Take a moment to think of all the professions, jobs, positions or situations that you can that have the potential to directly affect the health, life, wellbeing and even death of others.

Teachers, bus drivers, doctors, surgeons, hunters, drivers, nurses, ministers, EMTs, firefighters, daycare providers…what do they all have in common? They must be licensed.

Our government requires that any person in certain professions or positions that have the potential to affect the lives of others must be licensed. Each license typically requires basic training, skills, knowledge and testing to ensure that those involved have the knowledge, understanding and abilities to successfully carry out their responsibilities in a manner that helps, not harms, society.

Why, then, can just anyone be a parent? How can we allow just anyone to take a child into their home full-time? How can we let people assume the awesome responsibility of molding an infant into a health, kind, friendly, intelligent and talented young man or woman, ready to go out into the world?

There are thousands if not millions of times and situations where the parent must make a life-and-death decision for their child. Parents have the capability to inflict unconscionable pain and suffering on their children. They can render their children so mentally, physically, emotionally and socially damaged that the children have no hope of leading a normal, happy, productive life.

What’s worse is that poor parenting is an ever-running cycle. A child that is physically and emotionally abused was never taught how to be a kind, loving parent. As such, when that child has children of his or her own, there is a strong likelihood that those children too will be abused.

Bad parents are everywhere – they span all social and economic classes, all races, all religions and all regions of our country. Take a trip to your local mall on any Saturday or Sunday and you’ll see not only ‘bad’ parents but also those that are such horrible parents that they should have been sterilized long before childbearing age.

If, for some unknown reason, you don’t run into any bad parents at the mall head over to the nearest Wal-Mart. It seems that the clients of the nation’s largest discount retailer, as a group, have an abnormally high percentage of bad parents.

Before going any farther, let’s define a ‘bad parent’. A bad parent is one that puts his or her needs, wants or feelings before those of his or her child. A great example of this would be an obese child. Parents of obese children (excluding children with actual medical conditions or children on certain medications that contribute to obesity) most typically lack the motivation to ensure their children are healthy. By allowing a child to become obese the parent is sentencing the child to a life of battles with health, food and weight, not to mention the emotional and social ramifications of being obese.

Another example of a bad parent is the parent that allows his or her child to run freely in inappropriate public places such as stores or restaurants. These parents lack the skills or motivation to properly educate and train their child or children on proper social behavior. In addition, these parents are willingly putting their children ‘on the market’ for kidnappers; an unsupervised young child is a prime target.

I could spend the next few weeks detailing bad parents but I really don’t think it is necessary; the vast majority of the public knows how to be good parents.

My answer to the ‘bad parenting’ problem is licensing parents. In order to receive a license parents must undergo a basic parenting course that covers everything from changing diapers to dealing with teens. Classes should be held twice each week and the course should be at least three months long, giving the instructors about 24 individual class periods of two hours each to help parents develop the knowledge and skills necessary to properly raise their child or children.

48 hours of “parent training” may seem a bit much at first, but there is much that must be covered from changing diapers to raising teens. Instructors must give potential parents or parents-to-be the skills and knowledge necessary to raise a child from birth to adulthood.

Implementing the program may be costly at first; classes should be offered free of charge to parents, funded entirely by social services. The costs, though, will most certainly be offset with dramatically lower financial drains later in life. Well-raised children need fewer social services.

There should be several “license checks”. Before I get into the checks, though, let me make it clear that every person over the age of 18 living in the child’s house must be licensed. Whether it is a mom and dad, mom and boyfriend, dad and grandma or any other combination, all adults must be licensed.

The first and obvious license check is at birth. If the child’s parents can’t provide a valid license to the hospital staff at the time of birth the child should immediately be placed in foster care or in the care of a licensed friend or relative until the parents can provide a valid license.

The second check should be at Kindergarten screening or the first day of Kindergarten, depending on the school district. As with the check at birth, if the parent cannot provide a valid license the child is immediately placed into foster care or under the care of another licensed parent.

The third and subsequent checks should be at the beginning of each school year up through the 6th grade and each should have the same consequences for the lack of a proper license.
With that said, my intent is not to deprive anyone of having a child. My intent is to protect that child by providing him or her with parents that know what they’re doing. As it sits today, the only prerequisite for having a child is having the right physical equipment. This and this alone is the biggest cause of problems in our society.

People need to understand that they’re caring for a life and changing the future of the world with each and every child they have. It’s an awesome responsibility; a responsibility that should be met only with enough knowledge and training to be successful.