Re: I HATE hearing news like this....

Understood. And I'm glad that you give your children a good degree of freedom of choice. Keep in mind, however, that once youth liberation becomes a reality, your kids would no longer be forced to live with you. I'm sure that the majority of parents and kids would continue to co-habitate with each other, but it will be in an environment of mutual respect and love, not one of owner and owned. This will greatly curtail the amount of abuse that kids currently suffer under the aegis of near-total parental power. I would also point out that, at least in the U.S., being open-minded and free with your kids isn't considered left-wing and is in fact frowned on by mainstream liberals. The liberal policy in the U.S. is to teach their kids to be tolerant towards people of different races and sexual orientations (NOT including minorphiles and teliophiles/gerontophiles, of course) and to teach them the facts about sex (while at the same time not encouraging sexual experimentation). Whenever parents are freedom-minded with their kids in the U.S. they are criticized for trying to be "friends" to their kids instead of parents. As a youth liberationist, I do not believe that the word "parent" is synonymous with authority figure...I think that children and parents, particularly older children and teens, can learn to respect each other, and in such an atmosphere of mutual respect and love kids will happily accept their parents as trusted guides.