Hillary Clinton’s ghostwritten 1996 book “It Takes a Village” was the then-first lady’s paean to the social engineering method of raising children to which many in her generation aspire.
In it, though giving lip service to marriage, sexual abstinence and personal responsibility, she advocated for the likes of universal health care, minimum wage increases and a variety of government-involved programs that have little to do with a child’s family of origin. It is a companion to what passes for life for many Americans who were born after the advent of President Lyndon Johnson’s mid-1960s Great Society programs, which sought to make federal government the ultimate underpinning for individuals but wound up downgrading the value of marriage, dividing poor families and perpetuating poverty.
Despite what has taken place in the 50-plus years since the “village” was given such a responsibility in child raising, new Barna research indicates the family still plays a significant role in individuals’ identity.
The research, done for the new book “The Tech-Wide Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in its Proper Place” by Andy Crouch, finds that 86 percent of respondents say family plays “some” or “a lot” of a role in their identity. Of that 86 percent, 62 percent chose “a lot.”
That’s the good news – that, as the maxim goes, “parents are a child’s first teacher,” their playmates, their nurturers, their role models for work and responsibility, their exemplars in learning right from wrong.