Who makes the crucial decisions about the education of your children? The rights of parents to make these essential decisions must be asserted and defended in every generation. There are others who would wish to make those decisions concerning your children.

Something has gone wrong in a society that must come to grips with a growing problem of self-mutilation. Some now estimate that as many as 2 million Americans — most of them very young — are cutting themselves.

Writing in the December 11, 2005 edition of the New York Times, Lisa Baker describes her experience as a surrogate mother. Her self-portait as a surrogate should serve as a warning of what happens when reproduction is severed from marriage and the procreative bond.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley identifies himself as “pro-choice,” but he sees a dangerous absolutism in the abortion movement. Writing in USA Today, he argues that the movement’s opposition to parental notification laws represents an “unbridled passion that often seems more a matter of blind faith than reasoned principle.”

Bookstore shelves abound with titles offering advice for parents. Various psychologists, self-appointed “experts,” and medical doctors offer advice on a range of topics, reflecting an ever broader array of worldviews. Books on parenting adolescents have been a special growth industry for some time, with puzzled and harried parents often trying to figure out what is going on in the minds of their teenagers. A new offering in this field, The Teen Code, now offers advice on parenting teens with a unique twist–the book was written by a 17-year-old boy.