“Children are not casual guests in our home. They have been loaned to us temporarily for the purpose of loving them and instilling a foundation of values on which their future lives will be built.”
This quote by James Dobson suggests, quite apart from love, parents have the responsibility for their children.
New Jersey wants to meddle with that responsibility.
In a current controversy, the state is suing school districts over policies involving trans youth.
Three districts have policies requiring schools to notify parents if children request to change their gender identity, or their names, or their pronouns, or their freedom to use bathrooms or join teams other than those matching their sexual plumbing.
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin alleges in his complaint that the policies “discriminate” against LGBT students and the state “will not tolerate any actions by schools that threatens the health and safety of our young people.”
He is saying, in effect, that notifying parents would be threatening to the health and safety of children.
That is monumental hubris — it says that the State of New Jersey is a better protector of children than are their parents.
One district, Marlboro, actually has language including an exception for health and safety of the child, plus consultation with the student before parents are notified.
Marlboro lawyer Marc H. Zitomer said, “Keeping parents in the dark about important issues involving their children is counterintuitive and contrary to well-established Supreme Court case law that says that parents have a Constitutional right to direct and control the upbringing of their children.”
Those are the facts. Here are my questions.
How can teachers be forced to notify parents about their children’s feelings about gender, if they don’t want to?
What does it say about parents who are not aware of their child’s gender confusion or turmoil? Is this a sign of bad parenting?
How about a child who would sooner confide in a teacher than in a parent?
Or possibly a child running a prank, hoping to game the system? Or a bid for attention?
I don’t see how notifying parents is discrimination. The overbearing Platkin argues the policies single out trans kids for different treatment by requiring notification not required for their straight peers. It’s hard to think of a corollary situation for straight kids, but let’s say the kid was caught drinking alcohol. Would the school have a responsibility to notify the parents?
The children’s so-called “rights” seem to rest on a Constitutional right of privacy.
What about the rights of parents?
Children in schools have a limited right of privacy. That’s why their school lockers can be searched without warning. From the ACLU: “Your locker and desk might feel like yours, but they belong to the school.”
Would the state object to schools notifying parents about excessive absenteeism?
Would that be attacking the child’s privacy rights?
Let’s admit there are bad parents, including some who would reject or react badly to a trans child. It happens.
Surely that is a minority, but the state is acting as if dangerous parents are the norm.
Where does the state get such ideas?
In the absence of actual harm to children, who authorized the state to “protect” children from their own parents?
James Dobson would be shocked.
Same sex marriage has been the law of the land for 8 years now. Remember in the 2004 campaign this same issue was used a boogeyman to make just enough people forget about the ill advised Bush invasion of Iraq? I do. Meanwhile, in those 8 years about 1% of US households nationwide are same sex. Get the picture? LGBTQ+, or whatever they’re calling it these days, is stoking fears among the anti-woke electorate that are largely unfounded and largely will amount to a tiny sliver of real people. In the meantime, keeping up with book bans, cross dressing, LGBTQ+ and other “dangers” to the very fabric of our nation ignores the largest killer of teens in America–guns. I’m not anti-2nd amendment, but we sure should concern ourselves more with keeping weapons out of the hands of unstable individuals than we should about these so called “woke” issues.
I don’t know what boogeyman you are talking about. You did not address the central question of the column. Should schools be required to withhold trans info from parents? As a parent, I vote no.
Should schools be required to withhold info, trans info in this case, from parents. Unlike you, I don’t have a clear cut answer to that. In a majority of cases I would say it’s a reasonable position. But the next time the school refers a kid’s preferences to a parent, and the parent says no and the kid commits suicide, let’s talk. Despite the more popular position of the day, I disagree. Kids often need an impartial arbiter to talk to, whether it’s the school, a psychologist, maybe even a coach. Parents can be blinded by their vision of what their kid should be without consideration for what the kid wants.
Ouch. What kids ‘want’ is often something that will ultimately bring them grief. That is why parents have the absolute right to know everything their child talks about to a third party.
