All parents should be required to attend parenting classes before having a child.

"First off, the stats I choose to show are all about bad parents, as my opponent has pointed out. This in itself is proof that bad parents exist,..." And that is all it proves. "...which, in essence, is why I believe that parents should be educated prior to parenthood." Can you prove to me this "education", will yield better results? What I mean is, just like school, did you consider the students who don't care for the education you are teaching? Did you consider, in this sex crazed generation, in which 3rd, 7th, and 10th graders are educated in sex, yet still act irresponsible with that knowledge? The increase in teen mothers can be used to show how education is often ignored. "Yes, I understand that good parents exist as well. I never once stated that they didn't. As I hope I implied earlier, the point of the education would be to reduce the amount of bad parents, thus reducing the amount of children that end up neglected and/or abused." As shown in the teen mother scenario, education is not working, especially towards learning responsibility, which in essence, is what parenting boils down to. Just because education can inform you, doesn't mean it makes you abide by its rules. People are still free to choose whether to use that education or not. "Also, it is impossible to tell whether a parent will be good or bad before they begin parenthood. Offering classes for aspiring parents would not only serve to reduce child harms," Its also impossible to tell if this education WILL reduce child harm. As proven above, just because education can, doesn't mean it WILL. "...but also would benefit the parent in question, as they may learn "life hacks" on how to better raise children." A "life hack" on responsibility? Hmmm." "Now addressing the questions- first off, yes, on numerous occasions innocent people have gone to jail because of the crimes of others- but that isn't the point." You are correct, that isnt the point. The point was SHOULD innocent people go to jail for crimes of others? "The truth is, the questions that have been listed don't exactly relate to the main idea." I shall prove otherwise. "Being framed in a trial and paying for a bill both come after the wrongdoing has been committed,..." When exactly does abuse and neglect come, before or after becoming a parent? "...whereas teaching parenting skills would occur long before the chance to make the mistakes, such as abuse and neglect, and preventing the mistakes from ever occurring." Using your logic, arent criminals taught, long before they first break the law, that the breaking of laws will cost them their freedom? Do they not still break the law? Is there any less crime? According to stats crimes keep going up, aren't any of these criminals educated about law breaking? "The scenarios are not cut from the same cake." The context stands, the implications of both were, SHOULD innocent people be REQUIRED to pay for the guilty? Relating to your proposition, one can logically conclude good parents shouldn't have to pay for the ways of bad parents. I believe I've shown how education alone, cannot determine the outcome of a student. To reiterate that idea, many students having the same education, ALWAYS take that same education and go different directions, with different results. Ask any college graduate where his degree got him, and the results will vary. Some are what we label successful, others claim its of no use to them. If education produced the results you expect of them, where do these claims come from? "Proving my point further, here is an example of a situation that does relate to the resolution. First, it is not legally acceptable for people who don't pass their drivers test to drive for long distances. If we are teaching aspiring drivers how to be responsible with cars, why are we not teaching aspiring parents how to be responsible for another person's life?" Now that's out of context. What law says becoming a parent is illegal? It is illegal to not know the rules of the road and drive true, but what are the rules to parenting? All the different books on parenting only agree on the things which we instinctively do, and disagree on all others. To which rules should we adhere to? "That's not the only thing either. Aspiring doctors are required to complete their education in medicine, aspiring engineers are also required complete their education in engineering--- the list goes on. Again, knowing that, why are aspiring parents not required to be educated beforehand?" First, comparing fields of education to parenting is a weak comparison. Those preparations are for work. A job in which they expext to get paid. If paying for services, i would like to think im dealing with a person trained in those services. If trained, then obviously there are standards to meet. We can call these "industry standards". I would expect a doctor to know those "industry standards" because thats what im paying for. But who pays parents? And the so called "industry standards" is the same "parental instincts" we all have. Do we even agree on what the basic parental instincts are? Who decided what's in and what's out? As stated earlier, even if we consider education, you haven't proven that it will work. Why should we require people to do something, especially if that something may or may not help? "Yes, drivers still crash, doctors still make mistakes, and engineers aren't always the best- but with education, crash rates and mistakes are lowered significantly, and it would work in the same way for parenting." First we would have to assume that one takes his parenting as seriously as one does his craft. The driver, doctor and engineer obviously take their crafts seriously hence, all the preparation. They stand behind the integrity of their expertise. Unfortunately, all parents do not take their responsibility seriously. So far, education hasnt been shown to increase their responsibility, instead it only increases their knowledge of it. Nor has it even shown that it will be used once attained. As stats also show, which you don't mention, that parenting courses ONLY work when parents actually care, and want to be respponsible. CPS has offered AND REQUIRED bad parents to take parenting courses for years, yet their kids are STILL being neglected and abused. What purpose did those couses serve besides the appearance of helping? Parenting courses have proven to do nothing, even when required, if a parent chooses to remain irresponsible. "As I stated earlier, the very existence of bad parents proves the fact that aspiring parents should be required to attend parenting courses." As stated previously, it actually proves nothing, other than there are bad parents. "Whether or not the statistics convince my opponent of the necessity of the resolution, the statistics undoubtedly prove the presence of bad parents- a harm the world is better off without." Again them same statistics can prove bad parents exist, and of those that do exist, parenting classes did not help. As stated earlier, whenever Children's Protective Services(CPS) opens a case against a parent, parenting classes are ordered by a judge. Even with this court order, a majority of parents still go on to neglect and abuse children. That my friend, proves parenting courses cant change a persons actions. That change is solely the action of a parent, making a decision to act responsible. Real education, can only come AFTER that decision is made. Thereby reducing its role to no importance beforehand. If this education is of no importance, before a decision is made to act responsibly, then it should not be required. "Taking my leave with those words, I still strongly believe that all parents should be required to take parenting classes before parenthood, and I hope that my arguments have served to reaffirm the resolution." To summarize, I believe a decision to act responsible, must be made by the individual, BEFORE education will have, if any, effect. And as ive shown, if parenting classes may or may not be effective, then why should they be required.