It seems in this day and age that personal responsibility is a hard thing to hold on to or take account of. No one cares or wants to step up and make the choice of accepting the outcome of their decisions, actions and or lack of action. Turn on the news and you can hear about some failure or lack of judgment and it seems that the punishment, if there is one, never even comes close to meeting the severity of that result. The shift of responsibility is growing larger and larger by the day and it is becoming a way to place the obligation on something else or someone else instead of where it truly belongs. We have given up or let go of so much responsibility to other entities and officials that it hardly seems we are able to be accountable for anything. Take one of the most important responsibilities one can have, parenthood. So far, it seems that the federal and state governments are willing and able to restrict the responsibilities of the parents while increasing their role in raising of the children. Here are two examples. First, Palmdale school district conducted a survey regarding “psychological barriers to learning.” Questions in this survey where of a sexual nature and asked of elementary students. When the parents learned of the questionnaire, they sued the school district for the right to “control the upbringing of their children” in concern to sexual material. The district court and the circuit court of appeals both rejected that the parents had that sole responsibility “beyond the threshold of the school door” (1). Secondly, a Massachusetts high school held a mandatory school assembly conducted by Hot, Sexy, and Safer Productions. This assembly was reported as an AIDS awareness and sexual education program that used audience participation. The parents sued, claiming that they were not notified or given the option to excuse their children from attending. They lost the case in both the district court and the U.S. court of appeals as no parent has the right to dictate what the school’s curriculum of each individually student no matter what the moral disagreements with the subject matter (2). These two examples both seem to restrict the right, or responsibility, of the parent to control how and when sexual information is given to their children. Now should it still be the sole responsibility of the parent to bring up the subject to the child in whatever forum that is best for that family? I say yes. Consider that as of January of this year, the U.S. is 17th in overall education performance and 24th in literacy (3). With the prime responsibility of the school system to teach the basics of learning, it would seem that we as a nation are failing and falling way behind in the rest of the world. The government should be concentrating on the