Robert Kunzman: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child vs. the Parental Rights Movement

Today's post is from Robert Kunzman, author of Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling. Kunzman spent ten years as a high school teacher, coach, and administrator and is currently an associate professor in the Indiana University School of Education. He is also the author of Grappling with the Good: Talking about Religion and Morality in Public Schools.

Quick—who are the only two nations who haven't ratified the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Somalia is one of them—no bonus points for that guess. Who else stands against the 193 nations who've ratified the treaty? None other than the United States of America. This may change under the Obama administration; U.N. ambassador Susan Rice recently proclaimed the situation a disgrace and indicated that U.S. ratification of the treaty was under active discussion.

But not if the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has their way. Calling the UNCRC "anti-family" and "anti-American," they have urged their 80,000 members—as well as those who've joined ParentalRights.org, a "grassroots" organization founded by HSLDA—to voice their opposition. To further their cause, they have been a driving force in promoting a Parental Rights Amendment, which now has more than 110 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.

Why does the most powerful and prominent homeschool advocacy organization in the world see the UNCRC as such a threat? Ultimately, it's an argument about who should have a say in the raising and educating of children.

I've spent the past five years exploring the world of homeschooling from a variety of angles, traveling the country and visiting with families in their homes, observing their homeschooling practices and talking with them about what they're doing and why they're doing it. I quickly discovered that the range of philosophies, methods, and outcomes is vast indeed. But one fundamental conviction among homeschool parents emerges again and again: the state has no business telling them how to raise or educate their children.

This conviction is especially strong among conservative Christian homeschoolers, who most observers agree constitute the largest subset of the likely two million homeschoolers in the United States (HSLDA describes itself as a Christian organization). Not infrequently, parents pointed to the biblical passage of Deuteronomy 6:6-9 when explaining to me their motivation to homeschool. The Message, a popular Bible paraphrase, puts it this way: "Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night."

This orientation toward parenting and education helps explain why homeschool parents are particularly resistant toward any government role or authority in the education of their children. Good parents (whether homeschoolers or not) see education, broadly construed, as part of their job description: raising a child involves constant teaching, and the most important lessons in life generally occur outside of school walls. But most homeschoolers take this a step further. They don't see any real distinction between this broader notion of education and formal schooling itself—which makes sense, if homeschooling is just woven into the fabric of everyday family life. And if homeschooling is seen as simply part of parenting, then it becomes easier to understand why many homeschool parents view government oversight of education as an unjustifiable intrusion into their sacred domain.

For conservative Christian homeschoolers, educating their children is a God-given right and responsibility, and one they can delegate only at great moral and spiritual peril. Like many in the broader homeschool population, conservative Christians see homeschooling as a twenty-four-hour-a-day, all-encompassing endeavor. For them, perhaps more explicitly than other homeschoolers, homeschooling is a shaping not only of intellect but—even more crucially—character. This means more than just moral choices of right and wrong; character is developed through the inculcation of an overarching Christian worldview that guides those moral choices. These parents share a fierce determination to instill Christian character in their children, a process that entails protecting them from the corrupting influences of broader society. To accomplish this, the family becomes the defensive bulwark and sanctuary wherein children are prepared for eventual engagement with the world.

Parental interests aren't the only ones at stake in the educational process, of course. A democracy depends upon the cultivation of informed citizens who can deliberate respectfully about the best ways to live together. And while most parents naturally believe that their efforts are dedicated to what's best for their children, in reality this isn't always the case; as the UNCRC asserts, children have their own educational interests at stake as well. But in the context of homeschooling—the ultimate in educational privatization—how to define and protect these various interests remains a complicated and contested question indeed.

