme Court in 1925 struck down an Oregon statute requiring all children to attend public school. In that case, the high court made it clear that a fundamental cornerstone of liberty is a parent’s right and duty to make decisions regarding a child’s education.40

For years, the public schools have indoctrinated children with beliefs inconsistent with beliefs taught at home. The assault on parents’ rights to educate their children, however, has never been stronger or more blatant than in the area of home schooling. In recent years, the number of parents choosing to homeschool their children has exploded. It is estimated that 1.5 million children are homeschooled, with some sources claiming that the numbers are really much higher.41 With the rising numbers, teachers’ unions and legislatures have taken notice, and efforts are underway in several jurisdictions to further restrict this option for parents. According to the Home-School Legal Defense Association, in 2008, D.C. was the first jurisdiction to severely limit the right of parents to homeschool. While not banning home schooling entirely, the D.C. City Council decided to regulate it to death. In casting his vote against the plan, one D.C. Councilman reportedly called the government’s new power over home schooling parents “a type of socialism.”42

Custody

Custody of one’s children serves as the cornerstone of family autonomy and parental rights. All other parental rights—to educate, to provide health care, to instill moral and religious values—become insignificant if a parent cannot retain the right to keep a child in his presence. Traditionally, in the area of custody, and following the belief that parents naturally have the best interest of the child in mind, government deferred to the parents on issues of custody. However, with the rise of divorce and the introduction of the “Best Interest of the Child,” the court ultimately decides who assumes custody of children, regardless of the parent’s wishes. In her book, Supremacists, long-time conservative activist and lawyer, Phyllis Schlafly estimates that over 48.3 million American parents are controlled by judges in child custody matters.43

Grandparents’ Rights Movement

While not exclusively a “divorce issue,” the Grandparents’ Rights movement has been catapulted forward, in large part, due to rising divorce rates. Next to children, grandparents are the second victims of divorce when a parent denies them access to grandchildren. It can be heart-wrenching for grand-parents to be told suddenly that they can no longer see their grandchild. As difficult as this reality may be, because they diminish parental rights, grandparent rights to custody and visitation of grandchildren has never been recognized by common law.

The Grandparents’ Rights Movement serves as a new and different assault on parental rights. Whereas other movements, particularly the Children’s Rights Movement, have created conflicting individual rights within the nuclear family, the Grandparents’ Rights Movement seeks to legitimize the right of government to bulldoze the cornerstone of family autonomy and parental rights—the right to custody of children.

Grandparents’ rights organizations formed in the 1980s to persuade legislatures and courts to create visitation rights for grandparents. Initially, these groups set their sights on Washington to solve their problem. Despite Congressional hearings in both the House and Senate in the 1980s,44 Grandparents’ Rights advocates failed to convince legislators to create a “right” to visitation through federal legislation.

Unrelenting, in the 1990s, these groups successfully turned their energies toward state legislatures. In one case, however, the state legislature pushed the pendulum too far. The Washington State Legislature passed legislation that allowed “any person,” relative or nonrelative, to petition the court for visitation rights. In effect, the Washington statute stole from parents, and gave to the government the right to decide custody and visitation for children. Thankfully, in Troxel v. Granville,45 the Supreme Court overturned this state statute as an unconstitutional infringement on parental rights. The Troxel decision dealt a serious blow to the Grandparents’ Rights Movement and the government’s assault on parental authority in the area of visitation.

Today, all states allow some sort of visitation rights for grandparents. These statutes fall into one of two categories: restrictive visitation statutes and permissive statutes. The restrictive statutes allow visitation by grandparents, only if: (1) the child’s parents are divorced or separated, or (2) one or both of the child’s parents have died. Visitation in these states will be allowed only if the court decides that it is in the best interest of the child.

Permissive statutes allow grandparents the right to obtain visitation if the court decides it is in the “best interest of the child.”The “best interest of the child” standard many times requires a grandparent to show evidence of a continual relationship with the child. The parents do not need to be divorced or deceased. A court can step in and force fit parents, living in an intact family, to allow grandparents to visit their children.

In North Carolina, the N.C. Supreme Court reaffirmed the U.S. Supreme Court finding that parents, not government, hold the right to “custody, care and the nurture of children.”46 Only in cases where the nuclear family is disrupted by divorce,

or when a child is adopted by a stepparent or a relative of the child where a substantial relationship exists between the grandparent and the child may a grandparent petition the court for visitation rights to the grandchild.47 Attempts to expand grandparents’ rights have failed.

