Please include your town and full name so your comments can be posted. Since most folks are out and about with friends and family over the holidays, I'm going to hang on to any reader comments until the Jan. 5 issue so everyone will get a chance to hear your thoughts. It is a shame that some folks don't take the responsibility of parenting seriously, but to suggest that we license parents is taking us down a dark road I choose to have no part of. Makes you wonder how the human race has managed to make it this far. Sometimes that fails, but that is freedom.
Most folks agree that there is very little preparation for being a parent.
Perhaps the best people to teach others would be those seasoned parents who learned how to be good role models for their children, who survived the long nights with infants, the trying teen years and everything in between. The entire community needs to address the issue of parenting. Today's children are tomorrow's citizens. We all have a stake in the best possible outcome we can provide for our children. And parents can live fuller, happier lives, too, with the support of others who care.