"I read most of it and promise to read it until the end soon. "
I finished it. Amazing. I can't quote my favorite lines b/c they're all favorite and there's no fluff.

It's the opposite from that article posted here a while ago who written by a parent who apparently accepts the "modern non-objective philosophy of law, which defines rights by needs (thus switching rights from justice to demands, effectively negating rights entirely)" and says that makes parenting harder.

I also like this article b/c it's an answer to the claim we sometimes hear that objectivism doesn't apply to children.

As much as about zero people on here want to hear this... the answers you want on this subject are in the Bible. Read it. Thoroughly. It covers this topic in great detail, and is the foundation for some of the rights and responsibilities of children that we see in Western Civilization today.

I said "there may be something more to be learned from those who have no children and had the maturity not to have them."
I didn't say I thought they were experts, nor that they should claim to be.
With apologies to any psychologists present, all the psychologists I have ever met and talked with became interested in psychology because of their own problems, so based on that limited sample, I would not put much stock in someone professing to be a child psychologist without children of their own. Yes, I have a bias against psychology as a "science."
I also think that the article that was orignally posted is speculative and without any basis in science.
And congratulations on your children ;^)

I've watched my sister-in-law raise her three daughters based on the advice of the best parenting books out there - all from well-meaning "experts" with PhD's in child psychology and zero children themselves. And of those three kids, the oldest (8) is an intellectually-brilliant bully (both physically and verbally) and the second (6) is the biggest cry-baby/screamer I think I've ever known. The third is still an infant, so I still have some hope for her. And this despite having a mother with a Master's degree in Finance and a father with a Master's in Electrical Engineering who designs microprocessors who grew up nearly identically to myself and my wife (I'm controlling for environmental differences here).

I contrast this to my children (and if you had ever met my kids you'd know I wasn't just boasting). I hold an MBA and my wife a Bachelor's degree, so parental education (a known factor in child-rearing) is controlled for. Both mothers stay home. Each one of my children (six in school) is among the top students in their respective classes (public education) and each one _also_ gets praises at Parent-Teacher conferences for their civility and respect towards both students and teachers alike. Two of my children just this past month received Student-of-the Quarter awards.

My practical, personal experience tells me that what my wife is doing works and what my sister-in-law is doing doesn't - despite them being sisters of only minor age difference. The tests of the hypotheses proposed by these so-called "experts" has produced verifiable evidence in the cases of my nieces and my children that I can't reasonably ignore. And these tests uniformly confirm that this "expert" advice (when observed) has produced some of the most ill-adjusted children I've ever met, while good old-fashioned, values-based parenting has resulted in well-adjusted and productive children.

You are certainly welcome to your opinion, but if a self-proclaimed "expert" on any subject - and ESPECIALLY parenting - has zero practical experience, I'm going to dismiss them and their suggestions right out of the gate. They can be well-meaning, intelligent people, but until they have passed through the crucible of child-rearing - the forge of parenthood - they are like raw ore proclaiming itself fit for inclusion in a mighty skyscraper.

Regarding your comment on taking child rearing advice from people with no children, I agree that having the experience can result in better advice, but if your earlier comments are true (and I think they are) about parents following the child-rearing way they were raised, then there may be something more to be learned from those who have no children and had the maturity not to have them.

Would I rather have a POTUS candidate with the experience of failing at running Hewlett Packard or a POTUS candidate with success at fooling 51% of the people often enough to be repeatedly elected?
Of course, I'd want neither. I'd rather have a candidate with a reputation of doing exactly what he/she promised the customers and continuing to be financially solvent even if he had no experience in government or a large enterprise.

"children are not fully rational."

Neither are teen-agers, and neither are many adults. There is a continuum (and I believe the author finally acknowledges this later in the article). All we can try to do is help our children along the path to rational decision-making - first and foremost by being rational ourselves. That can sometimes be a tough act to follow.

"children are the result of the decisions of adults, and adults must bear the consequences of their choices."

I would quibble with this one, as "adulthood" in this case has nothing to do with one's cognitive maturity and EVERYTHING to do with one's physical maturity. This is why sexual promiscuity - especially among youth - is so dangerous. Parents who are ready (or at least think they are) to have children have a tough enough time navigating parenthood. But EVERYONE has to deal with the consequences of their choices no matter their age. It's just that some decisions have consequences only an emotionally mature adult should be making at all.

"... children have known needs, so adults know what they are getting themselves into by having them"

See my note above. The author makes assumptions that people engaging in sexual activities are not only physically mature, but emotionally and intellectually as well. All one has to do is look around to see this is a patently false assumption.

"Morally, people should not have children unless they have cause to believe they will be able to care for them"

Finally a statement I agree with 100%.

"At what age is a person ‘adult’?"