While the N.C. General Assembly has run roughshod over some areas of parental authority, it has, thus far, restrained itself from meddling in custody and visitation rights of fit, married parents whose children live in intact families.

At a Crossroads

As America continues to turn away from God, the inalienable rights for which her founders fought and died face political extinction. A government that fails to recognize the Author of those rights will refuse to uphold mankind’s inherent right to live or be free. Family autonomy no longer enjoys government’s protection. America is at a crossroads—she can rebuild the strength of family autonomy, or she can continue to sit back and watch as government assaults that wall separating freedom from tyranny. If the latter path is chosen, what is happening to parents in Sweden, Germany, and Scotland, will no longer be a tragedy occuring somewhere else. Rather, it will be a reality at America’s doorstep.v

Mary Summa, J.D., is an attorney in Charlotte, North Carolina, who served as Chief Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Jesse Helms during the 1980s. For a footnoted version of this article, please visit ncfamily.org.

Family North Carolina

Re-printed with permission from the NORTH CAROLINA FAMILY COUNCIL MAGAZINE PUBLICATION.

Originally appeared – “Parental Rights:  The Guardian of Freedom. Family NC. Spring 2011.

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The Pope Emphasizes the Importance of Education in the New Context of Our Age

In 07 Observations on 2013/03/01 at 9:11 AM

The Pope focused on the theme of education, one of the principal challenges of our times and which today is located “in a context in which the evolution of ways of life and forms of knowledge create human, cultural, social and spiritual ruptures hitherto unknown in the history of humanity”.

In this regard, he also mentioned that social networks “tend to substitute natural social and communicative spaces, often becoming the only point of reference for information and knowledge. The family and schools no longer appear to be the primary or most natural fertile ground where younger generations receive the lifeblood of their existence. … Schools and universities seem to have become incapable of creative projects leading to a transcendental teleology able to attract young people in the very depths of their being. … Today’s world and its responsible adults are not able to provide them with the necessary points of reference”.

The Holy Father asked whether the dysfunction of certain institutions and services, both public and private, can be explained “by an inadequately provided and received education”, and went on to invite the governments of the nations represented by the ambassadors “to contribute courageously to the advancement of humanity, favouring the education of the new generations through the promotion of a healthy anthropology, the essential basis for all true education, and consonant with our common natural heritage. This task must take as its starting point a sober review of the various problems that exist within your respective countries, where certain political and economic policies may risk a gradual erosion of your anthropological and spiritual heritages, which have been refined through the centuries and patiently constructed on foundations that respect the essence of the human person in all its variety and in perfect harmony with the cosmos”. The Pope continued, “I again urge your governments to have the courage to strengthen and consolidate the moral authority – the call to a coherent way of life – necessary for a genuine and healthy education for the younger generations”.

“The right to an education in correct values can be neither denied nor neglected. The duty to educate in these values must never be limited or weakened by any form of national or supranational political interest. Therefore it is essential to educate in and about the truth: … the truth about mankind, about creation, about institutions, and so on. Alongside education in the righteousness of the heart and mind, the young also need, now more than ever, to be educated in the meaning of effort and perseverance in the face of difficulty. They need to recognise that all human action must be responsible and coherent with the desire for the infinite, and that this action should form a part of their growth, with a view to developing a humanity that is increasingly fraternal and free from the temptations of individualism and materialism”.

Vatican Information Service #121213

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Retrograde Feminism

In 10 Colleen Carroll Campbell on 2012/08/10 at 9:11 AM

Feminists who scold stay-at-home mothers misunderstand education and motherhood

The New York Times recently published a front-page story on the increasing willingness of Ivy League women to make career sacrifices for their future families.  Based partly on a survey of 138 undergraduate women at Yale, the article reported that more than half of the respondents plan to cut back on work outside the home or stop working entirely when they have children.  The piece also cited recent Yale alumni studies which showed that nearly half of female graduates in their early 40s no longer work full-time.

Reactions to the article were intense.  Feminist pundits and bloggers pounced on the report, questioning its methodology and mocking the “throwback views” of the “smug” and “oblivious” Yale women.

“These future moms betray a startling combination of naiveté and privilege,” wrote author Karen Stabiner, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed typical of the backlash.  “To plot this kind of future, a woman has to have access to a pool of wealthy potential husbands, she has to stay married at a time when half of marriages end in divorce, and she has to ignore the history of the women’s movement.”

Most women do not have as many career choices as Ivy League graduates, and many women who work outside the home do so because of financial pressures that some of these Yale graduates may never face.

