More States Consider Protecting Parents Who Give Kids the Chance to Grow

South Carolina and Connecticut are among two of the latest states that might soon allow kids more opportunities to step out on their own for some time at the park or a walk to school. Following the example of Utah, Lawmakers in South Carolina and Connecticut are two of the latest states to consider changes in state law to protect parents’ ability to allow their children a bit more independence, without worrying that such allowances will be seen as criminally “neglectful” by local authorities. This is good news for parents interested in helping their kids prepare for the real world and an incredible opportunity for kids to develop and hone skills that could help them succeed later in life.

To many adults, such a law might seem unnecessary, as most of us undoubtedly have memories of playing outside unsupervised all the time (at least until the streetlights came on) or walking alone to a corner store. But times have changed, and the culture has changed with them. Child protection has become an all-encompassing dogma that has been stretched to ridiculous proportions. In 2014, a mother in South Carolina was charged with a felony for allowing her nine-year-old to play at a park while she was working nearby. A Connecticut mother was arrested in 2015 when her eight-year-old stepson attempted to walk the two miles to school by himself. These cases are hardly isolated incidents. Constant parental supervision is all the rage and parents looking to provide their kids a little independence often find themselves brushing up against concerned onlookers or even the police.

While keeping kids safe is important, some perspective is helpful. Despite the rise of safety culture and helicopter parenting, kids today are safer than ever. Violent crime is down across the board and the chances of a child being kidnapped are incredibly small. In fact, the crime rate in the United States today is far lower than it was in the 1990s. The real danger now facing kids is not from strangers, but from the unintended consequences of this overprotection.

Rates of depression and anxiety among America’s youth have been increasing for the past 50 to 70 years. While only about one in ten college students in the 1980s could be characterized as needing, wanting, or using mental health services at a given point in time, today the figure is about one in three, and growing. While it’s hard to pin down the exact causes of this increase, some experts have warned that the lack of childhood free play and independence are a major part of the problem. Peter Gray, a psychology professor at Boston College and author of Free to Learn, notes that, “By depriving children of opportunities to play on their own, away from direct adult supervision and control, we are depriving them of opportunities to learn how to take control of their own lives.”

Allowing kids more independence and time for unsupervised play not only mitigates the risks of various psychological issues, but it can actually help them develop skills that are necessary for personal and economic success later in life. For decades now, researchers have touted the value of soft skills, such as socioemotional self-regulation, perseverance, and the ability to work well in teams, in helping individuals achieve greater long-term economic success.

The modern labor market increasingly values soft skills, and as automation continues to disrupt traditional and routinized occupations, these skills are only likely to become even more important. According to research from David Deming, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, “Between 1980 and 2012, jobs requiring high levels of social interaction grew by nearly 12 percentage points as a share of the U.S. labor force.” Such skills are often developed at an early age and form the basis for future learning and academic success.

Given what we now know about mental health risks among young adults and the importance of developing soft skills, it is clear that overprotecting kids today has real costs for their future. While a broader cultural shift is needed to better prepare kids for success later in life, parents hoping to grant mature kids a bit more independence should be encouraged. Going it alone is challenging for parents but changing the law to prevent prosecution for such decisions is a great place to start.

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The most politically intolerant americans are older white liberals

Research commissioned by The Atlantic Magazine shows that older white liberals may just be the most politically intolerant group in the country.

The article by Amanda Ripley, Rekha Tenjarla and Angela Y. He, published Monday and titled “The Geography of Partisan Prejudice,” utilized polling and analytics firm PredictWise to “create a ranking of counties in the U.S. based on partisan prejudice.”

While its findings showed “significant variations in Americans’ political ill will from place to place, regardless of party,” it also found that groups the authors expected to display partisan animosity, such as immigrants, paled in comparison to “the most politically intolerant Americans,” who “tend to be whiter, more highly educated, older, more urban, and more partisan themselves.”

While the piece did not explicitly label this group as “liberal,” several indications bear this out, such as the “highly educated” description (54 percent of college graduates at least lean Democratic), the fact that the vast majority of “urban” voters tend to be Democrats, and the known political leanings of the areas the research itself draws from, such as Massachusetts.

From the article:

We see this dynamic in the heat map. In some parts of the country, including swaths of North Carolina and upstate New York, people still seem to give their fellow Americans the benefit of the doubt, even when they disagree. In other places, including much of Massachusetts and Florida, people appear to have far less tolerance for political difference. They may be quicker to assume the worst about their political counterparts, on average.

Nationwide, if we disregard the smallest counties (which may be hard to pin down statistically, since they have fewer than 100,000 people), the most politically intolerant county in America appears to be Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which includes the city of Boston. In this part of the country, nine out of every 10 couples appear to share the same partisan leaning, according to the voter-file data. Eight out of every 10 neighborhoods are politically homogeneous. This means that people in Boston may have fewer “cross-cutting relationships,” as researchers put it. It is a very urban county with a relatively high education level. All these things tend to correlate with partisan prejudice.

