Early Home Visitation

There is disagreement in the child advocacy community about the merits of early home visitation. Briefly, early home visitation is a (largely experimental) strategy of providing pre-natal or post-birth care, training and/or surveillance to prevent child abuse. It imparts parenting skills to new parents who may not have had good parenting examples of their own. The debate is heated especially about funding, recruitment of participants, and family privacy and sanctity issues.

I find it particularly distressing that the needs of children are so often put on the back burner because of some largely recognized and respected realm of privacy for the family and the home. While privacy has been asserted as a foundational principle of the U.S. (interestingly not mentioned in the Constitution, but implied since drafting), I do not think that privacy is more important than the safety of our nation's children.

Maybe I'd feel differently if officials were to enter my home and monitor my parenting skills (now my parenting skills extend as far as my puppy, but hypothetically for children). Early visitation programs are not solely based on surveillance -- they have a large instructional and support element as well. Therefore, I'd like to think that as a new parent I would welcome help, instruction, example and support if I could not get it elsewhere (from my parents -- who would really rather that I had a kid than a puppy, but they'll have to wait).

I find it frustrating that certain social norms (privacy specifically) are embedded and preordain the rights of individuals while limiting those of others.