Raising children today is a difficult task if you want them to become good people. I made mistakes as my son made mistakes as my grandchildren will make mistakes. The greatest effort should be to set their feet upon the path that's right for them, then let go. I was fortunate in that I had a retail business when my sons were in their teens. If they wanted spending money, they had to earn it by working in the store. It taught them the value of money, and some of the effort needed to obtain it. One became a successful, innovative businessman, the other a top software engineer.

It is not an "imposition" to insist that someone bears the consequences of their own actions rather than passing them on to someone else or simply dropping the ball.

My difficulties with the article is the imposition of obligations, duties, roles, and responsibilities on an otherwise independent human derived from that human's nature. Included in that description was the introduction of legal determination and a court into permission to be relieved of that set of impositions. That has just served to remove from that human the right of self determination and has imposed the threat of force on that independent human.

The author has made the mistake of translating the normal nature of a human to seek intimacy from another, to form bonds with that other, and to procreate into conscious decisions with arbitrarily imposed responsibilities to another resultant human with consequences beyond those of nature. It is the nature of humans to form bonds with their offspring that have the result of caring for and raising the child without having the rights of another given a higher precedence.

Nothing can be imposed on a free man. His rights derive from his life, his existence, and his efforts to maintain or improve that existence. His only moral responsibility is to his own nature and self interest. Any other interpretation only leads to some form of social contract which is not compatible with an Objective philosophy. The child cannot have rights until it has the ability to exercise and defend those rights.

No, I don't think that is the proper statement of the question, as it starts from a premise of community/society responsibility. The correct question is: Given that adult humans have rights; and given that adult humans by their nature start their lives as helpless infants; what rights do the latter have by virtue of the continuum from where they are now to what they will become? Those rights determine what laws are valid to protect them. My answer to what they are is in the article.

Is that the only expense, natural playing and exploring? I think maybe there's more cost.

And I've never understood that legal or even moral reasoning.

Yes, I got all that. The difference between the child and the normally muscled woman is that she has reason and the ability to walk and talk. (Even though we have let the law take the place of her reason and abilities and become an enforcer of what she hopes for instead of what is.) But the child doesn't. So in a community or society of 'let be', who, other than a hope or ought to be, has the ability or enforcement 'how to' to litigate for the child. Law is written words, the police are to stop force and fraud, the courts are to enforce contract.

The question is better stated as, 'Does the community/society have responsibility to ensure the minimal rights of the child are protected?' Can you determine and accept the answer?

A child has the right of self defence but of course limited ability against an adult. But one could say the same about a normally muscled woman against an over muscled man. In both cases the law exists to protect their rights. As for adults and the right to be let alone, the critical point is that parents have no fewer rights than anyone else who has entered into a contract. They can't weasel out of the contract at a whim - even if they get themselves into it at a whim. But the rights of children as defined by law must be minimal, not maximal. I.e. the right to reasonable care, not the "right" to a sports car.

" the government wants to be the daddy."
Yes. The daddy discourages or forbids kids from doing the kind of things I did as a kids. I used to run around the neighborhood with my friends. I walked a few blocks to school at age 6 with my 6 y/o friend from across the street. It was fine to talk to strangers from around the neighborhood as long as you stuck with your friends and NEVER went off with a stragner or got in his car. My dad used to let me sit in his lap and help drive the car in the neighborhood, with neither of us wearing seat belts.

We are slightly reducing the risks our kids face at the expense of the natural playing and exploring that kids want to do.

yes, it always strikes me as soo odd, parental obligations are spelled out to the letter in divorce/custody cases, as though divorce de facto means someone is going to stop parenting. it's like the govt is saying-because you got divorced the govt is now a stakeholder in the child's life. I am also reminded of that chilling court case last year, where a judge compelled a family to pay for their child's college education-a college of HER choosing.

Lucky, did you place this comment at the website?

At the heart of Objectivism (and libertarianism- excuse the word) there is a void. That void concerns parents and children. The rights, obligations and duties, if there are any, of and to children and the role of those who are neither parents, guardians nor children await a logical/ethical base. By role I do not mean what is good or desirable behavior but I mean what, if anything, should people compel other people to do.

This is a topic I have thought about and have reached no answers. If I were to come across answers that contradicted Objectivism I would likely accept and deal with the contradiction, real or apparent. What little I have concluded is that there is a sort of contract here, implied/implicit, perhaps a Deed may be a better legal term.

So, I am delighted to see this article. It does not provide all the answers I think are needed but I do not disagree with any point. Robin Craig has made a significant step in philosophy with this article.

Something that's seldom discussed in Objective philosophy is that of children's rights of enforcement. An adult objectivist has the right of self defense against initiation of force--where does/should that right for the child lie or the right of the 'implied' contract litigation/enforcement? How much worth then does the right to be let alone carry for the adult?

Yes.

I'm in the same camp. For me, the real issue of the day is parental rights. More and more, the government wants to be the daddy. They did it for decades with single mothers. Now they are trying it with educated, married couples. It's not going over quite as well here in California (ground zero) - haha....

I read most of it and promise to read it until the end soon.

I think kids have a natural urge to leave and find their own way shortly after they reach puberty and develop congnitive "formal operations", i.e. reasoning and abstract thinking. Our society draws the line a few years after that at age 18.

My kids are 6 and 4. I tell them I'm the absolute boss when I have to be but my goal is for them to be their own bosses in all areas of life ASAP. My goal is for that to be way before age 18. I want to let them do stupid things like blowing money and letting them face the natural consequences of their actions as much as possible prior to 18. If I'm having to warn them against very dangerous behavior at age 16, that's a big problem, b/c they'd be less than two years away from me not having legal rights to tell them what to do.

Right now we have to be authoritarians. Like the ancient stereotype, they mind me better than my wife, and she has to threaten them with me. All I do is when they misbehave is say the society you were born into says you have to go to jail if you get caught hitting or stealing, which discourages people from hitting or stealing *from them* but also means *they* have to have a time-out if they do these things. It works suprisingly well now, but they change on a monthly basis, so who knows in the future.

I *hope* that at age 15 they can be mostly left to their own devices, but we'll see what I think then.