Faith, Family, and Freedom: Parents First
Government should defend parental rights, not replace parental responsibilities.
Hello friends!
Happy Sunday.
As a father of three children—ages 11, 8, and 4—I’ve spent a lot of time thinking lately about what really matters. Most days, my work focuses on taxes, spending, regulations, and economic policy. But underneath nearly every issue I work on is something much more important: families.
That’s because the family is the first institution God created. Before governments, legislatures, agencies, and bureaucracies, there were mothers and fathers entrusted with raising children. That wasn’t an accident. It was God’s design.
Yet much of modern politics seems to assume that when parents struggle, government should step in and take a larger role. The result is often a slow transfer of responsibility away from families and toward bureaucracies. While usually well-intentioned, that approach misunderstands both human nature and God’s design for society.
Scripture is clear that parents bear the primary responsibility for raising children. In Deuteronomy, parents are instructed to teach God’s commands diligently to their children throughout everyday life. Proverbs repeatedly points parents toward training children in wisdom. Paul writes in Ephesians that fathers should bring up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The responsibility rests first with parents, not government.
As a dad, I understand why some people worry about the world our children are growing up in. Technology changes rapidly. Social pressures are everywhere. The culture often pulls families in directions that aren’t healthy. But sometimes I wonder whether fear is causing us to surrender responsibilities that belong to parents.
Take social media and children’s online activity. My children are not currently on social media, and that’s a decision my wife and I have made as parents. Could they spend too much time on screens if we allowed it? Probably. Like most kids, they enjoy technology. But their lives are also filled with school, soccer, church, reading, family time, playing outside, and simply being kids. Parenting means constantly helping them balance those things.
That’s why I become concerned when policymakers propose broad government mandates that effectively shift responsibility away from parents and toward government systems. Most people agree that pornography and gambling websites should have safeguards that keep children away from harmful content. That’s common sense. But many proposals now go much further by requiring age verification for broad categories of legal online activity.
The practical reality is that these systems often require adults to provide government-issued identification or sensitive personal information before accessing lawful services. In effect, they create a digital identification requirement for everyone.
That’s not parental empowerment.
That’s government substitution.
The better approach is helping parents remain parents. Families should have access to parental controls, educational resources, and tools that help them guide their children’s online behavior. Technology companies can support those efforts. Churches, schools, and communities can help reinforce healthy habits. But responsibility should remain where God placed it—with parents.
The same principle applies to education.
For decades, many policymakers have assumed that educational decisions should be driven primarily by systems. I believe they should be driven by families. That’s why I’ve long supported universal Education Savings Accounts. Every child is different. Every family is different. Every student’s needs are different. Parents should be able to choose whether a traditional public school, charter school, private school, homeschool, microschool, or another option best serves their child.
School choice isn’t ultimately about schools.
It’s about parents.
It’s about recognizing that mothers and fathers have the greatest stake in their children’s future and should have the greatest authority over the decisions that shape it.
What concerns me most is that dependency often weakens the very institutions we need most. One lesson from economics is that incentives matter. The more responsibility government assumes, the less responsibility people often exercise themselves. Over time, families, churches, charities, and communities become weaker when responsibilities that once belonged to them are transferred elsewhere.
That doesn’t mean government has no role. Of course it does. Government should protect life, liberty, and property. It should enforce laws fairly. It should protect children from abuse and neglect. It should preserve the conditions necessary for families to flourish.
But government is not God.
It was never designed to replace faith, family, or parental responsibility.
Jesus understood the distinction between earthly authority and God’s authority. When asked about political power, He famously instructed people to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s. Government has legitimate responsibilities, but it has limits. It should never presume that children belong primarily to the state.
Perhaps that’s what concerns me most about many of today’s debates. Too often, we seem afraid. Afraid of what children might see. Afraid of what they might hear. Afraid of what choices they might make. Afraid of what the culture might do.
Some caution is wise. Parenting requires vigilance.
But fear is a poor foundation for public policy.
As Christians, we should remember that God is still in control. He entrusted children to parents for a reason. He gave families responsibilities for a reason. He created institutions like churches, communities, and families for a reason.
The answer to cultural challenges isn’t surrendering more authority to government.
The answer is stronger parents, stronger families, stronger churches, stronger communities, and a renewed commitment to raising children with wisdom, character, faith, and love.
If we fail to get this right, we won’t simply have more government. We’ll have weaker families. We’ll have less personal responsibility. We’ll have fewer opportunities for parents to fulfill the calling God has given them. And ultimately, we’ll have a society that depends more on bureaucracies and less on the people who know and love children best.
The strongest societies are built from the bottom up, not the top down.
They begin in families.
They are strengthened by faith.
And they flourish through freedom.
That’s why parental rights matter.
That’s why family matters.
And that’s why freedom matters.
Because when parents are empowered to raise their children according to their faith and convictions, families become stronger, communities become healthier, and society becomes more resilient.
That’s the future worth defending.
And that’s how we let people prosper.
Thank you for reading and reflecting with me this Sunday.
Until next time,
Let People Prosper.
Vance Ginn, Ph.D.
President, Ginn Economic Consulting
Former Chief Economist, White House OMB