Diane Robertson
Babies are born needing to belong. Children born to a mother or father who do not want them, neglect them, abuse them, or do not attach to them, often suffer from attachment disorder causing problems throughout their lives. Given this fact, it shouldn’t be surprising that some people feel alarmed when a MSNBC news anchor, Melissa Harris-Perry declared:
We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had a private notion of children; your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children.
So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.
MSNBC, one of the largest corporations in America, has clearly gone along with the idea. The wording is deceitful enough for a lot of people to believe the idea refers solely to education. Even if the reference is just about educational decisions being made solely by the community/government, I would think teachers would be more alarmed rather than on board with the idea. The most frequent complaint heard from educators is that parents aren’t involved enough in their children’s education. Do they really want the community/government to be the sole decision makers in education? Most teachers would tell you that parents matter. They matter a lot. The better students are the ones that have the most support from their parents.
Can the “community” really make ideal individual decisions for children better than the parents can?
Imagine a society in which parents believed their children and the responsibility of raising their children did not belong to them. You should be imagining a community full of individuals with attachment disorder. Children belong to their parents and their families. Children have an innate need to belong to their parents. When attachment and sense of belonging is broken, the children cannot function appropriately in society.
MSNBC should consider the societal affects before promoting an idea that would detach parents from children and children from parents. One-size-fits-all decisions from community/government are not better for the education of children than individual caring decisions made by people who love their children. To educators and other government employees, children are primarily a paycheck. To parents and family children are integral part of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.