EPPiC Broadcast Launches 13th Season

We’re back!

The EPPiC Broadcast, the official podcast of the Parental Rights Foundation, launched its 13th season on Tuesday, September 8, with Albany Law School Associate Professor of Law Dale Margolin Cecka.

(EPPiC stands for our motto, slightly reordered: Empowering Parents, Protecting Children.)

This week, Professor Cecka and I spoke at length about the anonymous Child Protective Services (CPS) call that was used to traumatize the family of former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg earlier this summer. Cecka is an expert on the topic, having first come to the attention of the Parental Rights Foundation with an article she wrote for the Catholic University Law Review in 2015, “Abolish Anonymous Reporting to Child Abuse Hotlines.”

As we discuss in the episode, today 47 states allow anonymous reports to their child abuse hotlines, where a single allegation of wrongdoing can lead to intrusion of a family’s home by eager, well-meaning child welfare investigators on a fishing expedition. 

As Secretary Buttigieg discovered for himself, the investigation alone can be severely traumatizing for both parents and children.

Next week, my conversation is with Jim Mason, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), and a former president and board chairman of the Parental Rights Foundation.

In the episode, Jim speaks about the recent setback that homeschooling suffered in Connecticut, which passed a law restricting homeschool freedom, the first such “step backwards” since the modern homeschool movement began in the 1970’s and ‘80’s.

He also speaks of the reasons to remain optimistic, and how homeschooling has now moved “beyond being a movement” to “an enduring American tradition.”

Each episode lasts about 30 minutes and highlights one facet of life where your parental rights might be involved.

As these two episodes suggest, this season will stay the course set out in the first twelve of finding and balancing experts from both sides of the political spectrum. We’ve found that this helps every listener to find someone they are comfortable with—and to be challenged by someone or something with which they are not. 

Most importantly, it demonstrates that, regardless of one’s political orientation, we are all in this together. Parental Rights are vital for everyone!

Looking ahead, this season will include discussions on reinstating parental rights after their termination (TPR, or Termination of Parental Rights); a poll about educational freedom; a study on Hidden Foster Care across all fifty states; a new book on child welfare reform (not even out yet!); and more. We’ll look at bipartisan legislative issues from Pennsylvania to Texas to Illinois, and follow parental rights in U.S. federal courts.

The season runs roughly three months, through the end of November.

So, I invite you to take a listen today, and pass it on to your podcast listening friends, too. The EPPiC Broadcast may be just the parental rights coverage you and they have been looking for!

Thank you for standing with us to protect children by empowering parents!