Still, if feminism is truly about choice, why should women who have the opportunity to devote more time to motherhood be condemned for seizing it?  Why should they sacrifice the right to raise their children as they see fit simply because their lifestyle does not conform to the ideals of the “women’s movement?”  And what sort of women’s movement promotes the retrograde idea that women who plan to be full-time mothers are guilty of ingratitude for their first-rate education, or are even unworthy of it?

That idea was repugnant to early feminists.  Mary Wollstonecraft, widely considered the “mother of feminism,” criticized it in her landmark 1792 treatise, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.”  In a society that considered higher education largely irrelevant for women because of their role as mothers, Wollstonecraft argued that the education of women was all the more important because mothers play such a vital role in shaping the next generation.

She wrote: “As the rearing of children, that is, the laying a foundation of sound health both of body and mind in the rising generation, has justly been insisted on as the peculiar destination of woman, the ignorance that incapacitates them must be contrary to the order of things.  And I contend that their minds can take in much more, and ought to do so, or they will never become sensible mothers.”

Today’s feminists seem to have lost Wollstonecraft’s appreciation of education’s intrinsic worth, and their resentment of highly educated stay-at-home mothers reveals a flawed understanding of both education and motherhood.

As John Henry Newman wrote in The Idea of a University, knowledge is “its own end.”  An education that imparts knowledge and the ability to think critically has value regardless of which career path a graduate takes.  And graduates who choose to share the fruits of their education primarily with their children are making a significant contribution to society.  They are forming citizens and guiding the intellectual and moral development of the next generation.

Rather than being scolded, these young women should be congratulated for realistically assessing the demands of career and motherhood, and making provisions now to achieve a balance that will suit their families in the future.  A women’s movement that condemns them is not worthy of the name.

Our Sunday Visitor  November 20, 2005 

Colleen Carroll Campbell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. 

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Parental Rights: The Guardian of Freedom

In 09 Mary Summa, JD on 2012/06/30 at 11:11 AM

By Mary Summa, J.D.

In 2007, soldiers abruptly entered a home in Germany and took a young boy because his mother chose to home-school him.1 In Scotland, in 2009, the government took custody of a couple’s three and four year-old children because a government bureaucrat had deemed the children “too fat.”2 In September 2009, Swedish authorities stopped a plane about to take-off to remove a seven year-old from his parents because they refused to put the boy in a government-run school.3 These events abroad should give every American pause. In many parts of the world today, families are at the mercy of the government.

Research demonstrates that the traditional, intact family is the best environment to raise children. The intact family is also the protector of political freedom. As communities succumb to the power of the government, the family unit serves as the last barrier between freedom and tyranny. Until recent years in this country, the government befriended the family. Correctly, courts have stepped in and protected children from the small minority of parents who have threatened their children’s well-being.

For the vast majority of families, however, courts and legislatures have protected their autonomy and respected the inherent rights of fit parents to raise their own children as they deem appropriate. Yet, as government’s thirst for power and control increases, the family has become a target. If this assault is not confronted and stopped, precious freedoms will be diminished and eventually lost.

What Are Parental Rights?

Parental rights are powers vested in parents to conceive and rear children free from government control. These rights, recognized by the courts, include: the right to the custody and care of minor children, the right to establish a child’s residence, and the right to direct a child’s moral and spiritual upbringing, education, and medical treatment.

With these rights, come responsibilities, and parents are charged with the responsibility to educate, discipline, support, and protect their minor children.4 These powers emanate from the family—the basic unit of society—which historians and anthropologists believe has existed in every known human society.5 The family is not a creation of government.6

English Common Law adhered to the belief that marriage and family are institutions established by God. Therefore, rights emanating from that institution—parental rights—are natural rights that government was obliged to protect. Parental decision-making was limited by the State only in cases where the parent placed the child in clear and present danger, a strictly interpreted doctrine called the Parens Patriae Doctrine.7

Throughout colonial America, only fathers could enforce these rights. Fathers retained the custodial rights of children, and mothers had little authority to enforce custody or other parental rights.8 In 1944, with the Supreme Court’s decision in Prince v. Massachusetts,9 parental rights were recognized for both the mother and the father. Those rights, as the court recognized, “reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder.”10

The family is not a creation of government.

