Tag Archives: Parenting

Hoisted On Your Own Petard

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I love it when karma shows up. The New York Sun posted an editorial yesterday about a religious freedom case argued before the Second United States Circuit Court or Appeals. I have absolutely no background in law, so I am going to rely heavily on what was stated in the editorial.

The editorial states:

When a case called New Hope Family Services showed up on the docket of the Second United States Circuit Court or Appeals, we perked up. It’s not just that we keep a weather eye for religious freedom cases (this one involves New York state’s attempt to force a Christian ministry to choose between its doctrine and its ability to place children in foster homes). We also perked up because of the three judges on the appeals panel.

They included two Democrats and a Republican — Edward Korman, a senior district judge sitting on the circuit bench; the legendary José Cabranes, probably the most senior active judge in the Circuit; and Reena Raggi, about whom we last wrote when we suggested she’d be an ideal candidate for the Supreme Court. It would be, we suspected, like watching a judicial version of “Field of Dreams.”

The New Hope Family Services was warned that if it did not state a willingness to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried couples, it would have to go out of business. The New Hope Family Services is a Christian group that believes in the teachings of the Bible, so obviously to agree to this would have been against their Biblical beliefs.

The editorial continues:

It was, at least to us, a shocking threat. It put New Hope, which is not government funded and has been in business for decades, in an impossible position. The pettifogging was too sophisticated for us and we started nodding off — until we heard the lawyer for New York state say, “It’s not a question of a Jewish family coming to the agency and being turned away because they’re Jewish.”

“But,” Judge Cabranes pointed out, “there’s no question that you’re preventing consideration of whether the adoptive parents are a same-sex couple as a result of the religious views of the agency.” Replied New York’s lawyer: “Yes.” Which prompted Judge Cabranes to ask: “You don’t think that there’s a suggestion here that the regulation is targeting religious groups?” New York state’s lawyer proceeded to reply: “No.”

“Because,” the state’s lawyer, Laura Etlinger, continued, the Second Circuit itself had said “the fact that there may be a disparate impact on religious organizations because of factual matters, they are the ones more likely to be affected, is not evidence of discrimination.” This is when Judge Raggi pointed out that the entities in that earlier case were not mainly religious.

In contrast, she noted, New Hope was contending that discovery in its case would disclose that the “vast majority, if not all” of the foster care and adoption agencies that “have had to go out of existence” are religious organizations.

“Do you dispute that?” Judge Raggi demanded.

“Well, in — it’s not in the record,” Ms. Etlinger replied, seeming to sense, suddenly, that she had been drawn into a trap.

The reason it wasn’t in the record, after all, was that the district court had dismissed New Hope’s complaint out of hand. Ms. Etlinger suggested that “to the extent there is an impact, because religious organizations are the ones that have a view about placement with same-sex couples does not mean that the agency was targeting those —” Her words hung in the air.

“Well,” Judge Raggi said, “isn’t that what discovery might reveal?”

The principle in question here is disparate impact as proof of bias. It is a legal principle often used by the political left to twist the law to get what they want. Please follow the link to read the entire editorial. It is wonderful to see the tactics of the political left used against them.

The editorial concludes:

Disparate impact is by no means the only angle the Second Circuit considered in New Hope. Nor is it our intention here to suggest that same-sex or unmarried couples are unsuitable for adoption. It is our intention to savor the irony that such a liberal concept as disparate impact might yet illuminate the First Amendment violations of a state trying to force a religious ministry to choose between, on the one hand, its beliefs and, on the other, its religious mission in respect of foster parenting and adoption.

 

I Really Have My Doubts About This As Positive Parenting

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Yesterday Newsbusters posted an article about an interview with Ali Wentworth, wife of George Stephanopoulos.

Here are some parenting tips put forth in the interview:

In a recent podcast interview with Will & Grace’s Debra Messing, comedian Ali Wentworth – who has been married to George Stephanopoulos since 2001 – opened up about her insane parenting methods involving educating her kids about pornography. 

There’s the normal strategy of staying vigilant as a parent and educating them about the dangers of this corruptive, and addictive medium, which profits off of violent exploitation of women and has been linked to sex trafficking. Then there’s what Mrs. George Stephanopoulos told her Hollywood friend — watching porn with her children.

