Should Being a Parent Require a License?

Ok now that I have your attention let’s take a look at the merits of the question. The USDA stated that: “children who were born in 2010 will cost a middle-income family nearly $227,000.” The kicker — that number does not include college tuition. This lays waste to the notion that buying a house is the largest investment a person will make since most households have 2 children correlating to nearly half a million dollars to raise your children to age 18. When looking purely at the cost it becomes evident what a huge undertaking it is to have children. What is not accounted for in the $227,000 is the time a parent spends, well, parenting. Between potty-training, practices, games, first days of school, illness, bandaging a skinned knee, and fixing a wounded heart, parenting has to be the hardest most versatile job in the world. Why then can anyone simply have a drunken lapse in judgment one night and enter into this massive financial and emotional agreement with another human who has no say in the matter?
In order to buy a house you don’t need a license but your life is scrutinized by the bank(s) in order to ensure they are issuing a mortgage to a creditworthy individual. In order for you to drive to work today you had to prove you could competently operate a vehicle. Gun owners need a license, adding a room to your house needs a permit, and in order to get married you must obtain a marriage license. Let that soak in for a minute. Over and over again the government wants you to get their “approval” for you to live how you want to live. (1)
Why has the government not stepped in and required that soon to be parents be competent parents in order to retain their baby after birth? I reason because there’s nothing more un-American than intervening in the family but government does by not allowing homosexuals to marry. People just hate the idea of big government looking over their shoulder and telling them how to live, but does the welfare of these unwanted, unloved children out weigh our beliefs that government should not intervene in our family?
There’s a lot of research on child “un-wantedness” and tremendous historical data sets from social science of the last fifty years that suggest that if your mother doesn’t love you, nothing good will happen to you in life. The over-riding factor for having a kid who turns out well is the kid being loved. Why not ensure the child will be raised in a caring loving home? Won’t that be best for society as a whole since that will ensure the best chance at the child succeeding and not becoming a bane to society?
The license acquisition should be based on factors like:
How do you interact with children?
Can you change a diaper?
Can you make a bottle?
Can you balance a checkbook?
I’m sure there are other basic activities I am omitting that a good early education specialist would think of. Basic home economics that a parent needs to know and have before a child is put into their care. The licenses should not be dependent on income since income level is not a determining factor in loving a child. The licensing should only be a nominal fee of $50 or less.
Unintended Consequences or How to Beat the System
How will the “unfit” soon to be parents get around being licensing? One situation that comes to mind is that these unlicensed, soon to be parents, would deliver their children outside of hospitals. This leads to lack of quality health care during delivery and post delivery. The lack of quality health care would not be in the best interest of the child’s welfare, which is what the licensing is for anyway. There are numerous ways in which the licensing can be avoided by these “unfit” parents. For a more comprehensive review on how to implement and how the licensing can be avoided please visit: http://www.hughlafollette.com/papers/lic-par.htm
I do not believe this licensing process will happen soon (20 years), but it will happen, along with one-child and/or no-child policies, much sooner than any of us want to imagine. Way back in 1798 the great economist Thomas Robert Malthus wrote about the way in which the planet will become over populated in An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus accumulated data on births, deaths, age of marriage, childbearing and economic factors contributing to longevity from a sample population in England. His main contribution was to highlight the relationship between resource supply and population. Humans do not overpopulate to the point of stripping resources, he contended, only because people change their behavior in the face of economic incentives. This licensing process will be a way to curb the rampant over population that is stripping the earth of non-renewable resources occurring now.
I believe that by conducting the cost benefit analysis of licensing soon to be parents it makes great sense for this licensing process to be implemented. The licensing will generate revenue, the parents can be held accountable for the decision they made to make a human life, and most importantly the child will raised in an environment that will allow the best chance for success for that child. As an economist I have to take the emotion and ideologies out of the argument and argue for or against the data. Sometimes you have to look at the unconscionable and realize that it is what needs to be done for the benefit of the whole. The over population of this planet is a huge concern that will be addressed by the global economic powers within my lifetime. It is time to begin thinking through this scenario reasonably and develop an effective and humane way to deal with this epidemic. I think the first step in the right direction is to have parents licensed in order to ensure the greatest chance of success for all parties involved.
(1) I know there are folks who do not want the Government to require permits and licenses for things like owning a gun and building permits, but there is no political party that will stop these because of the revenue they generate.