Comments

[Eric Potter]

Hello,
My background: father of two, homeschooling parent, Christian.
First, it is difficult to be sure towards what point the quoted article or this post is aiming? I believe it is the subtle statement that children should have a say in their education and the government is instituted to defend their say for the good of society.
The article says : "A democracy depends upon the cultivation of informed citizens who can deliberate respectfully about the best ways to live together." The argument is that the state is better prepared than parents to produce such "informed citizens" for the good of democracy.
Here are our founding father's quotes regarding how to have civil society:
John Adams "Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand".
Benjamin Rush "The only foundation...for a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."
Ben Franklin: "only a virtuous people are capable of freedom as nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters"

Our founders, though far from perfect, do deserve our respect for their accomplishments in gaining our freedom and setting up a constitutional government that is the oldest surviving democratic constitution.

So if Religion and Virtue are necessary for our government, how best do we get them? Let me make one clear quote from the creator of our modern educational system, Dewey (I can't find the exact quote) said that there are no absolute truths or moral truths. The system he created attempts to apply this to educating our children.

Parents who spend 24/7 investing in their children can produce better informed citizens who are virtuous and are capable of deliberating respectfully. They will produce a better democracy that those raised under a system where morality is relative.

Therefore, I oppose any US law or international treaty such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which is unconstitutional (in its contradiction of liberty) or pragmatically dangerous in what it intends to produce, a relativistic non-moral people.

Sincerely,
Eric Potter MD

PS: I am open to discussion on the actual contents of the treaty which you have not included. Accepting the generalities mentioned in the article is a Trojan horse for the treaty's dangerous contents.

[Librehombre]

Hi Robert,
I was very interested to learn about your book because the subject of homeschooling is one I have been writing and blogging about for some time. I will eventually obtain a copy but for now I wanted to respond to this blog entry.

I hope you addressed the far right Christian dominionists, because my research tells me they form a decided threat to our open society. As you write, the preponderance of homeschool families give the reason for homeschooling as a desire to instill religious values in their children. Although I wonder what makes them think that 150 years of public education somehow stamped out the ability of parents in the past to provide religious instruction. The real fear is that the most rabid among them will lose adherents and they know this, because their world view is so backward and inappropriate for today.

Michael Farris the megalomaniac behind HSLDA, Generation Joshua, and Patrick Henry College is working on his master plan for Christians to rule the world. That is right, the world, not just our poor country. In this, he has managed to align many powerful wealthy people with access to the corridors of political power. According to the BBC documentary on Patrick Henry College the campus was entirely paid for without any mortgage loans due. An impressive feat of fund raising.

He is also behind ParentalRights.org and the movement to amend our constitution, presumably because he knows the court decisions and case law that flows out of them do not support his extreme view of sacrosanct parental rights based on the bible. Sure, let's relive the dark ages. Once was not enough.

The UNCRC is an amazing document and if even 50% of the articles gain official implementation it has the potential to revolutionize our world. However, because so much unfounded opposition exists it may be like other conventions that state parties never officially adopted. Nonethless, the ethical force of the declarations created favorable attitudes towards the substance so that popular opinion eventually drove needed changes anyway. Either way, if the CRC articles gain support, the children of the world will benefit immensely and that means we all will benefit. I should have included CEDAW in my sweeping generalization, because we will not realize our full humanity until women are valued equally with men. Emancipated women will help emancipate children.

In one respect, what I am talking about has already happened. Article 19 of the CRC prohibits physical abuse of children. Scientists add force to the ethical and humanitarian arguments aginst punishing children violently.

"The debate on spanking within the scientific and academic communities is dead, and has been for a number of years now. The most substantial indicator of this development is evidenced by the fact that virtually every professional organization in the U.S. and Canada concerned with the care and treatment of children, has taken a public stance against the practice of spanking."

James C. Talbot

http://www.endhereditaryreligion.com
Rich Collins

[GS]

There is a lot of stuff in that bill for the Government to take power including the government looking at Children's Medical Records without parental approval. Tell me what business does the Government have in pawing through people's records. Also this Treaty has virtually banned Homeschooling in other countries we do not want that in the United States. Also Rich I do not think Michael Farris is trying to make Christians rule the world he has values that many of us agree with and want to take action on just like you have values that you believe that you want to take action on.
The Big One
GS