Parenting licenses

[Forsher]

You also won't convince me that voluntary self-training would stay up at the current level, if it wasn't required for licensing. Since that's where the goalposts seem to be now: it's the training and study required to get a license which does some good. And yet licensing isn't necessary ...

Haven't said those things, either, have I?

In fact, I seem to recall specifically suggesting that drivers who undergo driving training were better drivers before they did the training...

Hey, another thing. If nobody had a license, what would you do about people caught driving after being at fault in several accidents? "Oh, you left your ID at home, that happens. Sorry to bother you sir or madam!"

It's like you have haven't read my posts at all:

What licence regimes are good at is making sure you know everyone has sufficient capacity to do the task.

It's funny that finding reasons why licences exist other than their potential efficacy at reducing crashes isn't causing you to think "hey, maybe these are reasons to have licences".

[The Free Joy State]

So what exactly would the punishment be for people who get pregnant/have children without a license be?

Forced abortions? Confiscation of the children?

There are evangelists and other busybodies in the US busily trying to make all abortions illegal, so no.

And they won't fund putting kids into foster care, so no.

Most likely some Dickensonian bullshit where the parents are sent to prison with their offspring, to raise them behind bars.

Or, it'd be like the Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries: those deemed "unfit" by the arbitrary morals of the government of the time forced to give birth and then their babies "placed for adoption" (which for tens of thousands of babies in Ireland alone meant being outright sold to rich, childless couples in a "baby black market") -- the unwanted ones found decades later in mass graves.

[Grinning Dragon]

Haven't said those things, either, have I?

In fact, I seem to recall specifically suggesting that drivers who undergo driving training were better drivers before they did the training...



It's like you have haven't read my posts at all:



It's funny that finding reasons why licenses exist other than their potential efficacy at reducing crashes isn't causing you to think "hey, maybe these are reasons to have licenses".

What's so irritating about this, is the way you think it's all so clear the way you have put it. When your definition of "licensing", "effective" etc is actually quite out of keeping with common meaning. At this point, I expect you would say "that's what I've been saying all along!" if I defined a license as "official record of competency in road rules and driving". But then we'd have to go back to the beginning and question why you think licensing is ineffective.

Is English your second language, by any chance?

Licensing is nothing more than revenue generation, it doesn't guarantee competency.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Instead of licensing parenting, what we should be doing is rewarding people for having lots of kids. Contrary to popular belief, we actually are facing a population decline issue and not an overpopulation problem, and there's genuine concern for how fewer younger people will economically support so many old retirees and pensioners, so maybe we could give individuals money or other cool shit for having lots of children.

In my system, a man who has more than 2 kids getd $25000 for every extra kid they have and a woman gets $50000. You may think that's kinda sexist but consider for a second that the woman does have to carry the kid for 9 months and then forcefully expel them from their body, so it is kinda fair to give the woman more money and if they're a couple then in total they will get 75,000 bucks for every extra kid past 2 that they have.

[SD_Film Artists]

These companies would have no incentive to do this if training doesn't do anything.

Naive, very naive.

What licence regimes are good at is making sure you know everyone has sufficient capacity to do the task.

That is the incentive.

Insurance companies are looking for signals that reduce risk. Aside from niche circumstances in which taking a course accelerates progression to a better class of licence, spending time and effort to do something meant to improve skills in something most people already consider themselves to be good at is a signal of a conscientious driver. It is entirely unclear to an insurance company whether they're better for being conscientious or because they're better trained.

But let's not confuse training with licences, shall we? You can have the one and not the other, very easily. Consider, for example, the firearms licence... basically you do something to demonstrate that you're not a fuckup and if you succeed, you get a licence.

Though, I've come round to Engadine Mcdonalds 1997's thinking that there's a false equivalency... how do you know if someone has the capacity to be a parent? Possibly, is that really a false equivalency or just a complication with the comparison. It seems a more solid footing to stick with the previous notion that the possibility of saying "fuck it, no-one should have a licence" is possible with driving and cars but not with parents?

Reducing risk is having a licence. The only time that wouldn't apply is if the licence is merely a registration document (like a fishing licence) rather than a test of capability. Finland produces some of the best motorsport champions which has been attributed in part to the country's demanding licence tests.

[Grinning Dragon]

Licensing is nothing more than revenue generation, it doesn't guarantee competency.

Well that's your definition. By that definition, I would oppose licensing particularly since it's a barrier to entry for young drivers.