Never said they didn’t have aright to know. I’m simply saying they don’t always know best.
I understand your position.
I can’t believe young school children are voluntarily telling their teachers they want a sex change.
I think some wacked out teachers are introducing this subject to young students.
I don’t know about asking for a sex change. It “could” be teachers are “leading” students in a particular way. See infamous McMartin preschool sexual case in L.A. in ‘80s. Teachers were accused of sexual abuse, it was false. The kids’ were coached to accuse their teachers. Young children are open to suggestion from adults.
That McMartin case ruined lives and put innocent people into prison. For some reason the name Dorothy Rabinowitz comes to mind as a defender of the falsely accused. But that was in the 1980s and I sometimes can’t remember what I had for breakfast. Or even if I ate breakfast.
https://nypost.com/2016/10/26/this-is-how-many-guns-the-nypd-has-seized-so-far-this-year/
When a kid goes to school, I believe that everthing that goes on in that school should be avaiable to the parent. Everything. I don’t know how trans issues come up in the school, but if it’s brought to a counsler by my child, yes, I want to know. I want to know about every facet of my child’s education. Also the number one reason why they are there. I believe also that my child has rights. 1 the right to attend school, and the right to get a good education. If either of those rights are disriminated then I will take action. I need to know the progress, the goods and the bads in their experience at the school. A teacher is there to teach, if something is wrong , there are ways the teacher can deal with that, mior things I expect a call or an e-mail, More involved things, a visit to the school and speaking with the teacher and a counsler with my child. All of this begins with me at home, if it get’s past me, somehow I believe I have failed doing my job.
You hit the nail on the head – “That is monumental hubris — it says that the State of New Jersey is a better protector of children than are their parents.” The state believes the populace are, at least, morons, and at worst, a threat. George Orwell was spot on.
The fact that this topic even has arisen should send shivers of fear through all freedom-loving people. It’s another sign that the state wants to sunder the family. What better way than by taking away parents’ rights vis a vis raising of their children?
Thank you for addressing this issue, which has already been a big one in a number of locales around the country. Elections have been won on it.
I’ve watched numerous school board meetings on Youtube in which this issue was raised – sometimes by parents who were shocked to discover something along these lines with their own child after the fact. And I do believe it’s possible for a parent to miss this, especially when encouragement and advice on the matter is being given by teachers and/or school officials as far as maintaining secrecy from the parents. I’m assuming the child masks it in front of the parents in such cases.
When I was a kid, you couldn’t go on a class trip without your parents being told and giving their approval. A change in gender/identity goes way beyond that. As long as their kids are minors, the parents have a right to know.
People like to say children will kill themselves over this. That goes both ways. There are an increasing number of cases of people who regret transitioning when they were young and say it’s ruined their lives.
This is a really tough issue . On the one hand i read an op ed piece from from a self described ” butch tomboy lesbian female ” college student who gave 100% of rhe credit to her mom for supporting her identity. She felt if rhe mom wasnt in the picture that she may have fell under the sway of trans kids and some teachers at fhe school and started to identity as a trans male as opposed to a butch tomboy lesbian. So in this case the mom was an asset. But in a small amt of other cases ,maybe the dad is an old school mans man , or a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim and the kid is petrified of his dad finding out his son identifies as a trans woman. You could have an exception to the disclosure law but then im guessing that most trans kids would try to take advantage of that whether or not they had a legit fear or not . To me its a very tough issue
I am wondering if those who are okay with schools withholding ANY information from parents are/were parents themselves. Being a parent, my answer is NO.
This is one of those issues that I believe affects such as small number of people, that it is simply being used as a clarion call for certain parties to muster up outrage. I say move on to thing that are more pertinent.
No, it’s another example of the Left trying to destroy the relationship between parent and child, with the ultimate goal of destroying the family. Classic Marxist stuff.
Who started it, Nick? I mean, seriously, who started changing the rules, regs and norms.