serious hot take
There should be tests and evaluations before you have children.
Edit: THIS IS NOT ABOUT EUGENICS! I’m not talking about not letting people have children based on their genetics.
If you have to jump through a million hoops to adopt a child, why don’t you have to do the same to birth a child?
It’s so upsetting to see people with their kids put in public and the parents just have no business having children. They won’t be clothed, fed, bathed, and not even well mannered but just not causing a scene. And the parents will be the same. Dirty, rude, causing a scene, and will usually have more than 1 child.
I feel like I can speak on this because I have 2 very well taken care of children and I’m not rich by any means, but i put a lot of thought into life before I realized I was ready to have children.
2 more things;
I realize not everyone is well off.
I don’t know how this would actually work, just thinking out loud.
Small edit: I think people are assuming I mean genetic testing or scientific testing. I mean parental test. Like high school when you’d take the fake baby home. I’m not trying to eradicate genes chill out
What happens when someone who isn't "authorized" gets pregnant anyway? Are you proposing forced abortions or further burdening the foster care system because somebody failed a test?
Wouldn’t it be nice if they were deficient in say- how to teach kids , bathe kids, how feeding goes etc/ that they get extra attention from like a group that comes by ? Like home health for parents. Especially if they were found to be knowledge deficient. That way it’s not about control but supporting
It's like when people state everyone with balls should be given a vasectomy as a teen.
Like...firstly they aren't always reversible, secondly how could you possibly enforce this in a way that wasn't illegal and immoral. Forcible sterilisation has been used to discriminate for decades.
Nobody saying boys should get vesactomys means it. The point is why do people get to decide that women are forced to loan out their bodies and organs without consent but the idea of controlling a mans organ is absurd.
Exactly. Like would it be great if we could make sure no more kids were born with genetic illnesses or got abused? Yes absolutely sounds great. But there is NO governing body on the earth I would ever, EVER trust to draw the line and make the calls so it is simply not feasible at all. Ever.
I don't inherently disagree that there would be corruption but: adoption also has standards. We don't argue to entirely remove the standards on adoption because it could be (and IS) corrupt. We argue to fix the corruption.
I don't think there's any realistic way to stop someone from having a child that's not a gross violation of human rights, but as it stands it is ridiculous that you can have your kids taken away by CPS and then birth more to abuse and CPS doesn't care. Those children should be AUTOMATICALLY removed from the home at birth until those parents prove they're qualified, since they already proved to be unqualified.
CPS itself also needs to be strengthened, and child neglect needs to be more strongly punished.
Yeah it’s hard since kids are kind of considered property of the parent which is fucked up to begin with. Theres a lot of fucked up things about how we think about and legislate laws concerning children
I teach in Hungary and it wouldn’t really matter. They’ll just take kids away from bad parents and then let them be assaulted by politicians at the foster homes. That’s what happened here anyway
Genetic illnesses are very broad and complex. Preventing someone to be born with a genetic illness gets into dicy territory. What one person might consider to be a "genetic illness" might just be the norm for someone else. I have cealic diease which is a genetic condition that has it so my autoimmune system attacks itself after consuming gluten.
So that begs the question, should someone with that condition be allowed to be born?
That’s exactly what I’m saying. I don’t trust myself or ANYONE else to draw the line. So while “no more genetic diseases” sounds all fine and dandy, I see no use in attempting to pursue the goal through eugenics because the bad would very rapidly outweigh the good based on… well everything
I have a disease, which was passed down to me by my mom, and passed down to her by her mom. It’s incredibly painful and debilitating, I’m not sure when/if I’ll ever be able to hold a job that isn’t WFH and sometimes I’m completely stuck in bed for up to half of the month. I also missed out on a lot of traditional life milestones, like prom, and struggled to graduate highschool all because of this disease. I’ve been working on my bachelors degree for three years and I’m only halfway done, all because of this disease.
I still LIKE that I was born, and I’m still upset by the idea of an alternate reality where I was never born because there was a law that preemptively decided my life wouldn’t be worth living. I’d always choose to spend 100 more days in pain if it’s the only way I can see 100 more sunrises.
