Should You Stick Around? Children’s Associational Rights and the Duties of Nonparental Caregivers

Many believe that it is wrong for parents to prevent their children from associating with other adults. Many also believe that it is wrong for parents to prevent their children from continuing to associate with adults whose association with them is crucial to the children’s well-being. Call these adults the important associates of children. In this essay, I will argue that the considerations favoring the two judgments just mentioned also favor a further judgment. In particular, I will argue that important associates are presumptively obligated to continue associating with the children to whom they are important associates. This means that the important associates of children who dissolve their association with a child without proper justification wrong these children by doing so.