I’ve come to realize that there is a fundamental value that I hold that seems to be an excellent starting point for making difficult decisions. That value is personal autonomy (closely related to a sense of agency). There are a few definitions of it, but I think of it as the ability to make choices about your own life and act on them. Of course, we live in a society, and there will always be limits on personal autonomy where it infringes on other individual’s autonomy. Now that I think about it, I just restated one of the key components of classical liberalism, except somehow I vehemently disagree with the conclusions of the economists and philosophers who espouse it. I’d like to dig deeper into this in the future because it seems that many economists hide behind the first part of the definition - making individual choices - and spend almost no time considering the second part - except where it infringes on others. Unfortunately, it seems if this is your only value, you can justify almost anything, however I believe there are many instances where it is incredibly important and I’d like to highlight two today.
Having worked with youth for the past six years, one of the most frustrating examples of infringing on someone’s autonomy is how children are treated every day. There are some clear situations where parents/responsible adults have to make decisions for their children, and sometimes those decisions go against the wants of their children (but importantly not the needs), but there are also many, many situations where a child’s autonomy should be respected and adults fail to do so.
A few weeks ago I was visiting the state legislature with a collection of youth-serving nonprofit organizations and young people to advocate for policies supporting positive youth development. In one meeting, a middle school girl was expressing her opinion about the policies of the legislator, who supported legislation to notify parents when the school was doing an active shooter drill. This is because some parents had the terrible experience of receiving panicked messaged from their children who didn’t know the lockdown was a drill (and parents had no idea either). On that subject, the girl said something incredibly important. She said that teachers should also tell students what is going on when there is a real lockdown. She said “we can take it, we’d rather know what’s going on than have teachers try to hide things from us.”
This reinforced the important lesson I learned many years ago when I was a child - children are people too. It’s such a simple point, but the way many people interact with young people gives the impression that a lot of people don’t believe this. That until someone turns 18, their feelings are less important, and the role of an adult is to always know better than them and always decide what is best for them. Unfortunately, many adults have very mistaken ideas regarding healthy child development and the needs of children more broadly. In the above example and many similar situations, adults try to hide anything potentially negative or scary from kids under the false notion that speaking about a topic is harmful. However, children are able to understand many more things (much earlier) than adults give them credit for, and when a topic is taboo, they seek information elsewhere and can turn to untrustworthy sources (youtubers, other kids, the internet in general). When we treat children with the respect and dignity they deserve and speak to them openly and honestly, they learn healthy communication, and when we hide things and act as if we can decide for them what they are allowed to know, they learn that too.
A second, even more serious example comes from the so-called “parent’s rights” movement. Education reporter Peter Greene has written some good pieces about them, but the basic idea is that some right-wing groups are asserting their supposed rights as parents to completely control everything their children do, see, hear, and say at school. This is often used as a thin excuse to discriminate against LGBTQ students when paired with the incorrect assumption that being LGBTQ is learned. It is also used to infringe on the rights of many other parents, as a hateful minority of parents attempt to force their personal wishes for their child on all parents (and children) on a school district or state. This comes in the form of book bans, policies against teaching “divisive topics”, and, what I want to finish this post with, anti-LGBTQ policies (which often start out targeting trans students, with the eventual goal of targeting all LGBTQ students).
In Virginia last year, Governor Youngkin’s Department of Education created and approved new discriminatory policies targeting transgender students. You can read the policy here in about thirty minutes if you can stomach the doublespeak which tries to justify harm as good. Reporter Erin Reed has a great rundown of the specific harms of the policy:
The policies, if enacted by schools, would:
Mandate that teachers misgender trans students unless they have parental permission.
Mandate trans students use the wrong restroom by stating that trans students have to use restrooms of their “biological sex.”
Forcibly out trans students to parents by mandating schools cannot “conceal information” about gender from parents.
Violate student-counselor privacy by forcing counselors to get parental consent before speaking about gender identity with a student.
Ban trans students from sports, a policy explicitly rejected by the Virginia legislature.
These policies go so far to take away trans youths’ autonomy that they prevent teachers from even using nicknames or preferred names for any students unless they match the name on record with the school. Directly from the policy, page 16:
[School Division] personnel shall refer to each student using only (i) the name that appears in the student’s official record, or (ii) if the student prefers, using any nickname commonly associated with the name that appears in the student’s official record. Nothing in this policy shall prevent [School Division] personnel from using a different name for a student when it is necessary for the student’s academic instruction, such as using a name more common in a foreign country while in a foreign-language course.
Fortunately, many school districts in Virginia refused to implement the new policies because they are unconstitutionally discriminatory. However, the ideas behind this are so harmful I want to examine them closer. Granted, some people pushing for this are openly bigoted and want these policies for no other reason than that they harm trans people. However, I believe there are also some parents who support this because, well, they’re also bigoted, but also because they believe that they are doing what is best for their child and they believe that they should have complete control over them. Not only is this an authoritarian mindset, it is a terrible way to think of your own child. This thought process completely removes your child’s autonomy as an independent human being and tells them that they must grow up to be exactly how you want them to be and that you should be able to control not only how they express themselves, but even how other people interact with them (even a Trump appointed judge in Ohio found people don’t have a right to bully trans kids).
A more reasonable person might say “but doesn’t a parent have a right to know what their child is doing?” To which I would say, “yes, to a certain extent.” Children also need privacy to figure out who they are as a person and to make their own decisions and build up their ability to be autonomous. No adult would want to live under constant surveillance (though we’re getting pretty close to that now), but they feel that it’s fine to impose this on children. And no parent has a right to know what their child is thinking or feeling. That internal realm should only be accessed through trust, attempting to force or coerce private thoughts out of a child is again disrespecting their autonomy, and a good way to destroy their trust. If a parent does not have their child’s trust, they should be working to gain it, not using the government to force teachers to tell them. This is why it is good that states like Maryland have laws allowing young people (as young as 12) to seek mental health care without needing parental consent. I repeat, children are people too, and the more we treat them as such, with dignity and respect for their autonomy, the more they will learn to treat others that way. It might seem like a small thing, but for many children it means the world.
Really good thoughts here. I particularly like that you said “If a parent does not have their child’s trust, they should be working to gain it, not relying on the government to force teachers to tell them” or something like that. Absolutely spot on. The first example you gave of the child who said she wants to know if the drill is real or not… I must admit, my first thought was “maybe some kids are better off knowing… but all kids?” But I do believe we typically give children far less credit than they are due, especially small children. I have heard truly amazing stories of very young children who have stepped up in enormous ways when danger was present, to either save themselves or protect/help those around them. I appreciate that you’ve prompted me to reflect on the autonomy and capability of young people. It has been very scary and sad to see trans kids treated so abysmally of late. I know a few children who desired sex-change surgeries and were able to go through the procedures due to their wonderful parental support. Many are not so lucky. I do hope that America can get it together.