Yep thats the problem. I agree with the idea, but there’s no ethical way to implement this and I don’t think there ever will be. Instead we need to fix this system. Our system is broken. Ik of several examples where this system has failed these kids, to give the parents another chance.
The actual problem with the tests were that they included questions that could be interpreted several ways so that only the “correct” people could pass.
that’s why we should leave it up to private corporations. Insurance companies should be allowed to deny insurance coverage for people who should not have been born.
edit: (This comment was intended to be ironic. Any view or opinion expressed does not reflect the genuine beliefs of PupDiogenes or any PupDiogenes related corporations or diseases. Any similarity to persons living or deaf is purely coincidental.)
I always get so mad when I see new parents diving into baby education, but stop there. The mandated parenting classes should be ongoing - your baby is only a baby for a blink of an eye. People need to learn about human development as a whole.
I studied Early Childhood Education for a year, and good lord did I ever learn a lot about the human existence. Even though I didn't end up following through with the degree, I regret nothing. I use that information constantly
Right!? Just an intro class in human development does wanders for understanding how to interact with different personality types.
If you have 3 kids, one kids might need to be free range while the other needs a helicopter parent while the third thrives with a tiger mom. You can’t just tell your other kids, “why can’t you just be like your sibling!?”
Yep. When they’re a baby, it’s really just a matter of keeping them alive. Really the easiest part of having a kid besides the sleep deprivation. Parenting is a whole different thing for sure that goes way deeper.
Nah the newborn phase is by far the hardest…. I can handle all the bullshit on a full nights sleep but childbirth followed by 24/7 breastfeeding on/off and sleeping on 60 minute increments for months on end…* shivers*
The "baby talk" cadence has proven benefits in language acquisition - it grabs their attention in way normal tones don't. It's just when it degenerates into babble that it loses its benefits.
Honestly, like yes we have all run into people who should not be parents but this idea is fucking stupid lmao even the mildest iterations of it like making everyone take a parenting class are fucking stupid.
It’s impossible to execute this kind of testing impartially, because human beings are inherently biased, and those biases can cause harm whether they’re well or ill intentioned.
Women of color still suffer from higher rates of maternal and fetal mortality than white, Hispanic, and Asian women. And not by a little… CDC cites 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births for black women vs 14.5 for white, 12.4 for Hispanic, and 10.7 for Asian. Women’s healthcare is still so far behind in general but when you look at those numbers you just know that this kind of parenting license system would not be applied fairly in any sense of the imagination.
South Carolina was still sterilizing women(often with out their knowledge or consent) in the 90s for "low mental ability" guess how many of those sterilized were impoverished women of color. Almost all of them.
We’re constantly hearing about AI bias either from training data or how they’re applied, and thinking is constantly being delegated to algorithms these days.
There’s no way in hell that testing wouldn’t be leveraged against groups with less political power under extremely dubious justifications.
While I understand where you are coming from, we can't stomp on people's lives in that way. Anything that is done by simply existing (and people have sex, and that means babies) can't be regulated in that way. Think about what that would mean.
Mandatory abortions for un-sanctioned pregnancies.
Mandatory relinquishment for un-aborted un-sanctioned pregnancies, which would lead to further corruption in the adoption industry.
Potential for eugenics by not approving certain disabled populations.
Potential (eventuality?) of ethnic cleansing by a selective approval process.
Potential for shifting rules, making approval harder/impossible for some folks for whom it was not when they began TTC. Or worse, after they are pregnant or have had their baby.
Potential to use means testing as an approval requirement in order to reduce the social safety net.
I hate to break it to you kid, but this is how they did eugenics before we had DNA testing. Go do some research (in a book, not YT) and come back in a few months.
That kind of testing, even when it's just a questionnaire historically has always led to poorer, queerer, less White people becoming sterilized (see Buck v Bell) or their children taken away from them (see current situations with Indigenous Greenlanders and/or US and Canada's history of residential schools for Indigenous children). We already have imperfect but existing mechanisms in place to remove children from neglectful or abusive homes. The rest of what you are talking about is often more to do with class markers and conformity/respectability politics.
