This commentary is part 3 in the Cancel Culture series

Most parents and grandparents know that childhood begins at the birth of a baby and culminates in adulthood. One would think that healthcare providers and educators should understand this as well, but sadly they do not.

Today, there is a not-so-clandestine effort to redefine teens and pre-teens as people who should be treated as adults. And this is all to the detriment of the target population—young people.

In the good old days, being a child was the unencumbered period in one’s life where friends, fun, and learning were intertwined with the influence of one’s parents. Parents always had the role of primary educators and nurturers—until modern times when more and more children have succumbed to the mercy of outside influences.

There are many examples of these cultural shifts that affect children, including the growing trends of divorce, single-parent households, media, and sexuality education, to name a few.

And in the process, childhood has been dealt a tragic blow. Where once there was innocence and bliss, today there is heartache, sexually transmitted diseases, and death. Sadly, childhood is rapidly becoming an archaic term with little to no meaning. Here are some of the reasons why today’s child is the social engineer’s guinea pig.

Health officials are telling the public that adolescents need reproductive autonomy. This term is code for making sure that adolescents and young adults have unfettered access to abortifacient long-acting reversible contraception.

The foes of family tell us that reproductive justice “links reproductive rights with the social, political and economic inequalities that affect a woman’s ability to access reproductive health care services. Core components of reproductive justice include equal access to safe abortion, affordable contraceptives and comprehensive sex education, as well as freedom from sexual violence.”

Various agenda-driven youth groups and organizations like Planned Parenthood are committed to ensuring access to such services for youth, but these very same organizations never mention the value of chastity or the dangers of getting emotionally and sexually involved outside of marriage. God forbid that genuine sexual ethics enter their agenda.

As such programs assault the minds of our children, more and more walls of separation are built, leaving far too many young people at risk because they are convinced that they are not children but rather people deserving the same access to all things sexual—just like their parents!

In Illinois, Democrats want to repeal the state’s “Parental Notification of Abortion Act, seven years after its enforcement began.” The reason? Parents don’t need to know if their children are seeking to abort a baby they are carrying because they project that, in many cases, the expectant young mother might confront risk and even violence!

The argument that the family is decaying may ring true but not because adolescents should be killing their preborn children, but rather because the pressures of society have impacted families in a myriad of negative ways. If more time and government funding were used to help struggling families stay together rather than helping estrange children from their parents, perhaps things would be different.

And Illinois is not alone. Texas is facing a drive to repeal parental consent requirements for birth control for teens because their access to sexual and reproductive healthcare should not be impeded by parental notice!

In New York, state senator Samra Brouk is working on a law to ensure comprehensive sex education for children as young as five. Her efforts are supported by a group espousing “Sex Ed for Social Change.” Brouk said in an interview: “I am greatly concerned about the unacceptably high incidence of relationship violence, sexual harassment and assault, and online bullying in our society today. We must equip the next generation with the skills and education they will need to thrive.”

Thrive or be driven further away from parental love and concern?

In times like these, parents need to be inspired, not driven further into the background by social engineers. Their children are worth the fight.

These points from St. John Paul’s apostolic exhortation on the family will help us understand the role we must play in taking care of children:

1. Forces that seek to destroy the family are numerous and cannot be ignored.

2. The Catholic Church must proclaim to all people that God’s plan for marriage and family are essential and should be taught in every Christian venue.

3. The vitality of families developed and nurtured in the way of Christ will renew society and undo the evil threats made against our families, especially our children and elderly family members.

These are the keys to every family’s mission to end the diabolical effort to disassemble childhood once and for all.