Disclaimer: Okay…so you check The OSSome Blog to read doll related stuff. This ain’t that. LOL As the resident blogmistress, I have full control over content, and, while I will usually be blogging about dolls and action figures and information closely related to those items with the occasional Team Cameron or Adah Jane update thrown in for good measure, I will also inject a post that will give you more insight into the artist rather than the art…the OSSifier rather than the OSSified if you will. THIS is THAT.

Consider yourself warned. If you’d rather not read my thoughts on the subject of parental rights, now’s the time to click away to something else. 🙂 🙂

If you’ve read my bio page on my website or if you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that my family and I are Christ followers. We also chose to educate our children around the kitchen table rather than in a government run school system. Both our children are now in college and pursuing their passions. Due to the fact that our children are in college and, as of a few days ago, both legally considered adults, some people might think our parenting days are over. (Insert heavy sigh of relief!) I thought long and hard about posting what I am about to post. But quite frankly, I have a lot of dear friends who have young children, and I hope that one day I will have grandchildren. And so, the fight for parental rights will continue. I will not rest simply because my own children are raised. I will speak for those who are still in the daily process. I always told people that my husband and I were not raising kids. We were raising adults…well-adjusted, God loving, contributing adults who might one day help to make the world a better place. I have also been known to tell younger parents that if parenting is easy, you’re not doing it right! LOL Proper parenting is down in the trenches, and you won’t emerge unscathed. However, the rewards at the end of the battle, are incalculable. And so I am posting within my own blog a letter to the editor that was written by a New Jersey woman and reprinted with permission by ParentalRights.org . Here it is:

The following is a letter to the Editor which appeared in the Cape May County (NJ) Herald Feb. 17. It is reprinted here with the permission of its author, Cathy Driscoll of Villas, NJ.

To The Editor: “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world” wrote William Ross Wallace back in 1865. When committed, loving parents rock the cradle, freedom flourishes. When the state is allowed to rock that cradle, evil follows. Tyrants need thugs and wimps. This “ideal” population is produced by controlling the rearing of children. George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” illustrates the brutal way the sheep dog is robbed of her puppies. Once confiscated, the puppies become trained bullies and useful enforcers.

Hitler saw children as “clean slates” on which barbarism could be written, but only if they are removed from the influences of their parents. Kitty Werthmann, a living witness to life under the Nazi boot, describes how pre-Hitler Austria abounded with compassionate and respectful youth. Post Hitler brought hideous changes. Public school teachers encouraged the children to disregard their parents’ “fuddy-duddy” ways. Mandatory Youth Day was designated on Sundays at the time of Catholic Mass. Parents who took their children to church instead of youth day faced capital punishment. By firmly holding the children in their hands, Nazis successfully paved the road to the Holocaust.

What has happened here in the last several decades? Parents are afraid to discipline their children in public. Records are withheld from parents because of “privacy rights.” My husband was at the doctor recently and he was not allowed to be in the examination room with our own child without a doctor or nurse present. We were at a swim meet back in November and parents were actually barred from going to the changing rooms with their own children. My husband and I questioned those in charge of the meet on this policy. These officials reasoned that children needed to learn to be on their own. These adults took it upon themselves to disregard the authority of the parents.

Step by step our government has morphed from respecting parents’ rights to dismantling them. Do you want this to continue turning from a snowball into an avalanche?

Let’s say that you think that you won’t be affected by this trend; you don’t plan to ever have children or you have raised your children and are done with this job. First of all, are you so bereft of compassion that you can stand by and allow your fellow citizens to face the forced loss of their children? Secondly, if society is full of parentless thugs, who do we think will come to our rescue when we are old and helpless?

The Parental Rights Amendment (Note by OSS: The Parental Rights Amendment for the United States is in response to the UNCRC discussed below. Thank you.), if ratified, will seal protections for parents. It states the following: Section 1: The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right. Section 2: Neither the United States nor any state shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served. Section 3: No treaty may be adopted nor shall any source of international law be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article.

A Final Note by the Blogmistress: Very recently, a German family applied for and was awarded political asylum here in the United States because the German government was persecuting them for home educating their children. Regardless of where you stand personally on the issue of home education versus government sponsored education, the main crux of the matter is whether parents have the right to choose how their children will be educated. Do parents have the right? Or is it the government’s job to mandate? Does the government know what’s best for my child? For yours? We all should be thoughtful and cautious…we are all familiar in one way or another with the “foot in the door” situation. It’s a terribly slippery slope, and once the balance of power shifts, Heaven help us all. At this point in time, the United States is the ONLY country that has not chosen to ratify the U.N. Convention of the Rights of the Child. While no one would argue against the need to protect the world’s children from being forced into military service or from a life of slavery or any number of horrendous occurrences, the fine print of the CRC does FAR more. The “foot in the door” is looming ever closer to the U.S. threshold. If the U.S. adds its signature to the CRC, where will Americans go for political asylum in order to protect their rights as parents? I am not urging anyone to do anything except become educated on the topic. Choose where you stand based on education and information. Don’t take my words here for anything. Do the research yourself on both sides of the issue. But please do SOMEthing.

“No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” Edmund Burke