On this Mother's Day, 2024, we are republishing this article about Parental Rights from 2022 with a few updates. As you honor the woman you call Mom, grandmother, aunt etc., think about how crazy it is that people are villainizing those that support this concept.
It’s always amazing how far hypocritical Progressives will go to fight everything parental rights advocates want.
Our local Moms for Liberty Chapter asks candidates to sign a “Parents Right Pledge” created by Moms by Liberty National. Many local, state and national candidates read the pledge and readily sign it. By the reaction of local Progressives, you would have thought that we asked them to sign an agreement to kill cute puppies. They were apoplectic, even to the extent to publish a lie about it on Facebook. I won’t dignify that nonsense with a link. But here is the pledge:
Seems simple, doesn’t it? Parents wish to have rights and control over what happens to their children in school, medically, etc. They don’t want people who were not involved in the relationship that created the child, who don’t love the child as only a parent can, who don’t provide for the care and raising of that child, making decisions for that child’s future and teaching that child ideas and beliefs that go against the parent’s beliefs.
It doesn’t matter if the parent is a Christian, Jewish, a Muslim, Hindu, or even an atheist. They want to raise their children in the values they have. But, somehow this really bothers Progressive leftists, to the extent that they want to take parental rights away. They want to pretend that other adults know better than parents and allow those adults to make all the decisions for kids.
I was a teacher for thirty years. I taught hundreds, maybe even thousands of kids. I coached youth sports. I valued and cared for my students. I’ll be honest, some more than others! Yet, even so, I could never love any of those children as much as their parents did. And, if the parent wanted to know what I taught their child in the classroom, I would gladly share it. If they objected to something, then we would discuss and come to a resolution probably in the parent’s favor.
Were there times when I had to defer to parents? Yes. I remember that at one elementary school we had a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses. If you don’t know their beliefs, they don’t celebrate Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving or Halloween and a variety of other holidays, don’t accept vaccinations, don’t pledge to any flag, and don’t use the cross in their worship. So, we had to adapt to respect those beliefs with their children in the classroom.
I don’t remember a single teacher or principal saying, “Hey, they don’t have the right to tell us what to celebrate with their child.” No, we just offered an alternative for the child. There was no big argument, no derogatory comments, none of that.
But now Progressives want to do exactly that. Don’t want your child to learn about vaginal, oral or anal sex in elementary school? Progressives will call you a prude and insist your child should learn that. Don’t want your child to have access in the classroom to a book that graphically describes how to give a “handie” to a gay sex partner? They will make fun of you and claim you want to “ban all books you don’t like.” Want your child to be recognized as their gender at birth? Well now you’re just a transphobe.
In a recent forum for the 2022 election, a candidate claimed that Conservatives wanted to ban all books, including “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I don’t know where this guy got his information, but he obviously wasn’t really paying attention.
Wow. Looks like Conservatives aren’t the ones who wanted this book banned. Remember that other books that were banned were written by Dr. Seuss. These weren’t Conservatives doing the banning.
In these cases, Progressives fully supported the right of parents to ban books. These books certainly weren’t pornographic like a book called “This Book is Gay.” In fact, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is a classic that has been recognized as a book that bridges racial animosity and teaches valuable lessons about love and fairness between the races. I guess Progressives don’t like that.
The book “This Book is Gay” has none of those qualities.
I am including a link to the description of it from Amazon. Be sure to read the reviews.
Enlightening. You will also see all the other books recommended with it.
“This Book is Gay” is so pornographic that a parent who wanted to explain why it should not be allowed in school classrooms asked that children leave a Board meeting before she read an excerpt from it.
(Warning, the video here contains graphic descriptions of sex)
In other meetings, the Board of Education members cautioned parents NOT to read sections or show pictures from that book because they are too offensive.
And yet Progressives lost their collective MINDS over the very thought that middle school kids would not get to read this sexual guidebook.
But let’s not get stuck on books.
I once heard another Progressive say his mother was a teacher and he would never question what she taught in her classroom. That’s very nice. His mom was probably the kind of teacher every parent would love their child to have. Problem is, there are teachers out there who aren’t.
I met some of them in my thirty-year teaching career. There was the Auto Tech teacher who, instead of teaching something like, oh, automotive repairs, allowed his students to watch porn videos in his class. Don’t believe it? It happened, right here in our little, rural county.
