Letters on Liberty: In Defence of Parental Authority

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Saturday 19 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

Open debate has been suffocated by today’s censorious climate and there is little cultural support for freedom as a foundational value. What we need is rowdy, good-natured disagreement and people prepared to experiment with what freedom might mean today. Faced with this challenge, the Academy of Ideas decided to launch Letters on Liberty – a radical public pamphleteering campaign aimed at reimagining arguments for freedom in the twenty-first century.

In her Letter – In Defence of Parental Authority – author and campaigner Nancy McDermott argues that Western society has started to put the state before the family – and this is a problem. From US pro-trans policies that allow teachers to withhold information from parents, to television shows depicting Mum and Dad as malicious, children are starting to get the message that their family won’t always operate in their best interest. Nancy argues that parents should no longer be undermined. The nuclear family, she writes, forms the bedrock of a healthy society, and has been given a bad rap. She argues that children who trust in the hierarchy of parenthood learn to become responsible citizens of a democratic country. Governments, instead of interfering, should leave parents alone.

Join Nancy and respondents to discuss the status of parents in contemporary society. Is our current ‘therapeutic’ focus on childrearing linked to a growing lack of confidence in parents? How can pro-family ideals filter back into our popular culture while embracing the progressive changes in many social norms – particularly women’s freedom? What happens when a family’s system of morals counteract those of the mainstream – do Mum and Dad know best? And how can we protect children from real abuse while preserving the rights of their families?

SPEAKERS
Dr Kate Coleman
campaigner on safeguarding, single-sex provision, accurate data collection and medical ethics

Nancy McDermott
author, The Problem with Parenting: how raising children is changing across America; US editor, Inspecting Gender

Lottie Moore
writer and thinktanker, author; Boys and the burden of labels

Dr Stuart Waiton
senior lecturer, sociology and criminology, Abertay University; author, Scared of the Kids: curfews, crime and the regulation of young people; chair, Scottish Union for Education,

CHAIR
Ann Furedi
author, The Moral Case for Abortion; former chief executive, BPAS