…Wentworth, who has two daughters with the Good Morning America anchor, claimed, “You can’t stop them, so I would watch it with them. I would look at the porn with them that one time, like, ‘They’re performing.’” Oh that’s wonderful. Though Wentworth, a comedian, explained that this was a way in which she could provide context about the practice to her kids. You see, watching it with her kids would allow her to explain how it’s exploitative of the actors in pornographic productions.

She added, “In porn, women have been conditioned to look and act a certain way… They are performing and it’s dangerous to have boys see this as something women want.” Oh wonderful. How about telling your daughters to turn it off if it’s dangerous. Also how would it not be awkward for the Stephanopoulos parents to sit in with their teenage daughters as the actors simulate sex?

The article concludes:

Porn is bad for men and women in different ways. Though many studies focus on porn’s destructive effects on males, anti-porn research group Fight The New Drug notes that “women can be just as at risk of becoming dependent upon pornography as men.” 

The group cited a German sex study published in The Telegraph which claimed, “at least 17% of women consider themselves addicted to porn, and half of the women surveyed were internet porn consumers.”

So yeah, great for Wentworth. Expose your daughters to a potential porn addiction, as long as you talk to them about their feelings afterward. Besides peddling harmful hippie BS parenting techniques, they’re also contributing viewership to an industry that utterly destroys the dignity of the performers, turning them into a sexual commodity. It’s an industry so exploitative of young girls that the internet’s largest free porn provider, Pornhub, has been accused of featuring videos of rape and sex trafficking victims.

Well as long as George and Lindsey explain why human trafficking is bad as they sit down to watch as a family.

This is not healthy for the children. It should not be promoted anywhere as a good idea. There are studies that show a link between sex trafficking and pornography. There are also studies that show a negative impact on the brain leading to addiction. This is insanity.

If You Are A Parent, This Is Frightening

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Life Site News posted an article on Wednesday about what I would consider a serious violation of parental rights by the government.

The article reports:

The Minnesota mother whose son was maneuvered through a “sex change” by county officials has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review her case. She is charging the government with usurping her parental rights when its agents provided her son with transgender services and narcotic drugs against her wishes.

The Thomas More Society petitioned the High Court Wednesday on behalf of Anmarie Calgaro, arguing that Calgaro’s due process rights were “trampled on” when St. Louis County and its referred health providers “ended her parental control over her minor son without a court order of emancipation.”

“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare,” Thomas More Society special counsel Erick Kaardal said. “Anmarie Calgaro’s child, while a minor, was steered through a life-changing, permanent body altering process, becoming a pawn in someone else’s sociopolitical agenda and being influenced by those who have no legal or moral right to usurp the role of a parent.”

Calgaro sued state agencies and health providers in federal court in 2016 for terminating her parental rights without due process after her minor son was given elective medical services for a so-called “sex change” without her consent or a legal order of emancipation.

Her suit said the state’s entities decided on their own that the then-17-year-old boy was emancipated.

The defendants handled Calgaro’s son as an emancipated minor even though there had been no court action to that effect, the Thomas More statement says. Neither the school district, the county, nor any of the medical agencies named in the lawsuit gave Calgaro any notice or hearing before ending her parental rights over her minor child.

A district judge dismissed Calgaro’s lawsuit in May 2017, admitting that the boy was not legally emancipated by a court order but ruling that Calgaro’s parental rights “remained intact.” The Thomas More Society says the judge decreed that the de facto emancipation of Calgaro’s minor son by the county, school, and medical care providers did not constitute an infringement of constitutionally protected parental rights.

The case was appealed in July 2017 and the district court ruling upheld by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in March of this year.

St. Louis County decided without any basis that Calgaro’s son was emancipated and could receive government benefits, even though Calgaro was a “fit parent” who objected to their actions, the legal non-profit’s statement on the Supreme Court filing said.

The article concludes:

“And the St. Louis County School District in Minnesota has a custom and practice of barring a parent from involvement in the child’s education for more than two years after a child is deemed by the school principal, not by a court order, to be emancipated,” he said. “This is an unacceptable situation for any parent and a serious violation of parental and due process rights.”

