I feel the need to write about something I am all worked about about.

This morning, one of my Facebook friends posted a link to an article by Chuck Norris about something in Obama's healthcare plan. It was about parenting programs that the government wants to provide in low-income areas. The "well-trained and competent staff," would "provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains ... modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices," and "skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development."(The quotes are taken directly from the original document; they're not Chuck Norris's words.) The girl who posted it agreed with Chuck Norris.

I made the mistake of politely disagreeing and saying that I thought something like this would be great. It prompted reactions from a bunch of other people I went to college with, talking about how awful this was, and who is the government to tell us how to parent, and soon they'll be trying to make home-schooling illegal, and it's a slippery slope. (By the way, I really hate the phrase "slippery slope.")

I strongly disagree, but I don't want to continue to argue, because clearly I am the minority, and I seriously doubt anything I say would change their minds. But I have some comments I need to make.

Do they have any idea how bad things really are in some places? This program is clearly not designed for parents like them, who are educated and make their children a priority. They may think it's classist to say that low-income people don't know how to parent, but let's face it- in many cases, it's true. I'm tired of kids subsisting on diets of Flamin' Hots. Wouldn't it be great if parents could be educated about proper nutrition? Our PE teacher was shocked to discover last year that her younger students didn't know how to do somersaults. Wouldn't it be nice if parents were taught how to play with their kids? (Which, by the way, I have an amazing cousin out in CA who runs a program that does just that.) My friend once ran into one of her former students at a laundromat. This girl was in 8th grade and had just had a baby. My friend said that the poor baby's head was wobbling all over the place, and she had to show the girl how to support his head and explain the importance of that. Wouldn't it be helpful for young parents to be taught about child development?

I really don't think the goal of this program is to invade people's homes and make them parent according to someone else's values. People need to be educated, and this is a good start.

P.S. I'm not trying to argue about healthcare reform, because honestly, I don't know enough about it to say much. I'm specifically talking about this parenting program that Chuck Norris refers to as "Dirty Secret #1 in Obamacare."