America’s History – Protecting Parental Rights

Traditionally, the U.S. Congress and state legislatures have restrained themselves from trampling on the right of fit parents to rear children free from government control11 When they did stray from this basic tenet, the Supreme Court struck down these laws as unconstitutional. The Court has protected family autonomy and parental rights as being guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment12 and the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment13 to the U.S. Constitution. The courts have recognized that the right to conceive and rear children is a “basic civil right of man,”14 and a right “far more precious … than property rights.”15

In the early to mid 20th Century, the Supreme Court vigilantly protected the right of parents to educate their children as the parent deemed appropriate.16 In 1925, in Pierce v. Society of Sisters,17 the Supreme Court struck down a state statute requiring children to attend public schools. Parents in this case had chosen to send their children to parochial schools, which under state statute violated compulsory education laws. In Pierce, the court stated:

The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.18

Later in 1944, in Prince v. Massachusetts,19 the U.S. Supreme Court, although recognizing the state’s interest in an educated citizenry, underscored the paramount rights of parents to direct the religious training and upbringing of their children:

The custody, care, and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder. And it is in recognition of this that these decisions have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.

In Wisconsin v. Yoder,20 in 1972, the Supreme Court affirmed this common law principle by preventing the state from forcing Amish parents to send their children to school beyond eighth grade. Recognizing family autonomy in the areas of education and religious upbringing, the court rejected the State’s argument that it had a right to “save” the child from the decisions of the parents. The court stated:

The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.21

Without exception, the highest court held fast to the principle that fit parents, not the state, have the primary role of raising and nurturing children. Under the doctrine, Parens Patriae, the State can pierce this wall of protection only when the parent places a child in clear and present danger of harm.

The 1960s witnessed a rise in individual rights movements—women’s rights, children’s rights, homosexual rights, and minority rights. Holding their banners of protest, masses marched on Washington, D.C., demanding equality. Rights are a funny thing, though. They are not asserted in a vacuum. Whether justified or not, when a right is asserted by one citizen or entity, another citizen’s rights are modified, reduced, or even eliminated.

The Children’s Rights Movement

The Children’s Rights Movement, some believe, struck the first crippling blow to family autonomy and parental rights when it roared onto the political scene in the 1960s. Despite, some strides in the early part of the 20th Century in the areas of juvenile justice and labor laws, the movement floundered until the Supreme Court changed course in 1967 with its decision in In re Gault.22 In that decision, the Court extended 14th Amendment Due Process protections to children in juvenile delinquency hearings. For the first time in law, the government recognized children’s rights, separate and apart from parents’. Congress, state legislatures, and courts, however, quickly expanded the standard’s original application to justify a plethora of legislation and court cases in the area of child custody, education, health care, and discipline.

This movement has not been confined to the United States. The conflict between parent rights and child rights was never more apparent than with the 1989 United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The document acknowledges the individual rights of children, which may be separate and distinct from and conflict with parents’ rights.

Article 3 gives administrative or legislative authority to decide what actions are “in the best interest of the child.” Article 12 gives to the child “who is capable of forming his or her own views” the right to express them. The child’s views will be given “due weight,” depending on the age and maturity of the child.23

According to Michael Farris, an attorney and chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, the UNCRC dictates two things: “1. Government can override parental decisions without proof of abuse, neglect or harm; 2. Children have legally enforceable rights to complain about parental decision-making in every area of their life, including religious and educational decisions.”24

Parents who are citizens of countries that have ratified the treaty have lost the unfettered discretion to make decisions on behalf of their children. A parent’s violation of the ‘rights’ of their own children could subject the parent to international condemnation or, worse, punishment.

According to a 2009 Congressional Research Service report, 193 countries have ratified the treaty. The United States and Somolia are the only two countries that have not.25 Consequently, U.S. parents, unlike most parents around the world, do not have to answer to bureaucrats or courts for decisions they make regarding the rearing of their own children.

Scripture and history warn that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Creating conflicting rights within a family—in this case, parent against child—will do nothing but weaken the autonomy and strength of the family, and lead to its demise.

Discipline

As mentioned previously, under the Doctrine of Parens Patriae, the government has always had the right to step in and protect the child from unfit parents. According to one law professor, the government has also used this doctrine to assist parents

in discipline. Called “juvenile status offense legislation,” many states still have truancy laws, curfew laws, and laws dealing with children who perpetually run away from home.26 One could argue that traditionally written statutory rape laws provided parents with a “big stick” solution for boys who took advantage of daughters.

Today, the tables have turned. The government is no longer in the business of assisting parents in their inherent responsibility to discipline. Rather, government is partnering with children to punish their parents. Never, until recently, has the government taken such an active role in pitting children against parents.

