• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Contributors>
  3. childcare>

It takes a village to raise a child

Kevin Frazier
August 22, 2023
It takes a village to raise a child
Getty Images

Kevin Frazier will join the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University as an Assistant Professor starting this Fall. He currently is a clerk on the Montana Supreme Court.

“It takes a village to raise a child.”


It’s a common refrain. It’s commonsensical. And, it should be a common basis for the informal norms and formal policies intended to support young families. A “Leave It To Beaver”-esque upbringing should be our shared aspiration, rather than the target of skepticism. Such an upbringing is unquestionably a privileged one, but such privilege should become as common as the cold. There’s a difference between mandating a specific kind of family and celebrating the positives that come from surrounding a child with a community of support.

On a recent visit to Oklahoma City, I saw a model for such a community. At the center of that village is a toddler named Clarissa, the bundle of joy born to good friends who we visited on our summer road trip.

Within a five minute drive, Clarissa can count on at least six adults to go out of their way to ensure her well-being. A two-hour drive would bring four more adults into her village. A four-hour drive would add two more. Then there’s the entirety of the congregation at Clarissa’s church, all ready and willing to babysit, play, and mentor her.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Once I realized the breadth and depth of Clarissa’s village, it made all the sense in the world why her parents were nearly as giggly as she was. I expected to find them hassled, haggard, and hurried. Instead, the young family welcomed me and my fiancé into their home with open arms and dinner waiting on the table. Don’t get me wrong, they had plenty of stories about sleepless nights and restless days, but none of those taxing situations depleted their batteries because they knew they could count on others to step up when the crying got too loud.

Importantly, Clarissa isn’t the only one benefiting from her village. According to her parents, Clarissa has given some members of the village a new purpose and opportunity to be a part of a cause larger than themselves. In an age marked by an epidemic of loneliness, Clarissa’s role as a point of connection for adults across a wide swath of Oklahoma and Texas is worth celebrating and emulating.

A village-approach is a win-win-win-win…you get it…situation. One underappreciated win is the role village formation can play in tapping into an underused resource, the wisdom of an aging population. As our nation becomes older (and it’s graying quickly), there’s an opportunity to call on that experience to help raise our toddlers and teenagers so that they will, in turn, become valuable parts of a village down the road.

To realize the full potential of the village-approach, we will have to upend traditional limits on who can join the community, for instance, by inviting participation by members beyond our family trees. This is a big ask. Parents have every right to question the character and intentions of those who want to play a role in the life of their child. But there’s no reason we cannot develop ways to assuage those concerns and bring in members of our communal shrubbery.

Many of us have become comfortable riding in other people’s cars and staying in a stranger’s home. Given our willingness to extend our trust further in certain contexts, it seems possible that similar systems could be developed to recruit members into a child’s village. One easy way to start would be to canvas retirement homes for volunteers. My hunch is that more than a few folks would raise their hand if asked to help mentor and guide a little one.

Imagine the good that would come about by ensuring that every child had at least two grandparents, through blood or by being recruited to a child’s village, to call on for assistance and instruction. Just those two additional villagers would help parents and children alike reach their full potential.

A child isn’t the only one who needs a village. Parents rely on them. And community members yearn for them.

From Your Site Articles
  • ​Major step toward resolving national child-care crisis ›
  • Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area - The Fulcrum ›
childcare

Join an Upcoming Event

Democracy Happy Hour

Fix Democracy First
Sep 20, 2023 at 5:00 pm PDT
Read More

Conversation Collective hosted by

Citizen Discourse
Sep 21, 2023 at 11:00 am CDT
Read More

The Opportunity Gap Conversation

Living Room Conversations
Sep 21, 2023 at 2:00 pm MDT
Read More

Democratize America

Learning Life
Sep 21, 2023 at 5:30 pm EDT
Read More

Federal Deficit

The Great Reset
Sep 21, 2023 at 6:00 pm CDT
Read More

NH United in Hopkinton

The People
Sep 26, 2023 at 4:00 pm EDT
Read More
View All Events

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

Julio A. Alicea

Policymakers must address worsening civil unrest post Roe

Sarah K. Burke

Video: How to salvage U.S. democracy from the "tyranny of the minority"

Our Staff

What "Progress" should look like, and what we get wrong

Damien De Pyle

The long kiss goodnight: Nancy Pelosi and the protracted decay of public office

Kevin Frazier

Demanding corporate responsibility for food system challenges

C.Anne Long
latest News

The show must go on

Amy Lockard
57m

Constitution Day conversation with Jamie Raskin: Preserving democracy today and tomorrow

Rick LaRue
Jamie Raskin
1h

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

Michael Beckel
Ariana Rojas
20 September

The alchemy of laughter

Pedro Silva
20 September

Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

Dave Anderson
20 September

Learning to make “the right call” in the right moments

Lisa Kay Solomon
19 September
Videos
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Our Staff
Video: The history of Labor Day

Video: The history of Labor Day

Our Staff
Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: How states hold fair elections

Our Staff
14 September

Podcast: The MAGA Bubble, Bidenonmics and Playing the Victim

Debilyn Molineaux
David Riordan
12 September

Podcast: Defending the founding principles of our government

Our Staff
07 September

Podcast: The continuing effects of summer heat and student loan repayments

Our Staff
05 September
Recommended
The show must go on

The show must go on

Big Picture
To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

Big Picture
Constitution Day conversation with Jamie Raskin: Preserving democracy today and tomorrow

Constitution Day conversation with Jamie Raskin: Preserving democracy today and tomorrow

Big Picture
Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

Meet the Faces of Democracy: Stephen Richer

State
The alchemy of laughter

The alchemy of laughter

Comedy
Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

Work/family balance should be a top tier policy area

Contributors