Genius Toiling in Obscurity

TCS: On the other hand

David says that I failed to mention in my post on Taking Children Seriously the thing that makes TCS parents extremists. To avoid labeling, let me re-frame that as "the point where we diverge," and this is that they seem to believe children are the rational equals of adults, and that children's choices should therefore be none of our business. Your kid drinks nothing but soda all day? His choice: butt out. They do assume that you have given your kid full nutritional information and made your case against soda, but once the kid has that information, his choice is his choice.

This article on seat belt use is as good an example as any for why, despite my sympathy for TCS parents and my belief that the rest of us do have something to learn from them, we must ultimately part ways. The scenario is that you have explained all about safety to your kids, and provided comfy car seats, and done everything you can to make them want to wear their seat belts. They choose not to. The TCS response: don't make them. It's none of your business whether your kids wear seatbelts or not.

The hypothetical kid-running-in-front-of-a-truck is often invoked as a TCS test case, and there seems to be a consensus that it is acceptable to pluck your child out of the path of the 18-wheeler even if, at that moment, they don't want you to. This highly coercive act is justifed: "The coercion in that case is not unavoidable but is preferable to the child to the inevitable circumstance that will otherwise result prior to any other possible intervention." I read this as meaning that the kid really prefers being coerced out of the path of the truck to being flattened, even if the kid doesn't know this is what he prefers.

Frankly, this looks like an inconsistency in the theory to me: If we assume that kids do know their own preferences, why can't we just let our kids get flattened by trucks? And if we can't just let them get flattened, why can let them engage in other behaviors that are dangerous and risky? Why can we intervene only when death is imminent? Why are we only allowed to use our capacity to look ahead--which in children is partial and developing--to see the unpleasant consequence two seconds in the future, and not two days, two years, or two decades in the future? Why can we not intervene if the unpleasant consequence is merely a probability rather than a certainty? The child must be practically under the truck's wheels, and no chance the driver will swerve, before the parent is allowed to exert authority.

In the seatbelt article (from which that quote came), the truck scenario is invoked precisely to differentiate it from the seatbelt scenario: "Seatbelts are not trucks; schools are not trucks; hairstyles are not trucks; allergies are not trucks; unbrushed teeth are not trucks. These are arenas for theory-sharing and butting out." In my mind, though, seatbelts are trucks. So are life-threatening allergies for which kids don't want to take their medicine. I'll grant TCS the schools, the haircuts, and the tooth-brushing. We'd have to have a debate about the soda, and let's just not get started on their surprisingly naive "television is good" philosophy.

In my experience, although children are remarkable developing human beings with capacities that are often under-rated, they do not have the judgment adults have in part because they lack the experience adults have. I have greater experience and knowledge, and better judgment, than my kids. I therefore have greater responsibility, as well, and I will not evade that responsibility. I won't make rules arbitrarily, and I won't enforce them without telling the kids why--I will not resort to the "because I'm the mother" defense--but I will make rules, and I will enforce them, because, sometimes--and I say this without apology--I really do know best.

[UPDATE: The article on seatbelt use has been removed from the TCS website.]

Posted by Su Penn at June 9, 2003 04:43 PM | TrackBack