comment: >
  
  Is being a parent to you merely legal custody? You’re not describing any actual acts of parenting, just the legal ownership of the kid.
context: I'm just puzzled at why this is framed as a new thing
  When I was in school decades ago we needed permission slips signed before we could sit in Sex Ed. Permission was also asked for including kids in things like Christmas celebrations, or even in high school you had to have permission for the 'global issues' class that covered things like world religions, the Holocaust, and the Rwanda genocide
  Similarly, school libraries and computer browsing were always monitored for unsavory content
  None of this is new >
  
  
  None of this is new
  
  What's new is parents going to their representatives and asking their state congress to ban sex ed, ban anything but Christmas celebrations, and remove the 'global issues' classes. That's why this is a new thing. >
  
  Teachers are not in control of the material that they have to use in the classroom. 
  I think parents are trying to control what the students are taught. 
  I think teachers would like to not be caught in the middle of parents, school boards and students. The politics causing more than a few teachers to bounce. >
  
  I am one of the parents that believe that children should have 100% access to books what ever the title is. Im so confident on the values i have tought my kids, that I am 100% sure they will be able to navigate life and books with no problem even if controversial. I also believe that children should have access to all kinds of information. Information is power. 
  The only thing i banned was social media until they were 14. Specially snap chat, as ive seen so much drama unfold on that app, that for their safety i told them no and why no. We love to have great conversations with my kids about different things.
  Also if you don’t educate your kids with proper values society will do, that is why there are prisons…..Therefore the state will take over educating your kids if you don’t…. >
  
  I think this discussion comes down to if you view discussing whether or not a book is "age appropriate" is the same thing as "censorship".
  Certainly, I would not support public libraries banning books whatsoever.  However, it's a little more tricky when we're talking about school libraries because they by definition cater to minors.  
  For example, I wouldn't want a school library to carry the book "Gender Queer" because it depicts graphic pornography.  Is that tantamount to censorship?  It's a tough question for sure.  
  Having this discussion is even more difficult because anyone that dares to point out that books like this actually do depict graphic pornography is immediately accused of being a bigot. >
  
  I cannot comment on the specific reference to 'Gender Queer' but I would argue that school libraries should carry book that stop just shy of explicitly pornography. 
  With the caveat that for explicit material has an age requirment or parental requirment.  
  My argument is it does no good to keep information on life experiences from children who can only stand to benefit from understanding their own budding sensuality. 
  It makes me profoundly uncomfortable to think about my daughter going through that process but she will and that if a facr. And I want her to be as knowledgeable and informed as possible. That includes learning about lgbtqia relationships and sensuality as even if it is not relevant to her, she will encounter it in the wild and should not be shocked by it.
  Also, literally anyone can get on the internet and find unlimited hard core oron. It is niave to think children are not finding this shit anyway and I would much prefer them encounter it in a book where they can ask me questions rather than relaying on pork and developing an unhealthy view of sex from it. >
  
  Idk, there was certainly at least as graphic descriptions of sex, if not imagery, in plenty of library books in my school libraries. It really does seem like this is just about the images being gay oriented. 
  Also, one single panel of that is actually, objectively problematic. The rest are suggestive at best. There's a whole separate question about whether this single image warrants the backlash that it's getting, especially the decision to pull the entire book.
  It's also not really worth focusing on Gender Queer; it's the most banned book in the country. Of course it is the most egregious. If you really care that much, you can have that one book. But it's more worth discussing the thousands of other books getting banned that lack the same defensibility. >
  
  "It really does seem like this is just about the images being gay oriented."
  You proved my point from two posts above that anyone questioning what's happening is labeled as a bigot. 
  Do you have any proof of your accusation that I'm being driven by the images being gay oriented? Or are you just making a quite serious accusation with no proof whatsoever? >
  
  I proved no point lol. I merely said that the selective outrage aimed only at gender queer books suggests that the outrage is not just about sexual imagery.
  It's like, when I was highschool, all the parents were mad about Their Eyes Were Watching God, which includes descriptions of sex between black characters. Oddly, no one seemed to care about The Place Beyond the Pines (white sex scene), The Awakening (White Sex Scene) or even The God of Small Things (by far the worst in the list if you cared about sex). So, if you survey that list and consider what motivates a parent to object to only one of the books and zero others, you are left with only the inference that race, and not sex, was the motivating factor in the disgust.
  So too here, as I said, those images only really differe from other highschool reading in that they are images and not words. I could believe that this distinction drives the uproar, but then I'd have to conclude that the parents either don't care enough to learn about the sex scenes in these books or else can't comprehend that children might react similarly to words as they do pictures. I think either conclusion underestimates these parents' intelligence. The only other distinction left is that the inoccous sex scenes are straight, while these are gay. >
  
