IT DOESN'T TAKE A VILLAGE
AN ANSWER TO HILLARY CLINTON'S
PHILOSOPHY OF CHILD-REARING
“To raise a happy, healthy and hopeful child, it takes...all of us. Yes, it takes a village.”
Hillary Clinton addressing the 1996 Democratic Convention
by Pastor Dan Burrell
First Lady Hillary Clinton has
recently completed a tour promoting her new book It Takes a Village and
Other Lessons Children Teach Us. The book has been on the New York
Times' best-seller list for months. The title is taken from an African
proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child."
Upon first glance, that phrase seems so warm and supportive that we might agree. But we need to examine it in the light of Scripture and also discern what intellectually barren liberals really mean when they say, "It takes a village."
Mrs. Clinton's reputation on child rearing is a matter of public record. She has consistently aligned herself with the most leftward leaning movements of radical approaches to children's rights. These often noble-sounding groups are mere fronts for organizations whose agenda embraces an effort of social manipulation that de-emphasizes the role of parents and asserts in its place the role of government.
Newsweek magazine quoted Hillary Clinton as saying, "There is no such thing as other people's children." What she is really saying is, "Children do not belong to parents; they belong to the state."
Several years ago I was appearing before a legislative hearing on a piece of legislation that threatened the freedoms of parents and Christian schools. Before it was my turn to speak, a liberal bureaucrat had her turn at the lectern. When referring to the children of parents who are U.S. and Florida citizens, she repeatedly stated, "Florida's children need protection from..."
When it was my turn to speak, I took the opportunity to point out to her that we were not talking about "Florida's children"--a state cannot bear children--we were talking about the children of parents who have been given the responsibility of rearing them by God, not man.
Repeatedly the liberals of Mrs. Clinton's ilk have suggested such outlandish ideas that "parents should be licensed before having children"; that "it is the state's responsibility to protect the rights of children in the face of oppressive parents"; that "it is the state that should serve as the ultimate guardian of a child's freedoms and choices."
Again, at first glance and through the illogical use of "proof-case" anecdotes where the most egregious examples of abuse are used to paint the whole of parents, some would agree that the state should oversee our children. But a more dangerous and subtle agenda lurks beneath the surface:
- An agenda that would allow your daughter to hide her pregnancy from you and would compel the state to assist her in obtaining an abortion;
- An agenda that would have public schools offer your son condoms and provide explicit instructions on their use, supplying still maturing youngsters with information on the most vile and deviant sexual habits practiced by the pagans and perverts of back-alley cultures;
- An agenda that would limit your ability to choose a Christian education or a home education for your child, to protect him or her from influences you find disconcerting or inconsistent with the spiritual values you hold in your home;
- An agenda that would prevent you from requiring your child to be under the influence of religious education until that child is old enough to decide for himself or herself whether or not he or she wants to attend church or Sunday school;
- An agenda that labels honest, hard-working people of strong faith and values--like you and me--as extremists and ultra-fundamentalists.
This is the agenda of Hillary Clinton's village.
Whose responsibility is it to rear the children and wield the authority in the home? Is it Washington's? the judicial system's? Is it the Department of Health and Human Services'? Is it Dr. Spock's? the pastor's? the Sunday school teacher's? the Christian school teacher's?
The Scripture tells us clearly whose responsibility it is:
"And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates" (Deut. 6:6-9).
Children do not belong to a government or to a city or to a community or even to a church. They belong to the people selected by their Creator, people who wipe runny noses, drive them to ball practice, work overtime to buy them the letter jacket, sit up with them at night when the fever is high, scold them for leaving socks on the floor, pray over them when they drive for the first time, teach them about God, girls, strangers; how to cross the street; the birds and the bees; how to throw like a boy and sit like a girl; how to keep themselves pure and how to work hard.
It doesn't take a village. It takes a
mom and a dad. The village does not make the child. It is children rightly
raised by parents that make the village!
I. IT DOESN'T TAKE A VILLAGE; IT TAKES PARENTS WHO UNDERSTAND AUTHORITY
I love to hear our youngsters in Sunday school quote Ephesians 6:1, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right." Children need to obey. They need a model. They need at the very start of life to gain a respect for authority.
Unfortunately, our culture has devalued authoritative leadership in the home (and elsewhere) and, in the process, undermined the very foundation of our culture and its order. Many today are apologetic about exercising authority, yet without authority, there can be no order.
Some have attempted to define all authority as authoritarian, but there is a difference between authoritarian rule and authoritative rule. It is very clear in Scripture that we are to be authoritatively ruling our homes. Authoritarian parents have rules without relationships, which invariably create rebellion. Authoritarian parents punish without discipline. Authoritarian rule is dictatorial and demagogic. Authoritarian rule says, "Do as I say, not as I do."
