Freedom

By Jim Daly 

Make no mistake: Parents will play a major part in this year’s midterm elections, which may well upend current dynamics and potentially recast the direction and priorities of the nation.

Throughout our nation’s history, mothers and fathers have served as something of a bellwether in America. Political elites may jockey and joust with one another, often behind closed doors, but their policies are felt and then ultimately received or rejected by the families whom they affect. Census statistics indicate that there are more than 63 million parents in the United States who have children under 18 years old in the home. That’s a major voting bloc with the power to make or break an election cycle and tip all types of critical ballot initiatives.

In all my traveling and broadcast activities, including hosting our radio program and managing our family ministry, I’ve encountered and conversed with countless families, and I can assure you that parents are frustrated and downright fed up. The financial pressures are obvious and acute. Wages have not kept up with inflation. Everything is more expensive. The grocery bill every week is making them cringe. And every time they fill up their car with gas, they’re reminded that the government is to blame.

But the burdens and concerns extend well beyond the financial. Mothers and fathers understand the volatility of the economy. They can tolerate and maybe even understand that there will be good and bad years on Wall Street. What they do not understand and what they will not tolerate, however, are policies and politicians that come between them and their children. Parental authority in America is a foundational right — and beware the representative who tries to usurp that freedom.

We saw this a year ago in Virginia when the “Mama Bear” movement began engaging on education issues. Since then, parents’ frustrations have only deepened.

The mothers and fathers I speak with are terrified by the prospect of schools confusing, counseling, and even enabling gender-confused children who think they can become a different sex. They are furious with the “woke” propaganda in schools that undermines what they’re teaching their children at home.

When you enroll your child in school, you are not surrendering your right regarding curriculum and what they’re exposed to in the classroom or general assembly. And yet that’s exactly what the education system seems to think.

Parents are being told that school personnel don’t need to contact or consult them before counseling and even helping arrange for a student to get an abortion. They’re being told that it’s not up to them whether their child goes by a different name and set of pronouns at school.

Their children are being asked to share a locker room or restroom with male students who identify as female. Their daughters are being forced to compete against boys in female-specific sports. These policies are not only wrong — they are pure idiocy and a powder keg that will inevitably usher in deviance and sexual abuse of minors.

Parents’ rights are sacrosanct. Tread on them and you risk losing — badly.

A parents’ revolution is brewing in America, and it will manifest and materialize with the votes of America’s mothers and fathers come November.