We have been watching the radicalization of parents in our great country as they stand up for their own rights at school boards and in defense of their children as COVID remote learning revealed the extent of leftist indoctrination in schools. One might be under the impression that this is exclusively a problem in the United States. But nothing could be further from the truth. Attempts to indoctrinate our children is an international problem because it’s part of the leftist agenda. Wherever leftists hold sway in Western civilization, using state agents to take control of children and degrade the concept of family remains an essential objective.
Now we have parents in the United Kingdom striking back with some success. This is great news, and we should not be surprised. No matter where you live, what language you speak, what your race or ethnicity, no one lays around at night dreaming about agents of the state taking control of their children. The fact that leftist union members are using the public education system and children to further their agenda is typical and has been developed over decades.
President Jimmy Carter’s establishment of the Department of Education set this disaster in motion. The 1976 campaign promise to form the department earned him the endorsement of the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the US.
And the rest is disastrous history.
For parents Nigel and Sally Rowe in the UK, the issue surrounds transgender policy at their boy’s school. At least that’s what leftist activists want everyone to think. Whatever the woke agenda issue in schools, it’s really about manipulating parents into believing their influence with their own children is harmful and limited. It is about the left wresting control of children away from their parents, keeping parents shut out of the education process, and hacking away at the very notion of family. That is the only point, and children are the pawns in this sick game.
The Rowes decided to take action when their 6-year-old boy came home from school confused about why another boy was suddenly no longer a boy and dressing as girl. They contacted the school expressing their concerns and were met with much more than just a cold response. The Christian Post reports:
“In July 2017, the Church of England officials wrote to the Rowes, explaining the school doesn’t require any form of medical or psychological evaluation when a student requests to be affirmed as a member of the opposite sex…The family was given an ultimatum to accept the policy or leave the school. They and their 6-year-old sons were told by a Church of England primary school that they would be labeled ‘transphobic’ if they refused to accept policies that require affirmation of two trans-identified students’ gender identities.”
And now an incredibly exciting development after five years of fighting. The government finally settled and the Rowes won. They paid the couple their legal costs and the UK Department of Education agreed to “reform” the government’s trans-affirming policies in schools.
“’We are delighted with the outcome and pray that it will contribute to real change in primary schools,’ the couple said in a statement. ‘The new guidance must ensure that no more children come to harm. Transgender affirming policies must end in schools and issues with gender confused children compassionately and professionally managed outside of the classroom…” reported the Post.
For the Rowes, as is the case for parents here in the United States, this is not about transphobia, it’s about parent’s rights. Americans are fighting back in a number of ways, including parents confronting school boards, running for office, and lobbying their state legislators. Many have shifted from public schools to home schooling or private education. Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin have set new standards changing state regulations and guidance to re-empower parents making sure they are the deciders about their children’s education.
Discussing the Rowes’ success, Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the U.S. nonprofit Moms for Liberty told Fox News, “’We partner with our children’s schools, but we do not co-parent with the government,’ Justice said. ‘And we have government schools, and so government needs to have an understanding of their place and there needs to be a boundary between school and home. And I think what you’re seeing in the U.K. is very much parents wanting to redraw that boundary between school and home, and government and home. Because parents have the fundamental right — and this isn’t just an American right — parents have that fundamental right.’”
Parents becoming mobilized in defense of their children and of themselves as the moral, cultural, and intellectual arbiters of their children, is heartening and exciting. It bodes well for the future of our country, the UK, and other nations facing this same political agenda in schools. Leftist activists intent on “fundamentally transforming” this nation can only do so with parents and family out of the way, so they bully and harass and try to intimidate parents with name-calling, threats, and “labels.”
The left and Democrats also want you think that fighting back is hopeless. But they continue to underestimate the American people and especially American parents. But just like how the UK found out courtesy of the Rowes, it doesn’t take a village, it takes moms and dads.