I would like to respond to the letter from Bob Friedrich headlined “Nanny state must come to an end” (TimesLedger Newspapers, June 30-July 6). Friedrich seems to have problems with laws and rules that are put in place to protect children.
Friedrich is right in that “Isn’t that the job and responsibility of real parents?” The laws and rules are for the time that parents do not do their jobs or fill their responsibilities. Are we just to stand around if a parent abuses a child? How about his comments about clothing children in the cold? How about not getting them life-sustaining medical treatment?
That brings us to what was his trigger: someone introducing a bill to prohibit smoking in a car with a child under 14 years of age. We have science that corroborates that smoking is harmful, hence the smoking bans. And second-hand smoke is just as harmful. People’s right to smoke and harm themselves ends where someone else’s breathing starts.
Should we allow the parent or other persons to force the child to inhale that smoke and possibly be mortally harmed by it?
The same thing goes for the unhealthy foods fed by parents to children. Look at the obesity problem in children, then look at the parent. Enough said.
The parent has certain rights when it comes to their children, but they do not have the right to harm that child. They have the responsibility and obligation to do what is in the best interest of the child.
If it takes laws and rules, so be it.
Jerrold Schreibersdorf
Douglaston
