British Expatriate Network

With the Indiana story a few threads down I thought it was about time someone drafted an application form for obtaining the license for a child. Someone had to do it. It's getting to the stage where any American can have kids these days and think they're entitled to this right. Sigh. So, here's the test as written so far -

1) McDonalds is a complete and healthy meal for your child.
A)True
B)False

2) Shaking a baby is a safe way to make it stop crying.
A)True
B)False

3) Smoking around your children is
A) Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
B) The kid is smoking already anyway so what's the harm?

4) If your child has a seizure, you should
A) Take him or her to the nearest hospital
B) Find your pastor, satan is posessing your child!

5) If you suspect your preschool son has "The Gay"
A)It doesn't really matter, he's still your child and you love him anyway.
B) Be sure to rough him up a bit to make him a man. All that crying? That's just the sissy coming out of him.

6) Your child has just recieved a C grade on a maths test. Do you
A) Praise the effort made, and help your child to improve.
B) Protest to the school board that a low grade will harm your child's future - demand he/she recieve an A regardless of effort. Organize a movement to have the maths test removed from the curriculum.

7) It is your childs first birthday! What do you buy to celebrate?
A) Some new clothes - kids grow so fast!!
B) A framed copy of the 2nd amendment, a lifetime membership to the NRA, and an over-and-under shotgun to sleep with in his/her cot at night. My child's first words will avenge the attrocities of King George!!!

8) If your child is thirsty you will give them
A) A glass of water.
B) A 32 ounce Mountain Dew. With large fries.

9) There is a boy in your child's class named Sayid. Some of the other children have said Sayid is different. You tell your child to
A) Make friends with everyone who is nice to them. And even when they aren't it is always best to be kind.
B) When Sayid's parents come to pick him up take down their license plate. There is a strong possibility that they are members of a sleeper cell. After all, if they really liked America they'd stop being different.

10) Do the names you are considering for your come from electronic equipment, popular hip hop artists, words drawn randomly from the dictionary with the letter "I" changed to an "I" and the letters "C" and "K" changed to a "Q", normal everyday names but with Tre/Da/Qua/Sha/Mo put at the beginning of them?
A) No
B) Yes. Treshawn and Brytniqua are my favorites.

I'm so disgusted by the extremes of neglect through sheer ignorance exhibited by parents world-wide that I'm occasionally very tempted by the idea of a parenting licence.

Of course it would be impossible to implement -one can refuse to marry people, one can't refuse to let them give birth- but it might be effective if there was some incentive for parents to attend parenting classes (or pass a quick test such as bungle's above to opt out). No test at the end of the class, but at least they would have access to basic information about nutrition, child psychology, child safety and how to pronounce "nuclear". You can't do much if they choose to ignore it, but I'm always reminded of the Nottigham couple who really had no idea that instant gravy contained lots of salt and this was a bad thing for a baby. (

The woman who lives across the street from me is one of the worst parents I have ever encountered. Swearing, smoking, screaming, slapping, spanking, all can be heard coming out the house. If I am home then I will hear every minute the name Kyle or Amber at full volume along with something like "get your fucking ass over here now you little shit." It angers me so much. I am so tempted to call child services but as a neighbor pointed out - she's just a really really lousy parent. Besides that she's a horrid human being - sits on her front lawn all day yelling at traffic, hanging out with 15 year old girls (she's in her late 30s) outside her house and treating the kids like complete and utter shit. Every morning I go to work she arrives home from Burger King or Tim Hortons loaded up with breakfast, then she goes out and tells the school bus driver her kids aren't going in today because she's too busy.

evil evil

You should call CPS, she needs to be investigated. If sounds like physical and mental abuse to me.

OK, I swear and scream. Sometimes at my children. Does this really make me a crappy parent? Or just human? It's so easy to pass judgement when you dont have children -I did it too. And now I have so many moments when I have a guilty flashback of mentally looking down on a mum because she treated her child the way I just did mine. And I hear the same sentiment from so many people. No matter how well-intentioned, sensible and loving you are, until you have children of your own, you really ought to be careful before passing judgement. Sure, violence is wrong. But the rest of it? Wait until you've been there done that..... If you can't threaten your children with the wrath of God, what are you supposed to do to keep them in line? Not all of us atheists are couldn't-care-less-hippies. A little emotional expression can be a good thing. :twisted:

....and I agree about calling CPS if she's hitting them.

