It Takes a Village to Raise a Child - Courtesy of the Government

Watching the news the other night, I saw a local story about a mom who wasn’t allowed to bring cupcakes in for her child’s birthday. Evidently cupcakes cause obesity and since childhood obesity is on the rise, the schools are doing their part to make sure you feed your child healthy food. I can’t help but wonder what that mom did with those cupcakes when she went home. I’ll bet that instead of eating just one cupcake with her class, the daughter ended up with a whole tray of cupcakes to eat. Congratulations government, another job well done! As Hillary Clinton once said, “It takes a village to raise a child.”

This begs the question, how involved should the government be in telling you how to raise your child? A story at CMI that talks about how parents can’t say no to their children and thus need the government to intervene on child-geared advertising, illustrates how those in the media and the government believe that parents are unable to raise their own children. Somehow we have gone from the idea that this country is great because its people are great, to believing that the people of this country aren’t very smart and need the government to step in and take care of them. Many have embraced the mentality that anytime something goes wrong, the government should fix it.

It’s not that parents can’t use a helping hand; it’s that the helping hand from the government comes with an agenda. For instance, imagine what health care will look like for your child when the government is paying for it. Certainly cupcakes will not be allowed in school because childhood obesity is going to cost the government more money—now that they’re paying for your child’s health care. It won’t stop there. In exchange for “free” health care we may be trading away our rights to parent as we see fit. Like the Trojan horse of parenting, government-supplied health care looks like a gift, but when we open it we’ll find a host of conditions attached that we won’t want any part of, but will it be too late to turn back?

Somehow, those who made this country great did it with very little government involvement. There were difficult times to be sure. But instead of giving up their freedoms for the sake of a government handout, they worked hard at menial jobs, moved to small farms so they could grow their own food, and generally did what it took to survive. Not only did they survive, but they helped turn this country into something great. If we start handing over our parenting rights in exchange for freebies, there is no telling what the landscape of the country will look like in 20 years.

We stand at a crossroads in history. Not only does the government want to have more power over our lives, many of us are scared and ready to hand over the responsibilities of raising our children. After all, if the government messes up, we have someone to blame. If we mess up, we have no one to blame but ourselves and many find that daunting. The fact is— we will mess up. But somehow, generations and generations of children have grown to adulthood despite their parents’ mistakes. Our children will survive too. And parents do have help, outside of themselves, in raising their children. Remember, God is greater than the government and cares more about your children than you are able to. He’ll provide, as long as we look to him and not to fallible man to supply our needs. Don’t sacrifice your right to parent for the sake of parenting help from the government.

What are your thoughts? Share them in the forum and find out what others are thinking too.