children based on these supposed attributes. This power and authority are taken so seriously,that the United States has not ratified the Convention on Children's Rights out of fear that it will undermine parental authority (Steiner, 2000,p 519).
Yet these parents may have criminal records,be drunkards,be having affairs,be wasting the family financial resources on gambling and drugs ... the litanyof examples as to why all parents are not worthy to bring a moral emphasis to bear in their child's life and make critical decisions on his or her behalf,without necessarily even consulting their child, needs to be debated openly. The state needs to end the hypocrisy evident in this convenient facade of parental invincibility, and take greater responsibility for the realisation of children's rights. The convenient distinction made by society generally, is that moral beliefs are indistinguishable from religious beliefs,needs to be disaggregated.
There are many moral persons who are not particularly religious,and vice versa.
This must however be counterbalanced by the fact that children are not adults yet,that they may make choices that harm them and foreclose their right to an open future, such as contracting AIDS, dying of a drug overdose,or being convicted of a criminal offence, such as rape. Similarly, children may change their religion and in so doing make
themselves vulnerable to cynical manipulation by unscrupulous persons masquerading as holy persons.Some cults are noted for separating children from their families and then exploiting them for their own nefarious ends.
A child is vulnerable,esp~!!):'when very~J~g, and does~~:.~ave the r~~~ty, insight,understanding, experience, perspective and judgement to recognise or avoid making a chOice
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achild in all matters, in deciding for him or her, and thereby discounting the child. The answer lies in parents establishing a communicative relationship and discussing matters and their consequences with their child. In so doing, trust will be built and the situation will not deteriorate into a 'them versus us' scenario,or result in choices which are unconsulted between the parent and the child,and which hence may result in injudicious choices. Itrequires enlightened parenting to establish such a delicate balance and it is
predicated on maintaining communication, building trust and respecting a child as a person in his or her own right.
Parents and faith communities are likelyto exert subtle,and sometimes less than subtle, pressure on a child to remain in the faith fold. In the Muslim community,to change one's faith is considered an apostasy. Churches have eo-opted theconcept of the family as their prerogative (although the family unit predates the origin ofthe faith,such as with the case of the birth of Christ) and so sayings such as 'The familythat prays together stays
together' become part of the process of eo-opting children into the family faith.
Itis held to be 'natural' that parents want the best for their children. In so doing parents will usually have:
'a positive desire to influence the course of a child's life,to guide the child from infancy to maturity,a desire to mould it,to shape its life, to fix its basic values and broad attitudes,to lay the foundations of its lifestyle, its priorities,its most general beliefs and convictions,and in general to determine,to whatever degree is
reasonable and possible, the kind of person the child will become.' (Page, 1984, p 195).
The underlining is this author's emphasis,to show the use of controlling and deciding words used by parents. This kind oflanguage is an anathema when talking of children's rights, but many parents would uncritically subscribe to it. Enlightened parenting is often better when parents influence by example,rather than by attempting to control the development of the child.
The problem with these goals,for parents to guide their child and create him or her in their own image and according to their most cherished values and ideals, by imposing their own attitudes and values on the child,is that the child is brought up as a clone of his or her parents, an object of the extension of their megalomaniac ego, to use power to control their child'sdevelopment.
The rationale for such beliefs is vested in 'difference perceptions'. Qvortrup (in Smith, 2000, p 68) reminds that:
'Children are seen as having 'to mature' before they obtain freedom to act on behalf of themselves ...protection (of children) may be suggested even when it is not strictly necessary for the sake of the children,but rather works to protect adults or adult social orders against disturbance from the presence of children.This is exactly the point at which protection threatens to slide into unwarranted dominance'
Parents should not be dogmatic,inflexible and intolerant in dealing with their children.
Nor should they be selfish despots and see their children as instruments for achieving their own frustrated or egotistical desires.
The real problems children face in attempting to assert their individual and unique religious beliefs, are church pressures on both the child and on the parents,the latter being left feeling that they have not done their duty and have let their church down, if their child leaves the fold.There is also the powerless position of children in asserting their beliefs, with no recourse or avenue of appeal,if their parents thwart their beliefs.
5.5 WHY CHILDREN SHOULD BE PERMITTED TO CHOOSE THEIR OWN