How about the opposite? Government pays for driving lessons.

Anyway, licensing parents for the purpose of raising revenue is the exact opposite of what I was thinking. In fact, if they need counseling or parenting classes to qualify, those should be free.

That's exactly what it's going to be come, revenue generation and a simplistic one size fits all, when raising a child is anything but simplistic. What works for one child doesn't necessarily work for another. Parenting is trial and error, sprinkled with common sense and a dash of patience.

[Grinning Dragon]

That's exactly what it's going to be come, revenue generation and a simplistic one size fits all, when raising a child is anything but simplistic. What works for one child doesn't necessarily work for another. Parenting is trial and error, sprinkled with common sense and a dash of patience.

Well that's nice. Let's just trust anyone with working gonads to have common sense and patience. That always works out well.

Your cynicism about government aside, government does not tax parenthood. In fact the opposite. It's heavily subsidized.

The suggestion of a parent license is just that a tax on parenthood. Procreation is a natural right, so yeah the default is to trust anyone and everyone who wants to become a parent(s).

[Heloin]

That's exactly what it's going to be come, revenue generation and a simplistic one size fits all, when raising a child is anything but simplistic. What works for one child doesn't necessarily work for another. Parenting is trial and error, sprinkled with common sense and a dash of patience.

Well that's nice. Let's just trust anyone with working gonads to have common sense and patience. That always works out well.

It has for the most part.

Your cynicism about government aside, government does not tax parenthood. In fact the opposite. It's heavily subsidized.

Ok, what does that have to do with an idea that’s effectively a parenting tax?

[Forsher]

What's so irritating about this, is the way you think it's all so clear the way you have put it. When your definition of "licensing", "effective" etc is actually quite out of keeping with common meaning. At this point, I expect you would say "that's what I've been saying all along!" if I defined a license as "official record of competency in road rules and driving". But then we'd have to go back to the beginning and question why you think licensing is ineffective.

That is what I have said... I don't see how you could think (drivers') licences are anything else. The difference has always been that you appear to think the only possible reason for licences (and driver training/education) is reducing crashes. Watch closely:

If prevention is possible, it's not through a licencing (or even a licencing and training) regime.

Licences and training aren't the same thing. From my very first post I've been clear about that.

But the concept of pre parental education has some merit?

Maybe?

Well, if you were doing it for some reason other than the expectation of the prevention of child abuse and negligence off the backend, yes.

And, again, I've defined the stakes of the comparison to be prevention and explicitly mentioned that you can do education for some different reason.

Damn son that's a pretty nice false equivalency, where'd ya find this?

Licence regimes aren't effective at stopping bad or dangerous driving... the only things that are are measures that say "look, people are fuck ups, let's make the roads differently" or which reduce VKT (i.e. less driving => fewer crashes). Whether they'd be effective at containing gun incidents (deliberate and otherwise) in a society that applies the entitlement so apparent in car drivers to gun ownership is an interesting question.

What licence regimes are good at is making sure you know everyone has sufficient capacity to do the task.

Note the word "stopping". Not reducing or "limiting" but "stopping". Not as clear as "prevention" as in the first two posts, I've again set up what I'm talking about in terms of Vision Zero.

Note also the phrasing "effective at containing". It's like I see "effective" in terms of some goal not as a word that has a meaning in and of itself. You, as we have discussed, have tended to insert your own goal, disregarding mine entirely, into the conversation in order to present "contradictions" in my points. And note this is precisely how effective is defined:

Successful in producing a desired or intended result.

We can see effective in terms of "does something" or "has an effect" (which you've also proposed) but that is, apparently, unconventional.

And we also see that I've given a rationale for licences that is wholly independent of the notion of stopping car crashes.

We know licence regimes don't stop car crashes because they keep happening.

[...]

Licences are an effective means of reducing motor vehicle caused death and serious injury is not a position you want to be defending. Maybe you'd like to say "ah, but it was so much worse before licences"! And, sure, maybe it was... but to average about one child abuse incident per day in a country of five million isn't a policy success.

Ah, look, inconsistency! In the hypothetical, I move from "licences stop" to "licences prevent". My bad. But, at the same, and as we've seen, I continue to define "success" in terms consistent with "stop" or "prevent", rather than your (entirely individual) preference for some kind of gradation.

So... a premise I don't accept (that licences affect the number of car crashes) is the centrepiece of your rebuttal to my position?

