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

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Cradle_Journey said:
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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My favorite memories as a single person was the nights once a week, that I’d go over to my friends house with a load of laundry, teach her 2 older ones a literature lesson, cook dinner with them while my friend tended to her littles in a way she couldn’t when she had to make dinner all eat, get the kiddos ready for bed, say prayers and hang out with her and have a cup of tea. I met her because I’m the same age as her brother–15 years her junior.

When she moved she realized how much of her “village” she had lost. She had no idea. Now, 5 years later, she has a new village. But it was a hard-fought battle.

I lost some of my village, too. I wish she was still close. Her littles are now big enough to babysit and will go off to college soon. I just started with my own littles.

I’m building my villiage.

Slowly.
 
Maybe in one of the African , S. American countries . It’s a very liberal corny sounding saying .
 
IWantGod said:
Is it true that it takes a village to raise a child?
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No.

And something like that coming from someone like Clinton should send shivers down our spines. I certainly don’t want kids being raised by a village when that village supports things like abortion, euthanasia and same sex marriage. Parents are the ones with the primary responsibility of raising their children, and abrogating that responsibility always ends in consequences.

I hope this has helped.

God Bless

Thank you for reading
 
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josh987654321 said:
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IWantGod:
Is it true that it takes a village to raise a child?
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No.

And something like that coming from someone like Clinton should send shivers down our spines. I certainly don’t want kids being raised by a village when that village supports things like abortion, euthanasia and same sex marriage. Parents are the ones with the primary responsibility of raising their children, and abrogating that responsibility always ends in consequences.
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I think you may have skipped a few posts there, Josh.

The point many of us are making is that unless you isolate your children in a compound from birth, they’re going to be in a “village.”

If parents do their job to the best of their ability, that village will be good and helpful.

If parents abrogate that responsibility, then the state and society in general will be the village – and Lord help those sweet children then! 😱

But I do agree with you about HRC – when she made that statement, it definitely came across as “Hey people, we’re taking over your children.” It was creepy to me, and I wasn’t even a mom yet.
 
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I’d love to have more influence over my nieces and nephews. I look at the concept of village raising a child as a nice line parents use, but it’s not a truthful line. So my problem is the opposite of the person trying to get people to assist with children’s programs at church.

Partly BECAUSE parents are too selective about who their children deal with-- from the pool of sane, normal people who would never hurt their child–I can’t teach kids what I’d like to teach them, or help them as I’d like to help them.

For instance, I’d love to have a long talk with my nephew who’s university age, and explain why the United Church he belongs to is flawed, and that he should be confirmed in the Catholic faith. But I have precious little time with him away from his parents, maybe one paragraph of words per year. When he was younger, they completely immersed him in theatre with it’s constant references to gays and trans people. They tightly monitor what is said to him in social settings. Once I indicated some other choices he might make in his education, and his mother thought I was undoing her work!

The type of careful parenting somebody mentioned above is very scary to me. These types of parents are afraid their child might one day cry because of something you said. Crying isn’t so bad. My niece said she wanted to be an astronaut. Apparently, I started chuckling when she said this. I have no recollection. Long story short, the niece cried in the evening because of my natural reaction. The next day I get a call from my sister-in-law saying that I’m supposed to support her in this idea. She’s supposed to be able to have dreams. Okay. So I study up on this idea. Apparently my niece needs to learn Russian and join Cadets. I tell my brother this. He says he doesn’t want it to push this. It has to be his daughter who pursues this. Well if you’re not actively working toward this goal, you ARE discouraging her by your actions. Nutty to get a call admonishing me for what is rational. Astronauts need to be able to manage a full schedule and this niece has maybe one extracurricular activity.

So, no it doesn’t take a village to raise your child. The parents will do exactly as they wish. They may pay you for some tutoring they request, or babysitting or whatnot, but do not imagine you as a citizen will have much influence.
 