  "It really does seem like this is just about the images being gay oriented".
  These are your direct words. Do you have any proof of this, or is it just conjecture? Because this seems like pure conjecture to me. 
  For what it's worth, the right has decided that if we're all playing the baseless conjecture game, then calling people groomers with no evidence is also fair game.  I'm not really a fan of either accusation to be honest, but if we're going to play this game, then understand what type of standard you are cultivating. >
  
  An inference is not conjecture. I've clearly laid out the basis for the conclusion. You're free to disagree, but it's not baseless. >
  
  If Gender Queer depicted a woman on her knees sucking a penis instead of a man, you think that parents would be okay with it? >
  
  As a parent, I know fuck all about medicine, I am not a teacher and I also don’t know about many other things that will ultimately impact my child’s life. However, the same way I trust in a mechanic to fix my car, I trust professionals to fill the gaps in my child’s life. As such, I shouldn’t be able to withhold essential medical treatment for my child because I saw a YouTube video on nano bots and if I want to teach my child at home, I should be assessed to make sure I am neither neglectful nor a total moron. Anything else is harmful to the child. >
  
  
  I trust professionals to fill the gaps in my child’s life.
  
  .
  
  I wish this was the case for circumcision between like 1950-1990
  Doctors were recommending that shit
  
  So you mean you wish that WASN'T the case for circumcision between 1950 to 1990? It seems that what you're saying is lots of circumcisions happened because doctors were convinced it was a good idea, but you believe it was a bad idea. That would mean you do not want people to blindly trust medical professionals because they're fallible. >
  
  Circumcision is a cultural thing - if education and objective fact finding was a defining issue, they wouldn’t be doing it. This is not a globally recognized practice - get you head out of the US’s butt. >
  
  
  Circumcision is a cultural thing - if education and objective fact finding was a defining issue, they wouldn’t be doing it.
  
  You could say the same about any number of topics/issues in public schools, both in the past and today. Which brings us back to the OP's question. >
  
  Everything boils down to informed uncoerced competent consent.
  My children (at their current ages) are not competent enough at their current ages / mental maturity to do a great many things (play with matches, get tattoos, buy a house, examples ad hyperbole etc)
  Until they are able to 1. Be fully (as possible) informed or provided with the appropriate information to make a decision, 2. Are under no duress for the decision (i.e. someone is threatening them. Etc) 3. Are mentally competent enough to understand the ramifications of their decisions,  and 4. Willingly want to do something after all factors are weighed.
  It is my job as a parent to take those decisions on. 
  This will be interpreted different in many households. But the parents should be the ones ultimately responsible for their children's well being.
  That being said, as the child matures they gain more autonomy. How much is difficult based on the individual. My daughter for instance is extremely independent. Not distant or removed, but she definitely makes a large amount of her own decisions, whereas my younger son cannot.
  This is an area with so much Grey that making universal rules is almost impossible. Which is why, I think, society defaults to "until they're an adult the parents rule ". >
  
  This ignores the role of schools though. Parents cede some of that responsibility to teachers, much like they cede some responsibility to doctors, coaches, and other people with positions of authority and teaching wrt ones child. Each of these people will be slightly different from the parents, will have different values and incentives, and will be responsible for more than just one set of parents' children. 
  Each of these people are functionally agents of the parent, the parent is entitled to some assurances from the agent, but cannot command specific conduct in every facet of the agent's job, (not least of all because that would be impossible). So the question inherently becomes, how do we ensure that all parents are assured that their parents are not being abused and that each parent's responsibility for child rearing is being discharged within reason. 
  It's just not feasible to say "let the parents handle it" unless a parent wants to take back responsibility for every part of their child's life >
  
  I don't disagree with this. This would be in the massive amounts of Grey areas. There's so much nuance to this. >
  
  I sort of wish your OP had been a lot shorter as I think it raises a lot of good points but is waaaaaayyyy too long. I have to say this is one of my favorite topics. Because I think. We have become way too indulgent in this view that parents are the be all and end all when it comes to raising children.  I have four children but while they are my children, they are also citizens, friends, students, colleagues, etc. that is to say I do not have a monopoly on who they are.
  I personally am cynical enough to believe that this view is a spinoff of the idea of radical individualism. And I view radical individualism, as smokescreen for the wealthy and powerful to increase their wealth and power. That is, it is part of an attempt to make people less aware that they are part of a society and the community.
  I also feel like I need to call out what I see is one of the greatest disservices. That is when parents are allowed to homeschool their children or send them to religious schools. If as an educated adult, you want to believe in bullshit, magic, hocus-pocus, that I suppose is your prerogative , but I view it as almost a form of child abuse to subject your child to that. 
  While this is not completely unproblematic the French, especially during the revolution, you children as creatures of the state first and foremost. I think you by state you mean the community and society at large, I generally agree with that sentiment. So I have a huge issue with this absurd. Focus on parental rights, which is a cynical way to manipulate voters into voting for morons like Ron DeSantis . >
  
