Hugh Rallette's: Licensing Parents By Hugh Lafollette

Parents are the foundational tool for developing babies from their state of untouched potential to the complex human beings required for the existence of a harmonious society. However, not all individuals believe society should make parenting an automatic right. In his essay, “Licensing Parents”, Hugh LaFollette makes the argument that because parenting is an activity that can potentially be harmful to others in society, it should necessitate acquiring a license as other potentially harmful activities - such as driving or practicing medicine - do. Utilizing Center for Disease Control statistics on child abuse in the United States, LaFollette argues that in order to avoid bringing harm to children, parents must be “competent.” However, his …show more content…
However, there are countless activities in society today that could potentially place the actors and those around them in harm’s way and yet do not require a license – it is a slippery slope. For example, not all states in the US require individuals to get a license to be a chef despite the inherent dangers of cooking (i.e. starting a fire, gas leaks from leaving the stove on, using harmful ingredients). However, by LaFollette’s reasoning, cooking should always require a license because it has the potential to cause harm to the chef and those who eat the products of the chef’s labor. Although society places pressure on chefs to establish a set of credentials and demonstrate skill in order to produce food on a large scale (such as at a restaurant or catering company), there are few government regulations dictating that such chefs be licensed. Imagine if chef licenses were always required to work in a restaurant – this would surely require individuals to take training courses to become well-versed in cooking. This would indirectly lead higher socioeconomic classes to more easily acquire chef licenses because not everyone would be able to afford the time and money to take the classes. Additionally, because the ability to cook is not inherent in humans, one could argue that cooking without a license is more …show more content…
As terrible as this argument might sound, we need some parents to raise their kids poorly. Society wouldn’t be able to function as we know it today if everyone was a doctor, lawyer, scientist, engineer, or other highly technical profession. Not to say that being a competent parent will automatically lead to these things, but society values education level. If everyone is well-educated, who will fill the low-paying jobs in society that are essential to everyday function (i.e. garbage collector, bus driver)? These are jobs that don’t necessarily require a high-degree (if any) level of education but are essential to the functioning of society in its current