Parenting Classes Should Be Made Compulsory

States may well have an interest in how individuals raise their children, but an interest does not constitute by itself a right to intervene. Not all state support is provided ‘quid pro quo’. In some cases states should assist their citizens simply to provide them with basic rights we believe they are entitled to. For example, citizens have a (broad) right to healthcare regardless of how much care they take of their bodies. This may be expensive for the state, but it is considered a moral duty. Similarly, it may be expensive for states to leave parents to raise children who place a larger cost on society, but this does not give the state the right to overrule them and impose its own methods. We may fairly consider that individuals should have a normative right to be assisted by society in the raising of their children, but while the state should offer help, we cannot require parents to take advantage of it.

The offer of state support for families does not create a reciprocal right to let the state interfere in childrearing. There is a fundamental difference between creating marginal incentives for citizens to have children through such mechanisms as the taxation system, and outright coercion, such as the removal of benefits or other significant state support. The former allows for meaningful autonomous decision making on the part of a citizen, whilst the latter places them in a coercive situation where their freedom is inherently compromised. This is a feature of an oppressive, rather than liberal state. Secondly, the division between ‘health’ and ‘lifestyle’ is not as clear as this point presupposes. For example, health services increasingly provide treatments such cosmetic surgery (e.g. for burns or cancer victims,) or IVF (for infertile couples). These treatments are expensive and medically unnecessary, but we recognise that the state should fund them because they are so integral to a normal human life. If the ability to conceive should be unconditionally funded by the state, then surely the raising of the child should be too?

The issue is not as simple as the ‘net amount’ of state support, but the form that this support takes. Yes, parents do need material support (such as benefits, or day-care places) but they are also entitled to a private space in which they can raise their family as they wish. Basic parenting classes are already commonly available on a voluntary basis. People who are sufficiently daunted by the raising of a child can choose to attend these courses if they wish. However, it is not clear as to why parents who may have their own ideas about childcare must have the ideas of the state forced upon them. In some cases, the methods of the state may violate the religious or cultural identity of the family, proving highly offensive and causing social alienation.

The idea of there being an ‘objectively correct’ way to raise a child is a strongly moralised conception. We can of course identify cases such as abuse or neglect, where we feel the wellbeing of a child is clearly violated. We may even want to include such issues as chronically poor diet in such a category. However, applying such a principle of ‘objectivity’ so widely risks demonising families who lovingly wish to raise their children according to their own beliefs. Educational standards, or behaviour are not the objective truths that the proposition supposes, and even in purportedly ‘scientific’ areas such as medical advice, parents have sincere and well founded fears regarding such issues as vaccination. More seriously, when the state introduces such standards of ‘good parenting’, it provide grounds to criticise virtually all parents – not just extreme cases. No parent or child is perfect – but the vast majority have the right to pursue this important and personal relationship without fear of societal stigma, suspicion or intrusion.

Firstly, social services have (chronically) limited budgets. Given this reality, it might well be desirable that states continue to focus their limited resources on the most appalling cases (such as abuse and neglect) rather than seek marginal improvements in the population at large. Secondly, one cannot meaningfully talk of the rights of children without some understanding of the interests of these children. And extreme cases aside, it is not at all clear that an enormously detached and monolithic body such as the state could ever understand the interests of children as well as their parents do. To micromanage down to the level of different children’s personalities is not just inefficient but dangerous. The judgement and good motives of parents have always historically been the best guarantor of the interests of their children. For the state to belittle, or attempt to circumvent these would be damaging, not beneficial, to the overall raising of children.