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A License to be a Parent

The Normal

Animals reproduce without thinking much about it. Some take care of their young. Some make their young fend for themselves. Some just lay eggs and go away. When the young hatch, they are completely at the mercy of predators. In some species, the young eat the parent. In other species, the parent eats the young or the female bites off the head of her mate. Plants create seeds, while the single celled amoeba simply divides into two.

Creatures mate and give birth by instinct. Some kind of a programmed need. Humans are different. We are capable of exercising a choice and we have the means to not just prevent conception, but also to abort and even save the mother and child if delivery complications happen.

The Oddities

However, despite having such control, humans are still subject to pressures of society which force people to get married and have children even if they do not want to. There are a few problems with this.

The weight of responsibility is not understood by many until after they have the child.

The first, is the economics of raising children. If you search the internet for "cost of raising a child", you'll be shocked. I've seen so many couples who barely had enough of an income to support themselves, going and giving birth to not one, but two or three children. When children are raised without sufficient finances, the entire family scrapes through life and the difficulties the child faces by living in a poor neighborhood, having poor nutrition, and being denied many joys of life, mould the child in various unhealthy ways.

The second, is mental health and critical thinking. When people who had no intention of being a parent are forced to raise children, they see the child as a burden and treat the child as such for the rest of their lives. Many such parents exhibit toxic behaviors. Others are so mired in incorrect perceptions of religion or conspiracy theories, that they teach their children to believe in utter nonsense. The emotional scars that such children have, run deep. The gullibility training they receive, often results in them spending their entire lives believing in nonsense and being unable to take healthy, intelligent decisions.

My Thoughts

People raised in such conditions often spread the effect of their behavior and thinking on the rest of society. Sure, our education system does tend to help children get onto the right track, but in today's society, what we really seem to need, is a license for becoming a parent. Similar to how you need to pass a driving test or receive a pilot's training, it's necessary to teach people the basics of responsible parenting. There indeed is much to learn about how to raise a child in today's world.

Perhaps a parenting school, where people could learn how to raise children, could be beneficial.

How to treat a child, how not to treat a child, what to feed a child, how a vaccine works and why it's necessary, how to deal with the various stages of a child's development, understanding and supporting the child's career choices, the importance of the child networking and building friendships, how to look-up information and answer questions of the child...and so much more.

It isn't easy to implement this, but perhaps there eventually could be a "Parenting School" from which people could graduate from, either before or after becoming a parent. A school where parents are helped by trained counselors. Perhaps this could someday lead to a more intelligent, compassionate and healthy society.

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men” - Frederick Douglass

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