What do parents know?  After all, consider the damage parents do to their children. Parents are often so busy, children are left at home as latch-key kids or glued to their smart phones and iPads. Parents really don’t know what is best for their kids.  Someone who really cares should be responsible.  I’ve got it!  Let’s put the government in charge of raising kids!

The government has a much broader scope of information and experience by connecting with children all over the country.  How can a parent in one home know what is best? Government has the support of the National Education Association (NEA) who works with children every year.  They are much better equipped to help children.  Furthermore, Government has the resources to multiply their efforts by influencing college grads on how to be better citizens!

We have great organizations like Planned Parenthood who are on the side of raising healthy people. They report, “Research shows that teens are more sexually active than parents think. By the time they’re 19, seven out of 10 teens have had sex. Two thousand teens get pregnant in the U.S. every day. And teens have very high rates of sexually transmitted infections.”¹  So of course, because parents are ignorant of these statistics, they should just let the government and Planned Parenthood be more responsible.

The National Education Association (NEA) is seeking legislation to limit home-schooling that is continuing to grow from 3-5 percent to projections of 15 percent within 10 years.²  The NEA is seeking to stifle the home-school movement. Certainly the experience of NEA should be considered over parents. Focus on the Family recently stated,

For instance, the nation’s largest teachers’ union—the National Education Association® (NEA)—recently voted to promote “resources in order to help all educators integrate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history, people, and issues into their instruction.” The NEA specifically referenced material distributed by one of the nation’s largest homosexual advocacy groups, GLSEN—the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network®. With organizations like the NEA working hand-in-hand with sexual advocacy groups, it’s easy for parents to feel their voices are overshadowed.³

Or we should leave it up to college professors who have done research that explains who should raise children.  One study exposed that same-sex parenting was not harmful to children.⁴ For example, Boston University School of Medicine professor of pediatrics, Benjamin Siegel said,

Many studies have demonstrated that children’s well-being is affected much more by their relationships with their parents, their parents’ sense of competence and security, and the presence of social and economic support for the family than by the gender or the sexual orientation of their parents.⁴

Siegel’s report continues to declare that children of gay parents have fewer social problems, rule-breaking and aggressive behavior. It doesn’t matter that the report was based on 78 children and there was no control group or standardization.  Siegel must be right, because he is a college professor!

Hopefully, you’ve understood my sanctified sarcasm in this article.  Neither the government nor any other organization should be able to tell parents how to raise their children. It is a God-given responsibility and privilege to raise children to godliness.  The challenge to us is then, how are we helping parents raise their children and not just our own children? Are we so concerned about our own lifestyles that all other parents and children should fend for themselves? Are we so concerned about our hobbies and entertainment that young parents should just deal with their children and figure it out themselves?

We “older” parents may be done “raising” our children, because they are beyond 21, but we are not done being parents! We have a God-given responsibility to continue parenting for the sake of our great-grandchildren.

God declared our privilege in parenting.  Recorded in Psalm 78, as Asaph wrote,

³ Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. ⁴ We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done. ⁵ For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; ⁶ That the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, ⁷ That they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments; ⁸ And may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright, and whose spirit was not faithful to God. (Ps. 78:3-8 NKJ)

May the Lord forgive our nation for relinquishing the privilege of raising children to the government or any other organization!

• ¹ http://www.plannedparenthood.org/parents/
• ² http://www.examiner.com/article/teachers-unions-plan-to-crush-parent-led-schooling
• ³ Focus on the Family email received on 9/27/13
• ⁴ http://www.futurity.org/kids-raised-by-gay-parents-are-doing-just-fine/