  
  I sort of wish your OP had been a lot shorter as I think it raises a lot of good points but is waaaaaayyyy too long
  
  Me too honestly. I've just been thinking about this for weeks now and the more I thought about it the more tangled the thoughts became until I had to vomit my thoughts all over the post, and I think the conversation is missing most of it.
  The rest of your post raised the kinds of points I was interested in thinking about, the role of children as a member of society vs as an instrument of their parents' will. >
  
  Its a great topic.  I myself have been almsot physically assaulted when I tell a parent that I think they are doing a disservice homeschooling a kid or sending him or her to some fundamentalist school.  
  And I honestly view it ad an attempt to isolate people from the collectove institutions that used to make us citizens, ie members of a political body …. >
  
  I find it really telling how these pushes for “parents’ rights” in schools both 1) really glorify ignorance, and 2) only apply to parents who fit a very specific social and political mould. Nobody going to a school board meeting to scream about parental rights seems to give a shit that a lot of other parents would really like their kids to get a comprehensive education, including on LGBTQ+ topics. 
  Parents shouldn’t get to keep their kids in perpetual ignorance in an effort to ensure that their kids never develop opinions that may contradict their parents. >
  
  I hate to break it to all the right-wing parents on here, but children are individuals and you cannot control every single aspect of who they are and who they will become.  If they are gay, they are gay and all you will accomplish by subjecting them to your homophobic attitudes is to cause them to hate themselves, and probably ruin any chance of having a good relationship with them when they are adults.
  Children also get to choose their own political and social beliefs and are capable of forming them at a fairly young age.  My sister and I always had more liberal views than my parents did when we were growing up.  The funny thing is my parents’ views evolved over the years and they no longer vote Republican,  mostly because they are so turned off by the book-burning, witch-hunting, anti-science, Capitol-storming nature of today’s Republican Party. >
  
  Parents scream "indoctrination" at schools.....all the while indoctrinating the shit out of their own kids.  When students project crazy attitudes at school, it's 99% learned from their parents.  Signed, An exhausted teacher >
  
  They want their own brand of indoctrination. But they dont consider their ignorance and bigotry indoctrination, they consider it the "truth". >
  
  Well, of course they do. Which I think is kind of the whole point here.
  And before I go further, I'm assuming you're a Democrat (or sympathic to Democrats broadly) like myself.
  If a die hard Republican majority took control of our local school board and started teaching in history class that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, what would you and I think? We'd think they were crazy! And rightfully so. But the school board would firmly and truthfully believe that they are teaching real history and we are the crazy ones. Now, you're responding to my comment right now going "but we are right, Trump lost! How can there be a dispute here?" 
  But, and this is my main point, the actual truth doesn't matter in this situation. Of course our truth is the actual truth. But in this scenario the guys teaching the lie control the levers of state power. So the lie will be taught as truth and the truth will be taught as a lie.
  What this comes down to is a matter of state power and how it's exercised. And we always need to remember that the other side can and will exercise state power at some point in a highly competitive Democracy, such as we have here.
  Which is why I think this question is so complicated. Parents need real levers of control over their children's education, because at some point many of us will need to use those levers to defend our kids from fucking nut jobs who happen to be running the state that day. 
  This is a Democracy. We need to be mindful we don't build a state empowered to wreck our own and our children's lives because an idiot won an election. >
  