AND, if that's your definition of "effective" then what are we to make of this?

But it isn't. It's yours.

Insofar as I defined effectiveness in what you just read, it was total prevention. Of course, I didn't actually say that, but I could see how you might think it.

Seriously, this is such a gross self-contradiction that I think your attempt to redefine "effective" in the latest post, is treating me like an idiot who can't see the contradiction you put forth.

There's a contradiction only if (1) I accept the premise that licences affect car crash rates or (2) I say effectiveness is not a total reduction or (3) both.

Considering I've done none of (1), (2) or (3) I'm really quite at a loss.

Here I continue to walk into the harder to defend proposition that "licences don't affect car crash rates" and even deny that I said something I did say (just not in the section we're talking about), teach me to assume I didn't shift the goalposts in a post.

But the more important part is the second bit... isolating that you're using a totally different goal to the same one I've used throughout (i.e. prevention).

At this point, I should emphasise that being confident someone has the capacity to do something and thinking they won't fail to do that thing (drive safe/be non abusive) are very different propositions. Licences are only about the former.

In the rest of that post, the relevant material is this:

In other words, even if car licencing is effective it doesn't work.

Let's say that you're trying to pull a 1 tonne load up a hill and you decide to attach a chain to a car. Let's say your car manages to pull the load to the bottom of the hill, but then cartoon physics takes over and you find yourself at the top of the hill driving a steering wheel. You have achieved something. Was it the goal? No.

Was the car idea a success? No. Did employing it have worth? No. Did it have an effect? Yes... the load did get as far as the slope.

Demonstrating an effect is not enough to validate effectiveness.

[...]

You don't have to agree, that failing to reach a specific goal is a marker of worthwhileness, but I do think that when it comes to traffic. And I am not inherently wrong for doing so.

Here you see me explicitly use the "have an effect" notion of "effectiveness" but I'm using it to describe your position and contrasting it with the goal oriented approach I'm using. By your standard, so I say, our driver's solution was effective even though it failed. By my standard, which is the conventional definition, the driver failed in their ambition and therefore the solution was not effective.

But let's not confuse training with licences, shall we? You can have the one and not the other, very easily. Consider, for example, the firearms licence... basically you do something to demonstrate that you're not a fuckup and if you succeed, you get a licence.

Firstly, I repeat that distinction I made in my very first post between licencing and training. Secondly, you see why we need to emphasise the difference between
"capacity" and prediction/expectation... it's probably not helpful for my point. Giving someone a firearm's licence is as much a question of prediction as it is capacity, but, hey, remember how I treated firearms and driving licences differently? I've never been interested in presenting them in the same terms.

And, thirdly, the sentiment goes all the way back to that second comment...

But the concept of pre parental education has some merit?

Maybe?

Well, if you were doing it for some reason other than the expectation of the prevention of child abuse and negligence off the backend, yes.

Training without licences!

It's funny that finding reasons why licences exist other than their potential efficacy at reducing crashes isn't causing you to think "hey, maybe these are reasons to have licences".

So, yes, you have a weird idea of why we have licences... well, less weird and more "narrowly and rigidly conceptualised". And, yes, it appears to be causing you problems when you read my posts.

[Forsher]

Reducing risk is having a licence. The only time that wouldn't apply is if the licence is merely a registration document (like a fishing licence) rather than a test of capability. Finland produces some of the best motorsport champions which has been attributed in part to the country's demanding licence tests.

You have to learn to drive.

Let's accept the proposition that driver training is effective (though I find the suggestion there is correspondence between Finnish training for driving on urban and rural roads is useful for training to drive on racing tracks, even in the rally context, disturbing).

What value is the licence to that? The licence and the training aren't the same thing... and it's the training that's effective, by assumption.

Here, you get a learner's if you pass a fairly simple test about road rules and an eye certification (basically: fail, pass, pass only if wearing corrective lenses). There isn't training involved. Though, as the name suggests, the learner's is the pathway to actually practically learning in a real car on (probably) real roads.

A fairly recent change they made was to the test to get a restricted... they made it much harder. The value of the licence, then, is the test for competence... the capacity to drive according to the rules.

But it's also the case that in NZ, you can be legally fully entitled to drive and legally fully entitled to drink, but you can't do them both at all if you're a teenager. The licencing regime clearly doesn't operate on the basis "you have a licence, we expect you'll behave". It clearly operates on the basis "you have a licence, but we've got to do some extra shit because while you could, you don't behave".

