A mother in Austria has been fined for temporarily keeping her 10-year-old son out of school during a sexual education class.
Michaela Vamos-Karandish was fined 110 euros ($128) for keeping her young son out of school for four days in March 2025 after an external sex education workshop was to take place. The workshop’s content had not been disclosed to parents beforehand. In addition, numerous sex education books – the content of which some parents found questionable – were made available in the classroom for unsupervised use by students.
According to a report by ADF International, the materials included books such as Lina, the Explorer and My First Sex Education Book, which contain explicit depictions of sexual practices.
Some of the books also depicted modern views on gender and family, incompatible with nature and traditional teaching. The mother argued that these violated the principle of neutrality in public schools. In a book made available to elementary school students in the village of Rutzenmoos, the first sentence under the subtitle “What is Sex?” reads: “Sex is for everyone, whether big or small, fat or thin, and even for young people like you!”
A total of 17 different books were displayed in the classroom over a two-week period and made accessible to students without educational supervision.
In her appeal, Vamos-Karandish explains that she had already contacted both the school and the responsible education authority multiple times, both in writing and verbally, requesting an alternative to the disturbing sex ed classes.
The mother also criticized the school, which is located in the political district of Vöcklabruck in Upper Austria, for its approach to dealing with the parents when it came to their children’s sex education.
Parents were informed that if they did not consent to the external organization doing the sex ed classes, they would not be told when and how the content would be taught instead. This, she argued, made it significantly more difficult to make a free and informed decision about the matter.
“Parents have a responsibility to protect their children from harm,” Vamos-Karandish said. “We must therefore be allowed to protect them from disturbing content. My decision was not an expression of disregard for compulsory schooling, but the result of multiple, documented attempts to find a solution.”
“I acted to protect my child from content that is not age-appropriate and is distressing,” she added.
The mother also refers to previous incidents related to sex education classes at the school. Parents had repeatedly reported distressing reactions from their children. These included anxiety and nightmares. Her own daughter also found the sex ed content disturbing, which several parents believed was inappropriate for the children’s age.
The Christian legal advocacy group ADF International is legally representing the mother and sees the case as an example of a growing problem in schools.
Legally, Vamos-Karandish relies, among other things, on Article 2 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right of parents to ensure the upbringing of their children in accordance with their own convictions. She also cites her duty of care as well as constitutional provisions protecting children from emotional distress.
“Parents have a right to know what content is being taught to their children,” Felix Böllmann, head of the European legal department at ADF International, said. “Where this content conflicts with the family’s fundamental ideological convictions, a proportionate compromise must be possible – an administrative penalty is the wrong tool in such cases.”