ewv- Regarding those comments of yours referenced, they are good enough to be collated, edited and submitted as an article, to Savvy Street perhaps.
It is is good to see Rand's thinking set out clearly as you have done, and with direct references.
This has been a good discussion, we see how Objectivism does give a great framework for care and education of children, this may or may not have been the view of the original poster, but that is how it comes out.

Parent's have a responsibility to care for the children they chose to have but not vice versa, as he described, but there are no unchosen "duties" and children are not the sole reason to have a family, i.e., marriage.

There was an article in The Objectivist Newsletter December, 1962 answering the question "What are the respective obligations of parents to children, and children to parents?". Ayn Rand didn't write it but endorsed it.

There is no such publication as "The Objectivist Papers". Maybe JG meant that article.

But there is a lot more to the topic than 'children and parental obligations', and Ayn Rand had a lot more to say about it; she didn't "forget about children" at all. On this same page:
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

Leonard Peikoff also answered several questions about children in his podcasts. The recent book based on his podcasts, Keeping It Real: Bringing Ideas Down to Earth, includes the chapter "Parenting and Children". https://www.amazon.com/dp/0996010122/... I don't know the details of what he said because It has been a long time since I heard the podcasts and I haven't read the book yet.

JGWallace- that appears to be in line with the philosophy to my understanding, but can you provide a link to
'the objectivist papers' ?

It's a misunderstanding. Get a copy of "The objetivist papers" by Ayn Rand read or listen on audiobook. Just my interpretation I could be wrong. It clarifies your question. Rand speaks about how parents have a responsibility to their children to raise them to be productive. This is the parents duty and it is the reason for family; however, she explained that it is not the parent's right to ask the children to support them later in life this would violate the objectivist philosophy. Parents raise children as it was their choice to bring them into the world, but it is not the child's responsibility to care for his or her parents later, the parents should plan properly so as not to be a burden to their children or anyone else during their golden years. They must save and work during their productive years to provide for the family and provide for future generations by their example of raising family and also promoting self reliance through value creations and savings.

Hank Rearden's continued toleration of his family's moral abuse emphasized the terrible error of his accepting a duty to serve them.

Flashbacks characterized Nat Taggart as having a rough background, including as an adult railroad owner threatening and physically fighting. Dagny and Francisco sneaked off to take on low level jobs on the railroad anonymously (walking both ways uphill?). Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead became a criminal gang leader at the age of twelve after winning a knife fight against four gang members at once. He held unsavory mostly part time jobs on the street, stole food and looted books from libraries until he reformed himself to become successful.

None of it is a recommendation of "how to build a proper person" with "difficulty" to "make one strong". It was all exaggerated romantic fiction alluding to those In the early twentieth century and before who had become successes starting from nothing, out on their own at a very early age. It emphasized the choice for individual initiative ultimately leading to success.

Ayn Rand advocated civilized life of a rational individual, with a big emphasis on rational education for children, not child labor in a mine wasting his early developmental years.

You know how your Mom threw away all of your favorite, valuable toys? They learn early on.

Ms Rand gave us some clues regarding how to build a proper person. IIRC, Hank Rearden started in the mines when he was 15 (!), and has apparently suffered verbal abuse from his mother for all of his life. Difficulty in life does make one strong.

Agree, Ethics is not based on obligation
Obligation exists. so I revise my statement to- obligation comes from ethics.

Parents understand and accept that they are obligated, but to do what, and with how much effort?
That is the question I put to myself, not back when I had the responsibilities, but now as an exercise. There are a range of possible answers, since obligation comes from ethics, answers should comes from statements of the ethical principles and how they translate to obligations and actions.

You are right and I was wrong. I have been through ITOE often and I thought that I knew it better than I actually do.

