Parental rights
The authority concerning children's education.
Recently the Canadian media have been puzzling over the notion of parental rights, a concept they appear to regard as strange and unusual. Generally, the commentators take a condescending tone, assuming that all right-thinking Canadians would naturally defer to their betters in the provincial public education bureaucracy. The flurry of articles surrounding parental rights has come in response to the 1 Million March 4 Children protest in September, which the media have portrayed in a largely negative light, depicting the protesters as disseminators of hate.
Two centuries ago . . .
In a secularized Canada such caricatures are not unusual, but they are certainly unfair. In many respects, what Christians are facing in Canada today has parallels to what Dutch Christians confronted in the 19th century. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the liberal government under the new monarchy sought to educate the nation’s children according to liberal convictions rather than according to the parents’ worldviews. Among other things, this policy helped to spark the revolt of Catholic Belgians in 1830.
But Reformed Christians too were upset by this centralization of education. Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, who founded the Anti-Revolutionary movement in response, was deeply concerned with the education issue: “It is a presumption springing from the Revolution doctrine which, disregarding the rights of parents, considers children the property of the state.”
Kuyper’s influence
Abraham Kuyper inherited this movement from Groen and fought for the educational rights, not only of Christian parents, but of all parents, whatever their faith commitments. The liberal effort to narrow the scope of the Christian walk to church and household amounted to nothing more than secular dogmatism. The belief that education has nothing to do with religion is itself a religious dogma imposed on the nation.
Kuyper’s efforts eventually won the day in 1917, when the Netherlands established a more equitable funding system for education recognizing that, in a religiously plural society, a one-size-fits-all school system is inadequate. After 1917 Catholics, Reformed Christians, and other communities would receive equal funding per student for use in whatever schools their parents thought best.
Indeed, schooling in accordance with the faith is an implication of the baptismal vows parents take to raise their children as believing Christians. In Canada, some provinces extend funding to Christian, Jewish and other faith-based schools. Ontario and Québec are holdouts. Their leaders, under the influence of highly contestable political ideologies, assume that they know what is best for the province’s children. They shouldn’t be surprised that so many parents do not share the worldview underpinning these schools and would seek to assert their rights as parents over their own children.
No, there is nothing strange about parental rights. To be sure, other agents, including church, government, peer groups, and so forth, bear some responsibility as well but should defer to parents’ judgement concerning their children’s education.
If a parent wants control over their child’s education they need to homeschool or send them to a religious private school. Religion does not belong in public schools. All public schools are to be strictly secular and non sectarian, meaning they are welcoming to people of all faiths and none. I can understand parents wanting to control what their kids learn but it’s disturbing how many parents think they own their kids. Children are not objects that can be owned, they are unique individuals having their thoughts, rights, and freedom. Parenting should be about nurturing and guiding kids, not exerting dominion and control over them. Instead of setting up marches parents need to go talk to their kids teachers and principals and find out for themselves what is being taught and not just simply believing what they read on social media or what their neighbours aunts niece said happened. Parents need to volunteer at their kids schools – at my kids schools last PAC meeting only 8 parents showed up. Every time my kid starts a new class the teacher sends all parents an email about what will be taught and if I have a question I contact the teacher. Parents need to stop assuming that schools goals are to groom their kids when so many kids show up not even knowing how to read. When it comes to public school, yes we are saying to defer to your betters in the provincial public education bureaucracy because public school does not cater to one type of student.