A 1980 case illustrates this point. In In re Welfare of Sumney,27 under a Washington State statute, the state granted a 15 year-old’s petition seeking “alter- native residential placement.” Despite the fact that there was no evidence of abuse, neglect or parental unfitness, the State granted the petition citing “the best interest of the child.” In his dissent, Washington State Supreme Court Justice Robert Brachtenbach pointed out when the child was asked why she thought there was a conflict in the home, the child replied, “I just feel there is a communication gap there.” Further testimony revealed that the only “crime” committed by the parents was an insistence that their daughter not take drugs … use alcohol … or be sexually active and that she be in at a reasonable hour.”28 In exchange for asking their daughter to adopt a healthy, moral lifestyle, the parents were denied custody.

Health Care

Under common law, children were viewed as incapable of consenting to all medical treatment. Parents had the exclusive authority to make medical decisions on behalf of their children. In emergencies, parental consent was assumed and did not need to be obtained prior to treatment. In cases of abuse or neglect, common law recognized the right of the government to step in and act as the parent to remove the child from harm.

Abortion. In 1976, in Planned Parenthood v. Danforth,29 the court found unconstitutional a statute requiring parental consent for abortion. Again, in 1979, the Court proclaimed that parents did not have “an absolute and possibly arbitrary” right to veto a child’s decision to obtain an abortion.30

In 1992, however, the Supreme Court changed course and allowed to stand a state statute requiring parental consent for abortion with a judicial bypass, which allows a judge to sign off on a minor’s abortion in place of her parents in some circumstances.31Over the past 18 years, states have responded to this opportunity to restore parental authority over their children’s healthcare. According to a September 2010 Guttmacher Institute report, 34 states require some parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion. Of these states, 20 require parental consent only—two of which require both parents to consent; 10 states require parental notification only—one of which requires both parents to be notified; and four states require both parental consent and notification.32

In 1995, incidentally, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted a statute requiring parental consent for abortion. The law is flawed, however, because it does not require authenticity of the signature by a notary, thus, allowing forged signatures to meet the consent requirement of the statute.33

Contraception. Over the past 30 years, legislators at both the state and federal levels have aggressively weakened parental authority in other areas of children’s healthcare, including healthcare associated with sexual activity. The U.S. Congress has led the charge. Since its inception in 1970, there have been no “parental consent” requirements on monies for Title X of the Public Health Service Act or federal “family planning.” In the 1980s, regulations were promulgated to give parents the right to consent to contraceptives and other services provided by Title X funding. In the 1990s, additional administrative and legislative attempts were made to return to parents their rightful authority to control the health-care of their children. While valiant, all these efforts ultimately failed legislatively or by court challenge.34

State legislators have made some strides in protecting parental authority in relation to minors’ access to contraceptives. According to a January 2011 Guttmacher Institute report, 21 states and

How to Protect the Family

To rebuild the wall protecting family autonomy, we should:

• Enact a marriage amendment in N.C. defining marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman, which serves as the first step to protecting family autonomy.

• Enact federal and state constitutional amendments on parental rights, including an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to bar enactment of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

• Repeal no-fault divorce. • Repeal state laws that deny parents the right to decide all medical

decisions for their children, including drug and alcohol treatment, STD treatment, abortion, and contraceptives, except in cases of emergency and with a judicial bypass if required by case law.

• Expand parental choice in education, through means such as education tax credits.

D.C. give minors unrestrained access to contraceptives without parental consent. Twenty-five states allow a minor access to contraceptives only under certain circumstances without parental consent, and four states require parental consent before a minor can receive contraceptives.35

STD Treatment. Attempts to maintain parental authority over other healthcare related to sexual activity have been less successful. For example, all 50 states and D.C. deny parents the right to consent to their children’s STD services. Eleven of those states retain the right for parents if the child has not reached a certain age (12 or 14). Eighteen of those states allow, but do not require, physicians to inform a minor’s parent that he/she is seeking STD testing and treatment. Although one state requires the physician to inform the parent if the child tests positive for HIV, the other 17 states do not.36 A child may be infected with the deadly HIV virus, and in 49 states, parents are not even notified.