Minnesota’s language regarding emancipation is vague, and state law presents no procedural due process rights for “fit parents,” according to Kaardal, even though it does so for those deemed unfit.

“Why wouldn’t we make this same effort for fit parents?” he asked.

Kaardal said he was concerned in particular about the conflict in Minnesota’s legal statutes.

“The U.S. Court of Appeals ignored the major disconnect in the District Court decision where the mother’s parental rights are admitted but not honored, and the ridiculous claims that the agencies which have violated Calgaro’s rights did nothing wrong,” he stated. “The United States Supreme Court now has the opportunity to untangle this incompatible and untenable scenario; so, nationwide fit parents can keep parenting without governmental interference.”

“Under federal law, the right to parent is considered an unenumerated right, protected from governmental interference by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments,” said Kaardal. “The “liberty” of the Due Process Clauses safeguards those substantive rights “so rooted in the traditions and conscience as to be ranked as fundamental.”

The U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes in October.

 

Failed Parenting

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One of the most important things a parent can do is lead by example. Any time a parent does something that is not above board, it is a pretty good bet that their child will learn that it is okay to take shortcuts that may not be entirely honest. Unfortunately there seems to be a group of parents that despite their success has not yet figured this out.

The Associated Press is reporting today that federal authorities have charged a number of wealthy and famous people with falsifying information to make sure their children got into their schools of choice. I understand the desire of any parent to provide the best education possible for their children, but this scheme definitely stepped over the line.

The article reports:

Fifty people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were charged Tuesday in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders to get their children into some of the nation’s most elite schools.

Federal authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department, with the parents accused of paying an estimated $25 million in bribes.

“These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in announcing the results of an investigation code-named Operation Varsity Blues.

…At least nine athletic coaches and 33 parents, many of them prominent in law, finance or business, were among those charged. Dozens, including Huffman, were arrested by midday.

The coaches worked at such schools as Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Wake Forest, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. A former Yale soccer coach pleaded guilty and helped build the case against others.

The article continues:

The bribes allegedly were dispensed through an admissions consulting company in Newport Beach, California. Authorities said parents paid William Singer, the founder of the Edge College & Career Network, the bribe money to get their children into college.

Prosecutors said Singer was scheduled to plead guilty in Boston Tuesday to charges including racketeering conspiracy. John Vandemoer, the former head sailing coach at Stanford, was also expected to plead guilty.

Colleges moved quickly to discipline the coaches accused. Stanford fired Vandemoer, UCLA suspended its soccer coach, and Wake Forest did the same with its volleyball coach.

Several schools, including USC and Yale, said they were victims themselves of the scam. USC also said it is reviewing its admissions process to prevent further such abuses.

This is a sad commentary on where we are as a society. Obviously some parents want to take the guess work out of college admissions. What is the lesson they are teaching their children? I wonder exactly how much of these scheme the children involved were aware of. Certainly if a child is recruited for a sport he has no knowledge of, he might notice that something is amiss. I hope the penalties for the parents are severe. As much as I can sympathize with the stress of getting children into good colleges (all three of my daughters are college graduates, two have advanced degrees), what these parents did is inexcusable–first of all because it is patently dishonest and second of all because of the example it sets for the students.

Common Sense In The Era of “Me Too”

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Not everyone tells the truth all the time. In a thirty-some-year-old sexual assault charge, who know what happened? Memories cloud, memories fade, whatever. So what is the mother of a son supposed to teach her son to protect him from someone else’s memory which may or may not be correct?

Yesterday PJ Media posted an article that all teenagers and mothers and fathers of teenagers should read. The title of the article is, “How to ‘Christine Blasey Ford-Proof’ Your Son.”

The article includes a number of suggestions on how to avoid the circus we are now seeing in Washington. This is the list:

  1. Take him to church and make sure the lessons stick
  2. Train him to document any unusual circumstance
  3. Teach your son to assume he will one day have a position of high importance and encourage him to live accordingly
  4. Don’t trust women

The author of the article elaborates on each principle and why it is there. The fact that anyone would even think any of this is necessary is a sad commentary on our society, but we are watching the potential destruction of a man’s life and his accuser’s life over something that happened thirty-some years ago. That is truly sad.

I would also note that there was a time when simply teaching your son to respect women was adequate. I am not sure that we still live in that time.

