Should parents need licences to be parents?

[Southernbelle]

I remember leaving the hospital with my very first child and thinking that this whole new parent/new baby thing was so HUGE - I couldn't believe they let just anyone do it! After all, we have to have a license for marriage, to drive a car, fill out a zillion forms to buy a house, study for years to get a college degree, but having a baby - the biggest commitment of all - nothing more than a decision between 2 everyday people! Wow!

I don't want anything like parenthood to be decided by the govenment. I wouldn't want someone taking that choice away from me. It is sad that some children are unwanted, abused and neglected, although the system is flawed, there is great capacity for US to do good for these children. I'm a licensed foster parent, but I don't have any placements in my home right now. In our state, if a child is placed in foster care, the biological parents are required to take parenting classes in order to get their children back. So hopefully they will be better parents when the process is done.

 

[saddina]

Quote:
I'm going to wait to respond, but if you could elaborate on your answer a bit I guess I could go either way...... How are kids mistakes?

I certainly wasn't expecting to have my wife expecting with my youngest biological at 9. We took a rather exhaustive approach to not having kids. She is pregnant anyways. Now for the kid to truly be a mistake, both parents need to practice abstinence, and the woman needs to become pregnant by immaculate conception.... but wait, that happened a couple thousand years ago already... and that wasn't quite a mistake

so even 8 year old kids know if you have sex, you can have babies... so the only mistake I see here is the one made by parents. Children are inherently good.

I think she means "mistake" from the parents point of view. You know people like my mother who are too "Christian" to abort thier unwanted offspring, but also don't bother to love or care for them. The child is seen as a problem, and treated as such.

No disrespect to anyone's faith, that was simply my mother's reasoning, apparently she felt it was better to have the baby and then treat it like crap.

 

[redhen]

I think they should have to take parenting classes... BUT in reality..a class wont make you a good parent. If your a neglectful parent.(or god forbid something worse...).. than a class will just be something you "have" to do... and you wont really learn anything from it..
You have to WANT to be a good parent to learn from the classes...
also.. about the child being a mistake thing... Sadly, yes some kids are mistakes in their parents eyes and they arent really wanted. And trust me...those kids grow up knowing it.. actually alot of them get sent to foster care because of neglect or abuse... and the scary part is...SO many slip through the system..and they live horrible lives...

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Absolutly not

And no more of this taking away kids because of lack of care (unless severe of course) and paying others to do it.
Start putting that money into helping the parents who are needing real help in learning what their parents did not instill in them.

 

[Jess N Jeff]

Quote:
I'm going to wait to respond, but if you could elaborate on your answer a bit I guess I could go either way...... How are kids mistakes?

I certainly wasn't expecting to have my wife expecting with my youngest biological at 9. We took a rather exhaustive approach to not having kids. She is pregnant anyways. Now for the kid to truly be a mistake, both parents need to practice abstinence, and the woman needs to become pregnant by immaculate conception.... but wait, that happened a couple thousand years ago already... and that wasn't quite a mistake

so even 8 year old kids know if you have sex, you can have babies... so the only mistake I see here is the one made by parents. Children are inherently good.

I think she means "mistake" from the parents point of view. You know people like my mother who are too "Christian" to abort thier unwanted offspring, but also don't bother to love or care for them. The child is seen as a problem, and treated as such.

No disrespect to anyone's faith, that was simply my mother's reasoning, apparently she felt it was better to have the baby and then treat it like crap.

Are you sure we aren't related.....That sounds like my crapy mom!!!

 

[saddina]

Quote:
I think she means "mistake" from the parents point of view. You know people like my mother who are too "Christian" to abort thier unwanted offspring, but also don't bother to love or care for them. The child is seen as a problem, and treated as such.

No disrespect to anyone's faith, that was simply my mother's reasoning, apparently she felt it was better to have the baby and then treat it like crap.

Are you sure we aren't related.....That sounds like my crapy mom!!!

Good news is once you realize your mom's a nut, you are equipt to treat your kids better than you got.

 

[australorpchick]

No, because who would set the standards and approve the test, the Goverment? Common sense doesn't seem too prevelant there.

 

[Jess N Jeff]

Quote:
Are you sure we aren't related.....That sounds like my crapy mom!!!

Good news is once you realize your mom's a nut, you are equipt to treat your kids better than you got.

I whole heartedly agree with you there!!! Its like you get a book of "what not to do"!!!

 

[farmerlor]

Quote:
Lack of care makes it sound like they let the baby cry rather than check on it. Kids aren't taken unless there's a chance of imminent danger to the child. I only WISH we could take the children who are verbally and emotionally abused. As for the money, I got 11 dollars a day to care for a foster child. This meant taking the child to a myriad of doctors as I only took the very sickest babies and using that 11 dollars for gas. That 11 dollars was also used to pay for diapers and wipes and OTC meds and clothes and new bottles and nipples and snacks if they were old enough to have them. I got to run the child back and forth to visits to parents who rarely showed up or showed up stoned. I got to run back and forth to court to give testimony regarding the progress of this child and for some it meant sleeping in hospital rooms away from the rest of my family for days on end.....for 11 dollars a day. In the meantime, the bio mother was given classes, respite care for her other children, free transportation, a new apartment, food stamps, welfare checks and free clothing.....I should mention that she still lost the rest of her children and everything else because as someone else said, it's not just trying to teach them to be better parents, they have to WANT to be better parents.
So before we start ranting about all the money wasted going to those evil foster parents that could just as well be used on the birth parents please try to remember that some of these kids who have come to my home came here to die, doctors thought they were that far gone. Now, think that 11 dollars went to a good cause or should we have thrown money at the birth parents and seen what the outcome was going to be?

 

[ebwy]

No licensing. What'd you do if someone who didn't have a licence got pregnant? force her to abort??? No way would that be right.
would it be right to take a baby off someone who didn't have a license but who loved and cared for the child? Nope, that wouldn't be right either.

as for "mistakes", well I don't think anyone is a mistake. I do think some children made a mistake in being born to the parents they did, though.