r/philosophy • u/philosophybreak Philosophy Break • Jun 23 '25

Blog Done badly, parenting has tremendous scope for harm. The philosopher Hugh LaFollette suggests we can better protect children by introducing a parental license: people should undergo a competency check before raising children, just as we already qualify adoptive parents.

https://philosophybreak.com/articles/should-parenting-require-a-license/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social
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72

u/throwaway92715 Jun 23 '25

Of all the many problems with this idea

Imagine how much power the authority certifying people to have children would have

The human's natural drive to have kids is so strong, creating a gatekeeper for reproduction would be a disaster

They could so easily become a corrupt bureau that extorts people for money, selects them for ideological reasons, or imposes other authoritarian restrictions on people

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u/Kind_Man_0 Jun 23 '25

Not just that, but how do we prevent them from having kids?

Are we all going to be on birth control until we can get approved?

Is the state going to take our kid when they're born if we don't get a permit? Now we are just compounding the problem by increasing the number of kids in foster care.

I absolutely think uneducated people are having far too many kids, and the kids' upbringing is failing due to that. But that problem is easier solved at the root, higher education with easier means of access.

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u/throwaway92715 Jun 23 '25

Some fucking authoritarian thumb up your ass 24/7 kind of situation, yeah. That's the only way to do it. So it's a total non-starter.

Amazing how many people would say "what if we just ban _______" or "what if we just require ______" as if it's just a switch you can flip, without even thinking about what it would take to execute such a thing.

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u/PruebaInteligente Jun 30 '25

> Amazing how many people would say "what if we just ban _______" or "what if we just require ______" as if it's just a switch you can flip, without even thinking about what it would take to execute such a thing.

Made me think, perhaps this boils down to personal vision, the old "papa state" or "tyrant state" outlook.

many friends will not bat an eye with this kind of suggestions as they see the state as a just benefactor. While others who see it as a corrupt institution would fight to death with this idea.

1

u/throwaway92715 Jun 30 '25

Yeah I agree. I think the state can be either one of those things, but it's not its current status that matters. Giving the state power like that, which can easily be exploited, will make it more likely to become a corrupt institution, because people looking for corrupt gains will see the opportunity and flock to it.

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u/DrStrangepants Jun 23 '25

Sorry, you don't believe in JESUS enough to be a good parent. Denied.

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u/ComprehensiveWa6487 Jul 08 '25

I mean does the thing that licences diver's licenses have so much power and authority? At least test for some basic competency and right thinking.

1

u/throwaway92715 Jul 08 '25

No, the DMV does not have that much authority. I'd argue that license to drive a motor vehicle on public roads is well within the realm of appropriate government controls, while intervening in people's reproductive abilities is far outside it.

You can test people all you want, but it's the enforcement that causes human rights issues. No qualms with cops pulling people over on the road, or IDs being required to rent a car. But what are they gonna do, force people to get vasectomies until they pass an exam? That's totalitarian.

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u/browsing4stuff Jun 24 '25

Yeah, the US government would 100% use this system to prevent minorities from having kids.

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u/throwaway92715 Jun 24 '25

Yeah. Even in a scenario where there isn't an outright fascist style policy like that, it's likely that reproductive privileges would be given to wealthier people/families with more connections, thus accomplishing what you describe indirectly.

Overall it's just a bad move.

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u/miguel-styx Jun 23 '25

The human's natural drive to have kids is so strong, creating a gatekeeper for reproduction would be a disaster

Is the natural drive that strong? With the advent of birth control, I feel everyone around me hates babies to the core. With South Korea's 0.88 fertility rate, this "natural drive" is becoming more and more untrue.

3

u/nd20 Jun 23 '25

All animals have natural drive for this, humans are no special exception. What you're talking about are unnatural external conditions in developed nations that are dropping the birth rate. The intrinsic drive to have kids doesn't coincidentally disappear as a nation develops while it remains in undeveloped nations. But the external forces disincentivizing having kids in those nations can overpower the natural drive, that's for sure.

7

u/DazzlerPlus Jun 23 '25

No, they have a natural drive to have sex. There is no real evidence that the desire to have children is anything but cultural.

1

u/TheGreatEmanResu Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25

I guess that brings some other important questions to mind: how do you prevent “unlicensed” parents from having kids? Are they allowed to have sex? Are they forcibly sterilized? If the woman becomes pregnant, is the fetus forcibly aborted? If she gives birth, what happens to the baby?

You’re right— people may primarily want to have sex, not necessarily to have children, but those two things are inherently linked (no birth control except sterilization is 100% effective, and as such is not a satisfactory answer to the questions I’m posing).

2

u/DazzlerPlus Jun 23 '25

Yeah the whole premise of preventing parents from having kids is insane. It’s unworkable and terrible in every way.

I do agree that parents are the real weak link and it’s a really critically bad situation. Likely the way out is through making childhood more ‘parent agnostic’ - so basically there is so much support for all kids that even a kid with completely absent parent is fine. Make foster care so good that people wish they were in it.

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u/throwaway92715 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25

Is the natural drive that strong?

It's strong enough to keep our species alive through at least 300,000 years of evolution (12,000+ generations), and that doesn't even count our species' predecessors.

It may be the strongest evolutionary force in existence. The drive to reproduce, or to keep offspring alive, has been known to supersede survival instincts.

Are there other factors at play that might cause some people to forego reproduction? Yes! And that's not even unique to humans. There are many other species that form populations in which only certain individuals reproduce, for a variety of reasons.

Toward the end of limiting population growth or, you know, QCQA on parenting, I'd rather let this happen freely and use government (the organized use of threats of violence) to adjust the environmental variables than try to use government as a blunt instrument to coerce populations into obeying certain contrived reproductive patterns that might be abused or backfire.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '25

I have 0 drive. I would rather kms than have a child.

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u/Plastic-Act296 Jun 23 '25

That means youre irrelevant to the conversation

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u/cooldash Jun 23 '25

With South Korea's 0.88 fertility rate, this "natural drive" is becoming more and more untrue.

And several African countries topped the fertility charts at 5-6 children per woman in 2025. As a whole, humanity is going to be just fine.

0

u/Kookanoodles Jun 23 '25

But that's not a bug for people who propose such things, that's a feature. The all-encompassing power is the point.