With the influx of discussion on effective parenting on blogs and news outlets across the country, many have tried to pin-point what the best approach is to raising a child successfully would be: some say stern rules and regulations, others note that liberty and freedom in child rearing produces well balanced results. While the course of action taken is solely to the discretion of the parent, what I find to be most effective method is the impact of communal parenting.
Communal parenting evokes the sentiment of the age-old adage "it takes a village to raise a child" and explores the ancestral African roots of an entire community of "investors" (aunts, uncles, sisters, parents, neighbors, etc.) taking responsibility for the life and welfare of the children in the community. Adrienne Lance Lucas, Principal and COO of Inheritance Capital Group and co-founder of the Kids Entrepreneurs Need Opportunities (KENO) Micro-Loan Fund has embraced and made the communal parenting impact work to her benefit. "Parenting has been a fantastic experience," Lucas explains, "but of course it has its challenges. Raising a young son isn't an easy task. I would never be able to do what I do without the people around me." Lucas, who was one of five children, has only one son, Keno. Lucas has used the communal parenting process to foster excellence and a sense of communal responsibility in her son.
"When Keno was 3 years old, he was fascinated with money and debit cards. He enjoyed drawing and we wanted to find a way to help him combine his two favorite pastimes: money and art. We created a website for him to sell his artwork at $5 apiece. It was then he became captivated by entrepreneurship."
Now at age 12, Keno runs a nonprofit organization that teaches kids about entrepreneurship, money management, business planning and the like. The KENO Micro-Fund (named after him), is hosting a Youth Entrepreneur Week November 13-19 in Atlanta, GA where kids will have the opportunity to win micro-loans for their business ideas and participate in conversations with businesses owners across the globe in conjunction with Global Entrepreneur Week.
Lucas attributes her son's success to not just direct parenting, but the communal efforts of friends, families, men and women in the community who have a stake in seeing her son succeed. Although now raising her son as a single parent, Lucas notes that single parenting doesn't limit her abilities to parent successfully. "There's this social stigma that single parent homes can't do just as good of a job as two-parent homes, but that's far from the truth. When the community steps up to ensure that every child in every household is accounted for, we have a greater chance of success for our children."
Tapping into the shared effort to raise our children is vitally important; with the recent news of Amber Cole, a 14-year-old who was filmed performing sexual acts on a young male, we are in desperate need for a shift in the way we engage in the lives of our children. Of course, every household is responsible for instilling core values and principles that produce good citizens, and the full responsibility of parenting falls on the parent, but when we all become invested in the welfare of our children we are creating a community where they can be productive, safe, and successful. "We must have a community of people to rely on -- don't be afraid to ask for help or expect those around you to have a vested interest in your child. When one child does well, we all win."
To learn more about The KENO Fund, visit www.kenofund.org.
Follow Alisha L. Gordon, M.Ed. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlishaLGordon
January 22, 2010 by Phyllis Schlafly
Let me share with you an interesting article from the Washington Post about the
teacher of an all-black class in a high school in Alexandria, Virginia, who
expressed his frustration at how poorly the students were performing. The class
included both native-born African-Americans and kids who had immigrated from
Africa. In a moment of exasperation, the teacher blurted out this question to the native-born students: "Why don't you guys study like the kids from Africa?" One of them shot back the answer.
The kid replied, "It's because they have fathers who kick their butts and make
them study." Another student called out: "Ask the class, just ask how many of us have our fathers living with us."
The teacher did ask the class, and not one hand went up. The students had
figured out, even if school teachers and administrators are still in the dark,
that the essential difference between kids who make it in school, and those who
don't, is whether they have their father in the home.
It isn't a matter of race; the African-Americans and the Africans are the same
race. It isn't because the school doesn't have enough money; this school has so
much money that it gives every student a laptop of his own.
The problem is, lack of fathers at home. The liberal welfare system where fathers were an impediment to taxpayer handouts.
37.8% of single mothers are divorced, 41% never married. Brookings Institute, “Assessing the Impact of Welfare Reform on Single Mothers”, Part 2, 3/22/04
“The strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison, is that they were raised by a single parent”. C.C. Harper and S.S. McLanahan, “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration”, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Assoc., San Francisco, CA, 1998
In 1996, 70% of inmates in state juvenile detention centers were raised by single mothers. Wade Horn, “Why There Is No Substitute For Parents”, IMPRIMIS 26, NO.6, June, 1997
72% of juvenile murderers, and 60% of rapists came from single mother homes. Chuck Colson, “How Shall We Live?” Tyndale House , 2004, p.323
“After controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared.” Progressive Policy Institute, 1990, quoted by David Blankenhorn, “Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem,” New York, Harper Perennial, 1996, p.31
"(I)n a recent study by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, the organization reported that Detroit ranks No.1 in unmarried births among the nations’ 50 largest cities.Seventy-one percent were born to unmarried mothers. This compared with a state average of 33 percent and a 50-city average of 43 percent."
Detroit is the worst on our list of America's most dangerous cities, with a rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000. "