There was a time (not a million, but just 60 years ago) when socialization, also colors and shapes, the numbers, how to print (even write in cursive) how to read, play — everything a child could possibly learn in Pre-K or kindergarten — was taught at home by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and in villages across our nation. Children went to the movies on Saturday, you never saw a school bus parked outside a movie theater on a school day. Parents once actually reared their children. 

Children entered school in the first grade at age six (or slightly before depending on when their birthday fell). They possessed the necessary basic skills and knowledge that teachers (with the help of parents) built on to “promote the welfare of children and youth in the home, school, church and community.” That’s a quote, the first objective of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers (1940s). Note, the home came first. 

There was a time in America when childrearing was natural and instinctive. People got married, had children, and reared them. Taking away all the intellectual rhetoric, the purpose of raising children is to help them out of our lives and into successful lives of their own. 

In the last 60 years, we’ve done such a good job of turning wives into mothers and husbands into dads, that by the time their kids leave home they’ve forgotten how to be married. Please remember too, men are just as important as women to the raising of children. Unfortunately, many people today think of childrearing as primarily “women’s work” and as a result we’re inclined to regard fathers as “parenting aides.”

Another thing we’ve managed to misplace over time, and which is a valuable tenet of childrearing, is that children, from an early age, should be responsible and contributing members of the family. Children require a lot of supervision but not a lot of attention. Too much attention (like too much of any good thing) is addictive. 

Contrary to what many people believe, previous generations of women were not home with their children, they were home for their children. They supervised but otherwise did not pay a lot of attention or become highly involved ... and kids did just fine. 

Parenting is basically just getting in touch with your common sense and perhaps giving your children a regular, healthy dose of Vitamin “N,” as in “No.”

Schools are where children are educated, not raised. Rearing is done at home. Then, when a child goes to school (at an appropriate age) he takes his parents with him in the form of their discipline, their expectations, and their values. 

David L. Snell  

Franklin