Now, look, if you manage to drive on a road in NZ without someone tailgating the fuck out of you (among other issues), you're very lucky, so it's obvious that driver training/licencing in NZ doesn't work (even if it can, in theory, work). Which rather begs the question of why we bother. Would people be worse with absolutely no training? Honestly, I probably agree, but that's the training, not the licence. Does having a hard restricted test work better than an easier one? I don't know, they certainly felt it would. But that's the test (licence??) rather than the training. Are you really a better or worse driver the day before your test than you are the day after? Probably only if you fail and you attribute the root cause to yourself... otherwise, whatever behaviours you've got are exactly the same with no reason to change.

Licences can keep people who shouldn't be driving off the road through their tests, but they don't make people who pass the tests better. They just say who is and isn't entitled to do something.

So, if we take that back to the point... maybe we eliminate the entitlement of some terrible people but licences don't keep bad drivers off the road... they keep people who can't drive off the road (with enforcement).

[The Free Joy State]

[*snip*]
How do you feel about prohibiting people from having, adopting, or living with children, after they have been criminally convicted of abusing some other child? How about mandatory reporting to the custodial parent, of such a criminal record, if they have anything more than a one-night stand? People are generally not good judges of character, and where sex is involved they can be absolutely terrible. "I can't believe he didn't tell me that, if I knew he was keeping a secret I would have looked up the sex offender register, why didn't someone tell me?" well duh, if he'd told you on the second date you wouldn't have let him in for coffee!
[*snip*]

Those with or living with those with known criminal records of harming a child are already in social services crosshairs. Pre-birth assessments are a thing when the parents are deemed at-risk of harming their children.

For the record, I don't think that's a bad thing at all (although there has been criticism they may be too widely used in some cases to boost the number of adoptable babies).

And, at least in the UK, there are laws underway that allow people to find out if they are dating a known domestic abuser. It would make sense if they could simultaneously find out if they were dating someone who was previously proven to have harmed a child.

But what you are describing is not licensing. They are applying steps that are already either there or underway, without risking allowing the government undue control over peoples' reproductive rights.

[Heloin]

It has for the most part.


Ok, what does that have to do with an idea that’s effectively a parenting tax?

Child abuse is almost always inflicted by parents. The only recourse we have (if) it's detected, is to counsel the family, and if that doesn't work remove the child or children, which usually traumatizes the child and puts them into the unreliable foster system. In this matter, prevention is FAR better than cure.

Prevention by creating a system that could only be abused. Great idea.

How do you feel about prohibiting people from having, adopting, or living with children, after they have been criminally convicted of abusing some other child? How about mandatory reporting to the custodial parent, of such a criminal record, if they have anything more than a one-night stand? People are generally not good judges of character, and where sex is involved they can be absolutely terrible. "I can't believe he didn't tell me that, if I knew he was keeping a secret I would have looked up the sex offender register, why didn't someone tell me?" well duh, if he'd told you on the second date you wouldn't have let him in for coffee!

I think it’s funny and slightly frightening that you have to conflate realising a parenting licenses is a bad idea with child abuse.

[SD_Film Artists]

One issue with a parenting licence is that it's very subjective. There's certainly some things which are wrong to do which is when child protection services should get involved, but what's right? For example some people would say that it's wrong to give a teenager alcohol, yet there's a strong argument that a supervised early introduction to alcohol helps to remove the rebellious thrill associated with drunken house parties; which is probably why it's legal in the UK for parents to order alcohol for 16 yr olds if it's with a meal.

[quote="Forsher";p="38712661"][quote="SD_Film Artists";p="38712500"]Reducing risk is having a licence. The only time that wouldn't apply is if the licence is merely a registration document (like a fishing licence) rather than a test of capability. Finland produces some of the best motorsport champions which has been attributed in part to the country's demanding licence tests.[/quote]

You have to learn to drive.

Let's accept the proposition that driver training is effective (though I find the suggestion there is correspondence between Finnish training for driving on urban and rural roads is useful for training to drive on racing tracks, even in the rally context, disturbing).

What value is the licence to that? The licence and the training aren't the same thing... and it's the training that's effective, by assumption.

Here, you get a learner's if you pass a fairly simple test about road rules and an eye certification (basically: fail, pass, pass only if wearing corrective lenses). There isn't training involved. Though, as the name suggests, the learner's is the pathway to actually practically learning in a real car on (probably) real roads.

