Alice Bachini is a blogger in her own right and supporter of Taking Children Seriously
I read in The Telegraph the depressing statistic that even when the police know a child has been killed by one of his parents, they still only convict 27 percent of murderers, as opposed to 90 percent when the murderer is a stranger.
“This failure to convict arises when parents blame each other or refuse to disclose any details about the injuries and there is no independent evidence.”
So the law against murder doesn’t exactly guarantee children’s safety. And I’m not sure giving them guns is the answer. The trouble goes deeper than anything libertarianism is qualified to solve, because it is about what goes on behind closed doors, and libertarians are only interested in protecting the rights of door-owners.
Except that I don’t think this is true. I think there are some libertarians who believe in right and wrong, and who think that the reason freedom matters is that it is morally a good thing, and that children benefit from it just as much as adults do.
At the moment, the family, or the parent/child relationship, is a largely private institution. This benefits those of us who want to improve on the norm in radical ways without being scrutinised, but those who want to do evil to their children sometimes abuse this private freedom in the most horrible ways imaginable.
Libertarians are right, I believe, that subjecting all families to more state interference would, even on this kind of balance, be wrong. But this does not mean that murdering children should be more legal than murdering adults. Nor does it make hitting kids OK. It just means that legislation is too flawed and clumsy a mechanism for improving children’s lives.
What’s the real answer? You really need to ask?!
Having read a few of Alice’s pieces now (Although I can’t seem to get through to her site!?) I feel the need to comment.
The two most recent instances raised, although horrible, are very extreme and unusual occurances. To create a ‘policy’ for the huge majority of good and great parents to protect the very small number of children affected by these circumstances is ridiculous and unworkable.
Why didn’t the dentist feel capable of intervening when the father started smacking his daughter? Could he have been worried about how the over protective current legislation would have been used against him. This violent man was in effect protected by current overzealous legislation.
Common sense says the dental staff should have intervened but they were too aware of protecting themselves against any possible litigation.
As to the case of children being murdered by parents. These things very rarely occur out of the blue. There is normally a long sad story of state intervention, ineptitude and abandonment beforehand. Surely the way ahead is to return responsibility to the people surrounding the issue, friends, family neighbours, community.
The weakest defence in the world for inaction is “I reported it to the authorities.” It is time to make people feel THEY can change things by returning responsibilty to the individual. Then if a bad parent starts to beat his/her child, the guy next door, or the bus driver or the child’s extended family should take action to prevent it happening again.
The answer is not more legislation, but less, to enable individuals and small communities to take responsibilty and act accordingly.
Mike seems to be suggesting that adults be given the right to intervene using force (persuasion being legal already) if they see other adults hitting their kids in public. I have no objection to this, but I don’t see how it will help kids much, bearing in mind that nearly all violence committed against them by parents is committed behind closed doors.
Making it easier for people to defend themselves and children seems like a good idea, but it doesn’t get to the bottom of the problem of violence against children, which comes from bad social memes. Until children are recognised as fully-functioning human beings, instead of being treated as chattels, violence against them is only to be expected.
Unfortunately, there are still (rational Libertarian non-murdering) people out there arguing against all reason that hitting doesn’t hurt kids as much as it damages adults. No wonder other people take this line of thought a step or two further.
Its refreshing to see people address such a blood-boiling issue rationally. I agree with Mike when he states, “…return the responsibility to the people surrounding the situation.” Hasn’t society always operated on this principle. Aren’t people in society who’ve committed such heinous crimes shunned as pariah? I wholeheartedly believe in the axiom “spare the rod, spoil the child”, so immediate intervention in a spanking is not an issue for me. But the idea of hearing abuse continue behind closed doors, or seeing a child who has multiple inexplicable bruises is a whole different matter. I’ve questioned several friends and neighbors when I’ve seen their children bruised. At first, they take offense, but when I explain my position, they thank me for my interest. (“It takes a village” line of thinking.) I’ve also commented to parents who bark orders at their children and expect them to obey immediately. I explain to them, children aren’t dogs, they’re little people. I’ve had run-ins with other little league coaches who run their teams like mini boot-camps. I try to rationally explain to them, the children didn’t voluntarily join the army, they signed up to play and learn baseball.
A child definitely needs discipline, however, their lives should be carefree, fun and nurturing, giving them the best opportunity to learn and grow into model adults. They shouldn’t have to live in fear and a “do what your told or else!” atmosphere. Any adult who has to threaten children with physical harm to teach them has failed miserably. Yes, children need discipline. Discipline through fear is wrong.
Child abuse is self-limiting. Parents who abuse their children will lose the reproductive contest to parents who care. I wish I could get the anti-abortion activists to see this.
Animals in zoos murder their children. Animals in the wild rarely do, or only when they have someting to gain.
A lot of the reason for this kind of crazy cruelty is the rage/helplessness of a trapped animal. There is literally nowhere you can go anymore to mind your own business and be let alone.
I suspect this problem would pretty much go away of its own accord once we get individual freedom back.
Surely it is equally wrong to imagine on the one hand that violence against children is all somehow the state’s fault – a strange take on personal responsibility for a libertarian, & one hard to reconcile with the less than Elysian conditions of children in the less interventionist Victorian era -, & to hope on the other that the state can do much to reduce it? The problem is that violence against children – by which I do not mean smacking – is in certain quarters a culturally-available option. Fostering the delusion that children have “rights” equal to an adult’s is only likely to make people who resent their children enough to attack them resent them even more: parents need to be reminded that their principal duty is not to secure pleasure or “self-esteem” for themselves, but to care for their children, & they need to be told that having children is not a “right”, but a responsibility to society.
i’m doing a project on the conviction rate of parents murdering their children. I think it’s disgusting how parents sre let off lightly for murder, take the jonbenet case there is no indepentent evidence so john and patsy get away with the murder of their 6 year old daughter. if you have anymore information about how parents have a lower conviction rate and sentence than strangers please could you e-mail it to me, it would be a great help.
You know I’m 18 and I too was a victim of child abuse and I think that people should realize that children are our future. They are everything. I just wish that my parents would of realized that. I relive my childhood over and over every night in my sleep!!! I just want to let everyone know that they aren’t alone out there and that i hope thaty know and understand that I feel there pain.
You know I’m 18 and I too was a victim of child abuse and I think that people should realize that children are our future. They are everything. I just wish that my parents would of realized that. I relive my childhood over and over every night in my sleep!!! I just want to let everyone know that they aren’t alone out there and that i hope thaty know and understand that I feel there pain.