School Health Clinics. For years, children’s rights advocates have further eroded parental authority by setting up healthcare facilities in schools. These clinics have been funded by a menagerie of federal, state, and private funds. Trumpeted as a way to provide better care for children, these facilities are used as referral centers for abortion. On March 25, 2010, Fox News reported that a 15 year-old had used a school-based clinic to obtain an abortion without notifying her mother. The mother reported that her daughter had been told that if she told her mother, the mother would be financially responsible for the abortion. If the daughter kept it secret, she was told the abortion would be free. Without any parental involvement, the school-based clinic called a cab for the girl, which took her to the local abortion clinic where an abortion was performed.37

In March 2010, the federal government authorized the expenditure of taxpayer dollars to further undermine parental authority in the area of their children’s healthcare. With the passage of the new federal health care bill, Congress authorized a

Parents are primarily responsible for directing the education of their children, and have the inherent right to decide whether that education shall take the form of public, private, parochial, or home schooling.

specific program for school-based clinics.38 While the law could have required parental consent for services, it did not. Undoubtedly, these clinics will provide all kinds of services, including contraceptives and abortion referral services, without parental consent.39

Education

Parents are primarily responsible for directing the education of their children, and have the inherent right to decide whether that education shall take the form of public, private, parochial, or home schooling. The Supreme Court in 1925 struck down an Oregon statute requiring all children to attend public school. In that case, the high court made it clear that a fundamental cornerstone of liberty is a parent’s right and duty to make decisions regarding a child’s education.40

For years, the public schools have indoctrinated children with beliefs inconsistent with beliefs taught at home. The assault on parents’ rights to educate their children, however, has never been stronger or more blatant than in the area of home schooling. In recent years, the number of parents choosing to homeschool their children has exploded. It is estimated that 1.5 million children are homeschooled, with some sources claiming that the numbers are really much higher.41 With the rising numbers, teachers’ unions and legislatures have taken notice, and efforts are underway in several jurisdictions to further restrict this option for parents. According to the Home-School Legal Defense Association, in 2008, D.C. was the first jurisdiction to severely limit the right of parents to homeschool. While not banning home schooling entirely, the D.C. City Council decided to regulate it to death. In casting his vote against the plan, one D.C. Councilman reportedly called the government’s new power over home schooling parents “a type of socialism.”42

Custody

Custody of one’s children serves as the cornerstone of family autonomy and parental rights. All other parental rights—to educate, to provide health care, to instill moral and religious values—become insignificant if a parent cannot retain the right to keep a child in his presence. Traditionally, in the area of custody, and following the belief that parents naturally have the best interest of the child in mind, government deferred to the parents on issues of custody. However, with the rise of divorce and the introduction of the “Best Interest of the Child,” the court ultimately decides who assumes custody of children, regardless of the parent’s wishes. In her book, Supremacists, long-time conservative activist and lawyer, Phyllis Schlafly estimates that over 48.3 million American parents are controlled by judges in child custody matters.43

Grandparents’ Rights Movement

While not exclusively a “divorce issue,” the Grandparents’ Rights movement has been catapulted forward, in large part, due to rising divorce rates. Next to children, grandparents are the second victims of divorce when a parent denies them access to grandchildren. It can be heart-wrenching for grand-parents to be told suddenly that they can no longer see their grandchild. As difficult as this reality may be, because they diminish parental rights, grandparent rights to custody and visitation of grandchildren has never been recognized by common law.

The Grandparents’ Rights Movement serves as a new and different assault on parental rights. Whereas other movements, particularly the Children’s Rights Movement, have created conflicting individual rights within the nuclear family, the Grandparents’ Rights Movement seeks to legitimize the right of government to bulldoze the cornerstone of family autonomy and parental rights—the right to custody of children.

Grandparents’ rights organizations formed in the 1980s to persuade legislatures and courts to create visitation rights for grandparents. Initially, these groups set their sights on Washington to solve their problem. Despite Congressional hearings in both the House and Senate in the 1980s,44 Grandparents’ Rights advocates failed to convince legislators to create a “right” to visitation through federal legislation.

Unrelenting, in the 1990s, these groups successfully turned their energies toward state legislatures. In one case, however, the state legislature pushed the pendulum too far. The Washington State Legislature passed legislation that allowed “any person,” relative or nonrelative, to petition the court for visitation rights. In effect, the Washington statute stole from parents, and gave to the government the right to decide custody and visitation for children. Thankfully, in Troxel v. Granville,45 the Supreme Court overturned this state statute as an unconstitutional infringement on parental rights. The Troxel decision dealt a serious blow to the Grandparents’ Rights Movement and the government’s assault on parental authority in the area of visitation.

Today, all states allow some sort of visitation rights for grandparents. These statutes fall into one of two categories: restrictive visitation statutes and permissive statutes. The restrictive statutes allow visitation by grandparents, only if: (1) the child’s parents are divorced or separated, or (2) one or both of the child’s parents have died. Visitation in these states will be allowed only if the court decides that it is in the best interest of the child.