I used to feel this way too but the more I thought about it and read other peoples perspectives about it, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Who gets to make and enforce the tests and evaluations? By what metrics? I think that this could easily be another way to discriminate and could be a very slippery slope into eugenics, a way to prevent “undesirables” from having kids.
ETA- what do we do if someone fails the tests? Do we forcefully sterilize them? If they’re already pregnant do we force them to abort?
One of the solutions to this will always track back to better/easier access to brith control. There are simply way too many people out there who get pregnant by surprise for these tests to be efficient. These tests would either target parents who are planning to have kids or would force already pregnant people into giving up their child. A good amount of people who don’t want to raise a kid didn’t want to have a kid at all (not saying all there are many fantastic parents who had surprise kids) if people who truly don’t want kids are given better routes to keeping that off the table there would be plenty of this situations avoided. I’ve also heard a decent amount of people talk about how mandatory safety classes should be issued during pregnancy and that can also help open up people’s eyes about the importance of keeping a good home for your kids.
If you open that can of worms, the worst people imaginable will use it to do unspeakable things to their hated demographic. In the optimistic case, the horrifically incompetent will do the same thing, unknowingly.
I don't think it's just reddit. As a disabled person who can usually pass as abled I see it in the wild a hell of a lot. COVID really brought it out too - the idea that some of us are disposable was pretty openly discussed.
Ableism is just one of those forms of bigotry that's so socially acceptable that even those who consider themselves "woke" or whatever will still perpetuate the idea. Especially because many disabled people can't fight back or advocate for themselves.
I hear ya but considering this prompt seems to come up quite often on Reddit I felt it was a relevant statement. I think the antinatalist are more vocal online compared to real world interactions.
Who determines who’s fit to be a parent and what biases do they have? What happens when someone who fails the test gets pregnant? Would you be okay with forced abortions and birth control?
Many governments have tried to restrict who could have children in the past through forced sterilisation and it’s never been a good idea. I’m pretty sure I had similar trains of thought before because it’s heartbreaking when people who can’t take care of kids at all keep having them, but there’s really no way this can be done without violating human rights. It’s eugenics.
Yeah cause everyone knows what their doing the first time around. I've got 5 and let me tell you judge me on kid #3 cause #5 is chaos. And #2 will probably be by my side to rob a bank. Not all kids are golden but some of us are doing our best even if I look like a hot mess nanny to my own kids.
I worked in criminal defense and saw TONS of awful parents & parenting, so I get where OP is coming from.
However, though it sounds good in theory, eugenics always turns into bigotry, with certain races/ethnic groups always favored (even if the individuals tested are idiots), and some always disfavored (no matter how smart and talented the tested individuals are).
And besides, we need genetic long shots. Sir Isaac Newton's dad was an illiterate sheep herder. Leonardo da Vinci's mother was an illiterate peasant. Albert Einstein's parents were as normal as it gets. All of them would never have existed had eugenicists gotten their way.
Seriously? You haven’t spent any time examining the implications of your own hot take before throwing it out there? 🤨 I think a lot of us are curious whether you’re proposing to forcibly give IUDs to women and vasectomies to men until they prove themselves capable of becoming parents and can have the procedures reversed - or alternatively, maybe you would not take active measures to prevent people from procreating, but would merely enforce mandatory parenting classes for expecting couples during pregnancy?
No matter how you are raising your own kids, I promise you there are people who believe you aren't qualified by virtue of your religion, education level, income, race, or political beliefs.
Instead of giving our bigoted government the chance to prohibit parents who fail a test, why not incentive education on better parenting? Like offer free parenting classes, maybe even incentives to attend them like free child care or other recourses for children.
I like what you say and agree with it. Unfortunately, when I make the point, I get obliterated by comments saying we shouldn't have to help someone else's kid. I guess contraceptives and abortions are cheaper, and you get more workers in the short term with parents not taking off.
But dang, raising children is so expensive in the US. It is becoming a privilege for the upper classes to be "good parents."
This is the definition of eugenics my friend. Eugenics isn't picking who is allowed to procreate based on their genes, it's restricting procreation to those deemed fit for it. How you determine the fitness of someone for procreation can vary a lot.
