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Doing What Comes Naturally: Telling Others How To Run Their Lives
As a Christian, I understand that the best of intentions can go horribly wrong. Our sinful natures corrupt our best efforts and heartfelt desires. It is not just because we often lack the wisdom to know the actual outcomes of those intentions (that’s another post), but out of love and caring we can seek to control others seeking what we think are desirable results. I have seen it in myself and in others, but it really seems to come out of people when they have some government position, even one with little authority.
When I got married and left home, I was happy that our parents did not try to run our lives. I would not have tolerated it. But now that my kids are grown and married with children (in that order), I find that I am tempted to “make suggestions” and perhaps stick my nose in where it does not belong. I feel like I would make better decisions than they are making. I do this because I love them. Why let them make their own mistakes and learn from them when they can just listen to me? Because they do need to learn some things on their own and they do need to run their own lives.
I think the impulse is understandable, if lamentable, in parents of grown children. It is terrible in government officials, however. When our children were young, we homeschooled for several years. When we moved to Ohio we had to inform the local school board of our intention to home school. We complied though we thought it should not have been necessary.
So I did just that. I don’t remember if I filled out a form or wrote a letter or made a phone call, but I did communicate our intentions to the Board of Education. I figured it would go into a file and be forgotten. But then I got a phone call from some official at the Board of Education. I guess we had informed them of what grades our children were being taught since they the man calling knew it when he called. He said they were “concerned” about our youngest starting kindergarten not having gone to preschool. I told him that I appreciated his concern but that the education of a student not enrolled in his school system was not his responsibility. I reminded him of the fact that I was only required to inform them of what we were doing. I did not have to justify it or say what preceded it. He assured me that he was not trying to tell me what to do, he was just concerned that my daughter might not be ready for kindergarten. Of course, he did not know anything about my daughter. But he wanted to so he could advise us or assure in some way. It was not going to happen.
After going around and around like this for what seemed like a long time, I told him again and again that I appreciated his concern, but it was not really any of his business. Then he told me that he and the entire public school system in our town was, in fact, responsible for the education of all school-age children in that town whether or not they were enrolled in public school. I asked who gave them this responsibility. He said that the state did. Of course, he meant the state’s Board of Education, not the legislature. I told him that he had no such responsibility. The parents have both the right and responsibility to determine their children’s education. He insisted that the state granted him that responsibility. I responded that the state has no right to tell me how to educate my children.
He still did not give up. Neither did I. I could have hung up the phone at any time since I had already fulfilled my legal responsibility, but I wanted to get him to see that he should see the proper limits of his “responsibility”. At the same time, I was not going to get into a discussion with him about how we had prepared our daughter for kindergarten. He really wanted me to tell him about how we do things in our home school so that he could feel good or that he could offer the benefit of his expertise. I would give him so such satisfaction. He eventually gave up having no more information than when he started. He did not seem to be able to grasp the fact that caring does not give you the right to poke your nose in the business of others much less tell them what to do.
Now progressives might see this sort of thing as the proper role of government, but I do not. Fortunately, he had no legal ground to stand on so this is not a story of how we were persecuted or anything. Nevertheless, this man persisted in his inquiries regarding what we were doing. Too many would have explained to him what they were doing just to satisfy his concerns. Not I. I was polite but firm. It was none of his business. He was a public school official in charge of something regarding public schools. He had no authority or responsibility over private schools or home schools. (And there were several Catholic schools in our town as well. I’ll bet he didn’t call them up and question what they were doing.) Nevertheless, he saw himself as “caring” about those students who did not attend public schools, and that justified what he was doing.
This is how tyranny starts in our society. It starts with “caring”.
Published in General
A very good example of “innocent” caring by those who are sure they know what’s best for everyone else. Thanks, @Brianscarboro.
Hello C. S. Lewis.
If you have good parents you already know anything that you could have learned from pre-school.
Dealing with our school, I think they start with the assumption that everyone is being raised by crack-whores.