There was the physics teacher who created tests that included hypothetical questions about prisoners in a shower with one bar of soap. The test question was about the mathematical formula to determine how fast the subject inmate needed to get to the bar of soap and bend over to pick it up before…well, you can probably guess the rest. Again, it happened here in our county.
There was the fifth-grade teacher who allowed his class to watch him wind up a Jack in the Box over and over for thirty minutes because he thought it was fun. This was while he was supposed to be teaching reading. I know. He did this while I was observing him. It wasn’t a morally objectionable lesson, just a huge waste of time. Would parents want to know why their children weren’t learning to read? Probably. I wondered what he smoked before he got to school each day. By the way, he was let go. One of the main reasons he was let go was because every day, two to three times a day, he kneeled down in class and prayed. He was Catholic. Parents had a problem with that.
There are other examples. Should parents have NO SAY in what was happening in those classrooms? Should the Jehovah’s Parents have to suck it up and allow the schools to teach their children viewpoints against their religion? According to Progressives the answer is “yes.”
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think parents should micro-manage classrooms. It’s better that they get to know their child’s teacher and develop trust. But, it is not out of bounds for parents to question the appropriateness of instructional materials and books read. The materials should be available to them.
It’s important that teachers also know their boundaries. We used to teach new teachers that their personal lives were to be kept personal and that sexual preferences or activities had no business in their classrooms. The same was true for political beliefs. In fact, many of us worked very hard NOT to show our students what our leanings were. Now, we have teachers using CHILDREN to AFFIRM and VALIDATE the sexual choices of the teachers. We have teachers vowing to turn children into “social justice warriors” supporting the extreme cause of the day. That is NOT their right or responsibility.
We even have teachers promoting hatred against certain religions and/or ethnic groups. Luckily, many of them are on college campuses but recent news shows the violence and destruction they have fomented.
Progressives want Conservative parents to stay out of what is taught in our schools but have no problem poking their noses into classrooms to advance their preferred agenda. Imagine the angst and furor if a Christian teacher started to teach about the life of Christ or read the Bible in a public school. You’d have to put guards on the classroom door to the keep the Progressives from driving that teacher out of the school with tar and feathers.
So, what is the answer?
First, we have to understand what is going on here. There is a concerted effort in our country to divide us. The only way they can do this is to use our schools to indoctrinate our children with dangerous ideas and monolithic thinking. In some Progressive's minds, children must have their innocence destroyed in order to promote the practices of every fringe sexual preference, even pedophilia. The more the abhorrent is normalized, the better chance that those who are abhorrent will have their way with our kids. It’s what they have done in China, the USSR, Cuba, Hitler’s Germany and North Korea along with other Communist or authoritarian countries.
I don’t think every Progressive wants pedophiles to have access to children, but I think they are being led to believe that the current practices in schools are innocuous and what are best for kids. If they would take the time to see the long-term effects of classroom indoctrination, they might see the truth and change their lock step compliance. Those who support these vile policies don’t want that to happen. Thus, the constant derision of those who oppose it.
I also think that many of them want to be that “cool parent” who is edgy and “woke.” Even if it harms their children.
Indoctrination – Lasting Effects on Children and Conflicts – Jerusalem Institute of Justice (jij.org)
How about this. How about if schools teach math, reading, science, writing, and history without bringing in every ideological cause and distortion. How about if we leave political beliefs, gender identity, sexual preferences to parents and families. Let’s be clear and open about what is being taught and not require freedom of information filings for parents to find out. How about if we hire good teachers and train them to teach content and manage students so they can learn.
And let’s make parents important partners in the education process instead of portraying those who ask questions as the enemy.
Parent rights are something everyone should be able to get behind. The fact that Progressives can’t do that exposes them as hypocrites and tyrants.
So, on this Mother's Day, 2024, remind yourself that parents are the most important people in children's lives. Not every parent will do things the way we think they should be done, but most of them love their children. Those who don't and who abuse their children should be dealt with through counseling or legal means. Child abuse should NEVER be tolerated.
But let's not confuse a difference in values as a reason to prevent a parent from having the right to make decisions for and about that child. Let's look at the entire picture, not just a little section carved out by unions and special interest groups.
Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful moms, grandmoms, aunts, etc. !!!
Jan Greenhawk, Author
May 12, 2024
Jan Greenhawk is a former teacher and school administrator for over thirty years. She has two grown children and lives with her husband in Maryland. She also spent over twenty-five years coaching/judging gymnastics and coaching women’s softball.
This article was originally featured on the Easton Gazette.
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