Permissive statutes allow grandparents the right to obtain visitation if the court decides it is in the “best interest of the child.”The “best interest of the child” standard many times requires a grandparent to show evidence of a continual relationship with the child. The parents do not need to be divorced or deceased. A court can step in and force fit parents, living in an intact family, to allow grandparents to visit their children.

In North Carolina, the N.C. Supreme Court reaffirmed the U.S. Supreme Court finding that parents, not government, hold the right to “custody, care and the nurture of children.”46 Only in cases where the nuclear family is disrupted by divorce,

or when a child is adopted by a stepparent or a relative of the child where a substantial relationship exists between the grandparent and the child may a grandparent petition the court for visitation rights to the grandchild.47 Attempts to expand grandparents’ rights have failed.

While the N.C. General Assembly has run roughshod over some areas of parental authority, it has, thus far, restrained itself from meddling in custody and visitation rights of fit, married parents whose children live in intact families.

At a Crossroads

As America continues to turn away from God, the inalienable rights for which her founders fought and died face political extinction. A government that fails to recognize the Author of those rights will refuse to uphold mankind’s inherent right to live or be free. Family autonomy no longer enjoys government’s protection. America is at a crossroads—she can rebuild the strength of family autonomy, or she can continue to sit back and watch as government assaults that wall separating freedom from tyranny. If the latter path is chosen, what is happening to parents in Sweden, Germany, and Scotland, will no longer be a tragedy occuring somewhere else. Rather, it will be a reality at America’s doorstep.v

Mary Summa, J.D., is an attorney in Charlotte, North Carolina, who served as Chief Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Jesse Helms during the 1980s. For a footnoted version of this article, please visit ncfamily.org.

1) Dale Hurd. “Child Welfare Agency Echoes Nazi Germany?”, CBNNEWS.com, 28 April 2010. < http://www.cbn.com/cbn- news/world/2010/March/Child-Welfare-Agency-Echoes-Nazi- Germany> (accessed January 24, 2011).

2) Drew Zahn. “Nanny State Snatches Kids For Being Too Fat,” WorldNetDaily.com. 20 September 2009. < http://www. wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=110476> (accessed January 24, 2011)

3) Bob Unruh. “Judge Banishes Family’s Custody Lawyer,” WorldNetDaily.com.

10 June 2010..< http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=165361&gt; (accessed January 24, 2011)

4) John Duncan. “The Ultimate Best Interest of the Child Enures from Parental Reinforcement: The Journey to Family Integrity” 83 Nebraska Law Review 1240, 1248 (2004).

5) Carlson, Allan. “The Family as the Fundamental Unit of Society.” World Family Policy Forum, Provo, Utah. January 13, 1999.(accessed January 24, 2011)

6) William Duncan.“Does the Family Have a Future?”83 North Dakota Law Review, 101, 102 (2007) and Bartlett, Katharine. “Rethinking Parenthood As an Exclusive Status: The Need For Legal Alternatives When The Premise of the Nuclear Family Has Failed”, 70 Va. L. Rev. 879, 888 (1984).

7) C.f. Croft v. Westmoreland County Children & Youth Servs., 103 F.3d 1123 (3d. Cir. 1997).

8) John Duncan, at 1256. 9) 321 U.S. 158 (1944). 10) id, at 166. 11) William Duncan at 102

12) (Duncan at 1248 and M.L.B. v. S.L.J., 519 U.S. 102, 116- 117 (1996); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944) Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-535 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 , 399 (1923).

13) Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965) 14) Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942) 15) May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528 (1953) 16) Meyer v. Nebraska 262 U.S. 390 (1923).

17) 268 U.S. 510 (1925). 18) Pierce, at 535 (1025). 19) 321 U.S. 158, 166 (1944) 20) 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

21) Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

22) 87 S.C. 1428 (1967).

23) U.N. General Assembly, “Convention on the Rights of the Child”, 2 September 1990. < http://www2.ohchr.org/english/ law/crc.htm> accessed January 25, 2011.

24) Michael Farris, J.D. “Nannies in Blue Berets: Understanding the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child” HSLDA.org. http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/20091120.asp accessed January 24, 2011.

25) Luisa Blanchfield, “The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: Background and Policy Issues” Congressional Research Service. April 1, 2009 < http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/134266.pdf&gt; accessed January 24, 2011.

