Tag Archives: Parental Authority

News

Battle escalates over homeschooled child seized by Swedish government

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Story from the HSLDA. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

On June 25, attorneys with the Home School Legal Defense Association and Alliance Defense Fund filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights asking it to hear the case of a 7-year-old boy seized by Swedish authorities because his parents homeschool.

“We are gravely concerned about this case because of the threat it represents to other homeschooling families,” said Mike Donnelly, staff attorney for HSLDA and one of nearly 1,700 attorneys in the ADF alliance. “In response to our inquiries, Swedish authorities have cited the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to explain and defend their actions. If the U.S. were to ever ratify this treaty, as the White House and some members of Congress desire, then this sort of thing could occur here,” he added.

Swedish authorities forcibly removed Domenic Johansson from his parents, Christer and Annie Johansson, in June 2009 from a plane they had boarded to move to Annie’s home country of India. The officials did not have a warrant nor have they charged the Johanssons with any crime. The officials seized the child because they believe homeschooling is an inappropriate way to raise a child and insist the government should raise Domenic instead. Social services authorities have placed Domenic in foster care as well as a government school and are only allowing Christer and Annie to visit their son for one hour every five weeks.

Let this be a lesson to all you homeschoolers. Either you are going to have an influence on the world or the world is going to have an influence on you. And whatever you do, don’t think that you can be a social conservative without being a fiscal conservative. If you vote for big government because you like universal health care, then you are voting against your own liberty. Big government means small persons.

My advice is to get a college degree and go to grad school. And remember where you came from when you have influence to do something about it.

Commentary

Dennis Prager explains the conflict between parents and the state

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The article talks about how the power of the state is bounded by 1) traditional religion and 2) parental authority in the family.

Excerpt:

The second most powerful obstacle to the state and government assuming primary authority is parents.

It was no meaningless phrase when baby boomers on the left declared, “Never trust anyone over 30.” Who was over 30? First and foremost, their parents.

As with religion, the further left the state or ideology, the more it seeks to undermine parental authority. In the Soviet Union, Komsomol, the Soviet Youth League substituted for parents. Mao, too, did what he could to destroy the family’s authority. Although no way comparable to Stalin or Mao, the American and European left also seek to undermine parental authority.

The battle over parental notification in the case of abortion is primarily about parental authority.

The battle over sex education in schools is largely about that, too — who gets to teach youth about sexuality and homosexuality? Parents or schools (i.e., the state)?

The battle over school vouchers is in large measure also a battle over governmental authority versus parental authority. Who gets to choose where one’s child attends school — the state or the parent? The battle over who gets to actually educate our children has already been lost to the state in the vast majority of cases. It is why the left is so uncomfortable with home schooling — parents, not the state, get to teach children.

As the late James O. Freedman, former president of Dartmouth University, said in a commencement address in 2002, the purpose of a college education is “to question your father’s values.”

Just as the left has substituted the authority of the state for the authority of God, it has substituted the authority of the state for that of parents. And just as God has been reduced to a non-judging, non-disciplining pal, so, too, the left wants parents to become non-judging, non-disciplining pals of their children.

In a nutshell, the left wants to have ever-expanding authority over people’s lives through ever-expanding governmental powers. It does so because it regards itself as more enlightened than others. Others are either enemies (the right) or unenlightened masses. It is elected by demonizing its enemies and doling out money and jobs to the masses.

I find that the expanding intrusion of the secular state into the family (via the schools) is very frustrating. I am concerned that the state will turn my children against me using my tax dollars. And the worst part is that if my children reject Judeo-Christian values, then they would actually be hurting themselves, and imposing social costs (e.g. – health care costs, etc.), on the rest of society. I think it would hurt me a lot to take so much trouble to have and raise children and then to see them become immoral, self-destructive and ungrateful to their parents.