These are the passages that concerned me. I have used ITOE often as a foundation for my work as a techncial writer and technical trainer. My criticism here is only specifically that Ayn Rand relied on introspection when writing about what happens in a child's mind. I believe that her experiences are not universal. Based on my experience, both introspective and as a parent observing a child, I believe that concept formation can begin severally and can proceed severally and differently from them. It cannot be just any old thing. But like eye color and voice timbre, what can happen in the brain and what can happen in the mind, are different for different people, and those diversities of experience and self-experience are what makes us individuals. ITOE explains the fundamentals of knowledge, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge formation.

-----------------------------
2. Concept Formation

“If a child considers a match, a pencil and a stick he observes that length is the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ." [I am not going to follow through right now. However, I will say that that would never occur to me in a million years, not at my age, and surely not when I was age 2 or 3. Length is what you measure with a ruler. Everything has some length. A ruler tells you what that length is. Most of my first concepts were functional.]

“The child does not think in such words (he has, as yet, no knowledge of words), but that is the nature of the process which his mind performs wordlessly."

“The same principle directs the process of forming concepts of entities—for instance, the concept “table.” The child’s mind isolates two or more tables from other objects, by focusing on their distinctive characteristic: their shape. He observes that their shapes vary, but have one characteristic in common: a flat, level surface and support(s). He forms the concept “table” by retaining their characteristic and omitting al particular measurements., not only the measurement of shape, but of all other characteristics of tables (many of which he is not aware at the time.)”

“The first words a child learns are words denoting visual objects, and he retains his first concepts visually. Observe that the visual form he gives to them is reduced to those essentials which distinguish the particular kind of entities from all others…”

“Tables, for instance, are first differentiated from chairs, beds, and other objects by means of the characteristic of shape, which is is an attribute possessed by all the objects involved.”

3. Abstraction from Abstractions

The first stages of integrating concepts into wider concepts are fairly simple, because they still refer to perceptual concretes. For instance, man observes that the objects which he identified by the concepts “table,” “chair,” “bed,” “cabinet,” etc. have certain similarities, but are different from the objects he has identified as “door,” “window,” “picture,” “drapes”—and he integrates the former into the wider concept “furniture.”

5. Definitions

“On the pre-verbal level of awareness, when a child first learns to differentiate men from the rest of his perceptual field, he observes the distinguishing characteristics, which, if translated into words, would amount to a definition such as: “A thing that moves and makes sounds.” Within the context of his awareness, this is a valid definition: man, in fact, does move and make sounds, and this distinguishes him from the inanimate objects around him.”
“When the child observes the existence of cats, dogs, and automobiles, his definition ceases to be valid; it is still true that man moves and makes sounds, but these characteristics do not distinguish him from other entities in the field of the child’s awareness. A child’s (wordless) definition then changes to some equivalent of “A living thing that walks on two legs and has no fur,” with the characteristic of “moving and making sounds” remaining implicit, but no longer defining.”
“When the child learns to speak and the field of his awareness expands still further, his definition of man expands accordingly. It becomes something like: ‘A living being that speaks and does things no other living beings can do.’ “

Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology does not say what you wrote. She did not discuss or guess when children's mental growth begins, did not diminish children's mental ability, did not say that a "child learns which blob of color is Mother" ignoring "mother's voice", did not say "Chair+chair+table = furniutre", and did not say that children can't understand what it means to not draw on the furniture with crayons.

The book is about the nature of concept formation, what is required to integrate and define them, and their cognitive purpose. She distinguished between the optional chronological order of forming concepts versus their logical hierarchy in a body of knowledge.

That hierarchy is based on logical dependencies and requires years of experience to develop for any individual. Lower level concepts are automatic or near automatic. Higher level abstractions from abstractions are not.

Young children do not have the same level of conceptual understanding or ability to think in abstractions as older children, let alone normal adults. Even the level achieved by adults varies enormously, depending on what methods they use or don't use, their ability, and their degree of dedicated intellectual effort.