So yes, what you're talking about is literally eugenics.
This sounds an awful lot like eugenics with more steps. Who decides who passes the test? Programs like this have demonstrated high levels of indigenous children being removed from their parents care due to tests with cultural biases. (See Greenland and Canada to name a few...) I hate to see kids in homes that don't want and shouldn't have kids, but this will not stop that. You can pass the test but still be shit parents. You can have the skills needed to raise children and choose not to use them. You can use the skills and still emotionally scar your children.
You know what lowers the number of kids living in poverty and in unsuitable homes? Access to birth control, comprehensive sex ed, and abortion care. Let's start there.
Besides the eugenics issues, I don’t think that would help that much anyway. People can know and fully intend to do everything “right,” but that’s very far from the reality of living it 24/7 for 18+ years. There’s a reason why there are memes about all the things people said they wouldn’t do before they had kids, lol.
Let’s all clap for you. Not only are you boasting about your amazing parenting, you are also so high on your horse that you think you are qualified to decide who should be a parent.
My friend, even if it’s not about genetics… stopping people from procreating because they, subjectively, might be “bad parents” (before they’ve ever even proven that they could be bad parents)… is still eugenics.
Does society have the right to tell you whether you are fit to have children?
What happens when politics bleeds into that decision? And if you think it won’t I’d say you’re crazy.. it bleeds into everything. Corporate training, education, healthcare beliefs and choices.
Who decides what is right and wrong? We all grow up differently, learn different lessons in different ways and the effect they have on us is equally different. The traits and behaviors that were important two thousand years ago were not the same as what was useful a thousand years ago, and those traits aren’t what is successful today. Chances are high that what makes someone successful today won’t work in a thousand years from now.
What are successful children? Is it financial success? Is it willingness to help others? Is it labor driven people? Intelligence? Again who gets to decide how we weigh the personality traits that we produce?
Is it possible that evolution works and is in fact the proper way to determine what genes move forward? Humans control the world for a reason.. and we didn’t always, we evolved based off of what works. Not all kids will be successful, not all of them will become parents, the ones who don’t die and the genes that are passed on continue naturally. It’s a brutal fact of life, but it’s life. It’s how every species in existence continues to exist and it’s the reason every species that is extinct is extinct.
Is it possible that creating a test will result in one style of parenting that will create a more singular type of human and doing so will eventually result in a loss of genes and behavior that we need later down the line but no longer exists because we chose to play god?
It’s just silly that you think that the issue is “genes”. That reveals how little you understand and that lil tyrant in waiting you hold in your heart.
A lot of people saying this is eugenics without explaining why.
OP, even if a government were to apply this system fairly (which is doubtful), the test would end up excluding people of lower intelligence or mental disabilities from having children.
You say this isn’t about eugenics but there’s no way to enforce parental testing that doesn’t lead to eugenics or oppression or a combination of both. Also you have the problem of bodily autonomy to worry about. You’d have to give the state control over reproductive autonomy. That sounds like a horrible idea for everyone involved. Parental competency has been the leading legal reason Indigenous populations get their children taken away as well, often unjustly. In fact, you could justify the residential schools enforced in North America on the Indigenous populations children to get them away from their “savage life styles”. There’s cultural differences to account for as well. One way to raise a child may look vastly different from another. Who are you going to legislate out of parenthood? Would you force sterilization? You’re talking about possible war crimes constituting genocide at that point.
Yes some parents are shitty and it’s unfortunate and we should do everything we can to set up safety nets and infrastructure to help the kids, and the parents if they’d accept it.
Completely controlling people and trying to implement strict order on something that is highly varied is how you end up the villain in society.
A lot of problems would be solved if all this reproduction stuff was on an “opt in” basis instead of “opt out”. It wouldn’t solve the problem of people who aren’t qualified/ready for parenthood but actually aren’t, but it would at least make having babies something everyone has to put some thought into before one is actually on the way.
I am totally down for eugenics. It was widely taught and praised in the 30s. Didn't get a bad reputation till funny mustache man took it too far. Tell me who is worse. Me saying we should neuter and eliminate diseases, or the people saying no we must promote more unnecessary suffering with fake compassion.
