Is it true that it takes a village to raise a child?

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Mark121359 said:
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Xanthippe_Voorhees:
Just because I don’t like Clinton, doesn’t mean that everything she said was wrong. Her intonation–that one must simply dump children on government workers–was incredibly wrong. But “it takes a village” is a true statement.

Your post was a complete and unnecessary mockery of what I was saying, and completely ignored what I said regarding parents choosing the “villiage” for their child.
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I recall you being the first to reply to my original post to this thread. And as I said, you didn’t like my attack on ole’ Hillary. BTW, you’re defense of Hillary’s quote is less than touching. Have a great day!
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You aren’t the OP unless you have a sock puppet account. I was the first to reply, period, followed by 1Lord1Faith. You then claimed the quote was useless and suspect because of HRC, to which I responded that even a broken clock is right twice a day. Which somehow, you took umbrage with and then misquoted me–clearly–to make me sound like I support her–which I do not. I posted 3 sentences, of which you took one. The other 2, mind you, were about insinuating just how often I think she’s wrong and the other was about how a parent MUST select their own village.

Clearly, you’re just causing trouble at this point. Just because HRC spoke true words (and then made her own terrible, terrible insinuation) doesn’t mean that their value should be negated. I’m sure we could find quotes from Hitler, Mousilini, and Stalin that have the tiniest grain of merit. An evil person speaking a trueism happens from time to time, even if, in this case, she was using a trueism to furthur a dirty political agenda.
 
Mark121359 said:
P.S. And I stand by my statements in my follow up post about the horrible state of affairs in the public school education system.
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There are over 98,000 public schools in the United States.

I hope you are not basing your statement about the “horrible state of affairs” simply on the stories you’ve heard on the news about a handful of idiots out of the million who work in the system.

Doing so would be like basing one’s opinion on the entire Catholic Church based on the horrific actions of a handful of priests.

And it would be calumnious gossip.
 
Does it really take a village to raise a child? Probably not, but children benefit from relationships with adult family and friends who care about them. Sometimes I think people take that statement to extremes and pretty much allow the “village” to raise their children for them. Good parenting is also important and part of it is selecting the “village” carefully, who you want supporting your child as they grow up.
 
Allegra said:
Does it really take a village to raise a child? Probably not, but children benefit from relationships with adult family and friends who care about them. Sometimes I think people take that statement to extremes and pretty much allow the “village” to raise their children for them. Good parenting is also important and part of it is selecting the “village” carefully, who you want supporting your child as they grow up.
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Which is basically what has been said.

I think it would be very poor not to expose children to other adults–as I said in my first post–healthy development dictates that children be able to take direction from adults other than their parents. As you indicate, parents must carefully select these people for their children, but I don’t think a carefully selected “villiage” makes it any less of a village.
 
Yes and unfortunately I feel many parishes and congregations don’t seen act as if it’s the case. Failing to create a village they need. Failing to create a real effective alternative to the corruption that surrounds them and building them up and supporting them in persevering in our wicked world.
 
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mathematoons said:
I have seen the village, and I don’t want it raising my children.
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Clearly you don’t have young children then. To post some snarky little meme as though it somehow adds something to this conversation is to completely miss the point.

Parents have a God-given obligation to create and monitor the village that raises their children. Unless you plan on raising your children in complete isolation, cut off from all human contact other than the nuclear family, there is absolutely going to be a “village” raising your child.

So what are you going to do about it? Spout off memes hoping it makes you clever? Or make choices about who gets to be a part of your child’s village?
 
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My point is, why are we taking Hillary Clinton as an authority? Where is that saying in the Bible, the Catechism, or the writings of the saints? Those are the sources we should be going to, not some snarky little meme coined by a politician to justify trying to raise our children for us.
 
mathematoons said:
why are we taking Hillary Clinton as an authority
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I don’t think anyone here is advocating the village be the state.
For Christians, the village should be the parish or congregation. Definitely NOT the state, which looks more and more like it seeks to destroy families and childhood. It’s done a great job at doing that so far.
 
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ATraveller said:
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mathematoons:
why are we taking Hillary Clinton as an authority
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I don’t think anyone here is advocating the village be the state.
For Christians, the village should be the parish or congregation. Definitely NOT the state, which looks more and more like it seeks to destroy families and childhood. It’s done a great job at doing that so far.
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Indeed.

HRC didn’t coin this phrase. So saying that our children are raised by a village is not somehow giving her authority she doesn’t and shouldn’t have.

I did a quick Google search and found this to explain the origin of the proverb:
This Igbo and Yoruba (Nigeria) proverb exists in different forms in many African languages. The basic meaning is that child upbringing is a communal effort. The responsibility for raising a child is shared with the larger family (sometimes called the extended family). Everyone in the family participates especially the older children, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and even cousins. It is not unusual for African children to stay for long periods with their grandparents or aunts or uncles. Even the wider community gets involved such as neighbors and friends. Children are considered a blessing from God for the whole community. This communal responsibility in raising children is also seen in the Sukuma (Tanzania) proverb “One knee does not bring up a child” and in the Swahili (East and Central Africa) proverb “One hand does not nurse a child.”
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Horse has bolted here, the village raising children today is a global social media village, one each particular generation is constructing itself.