A fairly recent change they made was to the test to get a restricted... they made it much harder. The value of the licence, then, is the test for competence... the capacity to drive according to the rules.

But it's also the case that in NZ, you can be legally fully entitled to drive and legally fully entitled to drink, but [url=https://www.police.govt.nz/advice/personal-community/keeping-safe/teenager-safe#:~:text=Driving%3A%20The%20alcohol%20limit%20for,drives%2C%20they%20can%20be%20charged.]you can't do them both at all if you're a teenager[/url]. The licencing regime clearly doesn't operate on the basis "you have a licence, we expect you'll behave". It clearly operates on the basis "you have a licence, but we've got to do some extra shit because while you could, you [i]don't[/i] behave".

Now, look, if you manage to drive on a road in NZ without someone tailgating the fuck out of you (among other issues), you're very lucky, so it's obvious that driver training/licencing in NZ doesn't work (even if it can, in theory, work). Which rather begs the question of why we bother. Would people be worse with absolutely no training? Honestly, I probably agree, but that's the training, not the licence. Does having a hard restricted test work better than an easier one? I don't know, they certainly felt it would. But that's the test (licence??) rather than the training. Are you really a better or worse driver the day before your test than you are the day after? Probably only if you fail and you attribute the root cause to yourself... otherwise, whatever behaviours you've got are exactly the same with no reason to change.

Licences can keep people who shouldn't be driving off the road through their tests, but they don't make people who pass the tests better. They just say who is and isn't entitled to do something.

So, if we take that back to the point... maybe we eliminate the entitlement of some terrible people but licences don't keep bad drivers off the road... they keep people who [i]can't[/i] drive off the road (with enforcement).[/quote]


The licence is the training. If the licence isn't effective then you're basically arguing that training isn't good for anything ever. Again if the licence is just a registration document with no training then I'd agree that there's no correlation. Even a motoring prodigy will have to know some things which don't come with natural ability.

Also yes, learning to drive on icy roads helps with rally and to some extent improving the ability to stabilise your vehicle in other conditions. It also just involves more training in general.

[The Free Joy State]

Child abuse is almost always inflicted by parents. The only recourse we have (if) it's detected, is to counsel the family, and if that doesn't work remove the child or children, which usually traumatizes the child and puts them into the unreliable foster system. In this matter, prevention is FAR better than cure.

Prevention by creating a system that could only be abused. Great idea.

How do you feel about prohibiting people from having, adopting, or living with children, after they have been criminally convicted of abusing some other child? How about mandatory reporting to the custodial parent, of such a criminal record, if they have anything more than a one-night stand? People are generally not good judges of character, and where sex is involved they can be absolutely terrible. "I can't believe he didn't tell me that, if I knew he was keeping a secret I would have looked up the sex offender register, why didn't someone tell me?" well duh, if he'd told you on the second date you wouldn't have let him in for coffee!

I think it’s funny and slightly frightening that you have to conflate realising a parenting licenses is a bad idea with paedophilia.

Due to the moratorium against that subject [/notamod], I chose to read it as mental/physical abuse.

[Heloin]

Prevention by creating a system that could only be abused. Great idea.


I think it’s funny and slightly frightening that you have to conflate realising a parenting licenses is a bad idea with paedophilia.

Due to the moratorium against that subject [/notamod], I chose to read it as mental/physical abuse.

I was unaware of this. Thank you.

[Quyona]

Terrible idea. Government will essentially weed out the poor, minorities, the disabled, and probably LGBTQIA+.

What will happen to the babies born out of a license? It will happen in large quantities, since a license simply won’t stop people from having children.

I also disagree that it will prevent child abuse/neglect due to the fact that abusive people tend to be good at hiding they’re abusive. Many abusers hide their bullshit, it will be hard to avoid them.

[CoraSpia]

wonder how easy it'd be for disabled people to get one of these?

[Ostroeuropa]

Abusive parents are adept at showing a mask of normalcy to outsiders. Without a kid in the picture to examine for signs of abuse, there is basically no way this will actually do anything worthwhile.

[CoraSpia]

wonder how easy it'd be for disabled people to get one of these?

I think so. Very strong disability, only if they have the money. But a blind parent, why not?