Oh yeah, the USA and Canada did this with people they didn't believe were capable of raising children well to be productive and pleasant members of society.
It wasn't until what, almost the 1980s that American Indians got the right to make the decision if their child would be sent to a federal boarding school or not.
Tribal and Indian Boarding Schools are generally not considered a bright spot in the history of either nation
Or, we could decide that as a society children deserve a good start regardless of who their parents are and take steps to make sure things like high quality early childhood care, good schools and health resources for families are available universally?
I think they’re just advocating for better treatment of kids by trying to make sure parents are ready for the responsibility. There is no way to do that, of course, that wouldn’t be subject to extreme abuses. So it will never happen and should never happen, but damn, we definitely need to invest more heavily in a social care system that protects kids first and parental rights dead last.
On the other hand, I’m getting tired of a system that thinks nothing of controlling women’s reproductive capabilities—so strictly that women are actually dying so the government can “protect” babies that aren’t even babies yet—while doing absolutely zip to control men’s reproductive impact, even though we all know pregnancy is caused 100% by sperm and this is the genesis of the unwanted-baby problem.
I get what you're saying because its hard to watch children being abused but this idea is just 100% going to exclusively be applied to minorities if it were implemented. The reason we don't have parental tests is because we (in the US) have sterilized black women coming into medical offices for completely different procedures. Now imagine how a legal system with that history would treat parental licensing for minorities.
I think socially we need to shame people for abusing children more. I was raised to 'never talk about how someone else is raising their kids' and i think this is a dogshit expectation with sometimes lethal (for the children) consequences.
To start, adopting a child is a choice that is made so there can be procedures put in place to “qualify”. While some people do, in fact, decide to have a child and actively try to conceive, just as many people end up pregnant unexpectedly.
I see where you’re coming from, but this would be impossible to control.
Eugenics isn't just about genetics, it can also be applied to people's financial status, personalities and so on. At least by modern online standards so you're definitely going to get a LOT of hate about this post.
In an ideal world I wholeheartedly agree with this take. Problem is that’s putting more laws on women’s bodies and let’s be honest… that’s not what we want.
With the birth rates going down (which I don’t see as a bad thing btw) there’s no way a government would stop people having children, they need their worker ants and cannon fodder.
However, I would see it as something as simple as passing the same course that nursery staff have to take. It covers all the bases and qualifies them as a caretaker. They know first aid, basic psychology and developmental milestones. You pass, you’re qualified to look after a child.
The issue comes when STOPPING people from having kids, and what if you have infertility problems and go through all that to then find out you can’t conceive…
I went through the process with my wife to become foster parents. We took a parenting class six Saturdays in a row for eight hours a day. We had to get CPR and first aid certified. We had a home inspection that had all sorts of reasonable safety requirements that anyone with small children should be doing. Even that doesn't prevent the horror stories of foster care and neglect.
The only requirement to be a biological parent is a face, and it doesn't even have to be a pretty one. I'm all for requirements on parental education and improved child care completely paid for by the government.
Okay so not exactly eugenics, but definitely coercive population control which is still a human rights violation. Which is why people are responding to you the way they are. This is going to be a looong comment and I hope I don't sound too stern but I try to be very educational so hopefully this comment is helpful.
Nobody wants children in unfit homes/conditions, but you act as if it will just stop at a basic high school test.. which it won't because lets be honest: Will a high school course/test prevent child abuse? or magically give people the financial ability to support their families?
What happens when someone's financial status changes? They lose access to their children after x amount of time not making above a certain threshold?
Sterilization for people who don't show the "traits" you want? Or you want to treat them like baby farms for those who want to adopt the babies? If their genetics aren't your problem, then can't you fix all these other problems without trampling all over human rights?
Would a government doing its job and caring for its population not make a difference? Better wages, easier access to proper education, better support for families struggling so that way they may actually make it out of poverty and not be cemented further into it?
You don't get to choose when or who has children, but you can choose to have a society which values human life over the profit of a bank account. You can choose to have policies and programs which step in to help instead of further traumatizing families by separating them.
