Operating without a license

There are many things in life that you cannot do successfully, legally – or, even, at all – without a license. We are held accountable to a higher authority for our ability to operate a vehicle or to practice certain professions. Our dogs must be licensed and so must our software. A license is required to sell alcohol or insurance. Being licensed conveys a modicum of credibility or security. So lately, I’ve been wondering why one of the most important jobs EVER doesn’t require a license or even mandated training. We can engage in this job at almost any age, without restriction, and for a majority of the time, no one even looks in on us to see how we’re doing. I’m talking about PARENTING. The news seems fraught with stories of abhorrent parenting. A child loses toes, another falls out of a window, yet another toddles his way along a freaking freeway in nothing more than a Superman t-shirt and a diaper. Others are shuffled, hither and yon, because, although they gave birth to them, no one wants to be burdened with raising them. My own kids tell me stories of classmates who are bumbling their way through the school day drunk or high. Others are having sex with anything that moves. The system is failing them. More importantly, their parents are failing them. I firmly adhere to the belief that stupid people shouldn’t breed and some of these parents are stupid enough to fail a pregnancy test! Well, wait. That’s the problem right there. The pregnancy test came back positive. Parenting is a damn hard job. It can be exhausting and it can be frustrating. No one is going to claim otherwise. We don’t always make the best decisions and sometimes, whether we intended to or not, we REALLY screw up. However, for most parents, this equates to their kids having hurt feelings, wounded pride or damaged trust… NOT missing digits! My older daughter asked me the other day, “Mom? How come people check you out, home and everything, when you want to adopt a dog… but nobody checks you out when you have a baby?” I wish I had a good answer. Sure, I could tell her about how this would be an overwhelming task and talk budgets and governments and agencies and restrictions… but, bottom line, she’s right. Some kids come into this world with the equivalent of a snowball’s chance in hell. “License” is accepted to mean formal, official or legal ability to do (or not do) something. However, there’s another definition. “License” can also mean excessive freedom… freedom to deviate from what are commonly accepted to be the rules by which we govern ourselves. In an ideal world that loves and protects its children, who did NOT ask to be brought here in the first place, maybe we'd move a little further towards the first definition and much farther away from the second.