Oh, I agree. All of us with kids have done the same. But there is different types of yelling at your kids. When a parent has no respect for a childs welfare and treats the child in an abusive way either emotionally or physically then there is a problem.

I have recently been to a child abuse seminar and reading some of the abuse reports and seeing the damage done to some of the children is heartbreaking. I sat in CPS court a month ago waiting for my guardian ad litum case to be heard and there were 12 other cases the same day, 8 of them were either physical/sexual abuse to a child by a parent or parents partner and the other 4 were child abandoment.

So yes I think there should be some kind of parental license .

I took Bungle's test.

I think I passed the Ghetto Parenting Class with flying colors. Especially on names that have "I" changed to "I".

You should stop sleeping with your kids when .

THEY ARE
A 2 YEARS OLD

B 6 YEARS OLD

C 15 YEARS OLD .


this questions does not apply to west viginia applicants
lol lol

Oh I agree that without being a parent I really don't understand how frustrating it is. But there is no-one I know that doesn't think her behavior is over-the-top. The permanent level of vulgar screaming is just absurd. As for violence, I can't be sure and besides - you could be right and I have no idea - and having CPS take a woman's kids away and then they determine there is no problem would be unforgiveable. Believe me after suffering plenty of batterings as a kid if I saw with my own eyes what I considered to be abuse I'd be on the phone immediately.

Actually you'd be surprised at how close this is, and how much more crap you have to go through to adopt a child. I mean, if you were a single, jobless, homeless, 15 year old beer drinking, cigarette smoking drop out then you can easily have your own child, yet if you're a stable childless couple then you have to jump through hoops to be able to adopt a kid... :evil:

Which is why more people spend 20k adopting a child from Africa, Russia or China. Less crap to deal with.

But what about going the other way too - parents who are so overprotective of their children they are doing longer term damage where the child can't function in a 'normal' world. where is the line drawn for emotional abuse? A cigarette burn on a child's arm is easy to see along with the language that comes out of a child's mouth can be a sign of what the child hears at home. But aren't these more the type of behavior you would see from poorer families? The educated can use language as an abuse weapon with serious consequences but show no obvious scarring on the child until it is too late. The rich can buy their way out of trouble. The majority of parent testing that can be done would be easily passed by someone who has been educated, but does that mean that they won't abuse their children.

The test that Bungle did, while funny on the outside, is more likely to be passed by someone who is educated than someone who isn't, and that would happen with all tests given I feel. so does that mean that if you are as thick as pig shit you can't have children? Or does it mean that you have to get yourself educated first? If you have to get yourself educated first, who is going to pay for that parental education? And what about people with learning disabilities - do we go back to the old practices of not allowing them to have choices like the rest of us?

and how do you stop adults from becoming parents - do you insist that if you are stupid enough to fail this test then you have to be sterilized which would mean that no matter how much you try to improve your brain poweryou will never had kids. Or do we just take their children away at birth but if scientists are right and the genes these children have will mean that no matter how educated their new parents are they will always have a low IQ then these children will end up in care rather than be adopted and that in turn puts a strain on social services, which is already struggling to keep up with looking after the number of children in its care.

We may not like the way some parents bring up their children but at least we have a system that tries to protect kids and we do have somewhere to call if we feel a child is being abused. I can't help thinking that if a parental license was put in place we would be going backwards instead of moving away from stereotypical beliefs that have been held for centuries.

Okay, you've decided what is a bad parent, what are you going to do to improve the lot of the child?
Warehouse them in an institution, probably along with some young villains.
Have you been able to keep the siblings together, probably not.
Warehouse them in a foster home with nine others so the foster parents can get the benefits of scale. The siblings are probably split again unless you displace others from the home. They don't usually last long in any one foster home so they soon learn not to love anyone. And to hate the authority that took them away from the parent that they loved.

Children do love their parents, even when they are abusive. We have discussed hitting. There is hitting and there is hitting. If it is a series of slaps, kids soon learn to ride with it. Those same kids will lie to avoid being separated from their family. There are worse things than being shouted at and slapped.

If the hitting is doing physical damage there is no option but to remove them.

Bottom line, make sure that you will be improving the child's lot by interfering. Make sure that you are not hurting the child to in your zest to punish the parent.

Yup. Even then there is plenty of crap to deal with as you need to get approved by your state for international adoption too. Plus, domestic adoption can easily add up to 20k as well.