GUEST POST from Don – A Village

A VILLAGE?

Seriously!  Who thought up that odd clump of horse do-do?  It really is an insane thought brought to us by likely insane people.  “It takes a village to raise a child…”  Actually, it is an old African proverb that applied before electricity and the automobile.  You needed those others in your village for protection from wild animals and for community hunting parties.  It no longer applies.  Look at the picture…does this look familiar in any way to YOUR village?  They didn’t even have running water. 

First, my village has an arsonist, some drug dealers, a pervert (he plays funny games with male children), a town drunk or two, and 50 people who claim to know more about raising your children than you do (but don’t care when your child can’t read at age 15).  Oh, and we have a few people who are homeless; nice people who have a bit of mental illness and bad luck.  

We need THESE people to help raise our children??  I don’t think so!

We don’t need a village at all.  What we need are people who care about our children and who work to make things better for them.  How many people?  A mother, a father (for sure those), some extended family, a few friends, and the guy who owns the grocery store at the edge of town.  That core of people are who are needed.  Kids could do better, I believe, without public schools as they currently exist.  Education is needed, sure, but even children on a remote deserted island can get that with one parent.  Bus drivers, nutritionists, janitors, secretaries, the class bully, and promoters of gender dysfunction are not needed.    

Does that mean that our home is located in a horrible village?  Nope.  It is kinda’ normal, really.

When my kids were growing up, I worked long hours to put food on the table and experiences in their memories.  My wife, because our needs were reasonable (1 car and simple home), could stay at home and did most of the rearing.  At the same time I knew several who had to drive two (or three) upper-range SUVs and live in gated communities…and, of course, THEY needed a whole host of services (public schools, daycare, lots of restaurants, lawncare service, etc.).  Even so, they needed far fewer than a village.

So, let’s get down to brass tacks.  What is the minimum number of people that a child needs to be reared, educated, fed and socialized?  The smallest number?  1 or 2 will do.

More are pleasant.  Grocers, pharmacists, doctors, dentists, someone to run the campground the family stays at on vacation, gas station owners where the parents travel (oops, we are now talking about the people the parents need, not the children).

Our own children went to a small private school.  They were better educated than the kids of the same age in public schools because the private school advanced them to their own level instead of holding them back (like a herd of cattle on a cattle drive).  So, one advanced to 2nd grade after a week in 1st.  She “caught up” to the class by the end of the second week.  Cost?  Public school receives twice as much money for each student than the private school and teaches about 70% as much.  Why is the “village” holding back so many children from achieving?  Could it be they have bought into the “village mentality?”

Second, God already created a perfect environment for a child. It’s called a family.  Other proverbs and stories tell us how unimportant the influence of outsiders is.  Aesop tells the story of a father, a son and a donkey going on a journey to the market.  At first, the donkey was carrying their belongings as the man and the child walked.  By the end of the story, because of meddling folk, the man was carrying the donkey, all their belongings, and his son.  We don’t need the uncaring influence of outsiders in the family (as long as the family is relatively healthy…and most are).  

It is pointless to talk about caring for the needs of children while we do nothing to strengthen the family.  Instead of suggesting a village we need to encourage parents to be complete parents who spend not only quality time with their families, but quantity time, too.  That is how to build healthy families.  For us, that included spending time talking about God, and ethics, and doing the right things for the right reasons.  We camped together, we went to museums, plays, shows, and events … together.  And we told stories and read books (like Black Beauty, The Hobbit, To Kill a Mockingbird*) together.  No one else could equip them as well as we because WE were invested in raising them to be fully functional adults.  (* We changed some words, or explained their use, to help them understand racism and proper pronunciations.  In other words, we did our parental duty better than a non-parent could.  We didn’t avoid hard conversations.  Our kids grew up wise and thoughtful, knowing things that nose-to-the-phone teens were clueless about.)

No sir!  We need fewer villages and more two-parent families.  If we can’t have every family be two-parent, at least let us support that custodial parent so he/she can do the best for his/her children.  

The third problem with many “villages” nowadays is that they don’t share the wholesome values we want to pass on to our children.  In some cases, the “village” not only doesn’t share our values, they purposely work against those good values.  We want our children to grow up eating naturally healthful food, but the village serves chicken nuggets in school lunches.  We want our children to build strong families, but the village opposes two-parent households and calls them “privilege.”  We want our children to develop a proper understanding of how things work, but the village pushes for “free money” via reparations and benefits to adults who signed for school loans whether they deserve them or not.  We want our children to respect law and order, but the village pushes for defunding the police, no accountability at the border, and two-tier justice.  See?  Wholesome is not promoted by the village, so why should we entrust our children to THEM?

Conclusion:  Feel free to send your children to the village, but don’t expect to get back the healthy children you sent.  No village can raise your children the way you would, that is what parents are for.

[NOTICE:  Be on the lookout for the short story coming in February: “Ghost Cabin.”  It is a mildly amusing story about a confused ghost who needs mental health counseling.  I started writing it for fun when we stayed at a cabin in early November last year.  At least check out the pictures.]

Copyright 2024 Donald Whelpley

[PLEASE NOTE that Don is always open to discussing the thoughts and opinions he shares here and welcomes comments as shared in the comment section. He doesn’t use other social media platforms and won’t see whatever you’d like to share with him if you post it elsewhere. ~ Sherry]

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