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Replying to Avatar 𝔼𝕣𝕪𝕟 𝔹𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕔𝕠

I’ve found the following to be much more common than hardliners who truly believe all nuclear families should be insular and completely self-reliant with the mother carrying almost all childcare tasks:

Some people just don’t understand the original meaning of the “it takes a village” idea. It can be perceived as meaning not that it’s natural for children to learn about life from those outside the family, or that a nuclear family will sometimes need support from trusted people in the community, but that a nuclear family needs interference, boundaries crossed, or “support” with strings attached or at the expense of unwilling people, especially from the government.

The suggestion that your child needs the help of someone you do not trust to influence them is very threatening.

It’s hard to blame people who think this is what the phrase means; I think it’s been co-opted for this meaning before. But it doesn’t cheapen the original meaning.

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Mallory 2y ago

That’s a good explanation. It makes me more understanding to realize our conception of “it takes a village” is just fundamentally different.

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MichaelJ 2y ago

Many people hear "It takes a village" and think that means socialism. But socialism is the state, not the village.

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