It Does NOT Take a Village to Raise a Child

by William T. Pelletier, Ph.D.

America's Logically Conservative
Political Analyst and Commentator

Recently Hillary Clinton authored a book, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us, in which she proposed a radical leftist philosophy for how to raise children. Hillary's basic thesis is that the government ("village" is Hillary's codeword) should be responsible for raising children and that parents are inadequate for this job. Hillary believes that parents can help the government with this task, but it is ultimately up to the government to do the job. Since it is obvious to all that many children are not being raised correctly, Hillary proposes a number of governmental activities which she believes will help rectify the problem. She thinks the federal government must step in and take over in order to save the children of the country. Hillary says in her book that we live in

"terrible times when no adequate parenting is available and the village itself must act in place of parents. The village accepts those responsibilities in all our names through the authority we vest in government."

"For the sake of our children, let us use the government, as we have in the past, to further the common good."

Hillary supports her thesis by appealing to the African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child," which forms part of the title of her book. Africa is a continent full of war, savagery, disease, poverty, and governmental corruption. Why did Hillary go to one of the most backward and underdeveloped areas of the world in order to get advice on raising a child? Why not look at societies that have produced people who have substantially improved the world they live in and investigate how those children were raised? Hillary completely ignores this obvious approach because it would not support her socialist ideas.

The second half of the title of Hillary's book reveals another of her basic philosophical misconceptions. Hillary believes that there is no fundamental difference between children and parents. Just as children learn from parents, so parents should look to children for wisdom and advice. She is opposed to the principle of parental direction and authority over children; she believes that decisions should not be made unilaterally by parents, but that children should have a right to make their own decisions. Hillary believes that children should have an equal standing with their parents before the law and that children should have the right to legally challenge parental decisions.

Contrary to Hillary's beliefs, children should learn from parents and not vice-versa. Parents are primarily teachers, and children are primarily learners. This is not to say that parents never learn anything during the child-raising process. Certainly they learn and grow through these experiences. But parents should NOT look to children to determine their fundamental child-raising philosophy as Hillary suggests. Hillary proposes a radical change in the approach to raising children, namely that it takes a village (government), and she supports this as a lesson learned from children. Children are in no position to specify how they should be raised. The results of the application of children's child-raising wisdom is seen in the urban ghettos where children have been left to raise themselves and other children.

Hillary's solution to the problem of faulty child-raising is for the government to step in. But this will not solve the problem. It will simply compound the existing problem with another problem. To solve a problem, one must address its root cause. The fundamental root cause is the abandonment of the Judeo-Christian value system. Significant secondary causes are the welfare system and government schools, both of which encourage parental abdication of responsibility for their progeny. The solution involves firstly a return to Biblical ethics and teaching, and secondly, a dismantling of the welfare and government education systems. But that is a subject for another article.

Hillary has long promoted herself as an expert on children without much challenge from the liberal media which dutifully reports her claims. What practical credentials does Hillary have to speak on the subject of how children should be raised? As far as is publicly known, Hillary has only one child. She has no experience raising multiple children; she is raising only one. It is too early to determine whether her daughter Chelsea has been raised properly. Only time will tell whether Hillary has been a good parent. Hillary has not yet earned the right to teach on this subject.

Hillary's message in this book is simply the logical extension of the "It takes the Government to educate a child" philosophy which is so prevalent in America. The philosophy that the government is responsible for the education of children is a relatively recent philosophy in the history of the world, and it is proving to be disastrously bankrupt. Since the government is admittedly doing such a poor job of educating children, why would Hillary want to extend its responsibility to include raising them? Will the government do any better at raising children than it does at educating them? Simply asking the question makes the answer obvious. Wouldn't it make much more sense to get the government completely out of the education business altogether and return that responsibility to the parents? Since Hillary has chosen to send Chelsea to a private school, it is clear that Hillary herself does not trust government schools to properly educate Chelsea. Would she trust the government to raise Chelsea? Or does she just want the government involved in raising other people's children?

Hillary proposes numerous activities which she wants the federal government to legislate, enforce, and finance. For example, she wants V-chips to be required for all TV sets in order to give parents control over what their children watch. She wants to force every purchaser of a TV to pay an extra $100 for this item, regardless of whether they have children or not, and regardless of whether the parents have trained their children to obey their instructions in the use of the TV. I strongly object to being forced to waste $100 because some people cannot control their children. Another example is that Hillary wants babycare videos to run continuously in public places where people gather and wait such as medical offices, malls, and waiting rooms of all types. She wants to forcibly indoctrinate people whether or not they need it or want it, and she wants to confiscate citizens' hard-earned money to pay for this indoctrination.

The truth is that Hillary is dead wrong. It does NOT take a village or a community or a church or a government to raise a child. In general, it takes two parents to raise a child -- a mother and a father who are married to each other. God gave the child to the parents, not to any other group. God assigned the responsibility and the authority to discipline, teach, and raise the child to the parents. The parents of the child are those who will stand before God one day and give an account of their stewardship of that child. God will not hold the government or "village" responsible for failure in raising a child.

This is not to say that the "communities" in which a child grows, such as towns, neighborhoods, churches, schools, and friends have no influence on the child. These communities clearly do influence the child. But they do not have the primary responsibility for raising the child, and no one of them is even necessary to raise a child. It is the parents' responsibility to protect the child from the many deleterious influences of these groups and to select those influences which will positively contribute to the child's growth in body, mind, and spirit.

Hillary is also dead wrong from a constitutional perspective. No place in the Constitution of the United States is authority given to the federal government to raise or even to educate children. In fact, the Tenth Amendment clarifies that all such rights not specifically given to the federal government belong to the people. Hillary is trying to take away our constitutional right and God-given responsibility to raise our children!

My wife and I are raising six children whom God has committed to our care. The problem, in Hillary's view, is that we are raising six children who can read, write, and think. They are children who are committed to their Creator, and who will oppose everything Hillary stands for. This is the real reason Hillary wants to nationalize the raising of the children of this great nation. They are not being raised with the values and commitments she thinks they should have.

The key issue is one of control. Hillary wants the government to control the raising of children in order to shape and influence the adults they become. I say, "Let parents control raising children!" There are many different ways to raise good kids, and different kids need different methods. In this age of valuing diversity, I am surprised that Hillary promotes non-diversity through government control of the process. Who is best qualified to make judgements concerning the best interests of children, their parents who love and sacrifice for them daily and know them intimately, or impersonal government bureaucrats? The answer is again obvious.

Hillary's book shows that she is an enemy of freedom and liberty because her expressed goal is to further extend the tyranny of the government over the lives of its citizens. Her book is a frontal attack on the family as she seeks to undermine parental authority and institute governmental control over the raising of children. It is appalling that she is in a position to influence the President of the United States with these socialist and unconstitutional ideas. I urge you to be alert to Hillary's attempts in the coming years to legislate her program and to enforce it on American parents nationwide. Get ready to speak up and oppose her ideas through letters to Congressmen, newspapers, and friends. We must stand up for our fundamental God-given right as parents to raise and educate our children as we see fit. This right does NOT belong to the state.

WTP 12/1/96

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