Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Parental upbringing: sometimes a pretension of absolute, unchallenged power, open to arbitrariness and abuse
In Canada a 12-old girl took her dad to court after her father grounded her and refused to allow her to go on a schol trip. She won.
Many articles criticise this ruling. "The courts shouldn't be raising our kids" screams the National Post. "Father knows best, not court", states solemnly Globeandmail.
A part from the case in point, some questions must be raised:
Does a father always know best? Should a father always be granted the status of that who by definition always knows best, unquestioningly?
Let us ask a simple question: why should the weaker party, a child, be deprived of the simple right to appeal to a higher authority, a right that we recognise for any adult?
Why should the weaker party, the child, by definitinion be subjected to the father's absolute and unchallenged authority, without any chance of appeal to a higher authority?
The simple fact of procreating does not necessarily automatically turn an adult into a balanced, fair, sensitive human being immune from insanity.
The concept of "unruled" absolute authority by parents can lead, and not unfrequently leads, to psychological (and physical) abuse, to a situation in which children have no one to appeal to and can only be forced to accept the - sometimes - pathological and/or unstable and/or violent and/or narcissistic and/or immature and/or sadistic personality of their parents for long, long years.
Years of pain that no adult would feel fair to endure personally: if a wife or a husband are in a painful relationship, they can simply ask for divorce and even ask for mental cruelty compensations!
But not child.
Why do we accept that an adult have guarantees and can legally appeal to a higher authority while people get scandalised if a public authority rules over a family after a minor has sued his father?
Are we saying that law should not "meddle with fathers' business" (a pater familias impunity concept), that a child has no rights and must be left alone, and that the only escape for him or her, in the above-mentioned cases, is mental disease or self-destruction?
If so, we would be subtly accepting a Sparta-like idea of education by which a child must endure anything and everything (some parents do not stop at simple, occasional, grounding in their upbringing style) just because he or she is a child. The strong and the lucky will survive.
Many articles criticise this ruling. "The courts shouldn't be raising our kids" screams the National Post. "Father knows best, not court", states solemnly Globeandmail.
A part from the case in point, some questions must be raised:
Does a father always know best? Should a father always be granted the status of that who by definition always knows best, unquestioningly?
Let us ask a simple question: why should the weaker party, a child, be deprived of the simple right to appeal to a higher authority, a right that we recognise for any adult?
Why should the weaker party, the child, by definitinion be subjected to the father's absolute and unchallenged authority, without any chance of appeal to a higher authority?
The simple fact of procreating does not necessarily automatically turn an adult into a balanced, fair, sensitive human being immune from insanity.
The concept of "unruled" absolute authority by parents can lead, and not unfrequently leads, to psychological (and physical) abuse, to a situation in which children have no one to appeal to and can only be forced to accept the - sometimes - pathological and/or unstable and/or violent and/or narcissistic and/or immature and/or sadistic personality of their parents for long, long years.
Years of pain that no adult would feel fair to endure personally: if a wife or a husband are in a painful relationship, they can simply ask for divorce and even ask for mental cruelty compensations!
But not child.
Why do we accept that an adult have guarantees and can legally appeal to a higher authority while people get scandalised if a public authority rules over a family after a minor has sued his father?
Are we saying that law should not "meddle with fathers' business" (a pater familias impunity concept), that a child has no rights and must be left alone, and that the only escape for him or her, in the above-mentioned cases, is mental disease or self-destruction?
If so, we would be subtly accepting a Sparta-like idea of education by which a child must endure anything and everything (some parents do not stop at simple, occasional, grounding in their upbringing style) just because he or she is a child. The strong and the lucky will survive.
