Magicman10893 said:
I like the idea, although not so much as a standardized test. There are many different approaches to raising children with varying rates of success among them. For instance, some parents like to be hard on their kids to teach them that life is hard. Sometimes this works and you get an efficient and productive child and other times you get a rebellious troublemaker or even a depressed child that either becomes violent or suicidal because, "daddy never hugged me."
Instead, there should be a screening process. They put in there application and a computer then does a background check for to test parenting aptitude.
-The computer checks their criminal record. Then the criminal offenses are reviewed and if anything serious (murder, attempted murder, assault, etc.) is found, then they are denied.
-A check of permanent records from school to check things like grades for intelligence and behavior. If the person had a lot of trouble turning in homework or lacked responsibility, they lose "points" overall. Also this check will look for fights that might not appear on a criminal record. If there are a large number of fights, this person is likely to abuse their child.
-A medical check for any hereditary diseases is done to see if there are serious complications for bringing a child into the world. For instance, my father has a family history of heart disease which caused my 30-something year old half sister to have a heart attack after living a very healthy life. If the medical check exposed this, they wouldn't have let him reproduce with anyone.
If the applicant passed the other tests with flying colors, but fails this test, they are given the opportunity to adopt a child. Or if the spouse passes every test, they could find someone that passes this medical check and have the child with them, but have the applicants raise the child. This procedure is already used for couples where one of the would-be-parents is physically unable to reproduce.
-Finally, a drug test for obvious reasons.
Any would be parents would also have to go to a parenting class. A class that covers the basics like how to change diapers and feed the baby and all that fun stuff. I don't this is too harsh and it removes the chance that the applicant would pass the test with lucky guesses.
Agree very much with the first point, parenting isn't something that can be easily generalized. Not only because there are different techniques, but we are all humans and in my opinion we are already born different. Parenting doesn't have a formula, thus a test wouldn't be able to be taken. For test to be usefull it has to have a formula or logic behind it that can be apply to all. It's all about interpretation of the situation.
Screening would be a good idea. Few points.
The criminal screening is a good idea, but you might also ask that if a criminal once made a violation of the law, shouldn't he be able to lead a normal life. Say that someone has better his life which happens, due to this standard he might be denied to have a child and normal life for as long as he lives. Going further, but with an exaggeration, this might lead the criminal to despise society even more and forget about being good and just screw society and perhaps become quite a big threat.
Punishment is a powerfull tool, if the punished one also has the chance to redeem himself and go back to following the social norms.
Second point I don't agree with. Children who are bullied (for example) might get in a lot of fights, due to the fact of being pushed to the edge and into the corner just like an animal you would fight back. While bullied children might be one of the most protective parents, perhaps over-protective that could be the other end.
I am not saying it's a bad idea, but I believe abuse doesn't find its origin in the school behaviour, same thing about responsibility. I would say check if they changed, at their work or whatever.
Third point, I don't need to know what could go wrong and be happy they let your dad reproduce because it gave you life and yes sadly took that of your half sister. But genetics is a complicated thing and it would still be a gamble. You might be on the good side or not, I know it sounds strange, but this shouldn't be a criteria in my opinion. Besides during pregnancy a LOT of things could go wrong and some things go wrong, but the body is a very strong 'machine' it has its ways to correct errors. So medical history shouldn't be in the screening, besides we'd be fucking with evolution that way and we are already screwing with nature.
Post-fertalization enhancement could be a solution to this, but that might be a whole 'nother discussion.
Your point about drugs I agree with, but again those who have been clean should be allowed to have a child.
Your last point is one that we in my opinion should enforce immediatly. Just like school is obligated in some countries this should definitely be obligated. Actually even more, I would say it would have to give this course to parents who have their first child on cost of society. I know this for a fact, the first few months/years are very very important. As soon as they get pregnant I believe they should get a course of what to do during pregnancy. Some things can have a serious negative life-long effect on your child if you do it at the wrong time, remember softenon babies. Right after that they should have parenting course, at the end of pregnancy say 2 months before the birth.
Anyway, to conclude, I believe that such a law would be very hard enforcable, but damn well needed. Parenting is a very hard task and could be seen as a community thing, but I believe you have your own special parents and they should raise you, but they could use help. I am rather liberal in many points suggesting for freedom and second-chances. But I am thinking that it would help us, even if you make just the course part obligated. The screening would be handy, but I'd say the medical screening must always stay optional.
But thinking of all this, I see the importance of science. The role would be so essential. The psychology/biology of development of everything. There are quite some questions on this, but I do want to point out that this science is far from perfect or complete. Still many things are a mystery and we can't give a generalization of this too. So testing it would be very hard.