Dave Harriman's book The Logical Leap was about the crucial concepts in the advancement of breakthroughs in classical physics and the logical methods required by the handful of geniuses who uniquely developed them over centuries. Children do not do that. The vast majority of adults do not do that.

That does not mean that young children do not quickly make enormous mental progress absorbing large amounts of material in the development of their own level of knowledge starting from nothing. How far they get and how long it takes depends on their own ability, motivation and education.

The Van Damme Academy private school is an example of exceptional education in children's conceptual development which emphasizes the logical dependencies of concepts in a hierarchy.

Some adults are very successful in developing their conceptual knowledge and others are not. Ayn Rand emphasized in the chapter "Abstractions from Abstractions" in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology:

"Above the first-level abstractions of perceptual concretes, most people hold concepts as loose approximations, without firm definitions, clear meanings or specific referents; and the greater a concept's distance from the perceptual level, the vaguer its content. Starting from the mental habit of learning words without grasping their meanings, people find it impossible to grasp higher abstractions, and their conceptual development consists of condensing fog into fog into thicker fog -- until the hierarchical structure of concepts breaks down in their minds, losing all ties to reality; and, as they lose the capacity to understand, their education becomes a process of memorizing and imitating. This process is encouraged and, at times, demanded by many modern teachers who purvey snatches of random, out-of-context information in undefined, unintelligible, contradictory terms.

"The result is a mentality that treats the first-level abstractions, the concepts of physical existents, as if they were percepts, and is unable to rise much further, unable to integrate new knowledge or to identify its own experience — a mentality that has not discovered the process of conceptualization in conscious terms, has not learned to adopt it as an active, continuous, self-initiated policy, and is left arrested on a concrete-bound level..."

She elaborated in her discussion of the "anti-conceptual mentality" in her essay "The Missing Link” in Philosophy: Who Needs It.

The nature of the rational conceptual hierarchy is described primarily in the chapters "Abstractions from Abstractions" and "Concepts of Consciousness" in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

I know what it says in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. Apparently, like Ayn Rand, you never actually raised a child. They have an impressive mentality And it starts earlier than she guessed. The passage in ITOE about a child learning which blob of color is Mother ignores the fact that the child has heard the mother's voice for nine months before being born. It immediately associates the voice with the blob of color.

The same conceptual insights that are touted in David Harriman's The Logical Leap occur in young children as they explore their universe. It is not necessarily as Ayn Rand described it. Chair+chair+table = furniutre. Mom takes away the crayon: "Don't mark up the furniture." The kid may wonder if the door is furniture but is pretty clear on the fact that if the dining room table is furniture, then dining room chairs, the kitchen table, and the kitchen chairs are as well. It's a no-brainer as far as I could tell from watching my daughter grow up. Maybe your kid was different.

In fact, I think that all children are individuals and generalities about how they learn have not been tested. I believe that ranges must exist along several axes. But it's not my field of study. I know one kid. She was not Ayn Rand.

The purpose of each life is its own survival and flourishing, not serving the species. Whatever reasons one has for raising children, it is not properly to serve the race. Procreation is a product of evolution, without which there would be no species, not a standard for individual choice in one's own life.

Ethics is not based on obligation, which is a social concept that may or may not be used properly. When used as 'duty' it is not.

Ethics begins with individual choices in one's own life, required because making choices is necessary to live. Ethical actions towards others is an application and derivative concept: You must also make choices regarding others, and consistency is a requirement.

Splitting personal choice from 'ethics', regarded as equivalent to or based on obligation or duty to others, is disastrous.

So is teaching a child, accumulated over time, that what he should do is to be accepted by him because he is told what to think and do -- leading to his still-evolving concept of 'ethics' as ultimately equated with dogmas for duty to others, and leaving him without moral guidance in personal choices as if ethic is irrelevant to his own life.

Criticizing a politician on TV in front of children does not require metaphysics for anyone. It does require some level of understanding of what politics is. Criticizing Trump for tariffs to a child who doesn't know what a tariff is or what the role of the president is results in no more than "Trump tariff bad" as a meaningless slogan.

