The parents of a child spend every waking hour watching, caring, considering, and adjusting to the child’s needs. Were the government to employ a million experts to tell them the optimum time for children to go to bed and then decree that all children must go to bed at that time, it would be disastrous, as every child is different. Were the government to solve the problem by appointing armies of social workers to visit each family, observe their children and decide when each child should go to bed, the effort would likewise be a rank failure. Aside from the affront to human dignity, government superintendency is always a debacle when compared to the superintendency of those most directly concerned.
This article is an extract from the book ‘Principles of Good Government’ by Matthew Bransgrove
