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Dooling 1 Emily Dooling Professor Diane DeBella WRTG 3020 11 November 2011 It Takes a Village It is a well-known fact that

human interaction is essential to a childs emotional and cognitive development. One could then make the conjecture that the more exposure that a child has to more people, the greater their emotional maturity will be. That is why it is so important to involve as many positive people as possible early on in a childs life. Community style parenting is the most effective way of raising a child because it exposes that child to many different people and many different ways of thinking. The idea behind community-style parenting is that children can find love and support from many other people around them. It also provides a support system in the event that their parents cannot fulfill their roles for a given reason (hooks 144). This network of people who care about the child could include family members outside of the immediate family, neighbors, and close family friends. It is important also to realize that the people who make up the childs community are people that the parents are comfortable with and know and trust. In this way, values and ideals that are important to the parents may still be passed on to the child but through a different medium. Some people may be wary of the idea of community-style parenting because it would not allow that special bond to form between children and parents, and specifically between the mother and her children. However, social anthropologists Tatjana Thelen and Haldis Haukanes describe the idea of the mother as the nurturer and primary caregiver to a

Dooling 2 child as a socially constructed idea (12). In reality, it is absolutely possible for children to form bonds with their parents that are very close and loving outside of what is considered the traditional Western family setting. What is right and good in relation to parenting practices varies between cultures and across generations. It is ridiculous to say that a child raised outside of a nuclear family structure does not love and have a bond with their biological parents. I realize that a child-rearing approach that exposes children to the community at large may be an alarming idea. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited children, about one in five girls and one in ten boys will be sexually victimized before they reach adulthood. With the use of the Internet comes the very real possibility of online exploitation. One in seven youths ages ten to seventeen receive a sexual solicitation online according to the latest research done by the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. These numbers are very sobering and are certainly something to be concerned about. There is a difference between socializing children outside of the nuclear family and putting them in social situations that would jeopardize their safety. However, the point of community-based parenting is not to expose children to people with harmful intentions. It is to create an environment where the child is surrounded by a multitude of people who care for her or her and are there to have a positive influence in the childs life. A more open family structure also takes pressure off of the parents or primary caregivers for the outcome of their child. Thelen and Haukanes describe the current phenomena in childrearing as a process in which parents are more responsible for the failures and successes of their children and are also responsible for creating a stable environment where their children can learn and grow (20). Being in

Dooling 3 charge of so many facets of life for another human being would be daunting for the most valiant of parents, especially if there were more than one child in a family. The liability is huge. Allowing children to spend time with members outside of the nuclear family alleviates some of the responsibility of the parents, and makes the community as a whole more accountable for guiding children though the trials they face in life. The more people included in a childs life, the better. Having that support system is also beneficial to the parents peace of mind, knowing that there are many different people who care about their child and are willing to look after them. It also allows knowledge to be transferred between generations and between people whose personal ideologies might differ slightly. It allows children to not be the love objects of only their parents and allows children to learn how to interact and form bonds with a multitude of different people (hooks 145). Not only is it beneficial to the children that the family structure is extended outside of the nuclear family, it is helpful for the parents too. In their research for their article for the Journal of Marriage and the Family, Cox and Demo found that in many extended African American families, the family structure is more egalitarian in extended family structures (882). In families where the roles are divided more evenly, children are brought up breaking gender based and patriarchal patterns and the adults involved in the childrearing process are allowed to divide responsibilities in a fairer manner (Cox and Demo 882). An extreme example of this can be seen in Charlotte Perkins Gilmans novel Herland. The novel describes a utopian land where there are only women and children, and everybody in the community raises the children. A group of men stumble upon this

Dooling 4 paradise and are shocked to find out how well the society functions without gender roles and without the strict family structures they are familiar with. In this way, the society has plentiful numbers of teachers (Gilman 107). This system is not far away from what bell hooks describes in Revolutionary Parenting. It is a loving community where people trust one another but do not regard the children as possessions (hooks 144). Although Herland is Gilmans utopian ideal, the ideas of community childcare are still salient and were very revolutionary for the time period in which she was writing. It is also interesting to note that although Herland was published almost 100 years ago, we still have not reached anything close to the utopian circumstance described in the novel. Gilman was a proponent of this type of community child rearing because her father was not present in her life and her mother did not show her any kind of physical affection whatsoever. She also was not allowed to make close friends while growing up. The distinct lack of socialization and affection as a child had consequences later in her life (DeBella). If she had been raised in a more loving and open environment she may have developed the tools to cope with her post partum depression. Charlotte Perkins Gilmans upbringing should serve as a warning to parents. Her emotional issues later in life were absolutely caused by the lack of love while growin up (DeBella). It is important to note that although exposing children to a wide variety of people of different ages, the childs relationship with his or her parents or primary caregivers is still deeply important. Phillip Klever, a renowned family and marriage therapist, refers to his theory of the primary triangle and its influences on how a family functions. The primary triangle includes the child, the person most involved in raising the child, and that caretakers primary attachment (140). The people involved in raising the

