We have our kids back, and no one will take them away from us again! A new era for parental rights has just been launched, and the government is steaming mad! In recent years, a quiet but profound shift has been unfolding in American law: the recognition that parents, not government bureaucrats, hold the ultimate authority over their children’s upbringing.
Two high-profile cases at the Supreme Court have underscored this emerging reality, even as the debates remain contentious and unresolved in many corners of the country.
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, decided last month, the justices sided decisively with parents who objected to compulsory lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity and LGBTQIA+ indoctrination in their local public schools. By a 6–3 majority, the Court affirmed that parents have a fundamental right to direct their children’s education, free from state mandates that contradict sincerely held moral and religious beliefs.
This landmark ruling has already sent ripples across school districts nationwide. For years, some educators and policymakers argued that the state’s interest in fostering “inclusive values” gave them sweeping discretion to override parental preferences. But the Court’s opinion was clear: While public schools serve an important civic purpose, they cannot presume ownership over the moral development of other people’s children.
Many schools, teachers, and educators are now seeking alternative methods for elementary through 12th grade to ensure that Gay story time, explicit video classes, participation in Gay Rights Parades, and field trips to LGBTQIA+ events can proceed without parental knowledge or consent. However, they continue to hope that teachers and schools can control abortions and gender-change surgery, excluding the patients from the decision-making process.
Yet even as this victory for parental rights was celebrated, the Supreme Court declined to take up another hot-button issue in Fox v. Montana, involving whether parents must be notified before a minor undergoes an abortion. The Montana law in question, passed in 2013 but never enforced, required both parental notification and consent. Supporters said the requirement was a commonsense safeguard, ensuring that parents remained involved in life-altering medical decisions.
The Montana Supreme Court struck down the law, citing the right to privacy guaranteed under the state constitution. When the state appealed to Washington, conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito stressed that the Court’s refusal to hear the case should not be considered a rejection of parental rights in this area, only that this particular legal dispute had procedural flaws.
Taken together, these cases illustrate a growing tension in American life: Who ultimately has authority over children, their parents, or the government?
The principle that families, not the state, are the primary stewards of children is deeply embedded in American tradition. From education to medical care to religious formation, parents have long been presumed to know and want what is best for their sons and daughters.
But in modern times, government institutions have increasingly inserted themselves into family decisions, often invoking children’s “best interests” as justification. Sometimes those interventions are necessary to prevent harm. But all too often, they amount to social engineering, an attempt to substitute the government’s judgment for that of mothers and fathers.
The Supreme Court’s recent rulings make clear that this overreach has limits. The government is not your child’s parent. It cannot compel parents to embrace ideological lessons or stand aside while their child makes profound medical choices without consent and knowledge.
This doesn’t mean the debates are over. State legislatures and courts will continue to wrestle with where parental rights end and children’s autonomy begins. But the trend lines point toward reaffirming a core American value: that children are not wards of the state and that families, not distant bureaucracies, should guide their upbringing.
As these legal battles continue, one truth is becoming harder to deny: When it comes to raising children, the government’s role is secondary. Parents are not simply caretakers on behalf of the state. They are their children’s first teachers, protectors, and advocates, and that is exactly as it should be. But this means hard-fought battles are ahead as teachers are preparing to openly rebel against parental control of their offspring.
Final Word: Teachers versus parents is not the problem; it is moral decay versus righteousness.
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