If he happens to overhear it, it may or may not matter. If he is puzzled you can try to explain in very simple terms such as it's like taking a toy, at whatever level he can grasp depending on the state of his mental development. But that doesn't give him the concept 'tariff', which is a much more advanced subdivision and cross classification involving 'theft'.

The basic principles of metaphysics are very abstract and have to come much later in education.

None of this has anything to do with attempting to deduce Objectivism from 'axioms', which can't be done by anyone, let alone taught to children.

Principles require abstractions from abstractions in a hierarchy. The depth of the hierarchy grows over time. Principles taught to children begin in simple terms, then become wider and more complex over time, just like the development of abstract concepts.

When a child is first learning to speak he is only beginning concepts and cannot yet understand sentences let alone abstract principles. The simplest first level concept or proper noun requires abstraction -- selective focus -- but it is very elementary. Then comes simple abstractions like attributes and actions, but that is only the base of the hierarchy required for more abstract concepts and principles such as personal ethics.

I'll offer this perspective. The purpose of life is continuity at the most fundamental. Life continues through the use of energy to sustain the individual existence and the continuity through procreation. Progeny are The continuity of life because all life ends. As a human life form, aware, objectively, children are a choice to continue or not. The next choice in the hierarchy is how to nurture.

expectations of society
Mike, thanks for asking, my phrase was vague as mid-sentence I found I could not finish the thought. Here is a try.

In setting a philosophical base for the attitude of a parent regarding a child, start from the word- obligation.
These are more like Deed than a contract ( this for that). A recognition that defined behavior is expected / required. The behavior required may be specified in law, or custom, the expectations of the surrounding society.
But what should obligations be from an Objectivist view?

I do not see an answer in the concept of a freely entered into contract, nor from Galt's Oath. How about the parent seeing the child (even adopted) as part of the parent (for this purpose)? Objectivism tells individuals to look after themselves, use the same thinking to look after your child by considering feeding clothing, housing, and all the other aspects of life material, emotional and intellectual appropriate to the circumstances as the parent does for their own life.

"Abstract principles require a hierarchy that children do not yet have even when able to speak." I insist that they do. Perhaps my problem is that I do not understand what you mean. Can you give me an example?

I will give you one. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." We do not violate the rights of other people because we would not like it if it happened to us. Easy at age 5. But when she was 15, I said, "The difference between us is that I am an egoist and you are an egoTist. As an egoist, I put my self-interest above the interests of other people. (She nodded with approval.) But as an egoTist you don't even recognize that other people have interests!" She eventually grew out of her Nietzschean phase.

One tiime I was standing in front of the church we attended (story there, but not relevant now) and the minister was wringing his hands over three teens who were in trouble though they had been raised in his church and had been good kids all along. Suddenly, they were making bad choices and getting in trouble. See above.

You cannot raise children to be what you want. I believe that is one aspect of the fallacy of Objectivism as a religion.

I believe from experience that children can and do integrate what they learn. Contradictions (hypocrisies) will be identified. Virtues will be reinforced.

I am sure that you do not intend that when the family is sitting in the living room watching the evening news and the President announces tariffs, that Mom and Dad cannot criticize him in front of the children until the kiddos have completed their education in metaphysics.

Leonard Peikoff warns against the error of monism, the idea that you can derive all of Objectivism logically from A is A. Knowledge of reality is and must be integrated.

If you are consistent over time, your children will understand the examples you set in terms of the philosophy you espouse. If your explanation is too complicated at the moment, you can explain it better if they ask. Otherwise, at some other point, some similar example will trigger the memory of the earlier lesson.