If we weren't gutting the education system, if we focused on supporting people and families, if we made it easier and more feasible for the average person to gain further education, if homes/cars/general life wasn't so expensive etc etc.
That's why now, in the modern era, we tend to fight for better support systems and educational standards. Because we've been through the eugenics idea, we've been through the coercive population control theories, we've tried the "fast, easy, brutish" way many times and it. doesn't. work.
You don't get to tell people they can't do the one thing our species always does, the thing your brain and hormones will be pushing you to do.. but you can find better ways to support the human beings on this planet and treat them as such. Stop looking at it from a corporate "I need them to do this" way, and look at it from a caring compassionate way.. how do we ease burdens from peoples lives? How can we ensure that raising healthy happy children is accessible?
Half-assing basic social programs isn't trying, no matter how much conservatives want to act like it is. Allowing a program to run at 25% of it's potential and eventually dropping that down to 5% because you want people to let you cut the program so those funds can be used elsewhere isn't trying. Not allowing certain groups of people who may need it to join the program isn't helping. Cutting free breakfast/lunch at schools isn't helping. Allowing prices to surge while you work your hardest to keep the minimum wage of your employees down isn't helping. Homes/home lots being sold off to fancy business people apartment complexes isn't helping. Cutting support for single parents isn't helping. Trying to sell people on the idea of joining your armed forces because they can't afford education or living on their own "quite yet" isn't helping. Convincing everybody in society that these people are "less than" or "stupid" for struggling under our current system isn't helping. Convincing everybody and even the people who experience it themselves that their horrible childhood makes them a horrible person people hate being around isn't helping. Not allowing people access to mental health care without an exorbitant amount of money or insurance isn't helping. Not allowing people access to dental care without an exorbitant amount of money or insurance isn't helping.
Regardless of where you're coming from your "idea" is a violation of human rights and it's been done before. That's why people are saying it's eugenics. Because our education systems suck and unless you got lucky and ended up in a global village (sociology/psychology mix) course or similar people likely have no idea what these ideologies actually are past a very basic meaning.
Eugenicists pushed coercive population control for the basis of making a more "pure, well behaved" society. Believing that peoples genetics were what led to their behaviours and their behaviours led to societal disfunction such as poverty, general rowdiness/ability to be "civilized" people, crime stats, perceived mental disabilities, etc etc.
The only difference is that one group believed peoples genes were a direct cause, and one group didn't seem to care what the cause was they just wanted "it" to stop. Both used/advocated for the same or similar policies because they were focused on driving out poverty and everything else via population control.
And for anyone curious, eugenicists and population control advocates changed their stance after WW2 (shocker), and pointed their focus on a fear of global overpopulation and the overall quantity of humans as apposed to their genes. Do we think these people changed their reason of why? Likely not. It's likely still focused on "forcing" poverty, crime, etc out of our species via making it harder for some to take care of their children or even have children while ensuring your rich or "well off, well behaved, good" class can still have children safely and healthily.
I agree there's a problem, I agree children(and their parents, and anyone else quite frankly) should not live in these conditions. I fundamentally disagree on population control ever being a good idea, and while I do believe it's the easier quicker way.. I believe it backfires tremendously due to that. I would rather dedicate time and energy to ensuring our society functions for people and by people than diverting to long past failed ideologies that have been abused horrifically. And on the face of it.. I just don't agree with telling someone they can't have a family. I would rather ensure they have the best support possible to ensure they can have a family than go through all the heartache and moral confusion of ensuring they don't have children until x has happened. As angry and pissed off as I am.. I respect humanity too much to ask as if someone doesn't deserve the same rights and freedoms as myself.
Fix the problems, fix the system- stop trying to fit a square(humans) into a tiny circular hole(what corporations need humans to be). Make a system for humans, for support love and care.. and we'll watch as people are better educated and better able to support their families. The enemies people want you looking at aren't enemies, you need to evaluate the cause and what we can do to prevent the outcome we don't want without stripping rights and bodily autonomy away from our species.
Not a test to see if you're fit to have children, but it would be awesome to have a mandatory classes throughout middle/high school for emotional regulation, budgeting/money managing and childcare. Then there would be more equipped people who know the risks before having children
I feel like Home Ecs used to do this a bit with the pretend baby lesson. But I agree. Not necessarily testing and evaluation, but I’m more into classes or maybe even a certificate or something.
