At Moms for Liberty we are often asked, “What does parental rights have to do with saving America?”
From the earliest civilizations, societies have wrestled with a fundamental question:
Do children belong to their families, or do they belong to the government?
The answer should be simple. Children belong to their families. Parents have the fundamental right and responsibility to raise, educate and protect their children.
Yet throughout history, there have always been those who believe the state should play the primary role in shaping the hearts and minds of the next generation. The battle over parental authority is not new. It is one of the oldest struggles in human history.
One of the earliest examples comes from the Greek city-state of Sparta. Between the seventh and fourth centuries B.C., Spartan boys were removed from their families at the age of seven and placed into a state-controlled system of education and military training. They endured physical hardship, minimal food and harsh discipline designed to mold them into obedient warriors and loyal servants of the state. The government of Sparta did not recognize the fundamental rights of parents. It believed children existed to serve the needs of the state.
We see the same conflict in the biblical account of Pharaoh’s decree against the Hebrew people more than 3,000 years ago. Pharaoh ordered that every Hebrew male infant be killed at birth. Parents were forced to choose between obeying the law of the land and protecting the lives of their children. Their parental rights were crushed under the weight of government power.
These examples may seem distant from modern America. No one is removing seven-year-olds from their homes to train them as soldiers, and no government official is ordering the death of infants. But the underlying question remains the same. Who has the primary authority over children? Parents or the government?
The spirit that seeks to divide children from their parents has not disappeared. It simply takes different forms. Today, one of the most significant battlegrounds is America’s public education system.
Last year, on the 100th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Moms for Liberty declared June as Parental Rights Month. The anniversary gave us an opportunity to reflect on an important question:
Why do parental rights still need defending in America?
The answer is all around us.
In 2021, just weeks after we launched Moms for Liberty, she reached out and shared with me that she discovered school officials had socially transitioned her 13-year-old daughter without her knowledge or consent. School employees worked with her daughter to change her name, pronouns, restroom usage, and accommodations for overnight trips. Meetings were held and documents were signed by her minor daughter. January and her husband were intentionally left out. Not only were they excluded, but school officials actively concealed information and kept secrets from them.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Similar situations have occurred across the country. In some states like California, state laws are being enacted like Assembly Bill 1955. A bill that that forced school districts and teachers to keep secrets from parents. Some school district policies are attempting to take away a parent’s right to opt out of curriculum that violates their religious beliefs.
When schools believe they have a greater claim to a child’s trust than parents do, parental rights are no longer being respected, they are being undermined.
This is the reason we launched Moms for Liberty in 2021. As school board members, we witnessed government officials, school systems, and powerful institutions acting as though children ultimately belong to the state.
The rhetoric became impossible to ignore. For example, in April 2022, President Joe Biden stated that “they’re all our children.” Then in July 2023, National Education Association President Becky Pringle declared, “They’re not somebody else’s children—they’re all our children.”
These statements resulted in outrage from parents across the country because they reveal a mindset that should concern every parent. Children are not collectively owned by society. They are not wards of the state.
Children belong to families.
That belief is at the heart of the Moms for Liberty mission:
We are dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating, and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.
So how does our mission statement connect parental rights to the survival of America?
The answer lies in understanding the role of the family.
The family is the first institution established by God and the most basic unit of society.
In Deuteronomy 6, parents are commanded to teach their children diligently, passing truth and wisdom from one generation to the next. God entrusted children first to parents, not governments.
This principle later influenced political philosophy and the American founding.
In 1689, John Locke argued in his Two Treatises of Government that parents possess both a natural duty and a natural authority to care for and educate their children until they reach maturity. Locke’s ideas were deeply influenced by biblical principles and America’s founders drew heavily from these concepts.
Thomas Jefferson and our founders embraced the belief that natural rights come from God, not government. That conviction is reflected in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Rights come from our Creator. Government does not grant them, and government cannot take them away. This principle has repeatedly been affirmed in American law.
One hundred years ago, in the landmark 1925 Supreme Court case Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Court rejected an Oregon law that would have forced all children into public schools. The Court famously declared:
“The child is not the mere creature of the State.”
Seventy-five years later, in Troxel v. Granville, the Supreme Court reaffirmed parental authority as one of the oldest and most fundamental liberties protected by the Constitution. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote:
“The liberty interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental Liberty interests recognized by this Court.”
The legal, historical, and moral case for parental rights is strong.
But what does this have to do with saving America?
We kicked off Parental Rights month with a Parental Rights Symposium where
@ConceptualJames stated in his speech:
“Parental rights are the first and most important ingredient in raising children to become successful members of a society worth living in.”
What does that mean?
America was founded on the principle of self-government. We believe that free people are capable of governing themselves and self-government begins in the home.
The family is the first place children learn right from wrong, honesty, responsibility, discipline, respect, and personal accountability. These are the virtues necessary for a free society to thrive.
Our Founders understood that constitutional government could survive only if citizens possessed the character required to sustain it. Strong families produce capable citizens and capable citizens sustain a free nation.
When parents abdicate responsibility and weaken, government steps in to fill the void. I saw this first hand while serving on my local school board. From a teacher running out to buy a student a pair of shoes (because he was dropped off barefoot) to the district providing lunch and breakfast. As government becomes the primary influence in a child’s life, Liberty is inevitably diminished.
This is why parental rights must be protected.
And this is why Moms for Liberty exists.
I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s famous response when asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention had given the American people:
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
Keeping our Republic requires preserving the principles that made it possible in the first place. One of those principles is the recognition that parents have the primary responsibility and authority to raise their children.
If America is to remain a nation of self-government, we must have strong families.
If we are to have strong families, parental rights must be protected and defended.
So, I invite you to join us to defend parental rights and preserving the freedoms that have made America a beacon of Liberty for 250 years.
Because the future of our children and our Republic depends on it.
