[Winter wind]

Quote by: Chancellor Oh, please! Tell me you really don't believe that nonsense! The government does what it thinks is best for us????? Wrong! The government does what it thinks is best for government. And if you think that the warmonger currently in the White House is a professional or that these clowns in Congress are professionals, you should be slapped silly by every real professional for insulting them.

The great thing is I (mostly) agree with you.

However, why can't I apply this to parenting as well?
Just as not all faction of the government only do what is best for the government, many parents do what is best for their children. But I've also met many parents (but it could just be Hong Kong's culture) who care about their own face first and foremost. I was at this womans house when she got a phone call saying that her son had broken her leg and had gone to the hospital. She first hesitates to go because she doesn't see the point, then she realizes she should go "because it would look bad if she didn't"

Parents sometimes look out for their own interests and what things "look like" over the interests of their children, just like in government.

And I'm sure that most parents aren't professionals, nor do they act like ones. Many people have heard the story of a mother putting their child in the microwave. That's not completely unbelievable from what I've seen parents do.

So it all comes back to this. Why shouldn't we treat parents the same way we would a federal government?

That depends on your purpose in questioning and, with children, it's usually an attempt to question parental authority and to get out of doing what they're told.

If the government comes to take your guns away; you questioning the authority of the government to take your guns away is getting out of doing what your told. It's also the right thing to do under the law.

Quote by: chancellor Incentive

I didn't tell you the ending to the story. He has few social skills and is generally unhappy. The general consensus around school is, once he gets into Harvard/MIT/BigName, he won't be able to live without his parents because he is unable to do anything well except school work.

Quote by: chancellor I don't have a problem with that.

I do. If the kid genuinely likes talking to other people who may be atheist, then the parents stopping the kid is just going to make everything worse. The kid will either revolt, or worse, he will grow up completely dependent on his parents to decide who he can or can't be friends with.

Quote by: chancellor House rules! When in dad's house you follow dad's rules; when in mom's house you follow mom's rules.

Another true story. A friend of mine has parents who went through a really bad divorce. During their several trials, the following has happened. One parent is fairly strict and wont let his son drive a car at the age of sixteen. The other parent uses the promise of a car to win the kid over. A parent has driven off with a child after a trial even when the judge ordered the child to be returned to the other parent after the trial.

It's really quite sad and show how the parents don't always act in the child's best interest, but in what they think is the child's best interest which is the parent's best interest.

Was it really your intention to ask a question here and did you really mean to say "parents" and not "children"? And, no, there is not a gray area in any of these examples. Again, we're talking about parental authority here and not parental behavior.

Chancellor, you rarely see a gray area.

Parental authority should be proportional to how responsible the parent is. Sadly, I know most divorce judges in the USA would agree with me.

Well, yes, in terms of parental authority it is enough for the child that their parents told them to do (or not do) something.

If children would follow this law perfectly, the child from my first example would have stayed put while the car skidded into him.

Parents don't always know everything and so children can "improvise" accordingly.