26) John Duncan, 1267. 27) In re Sumney, 94 Wash. 2d 757 (1980). 28) In re Sumney, 94 Wash. 2d 757 at 770; Duncan, at 1265. 29) Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976)

30) Belotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979). See also, Bruce Hafen. “The Family as an Entity”. 22 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 865, 888 (1988-1989).

31) Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

32) “Parental Involvement in Minors’ Abortion” Guttmacher Institute: State Policies in Brief. September 1, 2010. Accessed on January 24, 2011.

33) Jackson v. A Woman’s Choice, Inc., 349 N.C. 360, 517 S.E. 2d 896 (1998)..

34) “Title X and the U.S. Family Planning Effort”, Alan Guttmacher Institute, Facts in Brief ” (1997) at http://www.guttmacher. org/pubs/ib16.html (accessed January 24, 2011); “Contraceptive Services for Adolescents: What Health Care Providers Need to Know About the Law”, Center for Adolescent Health and the Law Healthy Teen Network, November, 2006. http://www.cahl. org/PDFs/HelpingTeensStayHealthy&Save_Full%20Report.pdf accessed on January 25, 2011.

35) “Minors’ Access to Contraceptive Services”, Guttmacher Institute: State Policies in Brief. January 1, 2011. http://www. guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_MACS.pdf accessed on January 24, 2011.

36) ” Minors Access to STI Services”, Guttmacher Institute State Policies in Brief, January 1, 2011).< http://www.guttmacher.org/ statecenter/spibs/spib_MASS.pdf >accessed on January 24, 2011

37) Dan Springer. “School-Assisted Abortion a Shocking Lesson.” Foxnews.com, March 25, 2010.accessed January 24, 2011.

38) Tina Hinz ,“Health Official Advocates for School Clinics in D.C.” Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, reprinted in allbusiness. com June 17, 2010. http://www.allbusiness.com/government/ government-bodies-offices/14646153-1.html> accessed January 24, 2011.]

39) “Parents Rights and Civil Wrongs: School-based Clinics and Abortion”, The Foundry: Conservative Policy News. March 25, 2010.parental-rights-and-civil- wrongs-school-based-clinics-and-abortion> January 24, 2011.

40) Pierce v. the Society of Sisters, 268 US 519 (1925).

41) Vidya Rao, “As Home-schooling Moves to Mainstream, Stigma Fades”, Today show.com, September 27, 2010

42) “State Board of Education Approves New Restrictive Homeschool Regulations”, July 23, 2008. http://www.hslda.org/hs/ state/dc/200807230.asp)

43) Phyllis Schlafly, The Supremacists, Dallas: Spence Publishing 2004 at 127.

44) “Grandparents’ Visitation Rights”, Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Separation of Pwers of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 98th Congress, First Session on S. Con. Res. 40. November 15, 1983. http://ia700309.us.archive. org/19/items/grandparentsvisi00unit/grandparentsvisi00unit. pdf ;accessed on January 25, 2011; See also: “Grandparents: The Other Victim of Divorce and Custody Disputes” Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Human Services of the Select Committee on Aging, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, 2nd Session [Ninethy-eighth Congress, 1st Session.] http://www.archive.org/stream/grandparentsothe00unit/grand- parentsothe00unit_djvu.txt accessed January 25, 2011. “

45) Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 LEd.2d 49 (2000).

46) McIntyre v. McIntyre, 341 NC 629, 633, 461 S.E.2d 745, 748-49 (1995).

47) N.C. 50-13.2(b1) (2009); N.C.G.S. 50-13.5 (j) (2009); N.C.G.S. 50-13.2A (2009). See http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/ gascripts/statutes/StatutesTOC.pl?Chapter=0050 accessed on January 25, 2011.

Family North Carolina

Re-printed with permission from the NORTH CAROLINA FAMILY COUNCIL MAGAZINE PUBLICATION.

Originally appeared – “Parental Rights:  The Guardian of Freedom. Family NC. Spring 2011.

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Tips for Teachers

In 13 History on 2011/04/11 at 5:51 PM
When I began my 36-year teaching career in  a veteran teacher gave me some valuable advice: “Never do anything that you can get someone else to do for you.”  My students were thrilled when they were asked to do whatever. That freed me to do what they could not do.
On the first day of school, you should be able to spot the potential trouble makers.  Assign them seats all along the first row so that you can keep your eyes on them.  Then, assign them tasks.  This will make them feel important.  Give the student a fancy title like “Diplomatic Courier,” and that student will be in seventh heaven carrying a note from here to there.