I seem to have turned out OK (I’ll ignore the snickers) even though I didn’t have either Pre-K or K. I think Pre-K and K are just forms of universal child care. I doubt they do any good. I’m pretty sure Headstart has been proven to not do any good.
And immediately evolves to assumption of power.
And it ends when we tell Karen to [expletive] off. I’ve had this same conversation with a number of “authority figures” of various stripes. It always ends the same way, with me smiling and saying, “No,” and, “Buh bye.”
Shall I post the C.S. Lewis quote or should I let someone else have that opportunity?
Go for it. Everyone here knows it. It’s been posted often enough.
I just enjoy the fact that pretty much everyone here knew what I meant when I referenced CS Lewis.
I never went to kindergarten either. How did we manage to survive?
Post it. I hope I have not plaigerized. But if I did, I could not have picked a better writer to copy.
That’s the one.
Classy picture. Definitely one of the better quotations I’ve seen on Ricochet. And I’m including myself.
It is a good quotation. But it’s been posted here so many times it’s almost a cliche.
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Yeah, it’s just awful when older and wiser people, like our parents, give us the benefit of their experience. It’s much better to ignore the accumulated knowledge of the ages, and to figure out everything on our own.
That way, each generation can keep making the same stupid mistakes, world without end, amen. Plus, it gives a great outlet for pride, by never acknowledging that anyone might know better than we do.
This leads to my favorite Londo Mollari quote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prVxatFIqRk
Zootie, zoot zoot! I love that.
[But the darned video won’t embed.]
True dat – but some cliches are timeless. One should never tire of CSL quotes.
Well said. My point was, of course, that we should not seek to control others. But we absolutely should seek the wisdom of those who have experience. After all, I do follow the Bible which was written a while ago.
In the Wisconsin V. Yoder (1972) decision SCOTUS affirmed the right of parents to make decisions about their kids’ education. Uber-liberal Justice Douglas dissented on the grounds that if it is for the children (paging Hillary..) then enlightened intervention is always OK and trumps parents rights.
It is always important in these disputes that government authorities NEVER be allowed to smuggle in the presumption that they are best qualified and also better-intentioned agents of the child’s welfare. If they were, the performance would be better, drop-outs fewer and education more personal.
I think Yoda could conquer Wisconsin for a century but eventually but not forever.
Why should we not seek to control others?
Isn’t it the duty of parents to give direction to their children, and the duty of the children to be mindful and obedient? That’s the Fifth Commandment. We don’t follow it very well in our society today. The results speak for themselves.
When it comes to government, there’s nothing improper about officials enforcing the law, which is designed to control others. We need to be controlled in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ways every day. Here is what the Apostle Paul wrote about government in Romans 13:
I don’t find much basis for libertarianism in the Bible.
Isn’t there something between libertarianism and authoritarianism? First, you should notice in the article that I clearly state that I obeyed the law. The man on the phone was overreaching his authority.
Children, while they are living at home and are growing up need to obey their parents. After they grow up, then they continue to honor their parents, but in a different way. They should listen to the wise advice of their parents. But parents should not try to control them. That is wrong. In Genesis, God said that men would leave their mothers and fathers and cleave to their wives, not cravenly obey overbearing parents.
Grown children are not told to be obedient. The 5th commandment says to “honor”, not obey. The apostle Paul told children at home to obey, but it also admonishes fathers to “not provoke your children”. He limits their use of authority. You will also notice that Paul outlines the proper, and limited, role of government – to punish evil, not to tell parents how to educate their children.
The Bible puts limits on authority as well as telling us to obey government, etc. This is not libertarianism, it is putting restraint on government as our Founding Fathers wisely did.
Finally, I never said that we do not need controls. I am asserting that government should only prevent evil, not tell everyone how to do everything. The Bible doesn’t just talk about obeying authority, it says some things about liberty as well. And that is important.
I’m not sure I ever had any wise advice.