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Lara said:
My niece said she wanted to be an astronaut. Apparently, I started chuckling when she said this. I have no recollection. Long story short, the niece cried in the evening because of my natural reaction. The next day I get a call from my sister-in-law saying that I’m supposed to support her in this idea. She’s supposed to be able to have dreams. Okay. So I study up on this idea. Apparently my niece needs to learn Russian and join Cadets. I tell my brother this. He says he doesn’t want it to push this. It has to be his daughter who pursues this. Well if you’re not actively working toward this goal, you ARE discouraging her by your actions. Nutty to get a call admonishing me for what is rational. Astronauts need to be able to manage a full schedule and this niece has maybe one extracurricular activity.

So, no it doesn’t take a village to raise your child. The parents will do exactly as they wish. They may pay you for some tutoring they request, or babysitting or whatnot, but do not imagine you as a citizen will have much influence.
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I think what your sister-in-law was trying to tell you was not to laugh at her child’s dream – dreaming about the future is an important part of childhood. Little kids (heck, even older kids) don’t need adults (or teens) laughing at them or making them feel stupid for dreaming.

The requirements for a child’s dream don’t matter until the child is in high school and college. And if your niece was in high school or college when she said this, then your laughter was incredibly inappropriate.

Maybe if you had apologized and tried to heal the relationship, rather than researching requirements to prove your laughter justified, things could turn out different between you and your niece and nephew.

And yeah, we parents have the right and responsibility to keep people away from our kids if we think those people are leading our children the wrong way or hurting our children in any way.

We don’t owe ANYONE access to influencing our children!

And if some people don’t like it, too bad.

Incidentally, I am a public school teacher, and I am fearfully aware of how much influence I have in the lives of the children in my classroom.
 
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I think you’ve misunderstood Gerta. I had apologized and taken her dream seriously. But as soon as I took it seriously, they didn’t. That’s my point. As soon as I mentioned a way to achieve the dream, they balked. If you read the story of Chris Hatfield, you will see that you actually have to work hard on dreams like that well before high school. My niece is 15 and at the age where decisions matter.

You conflated the story of my niece and nephew. Perhaps reread my post. This is in response to your point: Maybe if you had apologized and tried to heal the relationship, rather than researching requirements to prove your laughter justified, things could turn out different between you and your niece and nephew.

Anyway, you could respond in charity to my post. Goodness, people don’t have to offer any stories on this site, but if they do, it’s important to give them the time of day.

I think there’s room for a difference of opinion on how people see kid’s dreams. I’m a realist because of the great difficulties in my life. I think it is good to point out where dreams may not meet reality. For instance, if a child says they’d like to be a doctor, people often say something like, “Can you handle the sight of blood?” Would you call that unnecessarily taking a child back to reality? Or if a child says they’d like to be a fire truck, would you suggest they be a fire fighter instead?
 
And btw, you totally proved my point. You don’t need to allow anybody to influence your child. Hence, it does not take a village to raise a child.

Perhaps you can read my new post about leading children to a career, because I do have a question you might be able to answer as a school teacher.
 
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Lara said:
My niece said she wanted to be an astronaut. Apparently, I started chuckling when she said this. I have no recollection. Long story short, the niece cried in the evening because of my natural reaction.
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I think you need to just own the fact that you were, perhaps inadvertently, rude and insensitive here and move on rather than write entire paragraphs trying to justify your gaffe. We all know most kids are not going to grow up to be astronauts, basketball stars, the President, etc. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to laugh in their face when they “dream big”. Even if the person just ends up being a high school science teacher and watching NASA TV as a hobby, that would be a worthy outcome from their ambition.
 
Being an astronaut is a “way out” idea. I do not feel sorry I exhaled some air when she said it. Next time, if I get such a phone call, I’ll tell the truth. You can guys can live in la la land.
 
If it were not possible to be an astronaut, there would be no astronauts and NASA would not exist. Those astronauts were children once. Imagine if someone came along and said being a space man, is a way out idea so don’t even try!!!

Becoming an astronaut, a space man, is hard work and very few make the mark. But that doesn’t mean we have the right to discourage anyone from trying.

If that’s not what you are doing i apologise, but we should be inspiring the next generation.
 
