More on Children's Rights

Michael P. raises a good point about the darker side of family life, and my essay is not intended to gloss over the fact that our fallen nature extends to our most intimate relationships.  Indeed, elsewhere in the essay I acknowledge:

A refuge of intimacy and tenderness in a world frequently lacking both, the family has traditionally been shielded from state intrusion that, in deference to parental authority, still shapes American law. And yet every day headlines recount another heartbreaking story of a family that has served not as a refuge from suffering, but as the source of it.

Still, the question is not whether parents are always ideal caregivers, but whether -- and under what circumstances -- the state is better situated than parents to make the judgment about the child's care.  The vast majority of parents are naturally wired to love their kids sacrificially in ways that defy any sort of cost-benefit analysis.  My love for my kids often seems overwhelming, and it is not entirely of my own choosing.  That's the innate depth of parental love on which the family is built.  Without question, that parental love is sorely lacking in some families and is manifested in troubling ways in others, and that's why the prospect of state intervention must be part of the conversation about children's well-being.  But these are exceptions to the rule of nature; my concern with children's rights is their tendency to transform the exception into the rule.