Parents know best (Gettysburg Times op-ed)
The mom sitting on the park bench with me looked knowingly into my eyes as I pondered her statement. It’s true I, in the best interest of my children, had voiced my concerns regarding a pattern of high fevers and an eye problem, spurring pediatricians to diagnose and effectively treat those conditions. And we were there in the Gettysburg dog park because my husband and I had adopted our older child’s most heartfelt wish, a dog, which increased her daily joy, while our other child got valuable socialization with kids on the nearby playground. Yes, we did know what was best for our children. I nodded sagely. She pressed further.
“And that’s why I’m advocating a book rating system at my child’s school library. I’m concerned about her being exposed to inappropriate content.”
A library book rating system? I was intrigued, completely unaware of such a thing. This mom, who had her child’s best interests at heart, explained that there were books of such “inappropriate ”content, that if rated, could simply be avoided by her child.
“What books?” I asked, and she rattled off some titles I had never heard of. I wondered, were there books we wouldn’t want our children to have access to? I remembered reading in The Journal of the Absurd by Siegel and Garfinkel about Hot Sh*t #1 by Annie Sprinkle whose layouts were confiscated as being “too obscene to print.” Considering such a damning judgment, in the 1970s no less, one couldn’t imagine this material as suitable for children. I nodded again, but then paused. Exactly under what circumstances would Hot Sh*t #1 ever be on the library shelves of a school? (Answer: it wouldn’t.) Running out of time, we two moms collected our dogs and soon parted ways. But later, I ran the idea past a dear friend who raised exactly the right question.
“Whose rating system?”
Whose indeed. Theocratically-inspired Moms for Liberty (M4L) promotes such a “rating system,” pushing their way into school districts across the country. Posing as a grassroots moms group, but really a well-funded nationwide network with an ideological agenda, M4L sponsors community members to run for school boards in order to impose their standards on every family’s children. They draw parents in with their “rating systems,” then move on to book bans, and eventual curricular censorship. By cherry-picking a graphic sentence or two and falsely equating renowned books with actual pornographic writing, these parents persuade other parents to be incensed, but they never provide the context of the passages, nor the reasoning that degreed, certified, and experienced school librarians and curricular committees employed to place these books on school library shelves in the first place. The books this political group lobbies to rate and/or ban are often well-recognized works of literary merit from people, frequently women, of color, specific culture, or sexual orientation, who address difficult subject matter pertaining to history, bias, trauma, discrimination, and/or bigotry. Such award-winning examples include: Beloved by Tony Morrison, Push by Sapphire, Forever by Judy Blume, The Kite Runner by Kahled Hosseini, and All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson’
I examined my initial lack of humility. Why would I second-guess the careful selection of school librarians, teachers, administrators, curriculum committees, and Pennsylvania Department of Education employees? I had correctly identified the health problems of my children, but then…I then turned their care over to the experts — their degreed, licensed, and experienced pediatricians. These experts confirmed my suspicions, referred our children to relevant specialists we wouldn’t have been aware of, prescribed helpful medications we couldn’t have identified, and performed complex surgeries, all of which we agreed to.
In other words, what was best for our children was to trust these professionals.
The fact is, my family entrusts the education of our children to dedicated educators because of their superior knowledge in children’s education. Outside of our home, they are the greatest reason why our kids read, write, perform mathematical operations, conduct scientific experiments, cite history, create art, play music, exercise, share insights, gain new perspectives, practice democracy, and support creative performances. They are in loco parentis, not only for our children, but for other children in the community, whose specific needs and interests differ greatly from one another.
Do parents always agree with a school district’s decisions? No, we’ve spoken at school board meetings on a variety of topics, but the thrust has always been to improve education, not deprive students of knowledge or perspective. And therein lies the difference between most parents and the slick members of Moms for Liberty — that knowing what’s best for one’s child doesn’t mean limiting their education, or that of any other child, but expanding it.
Beth Farnham is a guest writer for the DFA Education Task Force. She is a stay-at-home parent in Conewago Township where she lives with her husband, their two children, and their dog and cat.