What Happened To The Village?
November 11, 2010
by Ayanna Black
Back in the day the old adage “it takes a village to raise a child” was in effect. There was a time when every child respected every adult. If a child was acting up in the streets it would be taken care of (so I’ve heard) and that child would be brought to their parent to then be reprimanded again. If a family didn’t have a meal and your neighbor did, everyone ate. There was just a strong sense of family in the community. However, at some point the bond was broken and the family feel of the community dissipated.
In this day and age no one can say anything to someone else’s child. The community trust isn’t there. We are now at a point where kids don’t even respect their parents let along another adult. So in thinking about this situation, I thought back to all the old stories I heard and read about and conjured up a couple ways that might aid in rebuilding the village:
1) Prayer
I believe prayer is a key component in bringing about that sense of family and community. If you look back in history and see how the majority of our leaders made it through diverse times, it was with the aid of prayer.
2) Love yourself
We have to get love back in the home starting with ourselves. Before you can love anyone else you have to love yourself. Look in the mirror and love who you see! Once you do that it’ll be easy to love others and share it.
3) Befriending our children and treating them as equals
We have lots of parents that treat their children as friends or equals. This may work for some but in most cases this isn’t wise. There just needs to be somebody in your life that you know you can’t play with nor talk to in any manner and that should be your parent.
4) Lack of knowledge of who we are as a people
If we truly knew and respected the sacrifice those before us made to get where we are today, I doubt that most things we see today would occur. There would be no coercion to vote or convincing kids to go to school and get an education. Those things would just be automatic in our minds.
If we try to incorporate some of these points into our daily lives, I believe the foundation of the family would improve. We would be less depressed by the news, experience less negative stereotypes and see more unity in our communities. I still believe in the old adage we just need to rebuild the village.
What do you think it would take to rebuild the village? Do you think you are better off raising your child without the help of your community?
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Thursday, November 11th 2010 at 6:55PM
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