According to MSNBC.

Are children possessions? Do they belong to anyone?

Cue Gibran.

Well, they belong to us (meaning, their parents) significantly more than they should belong to anyone else, I suppose. But I do not see my children as property or possessions.

I view my own children as having been entrusted to me (but not by "the state", to quote the OP)

Don't everyone belong to the state?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0AOkDFfgNY

It takes a village, buddy.

Someone researched the term "capital punishment" ? It takes a village to...

They didn't call them The Founding Fathers for nothing.

That's not at all what the ad says (that your children belong to the state). Anyway, must be a slow news day for the right for them to take something this innocuous and magnify it into a crisis of major proportions. Nice try though, Woland.


Ron

Oddly, there are two stories at the link. The first criticizes an MSNBC ad for suggesting that parents aren't the only important authority in raising their children, and the second attacks Krystal Ball (is that really her name?) for raising her child as she sees fit.

It's cute, adolescent and not particularly important one way or the other.

OTOH, the question of the nature of the appropriate relationship between children, parents and the state is enormously interesting.

I am reminded, Magnus, of one of the tales of the Mullah Nasreddin. A would-be disciple came to sit at the Mullah's feet. It was cold in the room, and the Mullah blew on his fingers. "Why are you doing that?" asked the student. "To warm my fingers," said the Mullah. A little while later, they were eating soup. The Mullah raised a spoonful to his mouth, and blew on it gently. "Why are you doing that?" asked the student. "To cool the soup." At this, the student sprang up angrily and stormed out of the house, saying "How can I follow a teacher who does the same thing to accomplish opposite ends?"

Always liked the one about the restaurant owner who demanded payment from the man who was enjoying the smell of the restaurant's food.

Belong too is not the right term I guess but how many times have you asked someone if they "have children"? So lets not play the stupid word games ok? If the state can imprison you for neglecting the children certainly on some level ownership or at least responsibility attaches. So are we done with not debating the issue and fan talk about the real issue?

No not a big deal to those who want a womb to the tomb entitlement society.

But I have a serious issue with the state being in control even as much as they are. And don't give me the education system. That arguement is old and tired and wrong.

I don't think it's a stupid word game, Danny. The OP used the term "belong", which is in the linked article. The linked article quotes someone as saying “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents”. I think (as I mentioned above) that the "belonging" relationship with children and parents is deep and very interesting, and certainly worthy of some thought and discussion.

Chesssmann correctly points out that "they belong to us (meaning, their parents) significantly more than they should belong to anyone else, I suppose. But I do not see my children as property or possessions."

I think we should discuss the substantive issues here.

The state demands that your children learn arithmetic. Is this a reasonable position? How about civics? Pledges of allegiance?

What are the limits to what parents can do for or with their children? Are there reasonable limits on what parents can teach their children?

In 1992, Ireland signed and ratified the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Now Ireland was committed to bringing about a new set of children's rights that are guaranteed when parental rights are transferred to the State. The first public call for a Children's Rights Referendum to enact these changes came by a now retired Supreme Court judge, Catherine Mc Guinness, following the notorious Kilkenny incest case in 1993. In September 2012, after twenty years of pressure from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to make the changes to the Irish constitution required by the UNCRC, the Irish government finally announced a Children's Rights Referendum. Through the mainstream media the public were told that the referendum was based on strengthening children's rights but it was in fact a cover for stripping parental rights and the introduction of a new children's rights. Voters were not told the true purpose of the referendum. People were left to presume the children's rights in question were ones you would normally think of such as rights to love or shelter or food. But some of the new rights being introduced are ones we wouldn't expect like the new right to “the freedom of assembly”: the right to hangout where children like and with whom children like without parental interference.

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/103453

If you insist:

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

He didn't say they were the State's children, now, did he?

We the people are all debt slaves, and you know the dance: the children of the slaves became slaves themselves until that debt is paid off.

If the State can have dominion over a fetus in the womb of a woman, why not her child?

We the people have all been sold into slavery by our wonderful governments to the bankers. Now the problem is there are too many slaves and not enough work. So the slave population will have to be culled. In the meantime, don't have too many children. Population matters, don't you know.