What Happened To The Village?

They say it takes a village to raise a child. I seem to be one of those lucky few who have surrounded myself with friends and family who feel the same way. But as I look at our society as a whole I see kids who don't have adult supervision, have no respect for authority, and either don't know right from wrong or just don't care. I have a village of supportive people around me, but what happened to the larger village of our society?

When I was a kid, I grew up in an area where every adult woman in the neighborhood was my "Auntie". People who were not considered my Auntie were either "Grandparents" or Mr. and Mrs. (enter last name). Although I was out playing all day long, I was never unsupervised. The whole neighborhood supervised me. I could wander over to one Auntie's house for cookies and stories. Then I would wander to another Auntie's house to play with the animals they had. And you could bet I have been disciplined by various Auntie's. They never spanked me, but they did let me know when I screwed up. In fact, it was more scary getting chewed out by an Auntie than it was to get disciplined by my parents (and my parents didn't take any crap). 

Simply knowing that anyone I came into contact with felt free to let me know when I had done something wrong made me think twice before doing something stupid. Our kids need that now. I understand that parents can't be everywhere, but our society needs to step up and take responsibility for teaching kids right and wrong. And parents need to give society that authority. The way things are now, adults are afraid to correct children that are not their own (remember I am not talking about spanking, but correcting) or if they do, the kids run home to over permitting parents that get angry at the adult who tried to correct destructive behavior. Then the parents can't figure out what went wrong when the kid grows up to be a disrespectful trouble maker.

I have been dumbfounded to see how people allow their children to talk to them. I have even stepped in and told children not to talk to their mother this way (I knew the kid and the mom...I guess that makes me the Auntie). Its amazing that neighborhood kids that don't listen to their parents will listen to me, and beg to come over and play. That just tells me that the village is more powerful than a family unit alone. Children understand that, and prefer the village. Let's build our society into a village, for our children's sake.