What's a 'strong disability,' and how is your skill as a parent dependant on money? Many of the crappiest parents I've seen are rich idiots who had a kid because at the time it was fashionable to have one and they've got no time to raise them and leave them with nannies. You do get fantastic rich parents and fantastic poor parents, but you also get shitty rich parents and shitty poor parents.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Nah

[CoraSpia]

What's a 'strong disability,' and how is your skill as a parent dependant on money? Many of the crappiest parents I've seen are rich idiots who had a kid because at the time it was fashionable to have one and they've got no time to raise them and leave them with nannies. You do get fantastic rich parents and fantastic poor parents, but you also get shitty rich parents and shitty poor parents.

It costs more to overcome the disability. If neither parent can drive for eg. Or earlier. If they can't change a diaper or give baths.

Poor parents who have to work a lot, are disadvanted in being good parents. No time. Maybe you assume help from friends. Or grandma?

I think you misunderstand the point of the proposal? I don't know where you live but being able to drive isn't required to raise a kid, nor is having a family fortune. The proposal is about preventing child abuse, not about making sure that the kid never wants for any of the luxuries in life.

[South Olpen]

Topic came up here.

So far the attempts to cut down on child abuse and child neglect have been focused on deterrence, but the threat of facing a taste of one's own medicine; and then some, depending on the prison; has not been enough to scare parents into only having kids they intend to raise properly. We could up the ante, but we could only up the ante so far. Death penalty might actually backfire if some parents would rather die than encounter other prisoners as a convicted child abuser, and would rather be executed than be remembered as suicidal.

So why don't we shift the focus to prevention instead? Why don't we have parenting licenses? The usual response I hear elsewhere is that the government could misuse this authority. Well, the government could also theoretically misuse laws against abuse and neglect by only prosecuting dissidents who abuse and neglect their kids while leaving non-dissidents who do the same alone. Nevertheless, we have standards on parenting, answerable to a plurality of voters rather than just the individual parents. Why not try to predict how likely those standards are to be met by the parents, and if that seems unlikely, give the kid to one of the many would-be adoptive parents out there clamoring to take on that role if the child is still in the infancy stage, to make abuse and neglect less likely?

I actually support a parenting license, given this is based off my fears of being a bad parent but still.

[CoraSpia]

Topic came up here.

So far the attempts to cut down on child abuse and child neglect have been focused on deterrence, but the threat of facing a taste of one's own medicine; and then some, depending on the prison; has not been enough to scare parents into only having kids they intend to raise properly. We could up the ante, but we could only up the ante so far. Death penalty might actually backfire if some parents would rather die than encounter other prisoners as a convicted child abuser, and would rather be executed than be remembered as suicidal.

So why don't we shift the focus to prevention instead? Why don't we have parenting licenses? The usual response I hear elsewhere is that the government could misuse this authority. Well, the government could also theoretically misuse laws against abuse and neglect by only prosecuting dissidents who abuse and neglect their kids while leaving non-dissidents who do the same alone. Nevertheless, we have standards on parenting, answerable to a plurality of voters rather than just the individual parents. Why not try to predict how likely those standards are to be met by the parents, and if that seems unlikely, give the kid to one of the many would-be adoptive parents out there clamoring to take on that role if the child is still in the infancy stage, to make abuse and neglect less likely?

I actually support a parenting license, given this is based off my fears of being a bad parent but still.

Your own potential failings do not give you a right to restrict the rights of others.

[South Olpen]

I actually support a parenting license, given this is based off my fears of being a bad parent but still.

Your own potential failings do not give you a right to restrict the rights of others.

Why do fully grown adults get more right to live than kids? We have driving licenses so adults don't get killed while driving by others, so why don't we get parenting licences so kids don't get killed just by being a kid.

[Grave_n_idle]

Well that's your definition. By that definition, I would oppose licensing particularly since it's a barrier to entry for young drivers.

How about the opposite? Government pays for driving lessons.

Anyway, licensing parents for the purpose of raising revenue is the exact opposite of what I was thinking. In fact, if they need counseling or parenting classes to qualify, those should be free.

That's exactly what it's going to be come, revenue generation and a simplistic one size fits all, when raising a child is anything but simplistic. What works for one child doesn't necessarily work for another. Parenting is trial and error, sprinkled with common sense and a dash of patience.

That's what it's supposed to be. What it actually is is a crapshoot. It's the most important thing we do, and yet there's no concept that we might need training, or that there should be an infrastructure to support it, or that - yes - some people are just going to be shitty, terrible parents.