The Question Unasked: Parental Rights as Human Rights

Sor Juana's life raises a fundamental question about rights: what claims on autonomy, privacy, intellectual freedom, and self-determination do parents retain? She claimed the right to study, write, and refuse marriage—rights her society denied women, especially those called to caregiving roles. Contemporary parents face similar erosions: the right to privacy, uninterrupted thought, financial autonomy, bodily autonomy, or freedom of movement. Society implicitly asks parents to relinquish basic human rights in service of family. This concept asserts that parental identity should expand human rights, not contract them. Parents deserve not only the right to care for children but also the right to think, create, earn, move, rest, and exist as full persons. Losing parental rights is not an inevitable cost of becoming a parent—it reflects unjust social arrangements. Sor Juana's insistence on her rights as a human who happened to live under religious vows offers a model for parents reclaiming what should never be surrendered.