Back in February I wrote about Sarah Jones, a writer at New York Magazine and a self-described “childless cat lady.” At the time Jones was taking flak for an article titled “Household Tyrants.” It was as bad as it sounds. If you’re interested click the link but as an appetizer here’s the final graph:

To the GOP, the parent exists to enforce the party’s will, as though the parent is simply the local arm of a national entity. Parents who fail to obey may find their powers restricted by the state. Authoritarianism is inconsistent in this way; rights granted to followers are not extended to dissenters. For the latter there exists only punishment, a fate that extends to their children. The GOP is the party of parental rights because it is increasingly anti-democratic. It has become the party of ruthless, cynical power, and children aren’t exempt from its schemes. In fact, they’re key.

As I said at the time, I don’t mind people without children offering opinions about parenting but if the main vibe you’re giving off on a topic is smug condescension, maybe you should stick to things you know something about. In Jones case, she not only doesn’t have kids I’m not convinced she knows anyone who does.

A few days ago, Jones returned to the topic of parenting in a new piece titled “Children Are Not Property.” It’s just as bad.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” the Book of Proverbs says. To certain right-wing Christians, the concept is simple: A child can be broken, or stamped into shape, much like any domesticated animal. Though all parents hope they’ll pass their values onto their children, for some that hope is more of a mandate. My own parents believe that Proverbs is the word of God, and they believed, too, that a righteous upbringing would produce an adult in their image. Who can blame them? The idea that a child should replicate her parents does not belong only to conservative Christianity or to religion at all. A proverb is common wisdom, and lately this one is hard to escape. Authoritarianism is gospel to modern conservatives. Nowhere is that clearer than in their assaults on children.

The “parental rights” movement is not new, but it is enjoying a resurgence. Adherents say they’re protecting children from harm, broadly defined. After an art teacher at a Florida charter school showed students a picture of Michelangelo’s David, parental complaints forced out the principal.

So she opens by once again insulting Christians and then immediately admits that all parents are basically like this, i.e. most parents would like to see their kids grow up to have something in common with them. But for Jones conservatives are all authoritarians and eager to “assault” children.

She starts her litany of complaints by pointing to a story about Michaelangelo’s David being shown to 6th graders. I looked into this story when it happened so I can tell you right away that her summary is misleading. Ultimately, there were a handful of parents who were upset but not because of the content. Two parents objected to not being told in advance and one objected to how it was presented to the class, including a warning from the teacher not to say anything to their parents.

Dan, 98 percent of the parents didn’t have a problem with it. But that doesn’t matter, because we didn’t follow a practice. We have a practice. Last year, the school sent out an advance notice about it. Parents should know: In class, students are going to see or hear or talk about this. This year, we didn’t send out that notice…

Three parents had a problem with David.sarah jones

Three parents objected. Two objected simply because they weren’t told in advance. One objected because the teacher said nonpornography. Nonpornography—that’s a red flag. And of course telling the students, “Don’t tell your parents”—that’s a huge red flag!

As for the principal, she was removed in part because she hadn’t sent out the advance notice and partly for other reasons which had nothing to do with this incident. Jones continues, returning to the idea that children are mostly important to conservatives as a means to an end. She’s not literally saying conservatives collectively don’t love their own children but that’s one implication. And yes, I know she’s specifying “conservative activists” here but nearly all of the conservative activists who show up at school board meetings and so on are parents.

Like any piece of property, a child has value to conservative activists. They are key to a future the conservative wants to win. Parental rights are merely one path to the total capture of state power and the imposition of an authoritarian hierarchy on us all. So it’s no surprise that children have long been a fixation to the right wing.

Not only do conservative parents/activists not actually love their kids (beyond whatever dark utility they have to achieve state power) some conservatives are murderous and enjoy torturing children.

The National Children’s Alliance says that over 600,000 children were documented victims of abuse and neglect in 2020. In 77 percent of substantiated cases, a parent committed the abuse. The language of parental rights can become a license to torture, as it did in the case of 13-year-old Hana Grace-Rose Williams. In 2011, officials found her “face down, naked and emaciated in the backyard,” the New York Times reported. An investigation later reported malnutrition and hypothermia as her causes of death. Her adoptive parents, Larry and Carri Williams, were reportedly followers of Michael and Debi Pearl and their book, To Train Up a Child.

I’ve never heard of this book or the people behind it. I’m willing to bet most people haven’t. Attributing the murder of a child, a truly horrible act, to an entire group of people seems pretty despicable even for the childless cat lady. I’m sure if we looked we could find some progressive who had done something horrible to children. Don’t believe me?

The moms who fatally veered off a California cliff with at least three of their six adopted kids were being investigated for starving their children before Monday’s crash — and one was previously convicted of domestic assault for hitting their little girl, according to new reports.

Cops say they still have no evidence Jennifer and Sarah Hart deliberately drove their SUV off the road — but have noted that there were no skid or brake marks where the vehicle went over. Three of the kids’ bodies had been found as of Thursday morning, while the others — including 15-year-old Devonte, whose image went viral after he was photographed tearfully hugging a white cop at a 2014 protest in Ferguson, Missouri — remain missing.

The Harts’ Washington state neighbors say they’d recently called Child Protective Services after Devonte kept showing up at their house, claiming his parents “weren’t feeding them” and were “punishing them by withholding food” — and asked them to leave food by the fence so his parents wouldn’t know, the Oregonian reports.

Here’s the family in their matching Bernie shirts.

Family In SUV May Have Intentionally Driven Off Cliff, Police Say – NPR: NPR Family In SUV May Have Intentionally Driven Off Cliff, Police Say NPR This March 20, 2016, photo shows the Hart family of Woodland, Wash., at a Bernie Sanders rally in… https://t.co/ovmlJDbi3D pic.twitter.com/HdUfkn7wXn

— California Health (@Health_Jobs_CA) April 2, 2018

Regular readers know I’m not a fan of Bernie Sanders. Even so, I don’t think this one awful story is representative of everyone who owns one of his T-shirts, much less of every progressive everywhere. And for the record this is not the only story like this I could point to.

The point is that if you look for fringe behavior, like harming children, you’re likely to find it anywhere you look, including on the far left. But childless cat lady doesn’t seem capable of that very basic level of nuance. She concludes:

Children are not dogs to train but adults in formation. They will learn, someday soon, that the future belongs to them. What they do with that knowledge matters to everyone. Children aren’t private property, then, but a public responsibility. To expand our democratic project to children is to grant them the security the right seeks to deny them: education, health care, shelter, food. A better America begins with the child.

Does she really think that half the country believes children are dogs? Yes, I think she really believes it. Again, it suggests to me she doesn’t actually know many parents.

Practically speaking, parents are responsible legally and morally for their children. And anyone who actually has children will tell you they do need to be raised. They don’t just grow into fully formed adults without help from parents, schools and other adults. In most cases, the best advocate for kids will be their parents. Maybe that wasn’t true for Sarah Jones which is why she has cats instead of children. She should really try to make friends with a few conservative parents before writing another embarrassing screed like this. And on that point, she is getting a ratio for the ages on this column.