Authoritative parents lead by example and enforce with love. They set the pace with leadership and carefully and firmly discipline rather than merely punish. They have learned to govern their spirits (Eph. 6:4) and take charge with a sense of love (Prov. 3:12).
We have replaced the traditional standards of authority--Mom and Dad, Scripture, family rules--with a new standard of what feels right, what is convenient--choice and popular culture. Because parents have become afraid to exercise their authority, children grow up without the molding or modeling that is essential to appropriate character development.
It is time parents took back the reins. We've turned our responsibilities over to the TVs and VCRs and Nintendos and computers. We criticize the teachers, preachers and children's church directors in front of our children, then wonder why our kids don't respect them. We allow a child psychologist or pediatrician with a few letters behind his name to overrule the letters of Paul, John and Peter. We've replaced the Word of God with "how-to" manuals written by men who don't even know God!
We don't have to apologize for being the
authority in our home. God has divinely ordained that we should care for and
rule our families. For the Christian, to fail to care for our own,
financially, emotionally, spiritually and physically, brings a specific
warning: "But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his
own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel" (1 Tim.
6:8).
II. IT DOESN'T TAKE A VILLAGE; IT TAKES PARENTS ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN LEADING THEIR HOME
Perhaps one of the saddest stories in Scripture is that of Hophni and Phinehas, sons of Eli. These two grew up in a religious atmosphere. They knew the rituals. The order of services was a part of their lives. They had observed their father performing the priestly functions. Yet they abandoned what they had observed. It hadn't taken hold. The meaning had been lost on them. Ultimately they rebelled so completely that God required their lives.
It has been said, "There is nothing so deadening as constantly handling the outside of spiritual things." Most of us see parenting as a spiritual calling when we are sitting in church listening to a sermon on the family. However, the rubber meets the road when we enter our front door. The stress of work, the demands of ministry, the weariness of schedules, the pressures of finances--these often cause us to "forget," or perhaps better said, ignore, what we know to be true.
It is not enough to take our children to church, send them to a Christian school and make sure they attend youth activities. We must set the pace in our own homes!
A recent survey indicates that the average mother spends less than seven minutes per day in meaningful conversation with each child, and the average father spends less than five minutes talking with his child each day. Yet the most conservative survey of how much television the average child watches would indicate that each day he watches 48 minutes of television--in commercials alone. There is no indication that children of "Christian" homes watch less than those of non-Christian homes; in fact, one recent survey indicated that teenagers in so-called "born-again" families are more likely to watch MTV than those in non-Christian homes.
A good home demands active, not passive, parenting. We must get involved in our children's daily lives. We have allowed them to check out of our families and into their bedrooms.
When I was a school principal, I had to suspend one boy for some offense in our Christian school. The mother looked at him and said, "And you're going to stay in your room the entire time!"
I noticed a slight smirk on the teen's face. Later I learned he had there a television, a stereo, a telephone, even a refrigerator! Man, everybody would like to be sent to a room like that for a week!
Moms, dads, be in charge. Know what kind of music your children listen to on their stereos. Know to whom they are speaking on the phone. Know exactly whom they are with and what they are doing when away from home. Control that television. Don't allow someone else to spend more time with your children than you do, unless it is with your permission.
We don't like the insinuations of Mrs. Clinton's Village book, yet many of us have turned our children over to the Hollywood Village, the Mall Village, the Public School Village, the Neighborhood Gang Village simply because we have become too passive.
In the sixties a generation of parents was fed the line of psychobabble, "It isn't the quantity of time you spend with your child; it is the quality that is important." So, like lemmings marching to the sea, a generation of parents abdicated their active role in their children's lives. Now we are reaping the bitter harvest in today's lawless and broken young people.
Kids cannot schedule the crises of their lives according to what is convenient to our Day Timers. It takes time, quality and quantity. There will always be those in the "village" who will make time for your children--the drug dealers, the pornographers, the movie and music industries.
Get active in leading your home! I did not grow up in a home where I was allowed to choose everything for myself--not until I could prove that I would make the right choices. Growing up in a Christian home, my life was filled with good influences. Sometimes when I hear others speak of the spectacular changes following salvation and the life they had led before, I say that I was saved out of the "drug culture": Mom and Dad "drug" me to church, "drug" me to Sunday school, "drug" me to a Christian school. And I thank God that they did.
I'm thankful for the influences of a good church, school and friends; but no influence was greater than parents who were extremely active in every facet of my existence. They demonstrated leadership in an active way.
We cannot allow the "village" of our
culture to be more active in the lives of our children than we are.