Dooling 5 child could be the mother and father but they could also be a single parent plus a grandparent, or any other wide array of relationships. Regardless of who the caregivers are, the more open the childs triangle is, the better. Having an open family structure allows the child to navigate and adapt to lifes obstacles with greater ease (Klever 141). In her chapter Revolutionary Parenting from the book Feminist Theory from Margin to Center, bell hooks identifies many differences in parenting styles between ethnic groups and even across generations. One point that she brings up is that shared childrearing happens in many black communities (hooks 146). hooks herself claims to have been part of a shared childrearing situation growing up. She was one of seven children and she acknowledges that a larger community participated in the care giving and discipline of her many sisters and brother (DeBella). Mainstream American culture puts more emphasis on independence, individualism, and self-satisfaction, while the family raising practices of many ethnic minorities places strong values on kinship networks (Demo and Cox 882). In Arnold and Lewis article Antecedents and Consequences of Caregiving Structure on Young Mothers and Their Infants, they note that the majority of young African American women raise their children in extended family households (1038). In many of these cases, the grandparents participate in the child rearing. This gives the elderly much needed interactions with the younger generation and allows the children to learn the wisdom of the older generation. Sociologists Daniel Carlson and Chris Knoester have even shown that children can have a positive influence over their parents (715). That would extend to any person who plays any type of integral role in the upbringing of a child, including the elderly. Involving multiple generations is a way to enhance understanding

Dooling 6 across generations and to break down ageism (hooks 145). Allowing people of different ages and backgrounds to become involved in the parenting of a child benefits every person implicated in the process (Arnold and Lewis 1037). Arnold and Lewis also found that mothers who have good relationships with their families and more social support are more likely to be more involved and positive caregivers (1043). The support of the community and multiple generations of the family are important for the parents and the child, and are beneficial to everybody. Community style parenting is the best option for raising a family. It allows children to encounter a wide variety of people at a young age, which leads to better social adjustment later in life. It also allows for intergenerational exchanges and provides a large security net for children. Although current trends in American society keep children close to home and glued to devices within the home, such as the television and the computer, we as a society should be moving away from this. Teaching children to accept the opinions and get along with many different people will also benefit them in the long run, as they will be better socialized sooner in life. The knowledge and wisdom that exist within a community is so broad that it would be a crime to not allow any child to learn from the people around them.

Dooling 7 Works Cited Arnold, Anna, and Jessica Lewis. "Antecedents and Consequences of Caregiving Structure on Young Mothers and Their Infants." Maternal and Child Health 1 August 2010. 1037-1045. EBSCO. Web. 2 Nov 2011. Carlson, Daniel L., and Chris Knoester. "Family Structure and Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Ideology." Journal of Family Issues 32.709 23 January 2011. 709-734. Sage Publications. Web. 2 Nov 2011. DeBella, Diane. WRTG 3020: Women Writers. University of Colorado at Boulder. Fall 2011. Lecture. Demo, David H., and Cox, Martha J. Families With Young Children: A Review of Research in the 1990s. Journal of Marriage and the Family 62, 4 November 2000. 876-895. ProQuest Direct Complete. Web. 8 November 2011. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Herland. Electronic Text Center. University of Virginia. N.d. Web. 1 November 2011. hooks, bell. Feminist Theory from Margin to Center. Boston: South End Press, 1984. Klever, Phillip. "The Primary Triangle and Variation in Nuclear Family Functioning." Contemporary Family Theory 31. 17 December 2008. 140-159. JSTOR. Web. 2 Nov 2011. Thelen, Tatjana, and Haukanes, Haldis, eds. Parenting After the Century of the Child: Travelling Ideals, Institutional Negotiations and Individual Responsesi. Cornwall: TJ International Ltd, 2010. Print. United States. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Statistics. 2011. Web. 1 November 2011. Print.

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