Why the Convention on the Rights of the Child is a Core Issue

(Part 1 of 5 in a series)

There are certain issues in our epic battle for freedom so fundamental that winning all other skirmishes, but losing these critical battles still results in defeat. With multiple attacks on freedom coming at us daily, discernment, focus, and coordination are required by America’s citizens if these issues are to be targeted for special efforts. The right of parents to decide how their children are raised and what their children are taught is one of these core issues. In America we have long held this tradition as a fundamental right granted by God. However, this tradition is being challenged by forces from within and from outside our own nation. If, through slow erosion in the courts and legislatures or through the floodgate of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the government gains full control of “parenting”, one thing is guaranteed. The passing of the current generation will leave the next generation shaped, molded, and indoctrinated according to the values of our government’s leaders and experts. That generation will be enslaved to the government as the one to whom it owes allegiance, and freedom will be forsaken.
Three simple truths prove the fundamental nature of this issue. First, God ordained that the family has the primary responsibility for directing the intellectual and moral education of children. Within this family structure, parents were made the primary source of influence as to what values and beliefs are passed to the next generation. If parents abdicate that role to the government, then the values of the government, not the family, will shape the next generation. Second, a simple historical investigation reveals how multiple dictators targeted children for indoctrination from early ages. The dictators knew that their future power lay in the hands of the next generation’s submission to government authority. Even Plato was concerned that the very stories told to infants were important in shaping society’s future. Finally, as the introduction tried to highlight, only one generation’s passing stands between freedom and its disappearance if parents allow the government to control the next generation’s upbringing. You see, if the government controls their upbringing, they will be taught that submission to the government and its values is of the highest importance. Whatever sense of freedom that our generation holds dear will not even be a memory in the next generation’s mind after such indoctrination.
Health care, the banking industry, the car industry, and other areas are unquestionably important skirmishes, but the intellectual, spiritual, and moral development of our next generation is not a battle that we can afford lose if we hope to win the ongoing war for freedom. As Wendell Phillips said in 1852, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. May God help American parents to recognize the magnitude of this issue and to be eternally vigilant in protecting children by protecting our rights to parent them.

Stay tuned for part 2 of 5 in this series.....