The piece contrasts that with other areas, such as several parts of North Carolina and upstate New York, where people seem to be “more accepting of political differences.”

“In these places, you are more likely to have neighbors who think differently than you do,” the authors write. “You are also more likely to be married to someone from the other side of the aisle. It’s harder to caricature someone whom you know to be a complicated person.”

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Colorado ends crusade against Jack Phillips

It’s been six and a half years since the Colorado Civil Rights Commission set its sights on a local cake artist named Jack Phillips.

The commission targeted Jack because of his Christian faith.

That was clear when it allowed other Colorado cake artists—but not Jack—to decline to create custom cakes that expressed messages they considered objectionable.

And it was even clearer when some members of the commission made hostile statements against Jack. One called his religious-liberty defense “despicable” and compared him to perpetrators of the Holocaust.

The hostility toward Jack’s faith was so obvious that the United States Supreme Court rebuked the commission. In a 7-2 decision, the high court condemned Colorado’s “clear and impermissible hostility toward [Jack’s] sincere religious beliefs.”

The Colorado government should’ve learned its lesson then. It didn’t. Less than a month after the Supreme Court decision, the Colorado government targeted Jack again. Thankfully, it seems to have learned its lesson—well, at least for now.

Today, the state of Colorado dismissed its most recent case against Jack. Praise God!

Email from Alliance Defending Freedom: info@adflegal.org





Canadian Court Rules Parents Can’t Stop 14-Year-Old From Taking Trans Hormones

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada ordered that a 14-year-old girl receive testosterone injections without parental consent. The court also declared that if either of her parents referred to her using female pronouns or addressed her by her birth name, they would be considered guilty of family violence.

As previously reported, Maxine* was encouraged by her school counselor in BC’s Delta School District to identify as a boy while in seventh grade. When Maxine was 13 years old, Dr. Brenden Hursh and his colleagues at BC Children’s Hospital decided that Maxine should begin taking testosterone injections in order to develop a more masculine appearance.

Although Maxine’s mother was ultimately willing to support hormone injections, her father Clark* was concerned about the permanent ramifications of cross-sex hormones. Suspecting that his daughter’s mental health issues might be more the cause than the effect of her gender dysphoria, he ultimately decided that it would be better for her to wait until she was older before she embarked on any irreversible course of treatment.

At that point, Hursh informed Clark that he would begin testosterone injections on the basis of Maxine’s consent alone, claiming that he had a right to do so under the BC Infants Act. Clark promptly sought an injunction to prevent this. On Wednesday, however, a judge deemed Maxine “exclusively entitled to consent to medical treatment for gender dysphoria,” regardless of the opinions of either of her parents.

Further, the court stated that “Attempting to persuade [Maxine] to abandon treatment for gender dysphoria; addressing [Maxine] by his birth name; referring to [Maxine] as a girl or with female pronouns whether to him directly or to third parties; shall be considered to be family violence under s. 38 of the Family Law Act.”

Late Wednesday evening, Clark was strongly disappointed by the court’s ruling. “The government has taken over my parental rights,” he said, “They’re using [Maxine] like she’s a guinea pig in an experiment … Is BC Children’s Hospital going to be there in 5 years when she rejects [her male identity]? No they’re not. They don’t care. They want numbers.”

In the past, the majority of children diagnosed by sex-change clinics with gender dysphoria (or gender identity disorder) have ended up embracing their natal sex as adults. Clark referenced recent reports from England indicating that some transgender clinics have bowed to intense pressure from trans activists to fast-track children into hormone treatments.

Clark felt that he could not trust BC Children’s Hospital’s diagnosis: “These activists are taking over,” Clark said, “and it’s not in the interests of our kids.  It’s in the interests of self-promotion and the things that they want to do and accomplish.”

Throughout our interview, Clark continued to refer to his daughter as a girl, “because she is a girl. Her DNA will not change through all these experiments that they do.” Clark understood that this statement might be construed as a violation of the court’s interdict against “referring to [Maxine] as a girl … to third parties,” but felt that he could not honestly take any other stand. While he has long been tolerant of his daughter’s transgender identity, he was unwilling to regulate his objective statements to media outlets by a misattribution of his daughter’s sex.

“We’re gonna fight this right up to the Supreme Court of Canada,” he said.  “We’re not quitting.”

Kari Simpson, head of the Canadian pro-family organization Culture Guard, which has helped raise awareness and support for Clark’s case, agreed that the case had to be appealed. “To leave this unchallenged” would have dire consequences for “other youth who are trying to survive in an increasingly hostile and dangerous society,” she said.

For now, and for Maxine, however, the judge’s decision stands: the 14-year-old will begin taking testosterone against a parent’s wishes on the sole basis of her own consent.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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