WHTT Parental Responsibility
Financial support through public school is only one specific item in a larger general list of parental obligations with respect to their children. Society grants almost full freedom for parents to decide how to raise their children. In exchange for that freedom, parents must assume full responsibility for problems caused by the way in which the children are raised. This understanding of parental responsibility will finally resolve some very difficult philosophical questions. For example, consider the following tragic scenarios which happen in real life far too often:
| A fifteen year old commits an armed robbery which ends with the child shooting the victim |
| A thirteen year old is caught selling a large quantity of cocaine |
| A ten year old finds the parent's gun and accidentally shoots a neighbor's child |
| A twelve year old takes a relative's gun to school to shoot teachers or students |
Tragedies such as these occur almost daily in America, and there is always an emotional argument about whether the child should be prosecuted as an adult or rehabilitated as a child. Those arguments never focus on the real culprits in each tragic situation, the parents of the child! Society provides parents with freedom to choose how to raise their children. The parents must shoulder full responsibility when the way their children are raised causes major problems. A child raised with proper values and education does not rob, murder, or sell drugs. A child properly protected by parents from hazardous situations does not accidentally kill with the parent's gun. In all of the above cases, the child was only doing something that parents permitted, whether by poor communication of values, or by improper education, or by inadequate supervision.
For each of the above tragedies, society has an obligation to all to fully punish the offenders so that similar offenses will not be frequently repeated. It is obviously not right to sentence a child to life in prison, so society must allocate part of the punishment to the parents who were instrumental in permitting the child to create the problem. When a very young child commits a crime or creates a serious accident, the parents should shoulder almost all the responsibility and punishment. As the age of the offending child increases, the share of parental responsibility and punishment would decrease, and the punishment provided to the child would increase. When a young child causes a tragic accident, the child should not be punished at all. However, the parents whose negligence contributed to the tragedy must be given full punishment to minimize the risk that someone else will repeat the same mistake. A prison sentence would be inappropriate punishment for contributing to an accident, but a financial fine coupled with a period of community service would be reasonable.
There is another kind of "accident" by a child in which parental responsibility needs to be better defined. One of the obligations of parenthood is to fully educate the child about sexual values and the responsibilities of reproduction. When a child (either boy or girl) contributes to making a baby, then that baby must receive its full share of natural rights to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and equal opportunity to achieve. That translates to a substantial financial and moral responsibility which must be provided for the baby. A child-parent cannot provide the needs of a baby, and society does not assume those obligations. That means that the child-parent's parents (i.e., the baby's grandparents) are fully obligated to provide for the baby as if it were their own child. Parents who do not wish to assume such obligations for their potential grandchildren should provide their children with adequate education, moral values, and parental supervision.
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