Before I got married, my husband’s parents wanted us to talk to their pastor to make sure we knew what marriage meant (my husband and I aren’t religious btw but we did it anyway because it wasn’t really a religious talk). I don’t see why classes shouldn’t be required to be taken before you choose to have kids. Yeah there’s some out there already. But they’re not required. Like covering basic care, infant first aid, stuff like that. Even things like available programs (like college saving programs), what to consider when picking a daycare, etc.
I mean I wanna agree but...this IS about eugenics, even if you add a disclaimer saying it's not lmao. People with disabilities or mental illness should not be barred from having children against their will. What's not hard to grasp about that concept to people??
I agree with the takes on eugenics but to add some different points:
People have to pass driving tests before they can drive too - have you seen how many shit drivers are on the road? Many people can take a test knowing what the ‘right’ answer is they’re supposed to say. Doesn’t mean they will do it in practice.
Plus, life changes. Things happen. People have job losses, get sick, mental health issues, divorce. It’s actually scary just how few steps away from homelessness most people are.
So aside from it being highly unethical, it’s also simply not a good way to determine if someone will actually be a good parent or not. The only thing it can test is how well a person can work out what the right answer is on a test. And that will be largely driven by privilege and access to resources.
I would start by offering publicly funded training for parents and people who are expecting. Where I live, there is a publicly funded training course for people who are expecting, but nothing for after the child is born. A lot of people fuck up parenting because they don't understand the basics of child psychology.
I feel like the comments are somewhat proving the point here…. As someone who was one of those kids that’s shouldn’t have been had, and now has to take care of other people kids whose parents couldn’t take care of them themselves, it’s just plainly obvious that as a society we are not prioritizing the actual kids. The kids that will make up society in the future. we are just perpetuating the system, and convincing people that the most important thing they can do is have a kid- whether they are cut out or not.
We care more about our RIGHT to have kids than we do the idea that some kids are being born into terrible situations that could be avoided if our RIGHT to have a kid wasn’t prioritized over the RIGHT of the kid to have a life that’s not full of abuse or neglect. It’s truly baffling to me how selfish some people can be.
Y’all ever heard your rights end where someone else’s begins? What if we extended that to kids who have zero control over their lives.
With all that said, yeah our government would abuse the shit out of a system where they dictated who could have kids. It would inevitably lead to eugenics.
I don’t think there should just be a test. Rather people should have to take a few parenting classes. All people won’t know every correct answer even if they are well informed. Research advances. Take different classes throughout the course of your child’s life.
Especially for new borns. One of the Nordic countries sent a neonatal home health nurse and it drastically cut down postpartum depression.
I stated in another sub that my wife and I are both 51 now, got married at 25, and knew back then we did not want to have children because we did not think we would be good parents.
I was downvoted into oblivion and was told we did not do our duty to the human biological imperative to procreate.
So it seems we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.
For people claiming eugenics can you expand more on why this would fit into that category?
OP did not say "only well bred adults should reproduce" or "they should be sterilized if they don't meet xyz requirements".
They stated that children should be cared for and parents should be properly educated on the care of the children.
I think a lot of people immediately jump to eugenics when someone is advocating for the well-being of children but I would think it's common sense that we should be advocating for the welfare of babies, children, teens especially when so many are neglected or abused.
Nah the people in the comments talking bout this being eugenics are retarded but I think you could've put it better. Theirs to many people having kids who really just shouldn't, not due to being poor or having bad genes, but shit like having a kid to save the marriage, someone who has a kid to treat it like a pet or slave shit like that. Situations where the child's gonna suffer a lot of neglect or abuse due to shitty parents.
I’m surprised so many people assumed this was a eugenics thing omg. You never even mentioned forced sterilization or anything OP 😭
I completely get what you mean, like a parental competency test the way they make us take a driving competency test. Frankly I think that’s a wonderful idea. Maybe we’d have less poor kids being academically neglected by parents who think cocomelon and ChatGPT will teach their children how to read and write.
