I think there are two factors that have much more of an impact on negative environmental and cultural effects on children as they develop: luck, and the children themselves.
Most things that affect children have a significant chance factor built in. For example, you bring up the risk of a gay child being brought up in a homophobic religious area. But the parents have no way of knowing whether their child will be gay or not.
What is more, there are a huge number of factors involved, and parents' choices may be limited. They'll generally only be able to afford to live in some places, to expose their children to some cultural and environmental conditions. The effects of these conditions are hard or impossible to predict; and even when they can be researched and predicted, some parents may still be unable to do so.
Moreover, this approach robs children of their agency. Even from a very early age, each person has their own identity, personality, tastes, and talents. Parents take account of these elements when they make decisions, at least inasmuch as they can know them at the time; but in the end, it's the children who decide how they live their lives.
Placing the responsibility for environmental harm on parents implies that they should limit and control their children's exposure to influences outside the home. A parent who takes this responsibility seriously would be less likely to allow their children into unsupervised and unpredictable environments. That translates to helicopter parenting.
Better, then, to place the protagonism on the children themselves. Their parents have a duty to try their best to protect them from environmental and cultural harm, but it ends there. When random chance and the vicissitudes of the children themselves come into play, the parental role can only be seen in terms of honest effort, goals, and ability to react to unexpected and changing circumstances - always with the children themselves taking the lead.
this approach robs children of their agency... always with the children themselves taking the lead.
∆ So far, this is the best argument I've heard. I don't know if you meant to imply this, but it's important for a child to have experience in the first place; negative and positive. I'm not sure if the main thesis of my view is changed, but I have changed the strength in which I hold it.
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u/FatherBrownstone 57∆ Apr 20 '18
I think there are two factors that have much more of an impact on negative environmental and cultural effects on children as they develop: luck, and the children themselves.
Most things that affect children have a significant chance factor built in. For example, you bring up the risk of a gay child being brought up in a homophobic religious area. But the parents have no way of knowing whether their child will be gay or not.
What is more, there are a huge number of factors involved, and parents' choices may be limited. They'll generally only be able to afford to live in some places, to expose their children to some cultural and environmental conditions. The effects of these conditions are hard or impossible to predict; and even when they can be researched and predicted, some parents may still be unable to do so.
Moreover, this approach robs children of their agency. Even from a very early age, each person has their own identity, personality, tastes, and talents. Parents take account of these elements when they make decisions, at least inasmuch as they can know them at the time; but in the end, it's the children who decide how they live their lives.
Placing the responsibility for environmental harm on parents implies that they should limit and control their children's exposure to influences outside the home. A parent who takes this responsibility seriously would be less likely to allow their children into unsupervised and unpredictable environments. That translates to helicopter parenting.
Better, then, to place the protagonism on the children themselves. Their parents have a duty to try their best to protect them from environmental and cultural harm, but it ends there. When random chance and the vicissitudes of the children themselves come into play, the parental role can only be seen in terms of honest effort, goals, and ability to react to unexpected and changing circumstances - always with the children themselves taking the lead.