rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (08/04/84)
> What this?! I have NO right to choose how to raise my children, but Rosen > does have the right to make that choice (about my children?) > > The issue is not parents' rights vs childrens' rights, but parents' > rights to protect their children against the know-it-alls who really > know squat! [MIKE WARD] Nowhere did I claim the right to make choices about raising Mr. Ward's children. I claimed that all children need to be protected from parents who would impose their restrictive mindsets on their children to the exclusion of their children's own independent thinking. A parent's responsibility is to raise children to be free thinking independent adults, unencumbered by parents' views of what "their" children (sounds a lot like ownership to me; hey, wanna buy a kid?) "should" be like, expressing *their* individuality, and not that of their parents. How that is to be done is left up to the parent. (Which is a shame in many cases, since so many parents are either unqualified or uninterested in doing a proper job of raising a child with the child's best interests in mind.) Parents who put their "rights" to raise a child as *they* choose above the needs of the child to grow up to be a rational adult are NOT FIT TO BE PARENTS!! It's that simple. The point is: your having had a nice time making babies doesn't give you the right to control the life of another human being. Parenting is an incredible responsibility, and that responsibility squelches to sheer nothingness any "rights" you may wish to exercise in "choosing" what you want your child to be like. The job of parenting involves raising a child to be an individual, a self-assured independent thinker, and not a clone in your own image of what YOU want him/her to be. -- Now I've lost my train of thought. I'll have to catch the bus of thought. Rich Rosen pyuxn!rlr
ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) (08/06/84)
[]
It sounds to me like the freedom of thought Rosen is talking about is the
freedom to agree with Rosen. For disagreeing with Rosen, Charlie Mills
is called subuseless (among other nasty things). For disagreeing with
Rosen, I am called an asshole (privately). Rosen seems to have such a
response to this issue because he is apparently none of the things he
beleives a child should be raised to be(did I just write that?).
The question is, if the parent is not to decide how best to raise a child,
who will? The answer, obviously, is Rich Rosen.
And that is why we must all insist that we, as parents, do have rights.
Rich Rosen seems to be the type of person who fights his way to Washington
to make the rules we all must suffer under.
--
Michael Ward, NCAR/SCD
UUCP: {hplabs,nbires,brl-bmd,seismo,menlo70,stcvax}!hao!sa!ward
ARPA: hplabs!hao!sa!ward@Berkeley
BELL: 303-497-1252
USPS: POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307