Nothing unites the human race more than its children. This essay introduces a treatise on the rights of children and our obligations to them. For those of you who are new to What Unites Us?, this blog moves in two parallel streams: exploring the universal principles that unite humanity, and using the Montessori philosophy of education as the living exemplar to make these principles more explicit.

Nine propositions which prove that biological parents owe their own children the provision of the necessities of life:

(1) At birth, a human infant is entirely incapable of independently securing the necessities required for its survival.

(2) The provision of a child’s needs is not ensured by nature.

(3) Propositions (1) and (2) prove that, without intervention, the default outcome for a newly born human is to perish, not to survive.

(4) Once born, a human being possesses an intrinsic drive for self-preservation.

(5) Children have no volition in being born.

(6) Adults, however, have agency in the creation of offspring.

(6a) In standard instances of procreation, adults act deliberately and consensually to bring a child into existence.

(6b) In non-consensual or non-deliberate instances, the responsibility for causing conception rests strictly with the adult(s) who acted with volition.

(7) Birth is an imposition of existential danger on a non-volitional child by the adult(s) who caused conception. (This is derived from propositions 3, 4, 5, 6, 6a, and 6b).

(8) When volitional acts by adults subject a non-volitional child to an existential threat, as described in proposition (3), those adults have voluntarily undertaken a positive moral obligation to sustain the life they have created.

(9) All children are, therefore, entitled to the provision of the necessities of life by the adults who imposed life on them.

Now let’s break these propositions down.

The problem faced by children (Propositions 1, 2, and 3)

Proposition 1

A newborn child does not possess the mental or physical abilities to take care of itself. It takes a long time for a human to self-construct these abilities. Although nature provides the raw material necessities of life—such as food, water, and air—the human animal must perform skilled work to harvest them. Before an infant can be self-reliant, it must learn many things. It must take the time to learn about it’s environment; It must learn to use the tools of it’s body, such as the hands, efficiently; It must learn to walk and run; and it must learn to make creative, independent decisions. Furthermore, the sensory organs require time to fully develop. Without the active assistance of adults, the human infant is entirely helpless and vulnerable to predators and starvation.

Proposition 2

Nature provides absolutely no automatic substitutes for the lacking abilities of a human child. The resources of the natural world remain entirely out of the child’s reach until it becomes physically and intellectually self-reliant. Far from being a benevolent nursery, nature provides predatory animals and numerous other dangers that mean certain death for the child, absent adult intervention.

Proposition 3

Because of this, the infant’s only recourse—lest it starve to death before it can self-construct its vital abilities—is the intervention of adults. In the primitive world of early modern humans, one hundred thousand years or more in the past, basic self-reliance in nature was all that was required. The infant required a parent’s assistance for a period of perhaps five years—still a remarkably long time to be entirely dependent. But in the modern world, survival is far more complex. Beyond the skills needed for primitive survival, the modern child requires an education rich in both complex practical skills and deep moral training.

The agency of biological parents (Propositions 4 through 6)

Proposition 4

Animals possess a strong impulse for survival. Humans, as far as is known, are the only animals capable of conscious self-awareness regarding their own mortality. The threat of perishing mentioned in the earlier propositions would be meaningless without this point. The human impulse to survive is immense, intrinsic, and universal to all.

Proposition 5

A child has no say in the decision to be born. Obviously, that would be impossible. However, this lack of choice does not absolve adults of responsibility—on the contrary, it is the pivotal point that compels it. But which adults are responsible? Adults who took no volitional action to produce this specific offspring also had no say in its creation. It is the biological parents alone who are ethically responsible to their own child.

Proposition 6 (a and b)

Normally, adults choose together to bring a child into the world through an act of mutual consent, fully aware of the predictable consequences. Proposition 6b establishes that where mutual consent is missing—such as in the horrific instance of assault—the moral burden falls entirely on the perpetrator, who chose to act volitionally. This proposition also recognizes that there are other circumstances where a pregnancy is entirely unintended. However, consenting adults understand the biological risks. They are not absolved from responsibility to their offspring simply because the outcome was unplanned.

The logical conclusion (Propositions 7, 8, and 9)

We have now established that under natural circumstances, parents always hold an obligation to their children that was voluntarily undertaken. This should be thought of as a sort of reparations paid to the newborn for placing them in a precarious reality. To review: an infant cannot consent to being born into a world where suffering and death are the default natural outcome. At birth and for years after, the child has no native ability to sustain itself, and nature provides no automatic safety net. However, this vulnerability stands in stark contradiction to the child’s intense, intrinsic impulse to survive. Because the parents created this contradiction, they are uniquely obligated to give their offspring everything it needs to survive.

Because of the foregoing, each child’s needs are also natural entitlements. Every child has two natural entitlements: 1) They have the right to be sustained and cared for until they are physically and mentally capable of doing so themselves. 2) They have the right to be adequately prepared for adulthood, so that they can effectively assume the responsibility of self-preservation.

Some of these natural entitlements from parents include:

1) Physical safety. This includes, among other things, a safe environment and pro-active intervention by adults when there is danger.

2) Healthy and adequate food and water.

3) Life-saving and life-sustaining medical care.

4) Education.

5) Protection of the child’s mental health, including the provision of specialized professional services in this area when needed.

These natural entitlements are identical for every child, no matter where or when they are born. However, meeting these entitlements is never guaranteed. Every child enters the world with the same natural rights, but against a backdrop of numerous inequalities. There are inequalities in both social capital and economic capital. There are also natural inequalities – no two children have identical intelligence, strength, or health. A critical point needs to be made here: While injustice is sometimes a major factor, it is not always the cause. That, however, is not the subject of this essay.

Conclusion: The parent’s problem

Although it has been established above that parents have a responsibility to their children, it does not automatically follow that all parents have the ability to meet this responsibility. Just as children are born into unequal circumstances, parents are likewise unequal in their abilities. Fortunately, in modern times the human race is highly interconnected, specialized, and interdependent. Complex tasks are socialized, in any type of economic system. That which parents cannot provide directly, can be provided by specialized professionals.

In future posts on What Unites Us?, we will explore the incredible work of an educational reformer who dedicated her life to solving what I call “the parent’s problem”: Maria Montessori. Before we dive into her specific methods, it will be necessary to explore how humans learn and what the role and what the function of education is. Then we can clearly see how Montessori’s system meets the natural entitlements of children.