 

 

Prepare For An Exponential Increase In Government Intrusion

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Yesterday The Examiner posted an article about a provision of ObamaCare that has not gotten a lot of publicity. The provision allows government agents to engage in “home health visits” for those in certain “high-risk” categories. Doesn’t sound too ominous until you look at the “high-risk” categories.

The article lists the categories:

• Families where mom is not yet 21;
• Families where someone is a tobacco user;
• Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities, and
• Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

Missing from the list given in the article is families with firearms, but that is now included in the questions your doctor is supposed to ask you.

The article explains how this program will totally invade the privacy of Americans and undermine the authority of American parents:

Constitutional attorney and author Kent Masterson Brown said that despite what HHS says, the program is not “voluntary.”

“The eligible entity receiving the grant for performing the home visits is to identify the individuals to be visited and intervene so as to meet the improvement benchmarks,” he said. “A homeschooling family, for instance, may be subject to ‘intervention’ in ‘school readiness’ and ‘social-emotional developmental indicators.’ A farm family may be subject to ‘intervention’ in order to ‘prevent child injuries.’ The sky is the limit.”

Joshua Cook said that while the administration would claim the program only applies to those on Medicaid, the new law, by its own definition, has no such limitation.

“Intervention,” he added, quoting Brown, “may be with any family for any reason. It may also result in the child or children being required to go to certain schools or taking certain medications and vaccines and even having more limited – or no – interaction with parents. The federal government will now set the standards for raising children and will enforce them by home visits.”

The Health and Human Services Department has allocated $224 million for these home visits.

This needs to be stopped before it begins.

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A Wonderful Contrast To The 99 Percent

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Yesterday Hot Air posted a story that should remind us what our real priorities should be. This is a picture from that article:

Boaz Reigstad, Down Syndrome, pro-life

The picture is of Boaz Reigstad, a five-year old who will shortly turn six. This picture has appeared on Facebook.

The article reminds us:

Reigstad also happens to have Down Syndrome. That, too, is visible in his picture — but it takes a back seat to the joy and warmth of his expression. Sadly, the apparently cheerful child is the exception to a startling rule: About 90 percent of pregnant mothers who learn their babies have Down Syndrome choose to abort. As The Blaze puts it, “That means [just] 10 percent of children are brought to term after the mother learns of the condition.”

Raising a child with a disability is an incredibly difficult job. Over the years I have known people who are raising children with serious problems. I have watched the struggles and the special love between these children and their parents. It is a sad commentary on our society that only 10 percent of children with Down Syndrome are allowed to live.

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An Amazing Comment From Parenting.com

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Tents at the Woodstock Festival. Volkswagens w...

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What follows is part of an article at Parenting.com:

We know the unemployment rate (over 9 percent) and the number of us living in poverty (more than 46 million. That’s roughly one in seven). But Occupy Wall Street is not helping those people. Occupy Wall Street is a temper tantrum in a private park. And it’s parents, moms and dads, i.e. us, who are to blame.

At some point on the parenting evolutionary chart, we went from restrained to indulgent. We went from being parents to being friends. Peewee baseball games stopped keeping score. Everyone got a trophy. If there was a problem, there was always a Boogieman: allergies, ADD, auditory processing, a bad teacher. We stopped saying “no,” and started saying “no because…” We negotiated. We gave them options (Cinnamon Life and Frosted Mini Wheats? Big Time Rush or iCarly?). We told them they could be American Idols and astronauts, all while knowing they were tone deaf and terrible at chemistry.

Those kids went to college, and got useless degrees (full disclosure: film major with a psychology minor). They graduated, and then failed at being American Idols and astronauts. Without a decent set of coping skills, they’ve turned rejection into anger. They’ve lived a life where there were always options, where they never lost, where they thought the moon overhead followed them. They’ve been kicked out of the nest, having never been told their wings don’t run on batteries.

And now somebody owes them $150,000 for their education. No one said your major in horticulture was a coupon good for one free career.

This is the crop from the seeds planted in the mid-1960’s. We need to get back to disciplining our children in a way that gives them both structure and hope. We need to teach our children a work ethic that includes planning for the future and doing the work necessary to achieve that future. The author of this article hit the nail on the head.

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