Hillary’s It Takes A Village to raise a child, or “Why it’s time to focus on the family” – a book review by by Hubert Morken, Ph.D.
In my view, the national policy agenda of Hillary Clinton, that puts children first, ineluctably replaces fathers and then mothers with civil servant child care providers. Consumed as it is by a determination that no child shall suffer when fathers and mothers fail, government moves to guarantee and even to provide necessary food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and education, in effect excusing parents from their duties.
In Hillary Rodham Clinton’s It Takes A Village, children are not “rugged individualists,” nor are all the answers to raising children found in “family values,” argues Hillary Clinton. Instead, the First Lady says, since children are dependent and families fail, we must all learn to care for children, making sure that no child suffers from the neglect or abuse of parents, extended family, neighbors, or strangers.
A “no suffering” family first strategy seeks to secure vulnerable children from negative influences. Mrs. Clinton, in this book, offers advice to parents on how to raise children, suggesting child proofing one’s home, wearing helmets for active play, watching over diet, and getting immunization from childhood diseases. She strongly encourages volunteer efforts on behalf of children, by corporations, churches and community agencies. Schools should foster, Clinton argues, positive self-image instruction. What she calls “comprehensive early education programs,” supplemented by state supported medical care, and income and job assistance, ought to be a national priority. Clinton opposes easy divorce, makes room for abortion, favors easier adoption, and puts in a good word for “Promise Keepers,” the Christian lay ministry to men.
For the middle class, Clinton offers the help of voluntary agencies with some government support. For the poor on welfare she would require a close monitoring of daily life, home visitation by a social worker or public health specialist, and participation in parent education. Government assistance, in her judgment, necessitates some government supervision of child rearing to make sure single welfare mothers are learning to care for their young. Whatever the children need, she says, the community should provide, especially when the parents fail in their nurturing roles.
The core policy agenda Clinton clearly presents in her book is more services for all families and especially families without fathers. Yes, this means more big government, but she reminds her readers that America has lower taxes than other advanced nations and that since in democracy, we the people, “us,” are the government, big government should be no cause for alarm. In this view, government, when it provides all the needed and desired social services, is pro-family. In Hillary Clinton’s Village, there are more than enough resources to restore a healthy environment for all children. At no point in her book is there a hint or even a suspicion that comprehensive government family services have and will continue to help destroy family life in America.
On Kay James’ Transforming America From The Inside Out
This book could have appropriately been titled, “Rebuilding the Village” a phrase taken from the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Yet, Kay James rejects the common notion that families can be replaced by government social services or other community resources because parents alone bear the responsibility, she says, for raising their children. She wants us to give parents respect in the face of their daunting task but she also wants to give them help, so that fathers and mothers can better prepare their children for life.
The village, says James, includes individuals, families, neighborhoods, churches, schools, businesses, ethnic groups, and even civil government. Everyone can contribute positively to the every day life of a child or young adult if they catch a vision for the next generation. She calls for the rebuilding of the village and even culture itself because in too many places normal health giving processes, what she calls the “immune system,” has broken down. Where there are no jobs how can business open doors of opportunity? Where class rooms are deluged with mayhem how can teachers function and children learn? Where racial fears and stereotypes dominate what can be done to stop civil wars that disrupt neighborhoods and even entire cities? Local churches where they exits, James argues, too often are marginalized, out of touch with any larger mission, serving their own members, hardly the influential source of community spirit and standards they once were in America.
If we care about reform then what comes first, the family or the village? Although James concludes that each part of the village now must make a difference if the nation is to be put right, she does not believe the village to be the primary voice for children. James makes it clear that if there is no family there can be no village and if we have no family we cannot have healthy individuals either. Today we are dealing not only with radically impaired families but with annihilated villages. To talk about community resources where there are none is worse than bad joke. To prescribe government assistance when extended family and friends are not there to help at all makes little sense especially where drugs rule and poverty awakens with renewed strength every morning. Once the family is gone the village is gone too and then what is to be done?
The individual and the family have the keys to the future, in the James perspective, and once those keys are seized the village can make a difference.
Children or Families, Which Come First?
Biologically, families come first, creating babies and then citizens. Public policy should reinforce this reality, argues Kay James, helping fathers and mothers as they rear children. Once we also understand that moms and dads are not replaceable, we are lead to ask questions about tax policy, divorce law, welfare reform, education, housing, recreation, charitable giving, and a host of other concerns that make raising children more or less difficult. A “family” first priority will generate concern for many issues that together help us to understand personal adult choices that in turn impact children. When taxes are high and welfare is available, are not fathers more likely to abandon their children? If divorce is cheap and easy will the number of single parent homes grow? Here are two simple but relevant questions for a self-critical government to ask of itself, careful not to remove from citizens their own responsibility to do right by their little ones.
In my view, the national policy agenda of Hillary Clinton, that puts children first, ineluctably replaces fathers and then mothers with civil servant child care providers. Consumed as it is by a determination that no child shall suffer when fathers and mothers fail, government moves to guarantee and even to provide necessary food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and education, in effect excusing parents from their duties. Of course when parents no longer parent, others must step into the gap but to center social policy on children instead of on parenting undercuts the social order leading to ever more desperate efforts to shore up crumbling homes. In the area of social policy we should not be saying, “it’s the children,” but, “It’s the family,” or even better, “It’s the fathers,” since too often Dad is the first member of the family to be replaced by government.
Kay James encourages us to weigh carefully how our policy decisions in all areas of government help or hurt the parenting process. Hillary Clinton’s desire to protect children at all costs with the assistance of government endangers parents, especially fathers, who think their help is unnecessary. The lesson we should learn is to beware of rhetoric that focuses too much on children and not enough on parents.
