Are crusty boogers child abuse? in Scotland, the state becomes mother-in-law in chief.

AuthorSkenazy, Lenore
PositionNamed Person Act

"Crusts on his face from nasal discharge." That was just one observation in the 6o-page report compiled on a healthy, happy, and apparently snot-nosed 2-year-old, under a new parenting surveillance program in Scotland.

Under the Named Person Act, a professional will be assigned to every child born in that country, and one of these "named persons" will watch how the child is parented for the next 18 years.

You read that right: A government-appointed busybody will oversee the upbringing of every child from the day she is born until she's no longer a minor.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In August the program becomes mandatory throughout Scotland. But for the past two years it has been rolling out sporadically. After eight months of badgering, one dad managed to get the named person report that was being composed on his two young kids.

That's the document that lists the crusty nose. It also contains an entry about his son's thumb-sucking habit. According to an article in The Scotsman, the report referenced "a blister which had appeared on the toddler's thumb as a result of the childhood habit."

A toddler sucks his thumb and a bureaucrat is recording this? Actually, it's worse than that. Elsewhere in the heavily redacted report, there's a reference to one son's diaper rash--giving new meaning to "security leak."

What could compel the government to gather such pointless, private information? The answer is, as always, the safety of our beloved children. After Scotland suffered the deaths of three kids who slipped through the social services cracks--two killed by their mom's boyfriends, one by a dad with a history of violence--article after article screamed that the danger should have been obvious and the children were betrayed by the system. "Social Workers Failed to Save Murdered Girl" read a typical headline. From then on, lawmakers vowed that no child would ever slip through again. Government being government, it naturally decided that the only way to right things would be...more government. From now on, it would hire people to scrutinize every single child's upbringing.

In other words, instead of trusting parents to look out for the best interests of their kids, the state has given that time-honored job to itself. (Yes, the same state that missed those tragic cases.) It has elected itself the nation's mother-in-law in chief.

If you think that that couldn't happen here in America, think again. I hear regularly from parents being investigated for...

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