A License for the Future

Many of our nation’s children are brought up in an environment that is ill conducive to their well-being and thus fails to provide them with necessary skills and traits requisite for future success.

There are many things that contribute to molding a child’s personality—such as friends, television, and school. However, it is the parents that are the main determining factor in the child’s development, because they are the highest authority in regard to the child, by deciding such things as what schools the child will attend and directly as well as indirectly influencing the child simply through the relationship they share and the behaviors they set forth as example.

Therefore, with this in mind, it is of the most crucial importance that there should be some form of parental licensing system established.

There must be a parent licensing system to ensure that children are in the care of capable guardians. Amid some of the incapable guardians can include the mentally handicapped, teenagers, and social delinquents.

Individuals of these kinds may sometimes not be suitable parents merely from a lack of emotional stability as well as insufficient mental capacities necessary for understanding the needs of a child, inability to set their priorities straight due to immaturity, and also problems of the different kinds of abuse—physical, verbal, or even drug related.

These are the kinds of conditions that are almost guaranteed to harm a child’s development. There are alternatives to leaving a child in the custody of biological parents, which include foster care and adoption. Foster care, however, can be a dreadful environment for a child to grow up in.

Foster parents can oftentimes be abusive, and due to the child knowing that they are not with their biological parents they may have greater cause to rebel; this, along with abuse, may produce problems that send them from foster home to foster home, which, all of this being considered, is certainly an unstable environment for a child to grow up in.

Adoption results in a family similar to one where the child’s guardians are their actual parents, yet the only considerable difference is that they are not the biological parents.

Any problems found in an adopted family that could lead to the child’s poor development will also be found in a family where the parents are biological. This clearly shows that even the alternatives require some strict form of parental licensing system.

It is accepted that children must be taken care of and kept safe, but almost never looked at why. So, for the moment, I would like to look at the reasons.

Children are the future, and it is essential to keep them safe to ensure their development and success. If a child is raised effectively, then they will be less likely to contribute to crime and more likely to add to the safe guard of others. With the decrease of children turning into criminal adults, there will be less strain put on the government.

Thus, there will be more money for more important things such as education, health benefits, and well-needed repairs in society. In addition, more qualified and capable people will regulate the government due to their effective upbringing as children. Furthermore, the overall social well-being of citizens, simply from the decrease of criminal activities, will be higher and produce safer communities.

Parent licensing will be established in a similar manner as the licenses that are already required for performing many other acts. Just as we require licensing for activities dealt with by drivers and physicians—activities that are potentially harmful to others—parent licensing will be established because of the severity of injuries that can be caused to children and the future that they are to be a part of.

Many people believe that parent licensing would be inappropriate because it would intrude into their lives. However, the invasion would be only at the beginning and at a later period of time if there were probable cause that showed necessity for attention.

Similarly, when someone gets their drivers license, at the beginning they give out all of the information required, and later there will only be an intrusion if they were involved in a car accident or something significant that requires their attention. Furthermore, people will have plenty of opportunity to obtain a parent license if they desire to do so.

Much like a drivers license, if they do not show qualifications for at least the minimal competence required to drive, then they have an opportunity to do so at a later time; until then they can take a course or study to prepare for the test. Thus, people who do not have the capability to attain a parent license the first time around, may be inspired to take the necessary steps to ensure that they obtain their parenting license.

Many people would object by saying that it would be too difficult to apply and put too much financial strain on the government. They claim it is too difficult because there are most likely more children waiting for adoption than there are individuals willing to adopt, let alone individuals qualified as being an adopter.

Also, they say that by not allowing some children, as unfortunate as it is, to be raised in a household not entirely appropriate for their upbringing, far more funds will need to be provided to programs that exist as temporary housings for those children who have not yet been found suitable caretakers.

However, parent licensing is the best we can do to ensure that the children are brought up in a manner suitable to guarantee their success and development. It is true that in the beginning it may be costly and difficult, but this is only looking at the present, for in the future it will be beneficial.

The strain on government would be likely to go down enormously because, as noted earlier, there would be less social delinquents committing criminal acts, which would require less facilities or programs dealing with crimes, and it will produce an overall social environment. The government will be well run with people well qualified for positions.

If we are to allow driver’s licenses then we should most definitely have parent licensing. If you hit someone with your car, it is not going to create a chain reaction; they may get injured but once they are healed it does not mean that they are going to go out and hit other cars themselves.

However, parenting is a delicate thing, for a child is being raised who is active and can influence the world around him or her on a daily basis—for good or bad. This child, as is possible, if turned out as incompetent, can become an inadequate parent as well, and thus raise an incompetent child of their own. So, as is evident from all that has been thus far enumerated, parent licensing is a necessity that must be established.