The author contends this is a legal issue regarding nothing more than passing of time, but is missing the point. The issue is one of emotional and intellectual areas which can not simply be manipulated with blanket rules. It may be the only way human minds can deal with the complexity and subjectivity of the issue, but we should not overlook the fact that it is merely a crutch.

"Naturally, children usually love their parents and will voluntarily help them out—but there can be no legal requirement for that."

In point of fact, the law ought to stay out of the matter entirely except in the case of extreme neglect or injury. To pretend that a third-party such as government can impose just requirements or restrictions on either side is a farce at best.

"The default presumption is that the best of their ability is good enough (after all, they managed to reach adulthood themselves), and thus they have the right to do it according to their own judgment."

I'm not sure if the author even realizes that the core fallacy here: No one raises themselves to adulthood. People predominantly parent based on the way they grew up - they take their parenting cues from the mentors they had while they were children (whether parents or not). To say that someone is using their own judgement when raising children is largely false: they are in actuality attempting to apply the principles that they admired or saw in others - they do not derive them in and of themselves. Do they use their own judgement? Yes. But the derivation of that judgement should be recognized to have been an evolutionary (ie learning from example) process rather than some epiphany of maturity.

"These superficially opposite policies of repression and over-permissiveness actually share the same essential error. Both are manifestations of ‘whim worship’: where the whims are the parent’s or the child’s respectively."

YES!!!! What should be pointed out, however, is that behavior is LEARNED. The old adage of "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" is a fairly accurate recognition that children behave in many ways EXACTLY like their parents. Social scientists see these predilections for behavior all over: children of smokers are more likely to smoke, etc.

I would also echo the comment at the bottom and ask the author: "how many children do you have"? I personally don't accept advice about child-raising from people who don't have them. And it's worked pretty well for me so far.

well, I think there's a fair amount of thinking behind these premises. You realize this is an Objectivist approach (philosophy for living) and that libertarian is a political system and capitalism is an economic system?

Well, duh. The topic is covered in Love and Economics. http://www.amazon.com/Love-Economics-Lai...

A legitimate contract can only be entered into voluntarily. As to enforcement, I get the minimum standards you propose as a performance contract, and in a real world contract, failure to perform might well call forth some type of arbitration or financial penalty clause or even a repossession in a court of venue. But essentially, the power of failure to perform is a reputational enforcement, being that the result is a loss of faith by others in that the contractee will fail in future performance and will result in an inability to contract with others in the future. You actually propose more than that.

in any contract arrangement, the contract parties will each revue the contract prior to agreement and negotiate for the terms most favorable to themselves, yet in the contract you propose, you leave no room for negotiation of terms. Further you offer an either/or contract. If you choose to raise a child you must accept a set of arbitrarily imposed minimum standards, as if it was a building code.

So you have immediately brought into the contract a third, even fourth party, and possibly more. And one or more of those parties is an enforcement arm of some entity to make sure you are performing to the minimum standard (code). You are in essence, licensing and regulating child rearing (a situation much as we find ourselves in today), and removing the guardianship of the child from the parents and giving it to several other parties whose interest may or may not lie with the child.

While I won't argue at this point that there may well be a set of moral equivalencies to this situation, by couching your argument in terms of contract and enforcement, I obviously find a great deal to differ with. Respectfully

No dementia...just flawed philosophy.
His parents (he is a step-dad) didn't know how to raise him. He has a peculiarity artistic personality that they could neither understand nor appreciate.
They treated him as though he was slow.
He internalized that assessment of his life and never really grew up.
Now we are attempting to launch him into rational thought and independence.
It is a tough row to hoe. Lots of weeds to dig up...so-to-speak.

teri, I'm not certain I understand? A mentally disabled parent or philosophically challenged? With my own in-laws, we experienced lots of stress because as dementia set in, they still would not let us help them make important decisions (very patriarchal). that continues to be costly, highly stressful and strains our relationship. Sometimes it is a fine line. Certainly lots of elderly are highly competent and rational thinkers-there are many producers in the gulch who challenge me daily! but it's murky to know where that line needs to be drawn-just like with teens. Watcher's article is a positive step forward philosophically speaking.

Thanks for this article, KH.
A child's launch into adulthood happens in stages and varies from child-to-child depending upon the personality and preferences of both parent and child.
That's why my husband and I are caring
for an elderly parent who let others make his decisions for him. He's an 82-year-old baby-of-the-family who never was allowed to launch.
Incredibly sad...

I myself am raising a beautiful little person an trying to instill a objectionist philosophy. I look back at my reading of Pluto's The Republic where he stated that most people are not able to properly educate their children and the state should do the job as we have it today. From what I see he is right about parents but not about the state. I struggle with what I teach my child vs what the school system teaches. I believe one day I will have to confront the legal system my belief vs the state.

