ABSTRACT
Parents are sometimes uneasy about their right to exercise authority over their children; they are not sure they have any real right to command their children's obedience. Mothers and fathers who are unsure of their right to govern may nonetheless require submission from their children, at least in some matters. John Locke sees a certain use of parental authority as very much contributing to the creation of adults who will govern themselves by their own reason; they will not be children with respect to political authority. Locke’s theory of parenthood is particularly suited to encourage a political and economic order which relies upon individual self-restraint and a willingness to act within the forms of law, expects a considerable degree of self-seeking and self-assertion in the name of civic, legal, and moral duty. It should therefore come as no surprise to realize that Lockean principles of childraising were popular in eighteenth-century England, which, speaking very generally, had such an order.
