Impolite Conversations by Cora Daniels

Author:Cora Daniels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

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I found out in the spring of 2013 that “collective” has become a dirty word. Trying to hammer out my thoughts for this essay, I was doing some research and came across the online brouhaha over, of all things, a thirty-second MSNBC promo featuring host Melissa Harris-Perry.

“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have. We haven’t had a very collective notion of ‘these are our children.’ We have to break through our private idea that children belong to their parents, or children belong to their families, and recognize that children belong to whole communities. Once it’s ­everybody’s responsibility and not just the household’s, we start making better investments.”

That’s it. That is the entire transcript of what she said. That is what caused the bombardment of conservative criticism. Glenn Beck called the promo “terrifying” specifically for its promotion of “collective.” Sarah Palin tweeted, “Apparently MSNBC doesn’t think your children belong to you. Unflippingbelievable.” Rush Limbaugh ranted, calling the notion communist. And the list goes on. FOX News dedicated so much coverage to the “controversy” that MSNBC ad folks were “giddy” over the attention the blabber was bringing to Harris-Perry’s weekend morning talk show. We had been through this before. In 1996 First Lady Hillary Clinton got trounced by the Right when she came out with her book It Takes a Village to Raise a Child—adopting the African proverb to argue what children’s advocates have always promoted: for our communities to take collective responsibility for our children. In Bob Dole’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention that year, he barked, “With all due respect, I am here to tell you, it does not take a village to raise a child. It takes a family to raise a child.”

Seventeen years later we are having the same argument.

I have to admit, the uproar over MHP left me a bit speechless. It was one of those moments where I felt so disconnected from our reality, it was as if I were actually not part of the world where everyone could be shouting about this but watching that world unravel on a big screen somewhere. Since we are talking about parenting, I then checked in with my mother to ask her about her memories of the uproar over Clinton’s collective parenting words, and she said virtually the same thing. “I remember I was really stunned,” she said, not knowing her reporter daughter would record her words forever. “I just couldn’t believe that she could be criticized for saying such a thing.” For my mom it is always a Right-Left issue. In fact, the next thing she said was: “They really hated her!” They being the big bad right wing conspiracy.

But it is not only the Glenn Becks that have trouble with the idea of collective parenting. Most of us may not be yelling and screaming about the issue, but our actions do the screaming for us. Again, John Adams’s personal views against slavery didn’t matter as much as his inaction as president on the issue did.

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