Children as the "property" of their parents??

May 14, 2018 1:39 PM

I'm dealing with a situation in which a couple has asserted (as a defense) that children are the property of their parents. This assertion is often made in conflicts of medical ethics, such as Christian Scientists vs medical caregivers. I think that Mennonites and Amish may actually teach that children are their parents' property. Does anyone have more information on this, specifically whether the Jehovah Witness religion teaches this?
posted by mmiddle to Religion & Philosophy (14 answers total)

Best answer: Hi there. I’m not sure whether their doctrine teaches this, but the right to make decisions on behalf of children is a hot button issue for Jehovah’s Witnesses because of the blood transfusion issue and the way that has been handled in the courts over North America. (Their view.) I was a Jehovah’s Witness as a child, to the degree that kids can be (JWs only believe in adult baptism) fairly briefly, and I can assert that the ability to guide one’s child’s spiritual, emotional, social, and physical development was a pretty core belief in that particular group of JWs.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:23 PM on May 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

This question gets at a lot of stuff which is probably very hard to answer without more specifics. Even if the people you are dealing with are talking in terms of "property," it is probably not useful to debate whether that is the proper terminology, or the "right" way of looking at things, or even whether they are understanding their religion in the way that it is ordinarily taught. If you are actually talking about the limits of parents' rights to make medical decisions regarding their kids - or about somebody else's right to say "well if that's the decision you are making about your kids then I will not provide services to you" - then those things are complicated and depend on what you are specifically wondering about, where you are, what the laws are, etc.
posted by sheldman at 4:50 PM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Children are not legally the property of their parents. However, children are legally unable to make most decisions on their own behalf, and an adult or adults have the right to make those decisions for them. By default, those adults are the parents.

I'm pretty sure no religion in the US formally teaches that children are property until they turn 18, although many of them have hints in that direction. (The official claim is that parents are stewards; if anyone "owns" the child, it's God.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:56 PM on May 14, 2018

Response by poster: @sheldman - this is a case of excessive physical punishment for biting a half-sibling, in which all 3 adults (biological parents and boyfriend) eagerly admitted in court that the child was their property, so therefore they had full discretion. It may be just a distortion of the medical-treatment argument.
posted by mmiddle at 5:26 PM on May 14, 2018

Even if their religion teaches that "children are property of the parents," that religious belief is overridden by a state interest in tending to the welfare of the children.

If their religion says "children with blue eyes are demons and you should starve them until the evil leaves and their eyes turn brown," the state will say no, you do not have this right. The same legal argument applies here: religious rights are limited when they run into other rights that the state manages.

See also: religions not allowed to decide that the races are required to stay separate and refuse to allow people of different races to marry. (Well, the religions can believe that, but they can't act on those beliefs.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 5:47 PM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

well, these folks are far from the first ones to suggest that their religion gives them the right to beat their children; there is an extant body of law on the intersection of religiously motivated discipline and abuse. Here is a page listing some starting points for research.
posted by fingersandtoes at 6:15 PM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Well to try to be laterally helpful, the JWs I was involved with were fairly extreme pacifists and while emotional manipulation was fine, they were really anti-hitting or anything like that with a huge emphasis on peace and turn the other cheek. However it was the late 70s/early 80s so things may have changed.

I unfortunately have occasion to know that there is a whole branch of fundamentalist Christian thinking around present-day child rearing that is extremely insistent on a) immediate compliance being the parenting goal, as a highly-charged spiritual duty because a disobedient child will not obey God and therefore be condemned and b) corporal punishment for even highly developmentally appropriate behaviour.

But when I was around JWs they actually set themselves very much against the idea of a wrathful god. (And frankly against anything related to Catholicism.) So if you are actually hoping to influence them (which you may not be!) I would ask them about the aspects of their belief related to Jesus’s approach the kids and God’s infinite forgiveness as opposed to the way Catholic child rearing has been sometimes aligned with nuns slapping kids with rulers, sort of like, help me understand this thing.

It all sounds really hard.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:06 PM on May 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I’m sorry, but what exactly is your stake in this? If someone says to me that their children are their property I would think “that’s weird but ok” and move on. You’re not a judge or a lawyer or you wouldn’t be asking us. Is this a medical situation? Are you a mandatory reporter? It seems to me that you need to either let this go or alert someone who can actually make it their business, I.e. child services.

I am also a former Jehovah’s Witness. Jehovah’s Witnesses definitely promote corporal punishment. It doesn’t really matter if this is a religious belief or not though, because child abuse is child abuse.

If you want to know specifically what JWs teach about child rearing, all of their stuff is on JW.org and if you look around a little I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble finding material about corporal punishment in the context of child rearing.
posted by chrchr at 9:46 PM on May 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Discipline of Children: Corporal Punishment on jwfacts.org collects citations about corporal punishment in JW literature.
posted by chrchr at 10:31 PM on May 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

They can say all they want about their religious practices, but you cannot physically harm to child to the point leaving visable injuries. It is battery and against the law it doesn't matter the religion you are a part of.

Debates about corporal punishment that doesn't leave injuries is controversial but if you leave a mark it is a crime and they can take your kids away (the process, risk assessment and decisions made by DCFS are convoluted, and that previous statement does not convey the massive amounts of variability and nuance in these types of cases).

DCFS does toe the line between some medical religious practices (like no blood transfusions) and medical neglect, sometimes not gracefully. It is a difficult, highly emotional subject.

Sometimes in these situations where DCFS believes there is a cultural or religious misunderstanding, in which corporal punishment would be more commonly practiced, education will be provided with monitoring.

Someone can believe and that their kids are property, but the courts in the US have clear guidelines about how you must treat your children.

(Source: I make lots of DCFS reports)
posted by AlexiaSky at 2:19 AM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: @chrchr - I’m a CASA volunteer; this is my role.
posted by mmiddle at 4:55 AM on May 15, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks, all - links and insights are helpful. Just to be clear, I’m working with DSS to determine the best placement for the children, not related to punishing or charging the adults. Omitting details for confidentiality reasons.
posted by mmiddle at 4:59 AM on May 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

The premises for this kind of abuse include:
1) Children are supposed to obey their parents; the book says so.
2) It's okay to use pain and terror to make them obey; ditto.
3) It's not okay to use the words "pain and terror." Instead, use words like "guidance" and "discipline" and "parental authority" and quote Proverbs 13:24. (The "to spare the rod is to spoil the child" verse.)

If you're dealing directly with the kids, let them know that parents are supposed to guide their children into being good adults, but that guidance is not allowed to include abuse. You can mention that other adults, including adults who make laws, have a lot of arguments about where the line for "abuse" is, but they're sure these kids have been on the wrong side of it.

If they mention religion, they may be trying to sort out "are some religions illegal?" You can point out that religious beliefs are all legal, but some kinds of activities aren't legal even if they're inspired by a religion. Murder is the easy example here; churches aren't allowed to kill ex-members even if their religion says they should.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:34 AM on May 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

If they mention religion, they may be trying to sort out "are some religions illegal?" You can point out that religious beliefs are all legal, but some kinds of activities aren't legal even if they're inspired by a religion.

Tread lightly around this topic. The JWs (and former JWs) that I've known were taught about their religion being targeted for persecution, especially in certain parts of the world (Russia for example). You don't want to twist anything to where you or your team seem like the enemy, persecuting the adults because of their religion.
posted by WeekendJen at 11:31 AM on May 16, 2018