La Deech decreed:
It is insufficient to "take children's rights seriously", as home
educators claim they do. Rights have to be enforceable by an authority
outside the two parties involved, otherwise one is subject to the
other. That is why we have a Bill of Human Rights. The same is true of
"listening to the child's voice" - there has to be a third party
ensuring that that is the case.
Unless you want a situation where children are no longer naturally protected by the people who are biologically programmed to have their best interests at heart, then it is more than sufficient. Unless you want a situation where children are automatically vulnerable prey for predators who naturally rise to positions of power over others, then it is more than sufficient.
Depending on your definitions, listening to the voice of the child and respecting children's rights might be morally preferable, but it can never be objectively assessed and then enforced through legislation.
An example:
My partner and I believe, rightly or wrongly, that it is our responsibility as parents to bring up our children to be independent human beings. We believe that our children will grow up most able to regulate themselves physically, mentally and emotionally if we give them the opportunities to learn how to do so, unfettered by the meaningless rules that bind so many people, so unnecessarily. We believe that they have to take risks in order to learn how to live safely. We believe that they are entitled to the same respect we would accord any other human being because they are human beings, albeit smaller, less capable in some respects and certainly less experienced in most. We both agree that they should be brought up to know that it is okay to say NO to somebody, regardless of their position or age, if they believe that that person is doing something wrong.
That's what we believe, and so we choose to follow our preference of listening to the voice of the child, and giving our children rights within our family environment.
But other parents might think differently. I happen to think that, on certain issues at least, if they think that we are wrong then they are wrong. This rarely offends or upsets me now, and I put this down to healthy self-confidence and contentment with my own life. Sometimes I engage in debate with people and attempt to sell them on certain ideas (Hey! co-sleeping is OK, people!) but I woud never, ever want to make them do differently. Ever. Because, unless I:
1. Am particularly stupid
2. Have dreadfully low self-esteem and see everyone different as a threat to my own existence
3. Believe I have natural superiority over other human beings
then if I accept that I have the right to make them do what I want, then I have to accept that they have the right to tell me what to do.
And if that was the case, then life would be a nonsense.
There is the possibility that other parents might agree with us, but the opportunities they provide for their children will be different to ours, because they are different, their children are different, and their circumstances are different. They might not agree with us on what constitutes risk, or what constitutes a suitable risk for a five year old to take, for example. Their three year old might be far more proficient than mine in some respects. They might think that it's really okay to spit in front of other people, perhaps, or they might never want their child to answer a stranger back.
Their choices. I might not personally agree with those choices, but I respect them because other people's freedom is my own freedom. And "harm" is a difficult thing to define objectively.
Most of us, I would suspect, would agree that something in our childhood "harmed" us. But does that mean the state should have become involved? Do we really think, as adults, the vast majority of us would have been better off in state care facilities? I don't. I didn't have a particularly happy adolescence, but I was terrified by the idea of state care. And from my experience of going into residential care units as an adult, I think I had good reason to be.
What happens if that choice is taken away from these parents? From any parent? What if somebody else with automatic powers of intervention creates an issue that they deem to be of importance to the "rights of the child" and decides to pass judgement? On diet? On leisure acitivities? Or sexual activity?
La Deech happens to have a fixed idea about what constitutes education. She must think that home educated children in the main don't get one because only they are to be given a voice to say whether or not they want to be educated "at home" - I use the term loosely. She is clearly not interested in the voices of the overwhelming majority of schooled children; just the few home educated ones. She is not being logical, rational or consistent. Either she is 1, 2, or 3. She doesn't care about the education of children. What she cares about is that people circumvent the state system. Take from that what you will.
Or, if that is too challenging an idea for the moment, read this, from the same delightful lady:
Children should be forced to care for their elderly parents and grandparents to payback for the ‘’free’ childcare they were once given, says one of the country’s most senior family lawyers.
Baroness Deech, a professor of law at Gresham College, believes that grandparents should be repaid for years of free childcare in her latest speech on family law.
She said: “In return for all that grandparents do, should there not be an obligation to keep them – and to keep parents – and reciprocate the care that was given by then to children and grandchildren in their youth?
“There is a dearth of affordable child care and an attempt to meet it by conscripting grandmothers” she continued.
So this will be voice of the child revisited as an adult: an invaluable perspective unless it says, "No thank you, Baroness Deech." The voice of the child, which la Deech so desperately wants to take into account unless it says, "No thank you. I do not subscribe to the world according to Deech." And then, dissenter, if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever:
Lady Deech, who is also the chairman of the Bar Standards Board, which regulates the work of barristers, made reference to the 400-year-old Poor Law whereby sons support their parents and grandparents throughout their lives, while for daughters the only obligation lasted only until they were married. This law was revoked in England and Wales in 1948, but Lady Deech says that the increased number of working women means that more grandparents are being asked to provide free childcare.
“This places particular burdens on grandparents who may need to work themselves, but feel obliged to help out the younger generation.
“They are assuming burdens which deprive them of their own chance to continue to earn a living, and for which deprive them of their own chance to continue to earn a living and for which they are not compensated, and the child care they give is no doubt at some cost to them.”
Either:
Decide whether or not you want (and can afford) to have children.
Decide whether or not you want (and can afford) to look after your grandchildren.
Examine your own conscience to decide whether it is appropriate to give something directly back to your family.
Or:
Pay your taxes, populate the state systems that keep you in line, and allow la Deech to be your moral compass.
You decide!
[Now I really am gone until next week.]
