It Takes a Child to Raise a Village

The oft-quoted proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”, is invoked by many to emphasize the community-wide focus of education and child development. Its source is uncertain but it is typically attributed to a collection of proverbs from African cultures that broadly point to the reality that children are raised not just by their biological parents but through the shared efforts of entire communities, including extended families, neighbors, friends, teachers, carers, nurses, doctors, shopkeepers, and many more besides.

The provocative title here reverses this logic to highlight another aspect of the shared human experience: the raising of children changes the communities into which they are born. In our most ‘natural’ or primitive state, humans are focused on survival, highly competitive ‘hunters’ and ‘gatherers’ who act to meet their own needs. There is an instinctive drive to ‘win’, to overcome adversaries. The arrival of children changes this dynamic, fundamentally and irrevocably. Our focus shifts from survival and winning in the ‘now’ to what comes ‘next’. We begin to act more as stewards, planning for the future and the needs of those who follow in the next generation. We become more aware of our frailty and mortality as we protect vulnerable infants and children from harm. We instinctively begin to share experientially derived knowledge and wisdom to help children navigate the hazards and pitfalls ahead of them in their journey into adulthood. The spirit of raising children is one of caring self-sacrifice, collaboration, sharing, teaching and making preparations for the future.

It is this drive to work together to protect and educate the next generation that serves as a powerful force to shape human societies around the world. The cross-generational imperative to nurture and protect our young is a major factor in ‘raising’ the metaphorical world village from a place of basic survival to one of hope for the future. Humanity, for all its failings, is truly at its best when raising children.

On November 20, we celebrate World Children’s Day. When the first international declaration on the rights of children was published by the League of Nations in 1924, it included the inspiring statement, “Mankind owes to the child the best that it has to give.” It was on this day in 1959 that the Declaration of the Rights of the Child was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. This Declaration eventually became the Convention on the Rights of The Child (UNCRC), which was formally adopted on 20 November, 1989.

It is this endeavor to give of our best to raise our children that illuminates the truth that it does indeed take a ‘child’ to raise a ‘village’.

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