Stop Making Children Into Moral Authorities

On March 14, high school students from Parkland, Florida, led a school walkout in favor of gun control. The media have already appointed student witnesses of the horror at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School untouchable moral authorities; their opinions are not to be questioned.

But now, the Left has found even more sympathetic faces for its agenda: kindergartners. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Schools are grappling with how to address the event with children as young as 5 years old and with finding ways for children who are too little to be told about school shootings to take part.” Children in pre-K at Manhattan Country School will sing “If I Had a Hammer” and “Paz y Libertad.” Public schools like PS 321 in Brooklyn allowed children to do activities linked with the protests.

There is something deeply perverse about using children to promote a political agenda. Children simply don’t know anything about politics. Sometimes children ask questions that help us rethink the world because they’ve had little experience with it — when my four-year-old daughter asks questions about the universe, that prompts me to further learning and research. But she doesn’t have answers, because she’s a child.

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