Arrogance, anyone?

Do you ever have those times when an idea gets into your head and all of a sudden, you seem to run into it wherever you go? I have had one of those weeks. I've been pondering something and I don't have the right answers - I haven't decided where the line is one this one. I am curious to hear what other people think.

It all began a bit over a week ago. I am on a few attachment parenting lists. Sometimes I wonder why because at times, people can be VERY opinionated and there are days that I walk away from the computer seething about something. On the other hand, the mothers on these lists have fantastic information and often, a different perspective that I would have trouble finding elsewhere.

The first thread that really got me thinking involved germs. Actually, it was a mother who was asking about vaccines, I think, but in the course of the discussion, it quickly became evident that she was fanatical about germs. If I remember correctly, her daughter is nearly 15 months and is not taken anywhere for fear of germs. The woman spoke of daycare children as if they are as risky as putting your child with a cobra and she greatly resents relatives who want her child in contact with theirs when they may have germs from daycare. She let slip, in passing, that she doesn't allow her daughter to touch anything in public places and if she does, she gets out the GermX immediately. As you can imagine, on an attachment parenting list, that was a battle cry. Just about all of us believe in "healthy" germs and question the safely of bathing our children in triclosan repeatedly, a chemical that has been proven to have long-term health ramifications. While I would not advocate visiting a leper colony with your child or hanging around the emergency ward waiting room, I do think that some contact with normal viruses in the course of life is actually beneficial and I believe that both allopathic and alternative health care practitioners are generally in agreement about that. Personally, my reaction was concern for the child - the woman's germ phobia sounded a lot like an obsession and one of the side-effects of being a teacher is that I have seen a lot of children who are victims of their parents issues. The discussion became very heated and this woman lashed out at the rest of the group as being "bullies" for, I thought, gently raising questions about whether what she was doing was the best way of handling things.

The other thread that really, really got on my nerves was around sweets. One mother wrote in, raging because her 4 1/5 year old daughter had been sent home from montessori school with a bag of Easter candy. She felt that this was entirely inappropriate and that the school was entirely negligent in not stopping this unhealthy food (the treats had been sent in for the class by other parents). Another mother wrote in that at her child's montessori school, that they were incredibly rigid about what kinds of foods children we allowed to eat and that there was a list of "acceptable" snacks that could be brought from home and anything not on the list would be returned to the family. All food had to be low fat and low in sugar (the low fat thing really annoyed me because there are many healthy fats and while an overweight adult may choose to go on a low-fat diet, many low fat foods are poorer choices for children than their higher fat alternatives and low fat foods like low fat yogurts often contain sugar substitutes like aspartame, which is dangerous). This mother had once had a container of flavoured rice cakes sent back home with a firm note that said that they were not "appropriate". There were mothers on the list who felt that this was all perfectly in line. This made me VERY uncomfortable. While I respect a parent's right to choose what is right in terms of diet for his or her own child, if I happen to choose to send flavoured rice cakes once in a while (and, let me say, I am totally aware that they have NO nutritional value), I don't really see that it is another parent's right (or the right of a teacher who has no more nutritional education that I do) to tell me that I can't.

At work this week, I got to see the judgement of other peoples' parenting choices from the other side. I can't say too much because of legal issues but I can say that I had a new student join the class who has come into the foster care system after removal from the family for a number of choices that, to most of us, would seem to be totally unacceptable. Many of the concerns were more of a matter of interpretation (although the loaded gun in the home was a pretty clear case of parental mismanagement). Discussing the situation in the family with those involved, I came away with a very clear picture that these parents had no business raising a family. Over the last few days, I have been wondering a bit about that. How much of what I feel is "wrong" is due to my own middle-class, white, Christian values? While I feel that, for instance, having two untrained, loose pitbulls in the house is a very poor choice, does that qualify as enough for a family to lose custody of children? Do I have a right to say whether that is "acceptable" or not? As teachers, we run into these situations all the time. I often see something that is evidence, to me, of poor judgement as a parent. Yesterday it was cold (just above freezing) and I had a student come to school wearing a sleeveless shirt. She did have a coat for outside but I felt that the shirt wasn't warm enough in the classroom during the day. I really struggled over whether I had the right to call her family and tell them to bring more clothing. I settled on giving her a sweatshirt of mine and insisting she wear it but I didn't feel terribly comfortable in the situation.

We see these kinds of issues played out in the media all the time. While we all agree (I would hope!) that beating a child into unconsciousness or with a two by four is unacceptable, but where is the line on spanking? I believe that under Canadian law, it is spelled out fairly clearly but who actually has the right to make those decisions for other people and to decide exactly what can and can't be done? What about cases of children who are significantly overweight, particularly in cases where it is evident that there is a family pattern of poor nutrition? Do those parents forfeit the right to make decisions for their children because we don't agree with their choices? For that matter, what about matters of faith? For me personally, raising my child in our Christian faith is critically important and we do all that we can to raise her with an awareness of the belief system and we hope that she will integrate that into who she is. There are those out there (including many in the "new atheist" movement who are so often in the media these days), who feel that we are "brainwashing" our children and that it is a form of child abuse.

It's so easy to name other people's choices as being wrong but at what point, do we have the right to set the rules for everyone else? How much of parenting is individual choice and how much does society have the right to dictate the choices that a family makes? These are not easy questions to answer.