During my early years, my Catholic school in Puerto Rico did not conduct any field trips. I first enrolled in the public school system in Florida at the age of ten. They did conduct field trips; each of these required a signed parental consent form. In this regard, we simply brought that consent from home and simply asked her to sign it. My mom didn’t really speak (or read) English. Truthfully, she didn’t really know what each particular field trip entailed, though she implicitly trusted us not to abuse that trust. We never had her put her name on a blank check or sign away the car or house.
During my senior year in high school, there was a similar classroom session for our Health class. This particular class was a requirement for graduation. However, this specific lesson required parental consent; those who did not get consent would spend it in the library. Like all other parental permission forms that preceded this one, I simply handed the paper to my mom and asked her to sign it. The lesson talked about human sexuality, had pictures of circumcision, childbirth, etc. While I’m sure some students didn’t get consent, the ones who remained didn’t seem especially distressed.
In hindsight, I could understand why some parents would be apprehensive about their teenage daughter seeing drawings of surgically removing the foreskin off a penis, even if all of it was depicted clinically and not erotically. However, there are many worse things in high school, like bullying and cliques. Those weren’t so easy to escape with a simple parental consent form.
Your children, your rules
I believe that information is power, and this means the more educated, the better. Though this may be a side effect of my having a disproportionately good memory. That said, I understand how some parents may object to their children learning intricate details about human anatomy. This is why my class required a consent form. You didn’t have a consent form? No lesson. This defaulted to your child not taking learning that lesson; the consent form was to opt-in.
However, that consent form gave my mom consent for me to take the class. My mom had no authority to allow (or disallow) other people’s children to take the class; that wouldn’t make any sense. If you genuinely don’t want your child to learn about slavery, Japanese internment camps, the Chinese Exclusion Act, etc. Then your child can sit quietly in the library while the other students learn about our checkered, though accurate, history. If you genuinely believe each parent has the right to monitor what their kids learn, why would you presume to control what other parents allow their kids to learn? Are you not infringing upon their rights?
Although if I may be blunt, more adult men should know that women do not pee out of their vaginas. I may even go as far as saying that if you don’t know this, you should not have a vote on women’s reproductive rights.
Is it really about protecting your children?
As I watch more instances where ‘parents’ scream in faux outrage over what we are teaching our children, there’s a voice that screams in my head. It screams, “You’re full of shit.” This will range from Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law to the alleged teaching of Critical Race Theory. Incidentally, CRT is a college level course, like differential equations. Teaching that Rosa Parks was arrested because she was black and refused to give up her seat, is not CRT; it’s just history. There are two compelling reasons why this doesn’t pass the sniff test, though they’re two sides of the same coin.
First, if you genuinely believe that a topic is simply not yet age appropriate, then once your child becomes an adult, the topic is completely fine. Except that it isn’t scoped to just children. Florida’s bill labeled “Individual Freedom”, also targets workplaces; unless they’ve loosened child labor laws, this doesn’t affect children. Most college students are adults (or turn eighteen shortly after), why are we targeting DEI programs in schools? If you object to a particular topic or issue, at least own it.
Second, I remember watching The Exorcist when I was a young child, and it did psychic damage. That was a colossal mistake. There are already plenty of instances which are not age appropriate where we eventually allow access as a society. However, I don’t see adults screaming and threatening each other with phrases like “I know where you live!” over R-rated movies at the local theater. Most states allow you to drink once you turn 21. Had I turned 18 before I graduated high school in Florida, I could buy a Hustler magazine, but I can’t hear that Bobby has two fathers?!
Stop using our children as leverage
Are you tired of hearing about Black Lives Matter? How do you know that your objection to teaching your children about slavery isn’t simply an extension of that exhaustion? If it’s simply a question of age-appropriateness, then at what age can your child participate in a peaceful BLM protest with your blessing? If you can’t think of a number, then it’s not really about age, is it?
It’s dishonest. You’re using ‘your children’ to set policy at a school board or even a state level. It’s not about your children anymore, is it? What gives you the authority to set policy for other people’s children? If you disagree with a policy, challenge it. If you lose that challenge on its merits, don’t use ‘protecting our children’ as a lever. It’s cheap and demeans your children.
As I continue to observe how we’re using our children, it occurs to me that it’s a macrocosm of another scenario with children. We’re watching an adversarial divorce at a national level, between spouses who truly want to hurt each other. The side who intentionally uses the children for leverage is purposefully playing dirty. If you’re mentally trying to rationalize it, it’s probably you.
Are you still skeptical? If you don’t want to marry someone of a different race don’t do it, but don’t prevent others from doing it. It’s not your marriage, why pass and enforce laws that disallow it? In fact, in 1967, the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in Loving vs. Virginia. However, the state of Virginia still argued that a reason to disallow it was “to protect children from damage” from a mixed marriage. Don’t believe me? Read the text.