The most important job in the world-License to be a parent.

[karnautrahl]

Parenting could well be the most important job on the planet. A child can become Einstein, Picasso, President...or Hitler, Jack the Ripper or Pol Pot.

One human can create great misery or great joy. Then there's all the ones in between.

With such a potentially lethal outcome or equally fantastic potential, why is parenting left to chance?

Putting aside freedom, civil liberties and all the thorns that will come from this view-here's what I'm thinking.

To drive a car you get lessons, you get a license and you get insurance etc. The worst you'll probably do in a car-licensed or not-it cause a major crash (ok..that's bad enough I admit.).

To bring up a child, you *may* learn some from your parents. If you are lucky you have great parents who make very few mistakes. Otherwise your basically bringing up your kids in response to how you were brought up.

No-one actually trains you to be an effective caring parent.

We're actually able to go and produce as many children as we like-and bring them up nearly anyhow we like.

It occurred to me time ago, that prospective parents should actually be trained in some basics first. Basics even the slowest can learn and use.

Such a course would need careful design, lots of testing and input from a wide variety of sources. However the benefits would be parents who start out, knowing from their very first night home with baby how to deal with crying at night.

How to deal with all the difficulties, how to cope with each other's stresses. Having been trained and prepared for the most common difficult contingencies.

Discipline skills, educational and social skills regarding helping their child grow in a balanced solid manner could all be researched and taught.

You can probably see some of where I'm going with this. Proper parenting skills and education may well be a key factor in changing the future face of a population.

How would a license really work though?

Firstly, it would need trialling and lots of experimental courses to work out timescales, costs, feasibility. Will it take 6 months of intensive training to take average young mr and mrs into the peak of good parenting..or 2 years. I'm not a parent...I haven't the foggiest :-).

What would you do about unlicensed parenting?
Thorny question of the day this one. A draconian law would be very very unpopular and undermine the whole process (besides I hate restrictions remember?).

A better option would be positive propoganda and tax relief or a similar carrot. Decent marketing could make the Parental License a popular move (damn I hate that name though!).

There aren't quick fixes to yob culture and all the other social ills. I'm just believe that something much like this, could over time reduce the problem by getting more parents to be able to handle their children more effectively and in a more balanced manner.

Thoughts?

[A_B]

I can see what you mean, but I think I'm an excellent parent, so I have a different view. I don't believe that would work for everyone, so would have an adverse effect with the way some children are brought up.

If someone 'trained' me to be a parent before I had kids, I'd have done things differently and by the book, so wouldn't have found my own way. I'm quite proud with my own results (so far). He wants to be a soldier at the moment, so I'm gonna have to try to correct that though.

It doesn't matter how much training you have, every child/parent is different, so it boils down to common sense and 'going with the flow' a lot of the time. There's no text book solutions to parenting unfortunately - all the good intentions etc when you're either pregnant or considering having a child go out of the window when the child arrives. Too much thinking and consultation on what to do in certain situations isn't healthy - you need to act fast with most things - it's either in you or it isn't due to experience.

I know some people need 'help' though - but I'm not so sure it's because they can't do it, I tend to think they can't be bothered to put the time and effort into it. A child develops their own personality etc by the time they're five, so those first years are extremely important, but they're also the years when parents don't bother so much because there's still in a state of shock at producing a child. If you do it 'wrong', you'll end up trying to correct problems for the rest of their child years - but you won't know which category you fall into until the child arrives.

[playme]

I do look at some people and think you need a liscence for a dog, tv and a car but they have kids and no one bats an eyelid. I dont claim to be the best parent in the world and dont aspire to it (you can never be perfect). I have a well adjusted little girl, one of the top of her class and happy. ME and her father may have fuck all but shoe knows she is well loved and wanted.

[draped muppet]

i think there is an issue over things like parenting classes being classed as a "punnishment" within our social system; i think if more people attended them then society might not be heading in quite the negative direction it seems to be

that said, a lot of people would feel absolutely disheartened if such things became compulsory.. like the other contributors to this thread, we are (hopefully) raising happy and well adjusted children without needing to be "taught" how to do it.. but i do agree that a good deal of parenting is "hit and miss", and a lot of mistakes get made along the way

curious though, that even to take a pet from an animal rescue centre you have to be heavily vetted, yet you can introduce new human life into the world without anyone looking into your circumstances or background..

i do believe though that the vast majority of parents genuinely try and do a good job (and end up doing a good job as a result), despite the potential pitfalls.

[playme]

the majority do and do a good job, but when you see people, not nessesarily poor, but well off people having children and clearly resenting them it breaks your heart. Some people have absoulutley no clue how to bring up kids sometimes they get it right, but sometimes a few of them get it really wrong, and the poor kids suffer.

[Victor29]

You are all so very right and I have often thought about just this. Especially when you see Mr & Ms Slob with their kid on a shopping trolley screaming, and them effing and jeffing at the kid.
It is amazing the scrutiny you go through to adopt or foster but you can pop 'em out one after the other and until you kill one of them, no-one gives a stuff.

[Ernest Rants]

once you get past the 1st radio active nappy full its a piece of piss, especially if you leave it all to the woman as nature intended.

[kibbutzangel]

I think some sort of social consciousness needs to be taught in schools. I know that many people bring their kids up the best they can, but unless we manage to teach children at a young age that they need to take the consequences of their actions and care about people around them then I see no future for any sort of caring society.

AB's right I think in that some people just can't be bothered and their kids grow up by default rather than with assistance. If we managed to instill a social consciousness into future generations then there may be some hope.

Sorry if anyone thinks I'm blathering, it's just something I believe and can't provide backup for.

[online.education]

Parenting could well be the most important job on the planet. A child can become Einstein, Picasso, President...or Hitler, Jack the Ripper or Pol Pot.

One human can create great misery or great joy. Then there's all the ones in between.

With such a potentially lethal outcome or equally fantastic potential, why is parenting left to chance?

While I can kind of understand what you're saying, I'm not so sure if a parent can perform a set of tasks competently, he/she is almost guaranteed to become a good parent. And of course, there are always laws to correct bad parents. Are modifications in existing laws necessary? Yeah, probably. Need there be new laws? Maybe. But the license to be a parent ...? I'm not so sure.