Choosy about choices

If this now-single mom had chosen to abort her unborn child, I doubt seriously the courts would have given as much consideration to the father's wishes. Isn't it strange how that works?

The girl's parents, Brenda Voydatch and Martin Kurowski, divorced shortly after her birth in 1999. According to court documents, Kurowski wants his daughter to attend public schools because he believes home-schooling deprives her of socialization skills. A guardian ad litem, essentially a fact finder for the court, agreed, and that recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda Sadler...

But (Alliance Defense Fund attorney) Simmons says the court has effectively taken away Voydatch's right, as the girl's primary-custody parent, to make decisions regarding her future, despite the fact that she enrolled the girl in three public school courses to assuage concerns of her former husband.

"It is not the proper role of the court to insist that [the girl] be 'exposed to different points of view' if the primary residential parent has determined that it is in Amanda's best interest not to be exposed to secular influences that would undermine [the girl's] faith, schooling, social development, etc.," Simmons wrote in court documents.

He says the court erred by agreeing with the guardian ad litem's assessment that the girl was found to "lack some youthful characteristics," in part because she "appeared to reflect her mother's rigidity on question of faith," according to court documents.

"The line that the court crossed here is saying that you're too sincere in your religious beliefs," Simmons said. "That's the concern here."

I make every effort to ensure my children get to enjoy being children, and they have plenty of friends. But for everything there is a season, and there's a time to put away childish things -- something our society seems to have long forgotten. In a nation where 50 year olds still go to rock concerts to see the now-geriatric Rolling Stones, I suppose it is disconcerting to encounter a 10 year old who may have better things to do than gossip about Hannah Montana or dress like Paris Hilton. Such rebelliousness seems to require the State to intervene with socialism, er, socialization.

Of course, such heavy-handedness is always "for the children...."