Listening to a book…“Sapiens”. Author talked about how dependent kids are. How compared to other animals, our babies need alot of support in the early stages of life.
Like alot of you I’m sure, I’ve got a fair amount of kids in my life…none of “mine” but some kind of are. I guess my point is we may not have kids, but really, they are all our kids, as supported by evolutionary biology, it takes a village.
Edit: Going a bit deeper…the author explains that for millions of years, while we were tribal, nomadic gatherer/hunters. We didn’t know who’s kids were who’s, obviously the mother was primary caretaker, but, circling back, we evolved to raise kids as a community, not so much of the “traditional” mom/dad/child dynamic popular today.
I don’t plan on “having kids” but still, I think it’s all our responsibility (hopefully a partially enjoyable one) to help. Hard to argue anything more beneficial for our societys future than having well developed youth.
There are two problems with your idea.
First, in a true “community” situation, the parents will have been giving to their community their whole lives. Most of the modern “it takes a ViLlAgE!” parents are entitled mooches looking for handouts; they’ve rarely lifted a finger for anyone outside of friends and family.
Second, disciplining children used to be a community action. Anyone from the community could chastise a child, or tell the parents and expect the behavior to be corrected. Many modern parents become the defensive “mama bear/papa bear” when someone doesn’t worship their child (or worse, is critical of them). They may encourage their childrens’ bad behavior, or make excuses for it (“kids will be kids”).
TL;DR: Modern ‘parenting’ is diametrically opposed to “the village”