In Celebration of National Parents Day, Let's Empower Parents

National Parents Day is July 27. It’s a day for celebrating parents—a day intended to support and encourage parents as they fulfill their high calling to love and lead their families well.

It’s also an opportunity: a chance to reflect on how we, as a society, are doing when it comes to helping parents parent—empowering them so that children can thrive and families can flourish.

As an attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom representing parents across the country, I hear a lot of stories—ones that show we need to do better for them. Stories of parents being sidelined, silenced, and stymied by schools as they try to fulfill their “high duty” to raise and educate their children. Real stories of real kids being harmed by schools that ostracize parents rather than support them in their vital role.

Moms like Jennifer Vitsaxaki are being lied to and excluded from critical decisions about their children’s education and well-being. A New York school district told Jennifer her daughter was fine when, in fact, she was being bullied and struggling to embrace her sex. School officials secretly “socially transitioned” Jennifer’s daughter, pushing her to adopt a new “gender identity” with a masculine name and inaccurate pronouns. And they did this for months, behind Jennifer’s back.

Moms like Tammy Fournier in Wisconsin are being told they don’t know what’s best for their child. Tammy’s then 12-year-old daughter, Autumn, was depressed and anxious, with poor body image. She wondered if she’d been “born in the wrong body” and raised questions about her identity with school staff. Without involving Tammy, school officials immediately affirmed Autumn’s fears and confusion and offered to change her identity, with a new name and new pronouns.

But Tammy knew her daughter needed time and space to process and heal. She told the school to use only Autumn’s given name and female pronouns. But the school refused. Staff told Autumn’s parents that unless her “son” said otherwise, they would treat her as a boy.

And parents like Joe and Serena Wailes are being forced to defend their parental rights—and their daughter’s privacy—in court. A Jefferson County, Colorado, school district assigned their 11-year-old daughter to share a hotel room with a male student on an overnight school trip. Joe and Serena weren’t told that, per school policy, rooms would be assigned based on students’ “gender identity,” not their sex.

They had no idea their daughter was supposed to share a room (and ultimately a bed) with a boy until she called for help, feeling panicked after learning her bedmate was a boy. They had been assured that girls and boys would be roomed on separate floors. They were never notified that the policy’s definition of “boys” and “girls” was based on feelings, not biology.

The Constitution recognizes and safeguards parents’ right to direct their children’s upbringing, education, and health care. And the U.S. Supreme Court held long ago that parents are their children’s primary decision-makers.

This makes sense because parents know and love their children best. And kids need their parents. While teachers and counselors play an important role in children’s lives, parents are the ones who nurture kids from the beginning. And parents are the ones who will walk with them throughout life, when school is only in the rearview mirror.

From faith to sexuality to gender norms, children need their parents’ wisdom and insight to navigate the complex issues of life. Loving families provide a uniquely safe and secure forum for parents to lead and guide—and for children to learn and grow.

It’s not just parents’ responsibility to raise their children; it’s also their duty. To fulfill that duty, they need to be involved in their children’s education, and they need information.

Parents need to know what’s going on in their children’s lives so they can help ease fears, meet needs, navigate challenges, and comfort struggles. They need information to make the best, most well-informed decisions for their children’s care and well-being. They can’t do that when schools actively hide that information from them.

Schools should never drive a wedge between parents and their kids. Schools shouldn’t be in the business of keeping secrets from caring parents. They should be about partnering with parents in finding solutions that help—not harm—their kids.

Parents’ rights, roles, and responsibilities are worthy of recognition and respect by schools and by our society—and not just on National Parents Day. As parents strive to love and lead their kids well, they should be supported and encouraged every day. Then, we can truly celebrate parents raising children who thrive in families that flourish.