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Several points. I’m not discouraging everybody, just my niece at this time. She is not demonstrating the qualities that would be necessary. For instance, she is swift to tears, is not focused towards her dream, is not taking any steps towards her dream, and has parents who couldn’t afford her dream.

I think children should deal with reality. Sometimes aunts are right and their opinion should count. Putting yourself at risk of an incredible, fiery, death is unwise. There are many other science and technology jobs she could take.

So I don’t require a right to discourage people. I also think it’s wrong to encourage young people to do rare jobs that only a few people can handle without giving them the tools to achieve it.
 
Civility is not a Christian Virtue. A village is a civil institution.

Can a true Christian be uncivil? Yes, I believe so. Especially when the village is unchristian.

It’s called civil disobedience.

Can a parent be civilly disobedient as a Christian? Yes, why not.
 
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So, are people really saying that “back in the day” neighbors, relatives, and teachers DIDN’T mold children and help parents by reinforcing values?

Because then we need to be pretty sick of the folks who lament the good old days. :roll_eyes:

The thread is about parental support, not Clinton. Who cares what Clinton says anyway?
She’s not relevant to the child-rearing discussion, IMHO
 
Lara said:
And btw, you totally proved my point. You don’t need to allow anybody to influence your child. Hence, it does not take a village to raise a child.
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Nope.

As a parent, especially when my son was very young, I get to choose who influences my child, and the degree to which they are allowed influence. Just because some people weren’t allowed entry, as it were, doesn’t mean there was no village.

And if anyone takes it upon themselves to tell my son what he can or cannot be, how he is or isn’t qualified to fulfill his dreams, or to place their commitment to being “realistic” over my child’s dreams, or to think they know my child better than I do – you better believe that person is kicked out of our village! Bye-bye.

What my son chooses to do with his life, and how we as a family create a path to his dreams, is our business. And sadly, we have had to limit his contact with certain family members who just love to be “smarter” and more “realistic” than everybody else. Pushing him away from what he says he wants to be may inadvertently push him away from what he might find if he just pursues what he says he wants.
 
Just to add i don’t think anyone should be forced on a family, its something parents should choose. Children benefit hugely from seeing their parents model healthy adult friendships and from having the ability to converse with people of different generations.

There are also a lot of values that need to be modelled if they are to be taught, ie. being a good neighbour, being unselfish and the parents can only pass this on if the children see them demonstrate with other people.
 
All true ConfusedLucy. Gertabelle is in an awesome position as a school teacher. Parents can’t pick their school teachers, and sometimes it’s very hard to switch school teachers. So Gertabelle is one of the elite that gets to mold society. She’s “in the village.”

In schools, a particular set of beliefs, agendas and attitudes are advanced by those in power. The question is really one of power and who gets it.

Even Catholic school leaders end up having to follow provincial directives that go against Catholic teachings. Many Catholic school teachers don’t make it to Church, and are heavily immersed in dominant cultural trends that advocate for same-sex “marriage,” gender-bending, and other bad influences.

I do agree with Gertabelle that parents are the primary educators of their children and they should be able to entrust whom they wish to be around their children. But many children only see a very limited portion of the village. As they age, they need to see more people who disagree with them and their parents, because if they stand up for anything good and noble, they will need to deal with the “haters.”

Anyhow, I actually think it’s comical the way many parents are trying like crazy to keep away reality for their kids because, come university, the professors will put the final touches on their kids’ brains, and completely have them switched to leave their faith, and believe all kinds of nonsense. So in the end, parents lose the control they fought so hard to gain.

I once saw a rabbit outside while visiting one sister. I said to the kids, “Look at the rabbit. I’d love to eat that rabbit and have rabbit stew.” Well, my sister was very aggrieved. Her husband and she had to calm the girls down because they love animals and the evening went along with wrinkles. The stupid thing is those kids eat beef, chicken and pork all the time. Nobody took the trouble to cry over the cows, chickens and pigs, just the rabbits, it turns out. So then I’m the bad guy. Parents can certainly be a nutty lot.
 
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Gertabelle said:
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.
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Plus, if there is no village, where are our children supposed to find their future spouses?
 
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