“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader

Hillary Was Right

(Written and posted 18 July 2006)

Ten years ago, the First Lady wrote a book called “It Takes A Village”, in which she argued that child rearing is not only the responsibility of individual parents, but society at large, and that we all share a collective responsibility for raising the next generations to be responsible, caring, and engaged citizens. The right-wing fascists that dominate television and radio talk shows roundly criticized her (and her book) as promoting socialism and ideas that are un-American and un-Christian. After all, they yelled over and over again, wasn’t this country founded on the principle of individual responsibility? After all, they screamed, isn’t Christianity the religion of personal responsibility? How dare anyone commit such blasphemy against church and state by suggestion that raising of children should be done collectively; there are freaks among the collective that children should not be exposed to! The talk-radio fascists repeated the refrain so much that the population actually believed it. Yes, the First Lady was indeed a pinko commie, and if she has her way, all our kids will be indoctrinated by the Chinese and America and the Godliness she represents will be gone forever!

Those of us who know the truth know that the First Lady was right, that raising the next generation is the responsibility of all of us. What’s more, we are all responsible for each other, and when one of us fails, we all fail. Sadly, we have lost that sense of community, that moral obligation that each one of us has to every other one of us both as individuals and as a whole.

We hear people wax nostalgically about the 1940s and 1950s, how life and the country were better then. You know, the waxers are right – it was better then. Ironically enough, many of the waxers vilified the First Lady for suggesting that it takes a village, when that is the precise reason that things were better then.

I grew up in the late sixties and early seventies in a very traditional neighborhood. On our five block long street in the middle of the city, you knew who lived in practically every house, who belonged on the street and who didn’t, who had a new girlfriend or boyfriend, who snuck into their house after curfew and who didn’t; in short, each one of us knew everything about every other one of us. Instead of my parents having only two sets of eyes (not including the glasses), they had hundreds of sets of eyes. It was kind of hard to misbehave when you know that your neighbors are watching and will tell your parents. It made my parents job much easier, too.

My street was the norm growing up. Additionally, my street interacted with other streets in the city that were just like mine, creating a – community. A community, in the middle of a big city, with relatively little crime and children that grew up to be good people and active citizens. The thing that I remember most is that my family and all of our neighbors were front yard people – we all congregated in somebody’s front yard every night. Whether it was just to sit and drink iced tea or listen to the ball game on the radio or to play cards or just to chit chat, nary an evening went by that we didn’t interact with someone else in a front yard. The thing about front yards is there aren’t any fences, so it was easy to see up and down the street. From the front yard, parents could see their kids, who were also in the front, even if the kids were a few houses down the street. When I was growing up, I think I visited practically every front yard on the street, although I went into very few back yards. Back yards just weren’t used as people places; they were places to store things.

As an adult, I have observed that the days of the front yard are over. People don’t use their front yards anymore. We have become a nation of back-yarders, and in the process have isolated ourselves from everyone around us and destroyed our communities. The typical American backyard is reminiscent of a medieval castle, with a big wall so that those from the outside can’t see in, a moat of landscaping in case someone tries to penetrate the defenses, and towers in the form of McMansions from which one can peer out from the safety of within onto the rough and dangerous world without, the unknown wilderness beyond the walls. When the lord of the American manor finds its necessary to go out into the evil world, he opens the gate, I mean, the garage door, and gets into his armor (or should I say, armored-type vehicle), and passes by other manors, the lords of which could be dead within their fortified walls for all as our typical lord knows or even cares, all the while avoiding contact with the vile, disgusting peasants at all costs. (After all, men of position do not lower themselves to interact with trash, lest they become trash themselves.) Twenty-first century America is nothing more than the reincarnation of medieval Europe, where the affluent hide away in their castles, hoarding wealth and material possessions that are never shared with anyone else, interacting with others only when absolutely necessary (and only with those of the proper social standing), and where the poor labor day-in and day-out and thankless jobs knowing that they will never be able to improve their lot, and not having the time to interact with others; in short, people living lonely solitary lives, some out of choice, the rest out of necessity.

We can change things; we must change things. Do we really want to relive medieval times? If you read your history books (READ THEM!), you will discover that they were quite unpleasant times for all involved. It appears that the best of times in history occur when a people are part of a community, where they all work together to improve the lot of all. Hillary Rodham Clinton was right; it does, indeed, take a village to make a people great.

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