IT TAKES A VILLAGE

I've been thinking about the phrase "It takes a village to raise a child".

I think it's totally wrong.

A village can raise your child if you want the values of the village to overtake your own.

Do you?

Can you look around your neighborhood and say, Wow, I want my children to be just like them, and mean it?

Even if you like your neighbors, and even if you would trust them to watch your children for a few hours, that doesn't mean that you agree with every one of their principles.

Look at the larger village - would you want your child to be like the least moral, trashiest person in the town? That person, too, is part of the village.

Just limit that village to the school your child attends - would you be comfortable with them acting like any given student or group of students?

Would you want your child to be like the teens on TV? They, too, are part of the village.

How about Jackass? Or The Real World? Or Fear Factor?

The village extends further than you realize. And, thanks to media publicity and human stupidity, the trend of the village is ever downward. Till the trend hits a level that prompts us to respond, OK, that's enough. If we have to pass a law to stop the downward spiral, we will. And we do.

But our society feels uneasy with limiting stupidity. We want to allow our citizens the freedom to create their own life, and for many, that means not putting any curbs on their actions, however much we can see that it's killing them. Hey, free will, you know.

The fact is, a free human being CAN choose their own destiny. And, while I might now agree with that choice, I will go along with the principle that it's their life to live.

But, you can't honestly call most of the people who are making those choices free human beings. They are slaves to whim, influence of others, chemical substances, and an inadequate education, both academic and moral. We have raised a large segment of our society as electronic peasants, superstitous, easily led, prone to impulsive and stupid decisions, easy prey to hucksters, knaves, and fools.

So, why would you want YOUR PRECIOUS CHILD to be raised by such as this?