I believe that the most important lessons are not about metaphysics, but about personal responsibility. Ethics is the basic lesson. Children need to understand first that actions have consequences. I got tired of cleaning up my daughter's room. Sure, we did it together and all that, but at some level, it was always an adult guiding the actions. We're talking like four years old. So, I told her that she never has to clean her room again. She was pretty happy to be free of the chore. It was not three days later, she was crying because she couldn't walk in her room without hurting her feet on a Lego or something. She could not clean it all up. But she could pick up enough to make a path from the door to her bed. And she could put it wherever she wanted it to go. Step 1. In a few days, it was spotless. She's actually fastidious. Her favorite household appliance is the wastebasket.

Do you know The Girl Who Owned a City? You can find it in several editions.

My review on my blog here:
https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2...
"This book contrasts well against Lord of the Flies and other presentations. What happens to children without adults is an artificial problem, not much different than a book about robots or aliens. With science fiction and related genres, the author can create a new test environment to explore questions of human nature. The author engages the reader to ask and answer wider questions about good and evil. In this book, human nature is essentially a potential. (These are, after all, children whose natures are not set by habit.) These people are good or bad according to the choices they make."

Thanks. A is A. Both of them.

Thank you. No cliche interpreted.
These are powerful, life changing events. Morris Massey would deem Significant Emotional Events....to SEE. Janet Hagberg would deem Power Stage Four, power by reflection.

One of the traits that I cultivate in myself is that of first person expression. Second and third person expression distances one from any subject being expressed...an insulator from....being uncomfortable or unhappy or inequity. I do not distance myself from my emotional state or the cognitive iteration of my perceptions. And at times, all to often, yet diminishing in occurrence, I find my expression in the second or third person through default of social habit.
During this past decade I have claimed myself, vitality, enthusiasm, sorrow and joy. I share this freely, open to derision or acceptance. I have had the fortune of a multitude of tools to help make sense of this journey.

I saw your post above regarding children not asking to be born....here's a gift of expression regarding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-onDW...

Carpe Dium! (Fish of the day)......everything is contextual....LOL

Everyone abstracts to form the simplest first level concepts. Abstract principles require a hierarchy that children do not yet have even when able to speak. The depth of the hierarchy grows over time and you can't get ahead of that or the child winds up with meaningless floating abstractions and dogmas.

When voters can't even punch the hole in the place they want, leaving "hanging chads", some kind of legitimate basic "literacy test" is required -- for the same reason that children can't vote. Even "Here now hole" isn't enough.

Voters should understand what they are doing and voting for. But any such test would have to be very basic, non-partisan, and not skewed with artificial academic requirements.

Voting was supposed to be a solemn intellectual responsibility. The left's mob rule "democracy" is turning that into the opposite.

Their idea of voting is to pack as many ignoramuses filled with resentment into a van as they can to get them to "the polls" where they are instantaneously registered and "vote" as they are told through emotional manipulation. Those who don't are not taken to the polls.

Those tactics are why they oppose the individual responsibility to register and show a valid ID, now pushing for mass mail-in vote fraud.

Attempts to rein in their mob mentality of Alinskyite manipulations packing the polls through emotionally herding mindless voting in accordance with what the manipulators want is now called "vote suppression". The massive emotional campaign for their version of "democracy" does not permit challenging their premises about the nature of voting.

That theory of voting follows and is part of their more fundamental collectivist altruism that does not include individual thought and understanding, and the responsibility to use it. The anti-individualist, anti-reason mob mentality and statism naturally lead to their current notion of what "voting" should be -- intended to destroy the rights of the individual.

That is why your idea of a legitimate civic "knowledge test" would be smeared with the connotations of the Old South racist "literacy test". Rational discussion of the false alternative is not permitted.

I agree. As fiction, the work presented essentials. We do see the same thing in real life, though, kids who come from good or bad families and make bad or good choices. The ideal situation, of course, is good family=>good choices. But there's no promises...

(And BTW it is Taggart, with two As. I didn't say anything at first because the typo was irrelevant, but you seem to be making the error consistently; and I know that you are a stickler for detail. (;-) )