State Parenting

By now I’m sure most would have seen the video of the mother punishing her twelve year old daughter for posting pictures of herself in her underwear to Facebook. And naturally the debate is raging. Every expert and of course, pseudo expert is giving their opinion on it. An overwhelming number of persons have commended the mother for her handling of the situation and this is very disturbing. But I guess that’s what you get when pseudo professionals are free to express themselves, lets hope that they are not able to influence too many with their flawed rationales.

Well, if you thought that things were bad enough, up comes the Prime Minister. According to news report, she stated that she could not see any circumstance that would warrant assaulting a child in that manner, admitting too that she did not see the clip of course. But she went further, to suggest that the state should look into legislation to outlaw lick in the homes.

“It will be difficult to intervene, but I know in more developed countries there is legislation against parents assaulting their children, so it is something that we may look into and we can do so through inquiring into pieces of legislation elsewhere and here and see what best can be done,” Persad-Bissessar said.

I think the PM needs to think before acting on this. She must consider the consequences of such action by the state. Whilst I don't advocate beating children, at the same time I cannot blindly support any move by the state to criminalise beating of children in the home, once my interpretation of the PM’s statement is correct of course.

Presently, corporal punishment is outlawed within the school system. As a result, directly or indirectly, children are running wild and any attempt at discipline is met with "you can't beat me". Many adults blame the removing of corporal punishment in schools for the breakdown, justified or not that's the reality. It is very possible that in considering the the banning of corporal punishment in schools, the then Minister had not thoroughly considered the effects of such a move and it would be wise for her to not repeat such.

Instead, the state should consider programs aimed at assisting parents in dealing with such situations. For the PM to say the state needs to consider action to protect children from abusive parents is not addressing the problems in the home. Someone needs to whisper in the ear of the PM that the state cannot protect children by criminalising corporal punishment in the home, BY PARENTS. They can outlaw corporal punishment by the teacher, but not the parent. Again, the consequences are too grave in my opinion.

The state must consider what happens when it outlaw punishment (beating) in the home. Once you do that, how are you going to enforce it. What are the punishment for breach of the laws? Could it be that you jail the parent? Take the child away from the home, and place them in a children’s home? What of those children’s homes, are they capable of providing the care these children need, which the state determined they were not getting in the home?

There are too many factors that are too important to ignore. The solution cannot simply be legislate on how to parent. Yes that’s in effect what the state would be doing, legislating on how to parent. Presently the state can’t even deliver on good governance, they now want to tell us how to parent?