Free Republic

When Ronald Jackson found a text he thought was rude and inappropriate on his then-12-year-old daughter's phone in September 2013, he took the cell away. But the child's mother, Michelle Steppe, balked at his action -- and she called the police. Steppe and Jackson have not been a couple for years, and Steppe is now married to a Grand Prairie, Texas, police officer. When the police showed up at Jackson's door later that day and asked for the iPhone 4 back, Jackson refused. "At that point I decided the police don't interfere with my ability to parent my daughter," he...

In 2008, Ed Boland, a well-off New Yorker who had spent 20 years as an executive at a nonprofit, had a midlife epiphany: He should leave his white-glove world, the galas at the Waldorf and drinks at the Yale Club, and go work with the city’s neediest children. “The Battle for Room 314: My Year of Hope and Despair in a New York City High School” (Grand Central Publishing) is Boland’s memoir of his brief, harrowing tenure as a public school teacher, and it’s riveting. There’s nothing dry or academic here. It’s tragedy and farce, an economic and societal indictment...

JACKSON, Miss. – Mississippi voters rejected any change to the state constitution to bolster public school funding, defeating Initiative 42 on Tuesday.

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved Sunday for legislation a bill submitted by MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) called "Parents and their Children." The law would make Israel the first country in the world to take away parents' rights as legal guardians of their own children. It would hand over vast power to social workers, who will be able to initiate proceedings against parents who, in their opinion, fail to respect a list of ten "children's rights" enumerated in the bill. These rights include the right "to physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development and to develop their talents and personal...

Oh boy. Thanks to those among us that have a peanut allergy, everyone else has to have a crappy Halloween. That’s what it means to be a sensitive, “responsible” American these days. Here’s the sign asking parents to only hand out carrot sticks, raisins and other boring treats:

The U.S. Secret Service ordered hundreds of parents and their cancer-stricken children out of Lafayette Square on Saturday night, barricading the park for at least two hours and disrupting the group’s plans for a candlelight vigil to raise awareness and research funding for childhood cancer, participants said. Some of the parents and children expressed hurt and disappointment that Secret Service and National Park Police, citing security precautions, virtually shut down part of a two-day event called CureFest for Childhood Cancer. “We ended up waiting at the gates for two hours, and they never let us in,” said Natasha Gould, an...

There is little that happens in society in general and the market economy in particular that most on the political “left” do not think needs more government intervention, regulation, and redistribution to make “better.” One recent example of this is a lengthy “report” primarily prepared by Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz, for the Roosevelt Institute. Released in June 2015, Stiglitz and his co-authors present an agenda for, Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity. The “Progressive’s” Agenda for Bigger Government Running for 100 pages, it is based on the premise that markets...

TORONTO - What a difference two families make. How could you not be struck by the glaring disparity between the parents of Lecent Ross and those of Duvel Hibbert, each mourning the loss of a child killed by gun violence? Lecent, just 14, was killed in her Jamestown Cres. home last month by an illegal handgun and now two boys — one 18, the other just 13 — are under arrest. Hibbert, gunned down inside Muzik nightclub on Aug. 4, was a 23-year-old with a long criminal record who was supposed to be on house arrest under his father’s supervision....

A report has claimed that residents in Oregon are only now finding out that the state allows teenagers as young as 15-years-old to get state-subsidized sex-change operations without parental notification."It is trespassing on the hearts, the minds, the bodies of our children," Lori Porter of Parents' Rights in Education told Fox News on Thursday. "They're our children. And for a decision, a life-altering decision like that to be done unbeknownst to a parent or guardian, it's mindboggling."The report says that the policy, the first of its kind in the nation, was enacted in January, and that residents are "stunned" that the...

Two Florida parents were hit with felony neglect charges after their 11-year-old son was reportedly playing alone in the backyard for an hour and a half. According to his mother, the boy arrived home before his parents and was locked out of the house, so he shot some hoops in the yard until they arrived. A neighbor saw the child outside alone and called the local police. When his mother and father arrived home, they were met by a police officer, who arrested them for child negligence. Robert Bianchi and Steve Raiser joined Clayton Morris on "Fox and Friends Weekend"...

Free, at last! Free, at last! Thank the Maryland Social Services Administration, we’re free at last! Free to have our children walk down a Maryland street in broad daylight, anyway, without them stopped and detained for five-and-a-half hours by police and social workers. Without parents and children being threatened with separation. Ahhh . . . it feels good. Free, perchance, for the kids to skip or to jitterbug or do cartwheels down the sidewalk — as long as a youngster doesn’t accidentally bump into someone. Respect the rights of others. Play safe now. All these very old freedoms are new...

Fathers and Daughters – Is This a Missing Key to Modesty Today? By: Msgr. Charles PopeWe often speak today of the terrible toll that fatherless homes have on young boys. And this is true. Without a reasonably good (even though not sinless) model of manhood and responsibility, many boys lose their way. Fathers also play a large role in disciplining boys, especially as they grow older and become  stronger than their mothers.But missing fathers also bring forth terrible effects on many girls. Women, even young girls, certainly do seek and desire the love and appreciation of men and have...

Down with the Struggle or Up with the Cross? A Word to Priests, Catechists, and Parents By: Msgr. Charles PopeSome forty years ago, the Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen admonished the priests of his day with these words:We become real priests when we empty ourselves, and no longer seek our [own] identity, and where we are lifted up to the cross, not going "down to people" Too many of us today feel we have to be loved $B!D (J [thinking] the young will not love us unless we talk like them, eat like them, drink like them, clothe ourselves...

Parenting can be tough. Really tough, actually. Kids are constant time and money sucks, but hey, you try your best. Unless, of course, you're one of these parents. Maybe these are the result of negligence. Maybe they're lifehacks that went too far. Maybe they're the result of sleep deprivation and caffeine deficiency. I don't know. Regardless, here's to every parent who's ever said "ah, screw it!"

The Maryland parents who let their “free-range” kids walk home alone and were found responsible of unsubstantiated child neglect are under fire again for leaving the children unsupervised in a park. Child Protective Services is investigating Danielle and Alexander Meitiv after their children were found alone in a Silver Springs park Sunday, NBC Washington reported.

President Barack Obama, through a statement posted Wednesday night on the White House website by adviser Valerie Jarrett, backed legislation that would ban parents from having their children counseled not to be what Jarrett called "LGBTQ+". “As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this Administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors,” Jarrett said in the White House statement. “Conversion therapy generally refers to any practices by mental health providers that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity,” said the statement. “Often, this practice is used on minors, who lack the...

Apparently, parents should visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) website to find out how to teach their children good eating habits.The agency in charge of the country’s agricultural sector is now in the nanny business, thanks to First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity, which links to choosemyplate.gov on its website.In the kids’ section of My Plate, advice is dished out on how parents can help pre-schoolers “develop healthy eating habits,” including a warning about praising an empty plate.“Avoid praising a clean plate,” the website states. “Your child should stop eating when he or she...

A parish priest on the troubling news he's learned from kids in the confessional The Need for Questions in Lent Lent is a penitential season, a time of purification and of clarification: of being purified of our sins and of clarifying the roots of what has been keeping us from God in the first place. Purification and clarification can come about through the typical Lenten observances: prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Fasting, for example, not only acts as an immediate purification of something (ie, a thing is taken away), but it can also clarify in that, as we are feeling the...

RANT OF THE DAY ! The link consist of two Facebook videos: Kathleen Smith's experience with unruly toddler(2 or 3) in a Tomball, Texas HEB supermarket. She took some heat on Facebook. Then issued her unapology.

People receiving food stamps have to pass drug tests or meet work requirements to receive taxpayer dollars, Sanchez reasoned, so it’s only fair that those “lucky” enough to inherit wealth should have to do something to earn it or, in this case, pay a tax.