Want to put kids back into villages we construct, take social media away. But that option is long gone.

You want to see how a real village raises a child, walk into a refugee camp, or a traditional indigenous society.

Our village is global. Can you even home school without connecting to the internet?
 
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IWantGod said:
Is it true that it takes a village to raise a child?
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I don’t like that saying because it can easily be twisted. The question is what is the “village”? If the village is the Parish, then yes. If the village is secular culture, then no.

I believe it takes a FAMILY to raise a child and a “village” to back them up.

But if the village is goes against the family, then there is trouble.

God Bless
 
Yes about parish. But as a former DRE, I can tell you that very frequently parishioners could give a flying flip about other peoples children. We would ask for volunteers and the silence was deafening. Chaperones? Nope. Donations for retreats? No way. The resounding response in some parishes is"I raised my own kids. I’m done. Let their parents worry about it. It’s not my problem. "
Then the drink coffee and lament the attitudes of kids, or that there are not enough altar servers,.vocations, blah blah blah. The village is non-responsive much of the time .
 
pianistclare said:
Yes about parish. But as a former DRE, I can tell you that very frequently parishioners could give a flying flip about other peoples children. We would ask for volunteers and the silence was deafening. Chaperones? Nope. Donations for retreats? No way. The resounding response in some parishes is"I raised my own kids. I’m done. Let their parents worry about it. It’s not my problem. "
Then the drink coffee and lament the attitudes of kids, or that there are not enough altar servers,.vocations, blah blah blah. The village is non-responsive much of the time .
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I agree with you. But I think that’s because the make up of parishes in the United States (and other Western countries) has changed due to suburban sprawl.

When we had neighborhood parishes, when everyone walked to mass with their neighbors and friends, it was different because you were friends with people in the parish outside of Church.

Today, some parish boundaries consist of multiple neighborhoods, multiple schools, and sometimes even multiple school districts.

My parish alone consists of PARTS of 3 school districts (if not four). So the Catholic kids at public school don’t all go to the same parish… and people simply don’t know everyone in their parish.

Unfortunately, people (at least in suburban areas) have a tendency to refrain from making new friends because it’s already takes effort to keep in contact with their existing family & friends.

😦
 
Yes, you’re right in that. But…the fact remains that we are called to support our parishes and its programs. That means the children too. 😉
 
Roseeurekacross said:
Horse has bolted here, the village raising children today is a global social media village, one each particular generation is constructing itself.

Want to put kids back into villages we construct, take social media away. But that option is long gone.

You want to see how a real village raises a child, walk into a refugee camp, or a traditional indigenous society.

Our village is global. Can you even home school without connecting to the internet?
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I am not sure it is this way in your country, or even in all of the US, but I actually used the internet to create a very helpful and great village for my mildly autistic niece that I homeschooled last year. I was able to carve out the exact situations and groups she needed, from secular but similarly-minded homeschool only social groups, to all-Catholic events, to opportunities at local NPO’s to library classes that included children from public and private schools but fit her unique needs.

The internet is an incredibly powerful tool to build the exact village for your child that you want–balancing safe secular experiences with wholesome like-minded parents not particularly of any religion and really great wholly Catholic experiences.
 
Kids, if not including teens, shouldn’t be on social media in the first place. In fact, many social media sites require users to be 13 and above.
For teens (and younger), parents have to be involved. Not in an irritating involvement but much more than what things look like right now. In an ideal world, parents are first and the village back the parents.
If parishes and congregations acted, then we wouldn’t see many drifting away from the Christian faith and the wicked culture surrounding them wouldn’t be as appealing. And when they can walk through the valley of death, they won’t faint.
 
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We pioneered the way with school of the air for outback kids decades ago. It’s all digital now, and growing in a quality way. One hopes and prays.
Unfortunately we can’t shelter kids anymore from the global village, or their shaping it. It’s a huge challenge for parents and the whole community.

There are Aboriginal elders and owners of traditional land on a few Facebook groups I am on. Their community lives the traditional life, depends on each other for survival, has decided to connect with a wider world in a few areas they have traditional custodianship. Even then, the kids jump on global sites as kids will.

It’s a challenge, negotiating the secular world.
 
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All I know for sure is I’d never be able to raise my large family without the help from my “village” of friends, supporters, random school volunteers, coaches, scout leaders, etc. I can’t be there for every one of my children every time they need help. I couldn’t mentor reading during the day for the 2nd grader while bf’ing the infant at home while opening my preschooler’s milk during snack. The days I’ve had children in multiple locations needing some form of adult assistance or supervision far, far outnumber the days they’ve all been cared for solely by my husband and I. Maybe others could, I could not (though I did have one rather awesome moment of coaching a U8 soccer match while wearing an infant and holding onto my toddler). Thank goodness for all those willing and able to give my kids rides to and from over the years - from show choir, football, soccer, scouts, religious ed, robotics, college visits, XC meets, band competitions, fundraisers, slumber parties, swim practice and so on. Thank goodness for all the volunteers who’ve helped my kids when I couldn’t be at that particular event/ceremony/practice because I was committed elsewhere (work, other kid event, sick family member, dying parent). And thank God for His blessing me with all these children to raise along with the “villagers” to help get the job done.
 
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