Too Much Pressure on Nuclear Family?

Remember when?

Remember when it used to be that children were watched by the whole neighborhood?  If little Johnny was caught being naughty, a neighbor’s mom or dad or friend wouldn’t hesitate to call him out: “Hey Johnny, stop that now!”  “Yes, mam, sorry mam, I won’t do it again,” Johnny might have replied.

And the kids knew.  They knew that the whole neighborhood had an eye on them.  Hence, parents didn’t worry.  Kids were free to meander and wander from house to house, yard to yard, and family to family.   Every family watched every other family’s kids.  And if a youngster, however small, seemed to wander off or stray too far, the kid was immediately corralled and sent back to where the others were playing.

That was back then.  This is today.

We seem to have lost our community.  Worse, not only have we lost community, we now villainize parents for not being adequately vigilant in watching their own children.

In just one moment of inattention, a parent loses a kid.  And whether or not the kid is found in good time, the parent is in trouble, judged and condemned as an unfit parent.  Yet, what parent has not had such an experience?  The mother turns around just for a second, and boom, the toddler is suddenly out of sight.  “I don’t know what happened.  How could this be?  I just turned around for one second,” the mom cries with a flush of desperation and disbelief.  “Ah!  There he is!!  Johnny, get over here right now!!  You scared me.”

And what does the News Headline say?  “Mom lets her 2 year-old child wander off, while she shops.”  Blame the mom!  Villainize her.  Make her look like a bad, uncaring, selfish woman who is only too pleased to put her child second or third or even last in the priority-list of concerns.  It makes a good story.  It sells.  And it’s very hurtful and even damaging to the parent.

So, we’ve not only lost a sense of community, it’s been replaced by vigilante accusers and condemners.  Community members no longer support, defend, and care-for, rather they accuse, divide, and condemn, ripping families apart.  “The mom is unfit to be a mother, take the children away from her!”  “She should never have had children in the first place.”

Truth is that a nuclear family is not big enough.  It is insufficient.  Children need more than mom, dad, brother, and sister.  Children need community.  Children need community place and space where a community of other parents and other children are watching out and caring for their livelihood.  Children need neighborhood friends as well as extended family, neighborhood families—in addition to one’s own aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.  One’s home should include one’s neighborhood, that is, a whole collection of families.

When are we going to acknowledge that it is just too unrealistic and too taxing and tiresome and just too much responsibility for one person (usually mom) or one set of parents to keep an eye on their own children?   Parents need community.  Parents need other parents.

Raising children is actually a social, communal responsibility, involving a whole network of adults.  Oh yes!  It does take a village to raise a child.