This Texas proposal on kids, smartphone apps is an insult to good parenting | Opinion

Precisely because parenting is the most important job in the world, it’s also frequently the most difficult one. We shouldn’t insult what’s so challenging by reducing it to lawmaking.

Sadly, that’s what proponents of Texas House Bill 4901 are trying to do. Known as the App Store Accountability Act, the bill would, among other things, require age verification and parental approval for minors younger than 18 to be able to purchase or download apps used by smartphone or computer users. Implied in the measure is that lawmakers want to aid parents in the protection of young people from potentially harmful online content.

On its face, some will ask what’s not to like about an Act that protects young people. It’s not an unreasonable question, but it’s one where the answer reveals the superfluous, insulting and, worst of all, dangerous nature of the bill.

First up, the act would require nothing that parents can’t already do without it. Please stop and think about the previous point, parents in particular. Really, who among us needs a law to be good, conscientious and watchful as parents? By extension, who among us would blithely hand over screen-time rules to lawmakers?

It all speaks of the act’s unnecessary nature, but also its demeaning qualities. Parents put so much time and effort into parenting, only for legislators to arrogate to themselves oversight of young people. Sorry, but no law or collection of laws will ever come close to replacing what parents painstakingly do for their kids daily.

Some will not unreasonably point out that HB 4901 is not meant for the parents who routinely go beyond laws existing or imagined to protect their offspring. The act, some argue, is about protection for the young people whose parents aren’t as conscientious and watchful, but who need top-quality supervision just the same. The previous rationale perhaps sounds noble but is evidence of just how perilous such a law could be.

How harmful would it be if the passage of a law billed as protection for children (or those not presently given enough supervision) gives parents false comfort that results in them reducing their vigilance even a little or, in the case of seemingly indifferent parents, frees them to reduce their vigilance even more? As opposed to helping those who need protection the most, that which reduces watchfulness of children to laws would create a false sense of parental security at a time when greater parental oversight is most needed.

As HB 4901 heads to a vote, the easy thing for legislators to do will be to vote “yea” for what perhaps sounds good. Except that there’s nothing good about reducing what’s so important to lawmaking, and more troubling, there’s much that’s perilous about handing over parental duties to government.

This story was originally published May 1, 2025 at 5:26 AM.