  I get what you are saying, but that is not the greatest example. The election wasnt stolen. This is not something that can be spun, it is strictly a conspiracy theory. No credible professional in any capacity anywhere agrees with that regardless of political party. It just didnt happen. It's not something that is historically debated. There is no debate, it did not happen. Public schools teach historical facts. Now, one can choose to focus something (ie schools focus or lack thereof on historical injustices) but schools curriculum's wont allow for something that is made up, to be taught. You cant focus on something that doesnt exist. Homeschool sure, or a private school sure, they can teach fictitious stuff (religion, conspiracy theories etc), but not in public schools. No state official in any state will teach something that is 100% false in a public school. And this would trickle down to the local level, which ultimately answers to the state. No state official would be on board with that. They arent. That's just a fact.
  But again, I do get that parents should have a good amount of control over their kids. I think that is already the case. Parents get the final say in anything and everything. Heck in my day permission slips were the norm, and they still are. You dont want your kid learning something, boom sign a permission slip have them excused. Done. Not a problem. Parents already have those levers of control. They arent getting taken away.  It's all a contrived moral panic over nothing, used to get votes and consolidate power. It does nothing beneficial, except to promulgate fear, ignorance and hate. It's a big nothing burger.  If you go down this rabbit hole, then what's next? Should public schools be allowed to teach kids that we didnt really land on the moon, that 9/11 was an inside job, that Bill Gates experiments on African kids?
  Now, I also agree that it is quite complicated because the issue might be one that cannot be preempted with a permission form. If the class is going to discuss LGBTQ issues on a specific day for example, then it's real easy, permission forms sent out sign or dont sign boom, done. But it one of the kids textbooks has two men or women as parents, is that something that had to be preempted with a permission slip? You have to sign a permission slip for the whole school year because the textbook has pictures of same sex couples? That textbook will be used all year long, not just on a particular day. What if there are interracial couples in the book and somebody takes issue with that? Whats the overton window here? Maybe the racially mixed couples would not have been acceptable 40 years ago in kids textbooks and parents would have complained but it's ok now, and any complaints would ne negligible. I suspect the same sex couples may still raise eyebrows now (not as much as before) but in 40 years it will be the norm. This is all very dicey, and it seems as if unfortunately, ignorance and bigotry take time to dissipate. Tough pill to swallow for minorities, in this case LGBTQ (especially the T) to basically say, "hey you all are not even close to being accepted by the mainstream so people will continue to be suspicious and view you all as pedophiles, just as they used to do with the L's G's and B's but in time they will accept you more. Sorry but you all have to wait it out." But hey, they burned witches for thousands of years, so it's a cruel fact of reality that ignorance takes extremely long to be diminished, although with the advent of modern technology access to information is readily available so that is speeding up the process and providing a bulwark against ignorance and all its accompanying maladies. >
  
  
  No state official in any state will teach something that is 100% false in a public school. And this would trickle down to the local level, which ultimately answers to the state. No state official would be on board with that. They arent. That’s just a fact.
  
  What a silly thing to say. I mean just off the top of my head everything related to Christopher Columbus and Native Americans was outright lies taught to Americans in schools to push European and American (read:white) exceptionalism. State officials are partisan and human. They will approve factually wrong things that fit their political agenda. >
  
  Certainly lies, lies by omission. They paint a rosy picture and mention only the things that make the person look good but dont mention the genocide, that went along with the person. They do not concoct fabrications up as part of the curriculum, and if they do say something false, they will be called out on it. In today's day and age with the readily available information most of us have, we will not suffer foolishness for very long. Lies will be called out. So again, they may be partisan and human and may spout of inaccuracies, but it will not be tolerated on a systemic level. How could it? The teacher spouting off lies can quickly be fact checked with one basic google search. How do you or I know the truth about Christopher Columbus? That information that came to us, how did that information come out? >
  
  If you want full control of your child, then you need to homeschool them. By dictating that your child can't learn X Y or Z you are taking X Y & Z away from my child and other people's children.  I don't want my child's education to be stunted because someone else is a bigot and/or a homophobe. 
  Why does YOUR limited world view have to be my child's problem? >
  
  Teachers are meant to educate. They are not meant to serve as second parents. >
  
  We are though. The government has basically put us in a position to be second parents. I wish that I could just educate my job would be 100% better if I was just an educator. However, now I feed the kids in my classroom because a parent forgot or cannot afford breakfast and snack, I have to make sure that students have appropriate winter clothes to wear outside (because parents do not provide them), I have to council them etc. I wish I could just teach however, parents have pushed the buck to us. >
  
  The things you list don't make you a second parent only someone who is responsible for a child's safety and well-being within specific hours and/or under specific limitations.  This is in the same way that a coach is not a second parent, nor a police officer, etc.
  Also, is it you personally or thr school that provides the missing lunch and/or breakfast?  
  When I was young, which is some decades ago, if we didn't have the attire to be outside, we were kept inside (a form of punishment for elementary school kids).  We weren't allowed to go outside from junior high on. 
  A minor (17 or younger) who was at risk of injury from being overexposed to the elements going home from school was not simply allowed to walk home. >
  
  I think the term "parent" needs to be defined then, because 
  
  someone who is responsible for a child's safety and well-being
  
  is pretty close to what I would say. Even adding on the specific limitations and timeframes still means that, within those frameworks, the teacher is at least sometimes acting as a second parent. >
  
  You know that in loco parentis doesn't just apply to teachers.  It applies broadly to virtually anyone entrusted with children as part of their job, even as volunteers.  It never means that they are a "second parent" only that they bear responsibility under specific periods of time and under certain limitations.  That is in contrast to a "parent" who is a parent at all times, regardless of their presence.
  Here's a case to explain the difference: let's say a child gets picked up by police, is injured, or is in an accident.  Can they call a child's teacher to have them engage in the situation, perhaps make medical decisions?  Can they release a child from a hospital to their teacher?  Does a teacher have a right to be informed by medical personnel or by the police of the given situation?  
  Here is something to note: When a child is sick at school, they call parents to take the child home and provide care for the child.  The teacher doesn't have a role once the child leaves the school.  The parent still has a role while the child is in school and away from them.