Who Dictates What’s Best For Kids?
You might automatically say “Duh, parents,” but I mean, is that always the case?
Here’s a good essay with the subtitle of “Everyone talks about kids, but no one is helping them.” It’s by
.I’ve long struggled with this concept and question, and I’m not even a parent. Here is the essential summary of the argument or discussion in the linked post:
Historically, children — who often died very young — were used as labor. It wasn’t until the late 19th century and the development of modern medicine and vaccines that allowed children to survive past infancy that people began to advocate against child cruelty and labor.
Children are so often the rallying cry for political causes: gun laws, the anti-vaccine movement, book bans, tax credits. Arguments both for and against trans-inclusive health care center on the best interests of the child. Everything in our country is being done in the name of the children, while no one is really helping them.
The tax credits that lifted children out of poverty have not been renewed. As I wrote this, there was news of another shooting at another high school. Thousands of children have gone missing since the 2020 lockdown and have not been found again. In one of the wealthiest nations in the world, we still allow children to go hungry.
Most hetero-normative suburban moms and dads with “Mother | Christ follower” in their Instagram bios would look at this question and think, “You’re stupid. Obviously parents dictate what’s best for kids, unless Child Protective Services needs to be involved.” That is the common approach and methodology to these types of questions.
But many of those same people hide behind lots of other entities knowing what is best for their child, including:
Schools
The government
Academics
Doctors
Other moms
“Digital creators”
Etc.
There are, unfortunately, many ways for parents to hide behind XYZ concept and not be active parents. We let parents off the hook for a lot.
The problem politically is that kids are a great narrative weapon. They don’t actually vote, so you don’t have to worry (yet) about offending them. Once people decide to have kids or do have kids, it usually becomes a huge chunk of their personality to the point that whenever a politician says the word “kids” or “children” on a cable news show, someone will snap their neck to see what is being said. Over time, we got way more ideological, so now the whole narrative is: “The side I don’t like is trying to kill and sexualize my children.” That’s usually a wee bit too far — in the essay I linked above, by a pretty liberal woman, there are some examples of that thinking as well — but children are a big deal in terms of something you create + legacy + you want to be seen as good at this, so it becomes all-consuming.
Politicians know they can get attention by promising a better future for kids, but even nepo babies cannot write a check yet. To get the money they' need to run (and line their own pockets), they need to fellate and placate people who can write checks — typically late-30s to late-70s males, who want a specific worldview based on the present, whereas anything about “kids” is a 20-year-window-yield. That's where the narrative falls apart.
Ideally, no politician wants to see a school or mall shot up. That's generally like a bad thing. But many of them won’t oppose a gun lobby, as one small example. Many of them wouldn’t approve funds for more mental health operators, or consider writing bills to lower the barrier for entry to treat youth. Most wouldn’t do these things for fear of offending the status quo or the donor class.
As such, “kids” don’t matter as much as we claim. They are a political narrative tool and that’s predominantly it. You see it in the “pro-life” discourse too. To be fully pro-life, you need to care about a kid not just as a fetus and as a birth number, but when the kid is six and his mom doesn’t have a job. Most people who are “pro-life” stop caring about the kid conceptually once he’s Earth-side. Hence, it’s not “pro-life.” It’s “pro-birth.”
All in all, do we value children as much as we claim to? Not really. We do like us some babies, though.
Ideally, parents or some caretaker — grandparents? — have the ultimate responsibility for a child’s formative years. I don’t think many would disagree with that basic assumption. But many parents aren’t that good or active (sometimes not their fault; modern society can be exhausting), and they hide behind so many other things who supposedly “should be helping” their child, I.e. the U.S. Senate or some school that’s worried about funding or the makers of specific video games or communications platforms. This all muddies the water.
As someone with infertility who can’t get to “the greatest joy you’ve ever known,” my theory has long been: If you have kids, prioritize the kids and do the best for them that you can. The macro-environment may never be perfect, and might indeed get worse, but just raise the bar as much as you reasonably can. For example, don’t be this guy:
And don’t listen to politicians. They’re largely full of shit.