Not at all. However, to just sit around and think what is or what might be, without acting on it, making it part of your existence, is spinning wheels and tilting at windmills. Philosophy must be part of how you live, how you react, and how you interact. To just stuff it in a closet is pointless, it has to be vital. You cannot make a philosophy widely accepted, you can only share it,and it is the responsibility of the other person to accept or reject it. However, if you have a philosophy, and the corrupt government or legal system inhibits you from following that philosophy, you must go against those entities. I said nothing of lawsuits, they solve little. If you have a philosophy, and cannot live by it, just sit and think of it, is that what Howard Roark would have done? He acted on his philosophical beliefs.He made them living vital things. In "Fountainhead", the work was an active expression of a philosophy. We live in the here and now, and our kids are being brainwashed to a point that what ought to be will never be, as they will be denied the chance to learn such philosophy. Static discussions will not touch them. Freedom of philosophical choice first, then endless discussion to fine tune, and share with those children, then and only then can they choose a philosophy. It is moot to say the currently might have that option.

Sounds to me like you are the verge of declaring philosophy useless if it isn't on the verge of getting itself widely accepted; or philosophers are wasting their time if they work on philosophy not on lawsuits.

It is not clear to me whether you are denying that contracts entered into voluntarily can be enforced, or that choosing to have a child is not choosing the consequent contract. Though I will add one rider that I have expressed elsewhere but probably not in this article: the choice which triggers the implicit contract is not actually bringing the child into the world, but choosing to raise it. If you choose to raise it, there are minimum standards which are enforceable.

Watcher, we'll just have to disagree at a very fundamental and basic level, without malice. Force is force regardless of its source or justification. The only legitimate application or use of force is as self defense or retributive force used against another attempting to initiate force against the individual, or licensed by the individual to the government for the same purpose and limit.

As to any other issue; "I swear by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

To consider what ought to be the philosophy of parent/child rights as a philosophical discussion is fine, but one has to be aware of how far from possible current reality makes it. We have to consider why the philosophically ideal is blocked by the courts and access of others in the mix. To apply the ideal, someone has to make the reality known, and call for fixing what is broken, so we might move closer to the philosophy discussed. Philosophy has to become part of living at some point, or it becomes static.

The purpose of the article is to investigate the proper philosophy of child-rearing with reference to the legal aspects (rights). If we limited ourselves to what we could actually apply now in society and the laws as they are, we wouldn't have much to talk about!

I never said the system as it is now is fair on anybody, objectively defined. However your particular point is interesting, because teenagers just because they "start dating" etc don't automatically have the sense to know when they "need to leave". In fact many teenagers I know are idiots ;-) So as intimated in the article it is a tricky question for the philosophy of law: what is the "general age of competence" at which "any" child should be able to go their own way, and what rules should govern petitioning the courts (by parents or children) for an exception?

There is a fundamental difference between force (which the government exists to apply objectively) and the initiation of force. So the question here pretty much boils down to whether parents choose an obligation of caring for a child by choosing to have one in the first place knowing the nature of what they're getting themselves into (and yes, not bothering to think about and just letting it happen is a choice). I say they do, for the reasons stated.

I agree with the article in principle -- but once I got to be a teenager and started dating, I needed to leave and was not allowed to (because of compulsory school and the work restrictions that go with it). The system needs to be changed in kids' favor more than in parents' favor.

Insist, impose, bears, law, legal decision, courts, permission, responsibilities, etc; those are all terms connoting force or required submission. IMHO, all of that is incompatible with a rational, reasoning human mind.
And I think, therein lies the key to our discussion here. Objectivism is a developed (some might say discovered) philosophy for a human possessing such a rational, reasoning mind. That is something a human child is born without. And until that child (a developing or potential human) achieves such a point, it can not have rights. It must, of necessity, rely upon it's nature and the nature of human parents.

My father always emphasized he had the final say while I depended on him, but made it clear that once I was old enough to make my own decisions, I was on my own. He stated it was his responsibility to give me the ability to survive without expecting others to care for my needs.

This article would have much more merit, if we all lived in an objectivist world. Sadly, we have government schools which instill in students that they are the center of the universe and entitled, regardless of what their parents tell them. Then we have the courts, such as one in Ky., which ordered parents of a minor child to allow her to date on school nights. When she became pregnant, they ordered the parents to pay for an apt. for her. By this point, the girl just wanted to go back home. We need to allow our children to make age appropriated decisions, and let them experience consequences. Schools teach "rights" but not resulting "consequences". When you have raised a child through college, and they refuse to support themselves - time to cut them off and let them experience the real world.
In Hillary's "Village" no one has consequences, someone else is always responsible, and no adults are produced.