Customer Reviews

What's Wrong with Children's Rights

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Professor Guggenheim's book is an insightful and ambitious project that discusses the ways in which adults and various interest groups use the mantle of "children's rights" to forward their own agendas--even when those agendas are in fact contrary or unrelated to the welfare of children. He provides a sharp and detailed look into the particular legal movement associated with children's rights that has arisen over the past forty years, and the contradictory impact that movement has had on various parts of family law, from divorce to removal of children by the state. At the same time he grounds this analysis in the broader historical context of both legal doctrines and social movements on behalf of children.

His conclusions are fascinating and have important implications for anyone concerned with the welfare of children--be they attorneys, policy makers, social workers or interested citizens. Not all readers may ultimately agree with Guggenheim, but all will benefit from this thought-provoking work.

If our policies in the name of children in fact cause dramatic and irreparable harm to them, then why are those policies in place? Whom do they serve? Those who are preoccupied by the empty slogan of "children's rights" but refuse to engage with the substantive impact that "children's rights" policies have do all of us a disservice. (Speaking of which, the dissonance between the comments of some readers on this website and the content of this book is so great that I wonder whether they did more than read the jacket cover.)

Guggenheim delivers an important shot in the arm to anybody who verges on self-satisfaction about the state's intervention in the family. Throughout this important book, he illustrates ways that racial and economic inequities become reinforced and furthered by the current US foster care system. Identifying that this is often done in the name of "saving children" is one of the most important teachings to any critical thinker involved in the children's rights movement. I am grateful to this important contribution to the field and wish more people would read, engage with, and debate the propositions set forth in this book.

The two 1-star reviews below (or above) could not possibly have read the entire book, because much of what they advocate, Guggenheim advocates. This is a thought-provoking, insightful book written by a liberal ACLU lawyer who has seen the utter destruction caused by government intervention into the lives of families. He takes a libertarian position of granting parents as many rights as possible in order to keep children in their homes. He makes this argument not based on his disregard for the welfare of children (his whole career has been dedicated to that) but out of respect to the parents of children. (Who is the "state" to tell me how to raise my child, anyway?) He writes that we have to be OK with parents who are "minimally fit" simply because the overwhelming evidence is that when children are taken out of their "minimally fit" homes, their lives get worse. This book is more a critique of government intervention and the failures of the foster system than anything else. It might be wrong to allow children to suffer under bad parents, but that is not an argument for state intervention. He does think there is a place for foster homes, as some parents are not even minimally fit, but according to a myriad of studied 40-70% of children placed there do not need to have their lives disrupted.

Last, he notes that the rhetoric over children's rights has been exploited for political gain by both the left. Court cases have dragged on too long, cost too much money, and actually been detrimental to children. In short, he argues that there is no such thing as children's rights. For example, does a child have a "right" to a relationship with her parent? No. A child cannot sue and make an adult be a part of her life. The "rights" children receive are the "rights" judges, who don't know them, tell them they have. Framing the debate about "children's rights" is just another way to win political points with a voting base.

This book is premised on an ancient ideology which insists that parents are like gods to their children and that children are basically property. The guy starts with his premise and then goes on to manipulate statistics and ignore the obvious to promote his beliefs. In many cases in the United States when it comes to cruelty dogs have more rights than kids. Children are defenseless and to say that parents know and love their kids because they are biologically theirs is an incredibly ignorant statement.Their is ample evidence that many parents are incapable of caring for a child. Brutalized children often grow up to be destructive adults. What our society needs is a book on how to deal with this problem realistically, which we have not been doing. In the original 13 colonies killing your child for various reasons including rebellion was legal, is that what we want?

"Americans have become convinced (wrongly) by the media that child abuse is a prevalent social ill." So says Mr. Guggenheim, setting up a tower of lies in which he insists that child abuse is rare and overreported.

As a conservative, I am deeply disturbed to see this kind of dangerous lie being told by someone who claims to be one of us.

Of course, unless Mr. Guggenheim has spent his entire life on some distant planet, he cannot possibly be unaware that virtually all children are abused, most of them horrifically. He tries to pretend that parents will "naturally" do what's best for their children because they "naturally" love them. This is absurd. There is nothing in the slightest "natural" about parental affection or responsibility. These things are in fact the product of centuries of constant propaganda intended to discourage parents from killing future laborers and taxpayers. When the propaganda fails, parents fall back on their real natural inclinations, namely to use their children as a unique opportunity to feel powerful over someone helpless. As a conservative, Guggenheim should realize that it is as impossible for a parent to resist the opportunity to wreck a small life as it is for an absolute dictator to resist committing mass murder. Power corrupts, everyone knows that.

The one valid aspect of his argument is that today's historically unprecedented concern over child abuse - people of past eras knew perfectly well that most children lived in a nightmare, but nobody cared - has allowed the government to interfere in families, much to their detriment. But like most people, he completely fails to see the correct solution. The choice seems to be, allow social workers the same kind of insane absolute power over an entire family that parents have always had over their children, or allow parents to continue abusing their children with impunity.

There is a much better solution: take the government out of the equation and let the child decide. Children have a powerful innate need to be loved by their parents; no child will ever leave a parent whose behavior is not completely unbearable. As things stand, a child who runs away from abusive parents is dragged back to them by armed police officers for more abuse. The only place a child can run to is to child pornographers and drug dealers and other such criminals. He has a choice between these and abusive parents, unless he can convince enough adults in the government to intervene in his case. Most of them will not; they have a lot of other work to do, many of them (i.e. teachers) enthusiastically approve of child abuse, and social workers, from all I can tell, love to destroy functional families but leave abused children in their nightmarish environments.

Children should be allowed to leave their parents whenever they want to. Make that the law and the problem of child abuse will evaporate overnight. No child will ever, ever leave a decent parent. Guggenheim tries to claim that "most" of the really bad abuse happens to children under three, who of course can't run away or report it, and apparently because of this, we're supposed to force older children to spend their entire formative years with the people who tortured them when they were babies. The fact is, being imprisoned with abusers causes lasting harm, and older children and teenagers who are removed from abusive homes show definite improvement in all areas.