“In their own image”

Justifying the Family, 2

Art by Elliot Skow

1. You can make your child learn the cello, and refuse to serve them candy for breakfast. Parents have these, and other, rights. What is the source, and extent, of these rights?

As for source, the welfare of the child is a natural answer: in general and on average, granting parents certain rights is in the best interest of children. Parents tend to know, better than others, what is in those interests; and tend to want, more than other people do, those interests to be served. Why does the law (in many countries) require that children receive an education, but allow parents great leeway in the education they receive—public school, private school, religious school, even homeschool? This theory says: while the state can know that an education is in the best interest of every child, it will rarely know which education for that child is best.

2. In what really is a shocking essay, Edgar Page rejected the welfare theory (“Parental Rights,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 1984). There are some parental rights the theory cannot explain. Page mentions parents’ right to direct their child’s medical care. Doctors must obtain parental consent. But

Frequently doctors or others are in a better position than parents to judge what will benefit the child...If general priority were given to the welfare of the child the decision would be the doctor’s...surely the cynical view that parental consent here is a device to protect doctors cannot be the whole story.

3. What’s the alternative? Page holds that the rights of parents over their children protect the interests of parents, not (or not just) the interests of children: