Growing up, for a lot of us, and at different times, we harbored thoughts of gathering our things and leaving our parents' houses. We wondered if our parents were really ours. A lot ran through our minds, and we wished we would grow up faster and be free from them.
Maybe, considering the kind of society, the African society that we on this part of the world live in, we never could think up the idea of running to law enforcement officers and seeking help cause that was like shooting our self in the leg.
However, maybe, in a different clime, a number of kids would run off and get their parents to court. That's if their livers don't fail halfway.
Before this topic, I had never even considered neither thought up the possibility of children suing parents. I can tell that it happens, but I know that it's not a very prevalent occurrence.
Now, seeing this topic, I thought to myself that why would any child want to sue their parents. I know...i know, that there are a number of children who live under so much physical and psychological abuse and who need help and in whose cases maybe suing their parents and having the court deliver justice would be the best solution.
However, I'm led to think that there are only a handful of them. The other majority of kids would be seizing the opportunity to sue their parents for not letting them go out as they please, eat whatever they want, dress as the please, play until they breakdown, stay out late, for making them go to school, for making them do their homework or run errands, for making them have siesta, for not giving them anything they want, for not letting them have their ways....and the list goes on.
Are any one of these grounds enough for a child to sue? Of course not.
Growing up is a transition that different people accomplish at different rates. To give power to those who are not ready for it is dangerous and irresponsible. This applies to all levels of society.
Children are not the best people to be empowered in this equation, considering their not-so-fully developed levels of understanding and thought processes. Not to mention the low levels of understanding of consequences and abstracts and the lack of foresight.
Let's not even forget the fact that children lie to their own short-term advantage. They minimise the truth and suppress uncomfortable facts, create extra untrue details to make themselves look better, or to falsely blame others
Give every child the right to sue and watch how they will overwhelm the system because mor than half the pouplation of kids will call in daily to report every tiny, flimsy incident that did not go down well with them and by so doing, the ones who actually need this help will never get heard.
A lot of times, parents are doing the best the can, with what they know and what they've got. They do not know the ultimate impact they are going to have on that particular child with their parenting methods. However, they give their all, make the decisions they know(think) is best for the child and try to do right by them. They try their best.
By law, we know that kids are irrational and irresponsible, and that is why they are their parents and guardians' responsibility. That is why until they attain a certain age, they don't get absolute freedom. So what sense would it even make to give these humans such, right?
As a child, maybe it would have given me some satisfaction to have my parents sued whenever and for whatever I didn't like. However, I know that I would grow up to have regretted it all. Cause looking back, everything they did, they did for my good and in my own interest.
Thanks for gracing this post.
Greetings!