III. IT DOESN'T TAKE A VILLAGE; IT TAKES PARENTS WHO MODEL A GODLY CHRISTIAN EXAMPLE
Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it," is perhaps the most commonly used verse on child-rearing. That proverb applies a general truth to a specific situation. It is a principle more than a promise. We have all known those who have gone bad who grew up in good homes with godly parents. The rebellious will chose to ignore the good training and teaching. When teenagers do this, it is less a reflection on the parent than on the teenager who apparently has not submitted his will to the Lord.
The word "train" here comes from the Hebrew word hanak, meaning to dedicate. It includes an idea of "hedging in" or "narrowing" and would often be used in the sense of "starting" something. Horses are "hedged in" at the beginning of a race so their start will be fair and so they will be headed in the right direction. Garden plants are "started" in small, confining containers, under a protected environment so they will get a good beginning. Godly parenting demands that godly parents get their youngsters off to a right start.
"...in the way he should go" is from a Hebrew phrase literally meaning "upon the mouth of his way." This Hebrew idiom spoke of the authority with which one might deliver a message. A servant would deliver a message in "the mouth of the way" of his master or at the command of his superior. Again, the idea of authority is very clearly seen.
As parents follow the direction of God's authority in their lives, they are better equipped to serve as an authority in the lives of their children. Good parenting begins with our right relationship with God. If we aren't right with Him, we simply cannot be and are not the right kind of parents.
Some of my most treasured memories are of seeing my mother kneel beside her bed and pray for my sisters and me. We knew she prayed for us daily and for our future. A sweet memory is seeing my father in his favorite chair with his Bible in his lap, reading Scripture by the light of the early morning sun.
Godly example is crucial in the rearing of a child.
When Dad sends the family to church on Sunday morning while he goes golfing, he is not being a godly example.
When Mom gossips on the phone while little ears listen, she isn't setting a godly example.
When Mom and Dad send the children out of the room so they can watch prime time TV, they aren't providing a godly example.
Many of us talk highly of the power of prayer, but how many of us pray daily for our children? Many of us desire that our children have happy marriages with a pleasant family atmosphere, yet ours is marked with bitter arguments and a loveless cohabitation.
Let us be models of godliness. "In all
things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing
uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, Sound speech, that cannot be condemned;
that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to
say of you" (Titus 2:7,8).
IV. IT DOESN'T TAKE A VILLAGE; IT TAKES PARENTS WHO MAKE LOVE INVESTMENTS
Be careful to balance your parenting. No one person has all answers to rearing children. To claim to know all the answers is the height of arrogance. Each parent and each child are different. With all those combinations, we must be praying daily for godly discernment and wisdom in dealing with all the facets of their upbringing.
Yet one element that cannot be overlooked is love. Love is the buffer that allows us to speak the truth, with the hope that it will be received. "But speaking the truth in love, [that we] may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ" (Eph. 4:15). When we love them in the right way, our children will not question us when we say "no" and when we exercise our biblical authority in their lives. While they may not always like what we decide, yet they will always know that we love them. That is why a gentle spirit, with firm determination, can be so effective. Too often our tone and temper confuse them as to the position of our heart and attitude toward them.
When we use the "POP" method of discipline--we are pushed and pushed until finally we "pop," then explode--we undermine our authority and motivation. Strong displays--Jesus and the moneychangers--are sometimes required under controlled circumstances, but with Jesus' disciples displays of that magnitude were not necessary. A disapproving look or comment, as when Jesus insisted He be allowed to wash Peter's feet, was all that was needed for submission and obedience. Why was that? Because of the hours they were spending together, the authority of His message, the consistency of His example, and the love He demonstrated toward them. How long has it been since you told your children that you love them? Do you hug them, tousle their, hair, give them "noogies," and slip an occasional note in their lunch bag or under their pillow? Are "I love you" the last words they hear as they drift off to sleep? Or is it, "If you get out of that bed one more time...!"? Do you allow yourself or them to storm out of the house with angry words still ringing in their ears?...
I hope the last words my kids ever hear are, "I love you!"
If you want yours on your side, don't let the "village" tell them they love them more often than you do. The love of the "village" is phony and cheap. It doesn't last, and it is exploitive.
I am convinced that there would be less immorality among our teens, fewer teenage pregnancies and fewer other tragedies, if we would regularly communicate our love and show our affection to them.
Today's young people are crying, searching for authority, leadership, examples, and love. What better place to get it than at home!
No, it doesn't take a "village"; it takes a mom and dad who know the Word of God and have a personal relationship with the God of the Word and who have the character and determination to pay the price and invest the time in their children. No man on his deathbed has ever said, "Man, I wish I'd spent less time with my family and more at the factory."
Let's not turn them over to Hillary's "Village." Let's do what God has called every parent to do. If we do it right, we'll CHANGE the "village."
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Dr. Burrell is senior pastor of the Berean Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, Florida. He is also the President Elect of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools with over 200 member schools, representing over 55,000 teachers and students.
