Reciprocal Rights and Responsibilities in Parent‐Child Relations

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Abstract
It is objected that the positions taken by child liberators would add to the rights of children by increasing the responsibilities of their elders, and sacrifice the welfare of children to their presumed rights. To grant that children should have all the rights now possessed by adults contradicts four propositions which have gained wide popular and scientific support: (a) children undergo successive qualitative transformations requiring commensurate changes in social status as they pass from one stage of development to the next; (b) children are inferior to adults in the competencies required to survive independently and therefore require special protection; (c) self‐determination in adulthood is a product of maturation and not a gift bestowed by permissive caretakers; and (d) adult authority properly exercised in the early years is positively related to later independence. The ethically insupportable feature of the children's liberation movement is its failure to acknowledge that dependent status precludes possession of the full rights of the emancipated person. The principle of reciprocity in parent‐child relations is thereby rejected, and indeed, adults are expected to assume new duties so that children may exercise new rights.