Q: The president of our board of education sends her children to public schools, but when they get to high school, she moves them to private schools. Isn’t it her obligation either to send her kids to the schools she sets policy for and espouses as so wonderful or step down from the board?
– JoAnne Manse, Rutherford, N.J.
A: It is not. It is the obligation of board members to strive mightily to make the public schools so good that even parents with the means to opt out choose to remain. If the public schools are not yet that good, the president may honorably send her kids elsewhere – indeed, her duty as a parent compels her to. Even where a public school is excellent, parents may seek programs it does not offer – religious instruction, for example.
Enrolling her own kids at a school she administers can give a board member intimate daily insight into how her policies are working out. Yet voters must select board members not on the basis of where they send their kids, but on how well they manage the schools. And remember: Some excellent educators have no kids at all. Ultimately, a board member can home-school her kids for all I care (as long as she doesn’t do it in my home); if she is savvy, dedicated and effective, she gets my vote.
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Q: I am a smart veterinary student, and my husband is an uncommonly intelligent engineer. We have degrees from prestigious universities. However, diabetes and heart disease run in my family, and my husband has Crohn’s disease and a congenital heart problem. If we had three kids, we would contribute to overpopulation, but perhaps marginally increase the quality of that population (aren’t I pretentious!). May we ethically have more than two children?
– Alison Cornwall, Davis, Calif.
A: Implying that one social class is more entitled than another to have children tiptoes toward the goofball eugenics that should be an ugly anachronism. Even as a matter of nurture, not nature, those who attend “prestigious universities” have no greater moral right to reproduce than those at community colleges. Or no college. In fact, one might argue it’s in nobody’s interest to replicate Harvardians. By “one” I mean me, and by “Harvardians” I mean Robert McNamara. Or maybe Henry Kissinger? Or is it the jealousy talking? If there is a strong chance of your passing on a serious malady to your kids, you might forgo having (but not adopting) them. How great a chance? That’s something for you and your husband to discuss with your doctor.
There are, as you suggest, economic and social arguments against having a third child, but they need not automatically preclude your doing so. What’s critical is that in the country as a whole, and on the planet as a whole, the fertility rate does not exceed the replacement level, which in the United States is just over two kids. Some families will have one or no kids, and thus others may choose to have three.
One key factor in achieving this global average is to raise the standard of living for all. Families in wealthier places like the U.S. or Western Europe tend to be smaller. (Other significant factors include the empowerment of women and access to education.) If you are committed to not increasing the population, to not risking passing on a health risk and to having a big family, consider adoption. It’s not just DNA that determines how kids turn out.
Write to Universal Press Syndicate, 4250 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111, or e-mail ethicist@nytimes.com.
