January-February, 1996 -- Hillary Rodham Clinton has almost written
a book. It was ghost-written by someone else and the title plagiarized from
a children's book by the same name, written in the 1980s. Otherwise it is
the product of the First Lady's fertile mind. Don't buy a copy; don't even
bother taking it out of the library. It's not worth anyone's time and effort!
Assuredly, it was intended to be warm and humorous, full of tidbits of Bill,
Hillary, and Chelsea. But it is really a condescending polemic by a "Mother
Earth" elitist to those of us who are too dumb to know how to raise
our children to the standards of present-day children's advocates, such
as Marilyn Wright Edelman and other social service types.
In the original children's book, the children are truly nurtured by the
whole small African village, as an extended family. Mrs. Clinton's (?) book,
using the same theme, waxes nostalgic about her childhood, about what it
was like to live in an intact family, about the loving care of nearby relatives,
how teachers and churches supplemented the richness of her family life.
Then she goes on - at length - about how all that has changed, of the increasing
mobility in America, of not being surrounded by family and relatives, of
the large number of divorces, single-parent families, and all of the costly
personal and societal costs such things have produced.
Mrs. Clinton's answer? We now live in a larger world and that world should
become our global village. All children should become "our" children.
In other words, "it's a small world after all," and we are all
responsible for each other, and each other's children!
Considering this state of crisis, we (the government and other social agencies)
should be there, during pregnancy and from thence onward to see to the nurture,
intellectual stimulation, and well-being of every single child on earth.
They are too precious to do otherwise...she adores children.
In every area she quotes "experts" on child-rearing and developmental
research. She gives precious little vignettes of her ineptness as a new
parent, some of which just makes this well-educated woman look just plain
dumb. She describes, in glowing terms, some private - but mostly government
- programs worldwide which are teaching people how to be better, more successful
parents. I guess so that we won't be as dumb as she and Bill have been.
Unfortunately, it is a best-selling book. The grade level of writing is
not challenging, nor is the content. But it is a carefully written book
to catch the unsophisticated reader's concern about raising their own children
in a hectic, sometimes uncaring world. Such a person could be unwittingly
swept into the mistaken belief that others can do a better, more loving
and knowledgeable job of parenting than they can themselves (or if a juvenile,
than their own parents can).
The book is in many ways a primer on the upcoming world conference on women,
Habitat II, and the future changes it will project for families of the earth.
Most of these changes, which follow the recent Cairo conference, will be
unwelcome to American parents. It Takes A Village is a deceptively simple
and dangerous book. Hillary Clinton is not to be taken lightly, nor should
this book be. Buyer/reader beware!
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