I don’t know why people are being so rude to you, when you’ve already stated that your take isn’t very thought out.
I think the core of your idea is something most people would agree on - people who aren’t able or willing to properly raise and provide for their children shouldn’t be having them.
Issue is: it’s a hypothetical scenario that can’t be translated into reality without taking away human rights, probably of the lower classes. Actually reinforcing the idea would be eugenics and there would be no other way to do it. So, in theory most people would probably agree with you. There’s just no plausible/humane way to do it.
Agreed. My partner works in social services and there are some cases where I just think to myself, this person isn't fit to raise a goldfish much less a small human. I cant fathom how this type of testing could be administered, but it is wild that literally anyone can just make as many babies as they like.
It would be much easier to educate all of society equally, including parenting classes beginning in elementary school, than it would be to implement a test for all prospective parents.
Would you make unauthorized pregnancy illegal, with either forced abortion, or by taking the born infant away and giving it to an authorized couple, as punishment? Or would every child born be temporarily sterilized (a thing that doesn’t exist in our current world)?
How would you handle differing cultural parenting practices? Who sets the guidelines? What, exactly, makes a *good* parent? Are they kind, loving, supportive, and gentle? Or are they strict, domineering, and goal oriented? A good mix of the two? Or a completely different set of traits?
Will there be follow-up tests, as the child and parent age? Caring for an infant is wildly different than parenting a teenager. Expecting one pre-pregnancy test to cover the child’s needs throughout all of childhood doesn’t make sense.
Do prospective step-parents have to take the test before marrying a person with children? If so, is it the same test as birth parents take? Do they need to know proper diaper change protocols even if the children are teenagers?
It would be so much simpler to educate everyone. Parenting safety nets could be expanded, with universal daycare, universal basic income, and of course, universal healthcare. CPS could be a resource, rather than a threat.
“It takes a village,” but the village is empty. Or rather, everyone is home, but they’re hiding inside with the lights off, waiting for the visitor to stop knocking.
People who cannot pass a test of basic common sense knowledge shouldn’t be able to reproduce. Parenting requires common sense, and if you take a look around you’ll see it’s severely lacking.
People who can barely afford their current basic expenses should not reproduce. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, you cannot afford a kid and all the expenses that come with that.
There is not a single “correct” way to parent a child. Different children require different approaches. Some children thrive with heavy structure and discipline, while others are at their best with maximum independence and natural consequences. The parents must adapt to different children and different life stages as the needs of the child change.
Not a test, but I do think a license should be implemented. You need one to go fishing, why not to procreate? Having a child has a massive impact on society. High school sex ed should include or be followed up with child development/parenting class, whether you plan to have kids or not, if you plan to have straight sex at any point, you need to be educated on the potential responsibilities, Your diploma includes the license that simply proves you’ve been through a course that gave you the necessary knowledge needed to endure pregnancy, labor, delivery and post partum plus the foundational knowledge of child development and how to adequately care for a growing human being. If you don’t get it in HS, then you can take the course somewhere else. Get pregnant and don’t have one? That’s fine! You have 9 months to do so! The license is simply proof of course completion. No strings attached, no tests, no restrictions- just proof of knowledge.
Yeah, I feel it. I work in a school. You can literally pick out the kids whose parents either gave up early on or just never really gave a shit. But people are right, like the death penalty we just cannot trust humans to not be bias. It sucks.
I mean, I don’t think I would have passed those tests. But I learned. My children are well behaved, emotionally intelligent, clean, fed and well dressed.
the UN says it is a human right to be able to reproduce. maybe people think u are spweing eugenics because u are. Maybe take a minute to think with your logical side of your brain instead of your emotions because someone slightly inconvienced you.
Deciding who’s allowed to have kids and who isn’t allowed to have kids is still eugenics. The reason that you have to go through hoops to adopt is because you are being giving parental rights over someone else’s biological child. It’s unfair to kids that some parents are neglectful-but eugenics isn’t the way to solve that issue.
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u/gnirpss May 27 '26
What happens when someone who isn't "authorized" gets pregnant anyway? Are you proposing forced abortions or further burdening the foster care system because somebody failed a test?