Licencing parenthood: Is that a stupid idea?

I have heard of and read some prety daft ideas in my time but the suggestion that young people should be licenced tbefore they can become parents is probably the stupidest idea that's cropped up in recent years.

Katherine Covel, an associate professor of psychology at the University College of Cape Breton, Canada and Director of the Children's Rights Centre at that place of learning and Brian Howe, a professor of political science who also works at the Centre, have published a paper called, "A Policy of Parent Licencing".

In their paper, they have suggested that before young people (or for that matter, anyone) can be a parent, they must first finish high school. Speaking for myself, I never finished high school. In fact, I never even got into high school. I did study criminology at university and finally got my doctorate however, so I suppose that would count for something in my favour. Despite me never getting into high school, I am married and the father of two girls who both have children and both of my daughters are successful in their endeavours in their lives because my wife and I brought them up properly.

But before I attended University at the age of 40, I worked with children as a senior boys supervisor in residential schools, and was a children's camp director in three camps and an assistant boys work secretary at the Victoria YMCA so I suppose I would qualify as a potential parent. That is of course, if I graduated from high school also.

Let's see who wouldn't qualify. Thousands upon thousands of hard working citizens who never made it to high school, let alone graduate from high school, who have nevertheless been successful business people who have succeeded in their endeavors in life. And of course, many thousands of people who have come to our country as immigrants, who, as was their fate in the countries they came from, were denied the opportunities to go to any school beyond the elementary level. What about the young people who are forced by circumstances, to leave their homes to fend for themselves at the expense of their education?

The stastistics in Canada show that as of 1998, as many as 47.2 percent of the adult population in Canada never graduated from high school. If these two professors had it their way, and their proposal were to be law, as many as 8.5 million men and women in Canada between 20 and 44 years of age would be ineligible to have children. Since the average size of a family in Canada is 1.1 child per couple, that means that 8.3 million children wouldn't be born to parents whose ages are between 20 to 44 years of age. This also means that 177,077 of the 364,765 babies born in 1997 in Canada were born of parents who wouldn't qualify to have babies under the proposals put forth by these two professors.

Now their screwball proposals really begin to sink to a new low in the realm of common sense when you realize that they are also proposing that women who haven't completed high school and have children, must turn their children over to a licenced parent until they complete high school.

Lets take that to its best scenario. A young single mother leaves school at grade eight and in order for her to complete her high school, she must go back to school for four more years before she can have her child back. Now we all know that a child's formative years are in those early years and further, not only has the child become attached to the licenced parent and her family, but the temporary family has become attached to the child. Now the day finally comes when the mother of the child qualifies as a parent because she graduated from high school and she want's her child back. Imagine if you will, the traumatic experience that both the child and the temporary family will undergo at this stage. I think more harm would come from this kind of scenario than simply permitting the birth mother who doesn't have a high school education, to keep her child.

They have even suggested that parents sign a contract in which they promise not to abuse their children. How would such a contract be enforced? At what point would a slap on the wrist become a breach of the contract?

I think the trouble with academia is that some of these people sit in their ivory towers without really stepping into the real world. I think the only thing that can be said in their favour is their suggestion that some sort of training in parenting should be available to prosepctive parents. I feel that the training of parenthood should begin early, such as grade eight but I don't feel that it should be a condition of parents keeping their children. The way these two nutty professors want it, if parents don't take upgrading in their parenting lessons, the parents will lose their children until they do.

My response to that and most of their other suggestions they have given us is---GIVE ME A BREAK AND GET A LIFE.