I've been tossing this idea around actually. Gotta find some way to put my anthropology minor to use :P
All unsourced speculative thoughts:
So, traditionally, across all early human civilizations (including pre-ag revolution), my understanding is that kids weren't "raised" by their parents - everyone just kind of hung out in their villages, doing misc tasks/work, while the children ran free. The "raising" was done by the village as a whole, with the village elders taking an authoritative stance.
Unlike in today's society, there isn't this massive, silo'd burden of ensuring a kid grows up sane / well adjusted / useful to society lumped onto two people who have literally never done it before and have to juggle the responsibility with as much as 8 hours a day or more of work to provide food/shelter for the kids. On average, these couples get about 1.5 "kids" worth of "raising kids" experience, and then that knowledge just dies off because they don't raise any more kids and don't really participate in the raising of their grandchildren.
Compare that to a village where everybody is involved in raising kids, in particular the elders who might have seen tens of children growing and developing, from birth right up to adulthood.
I guess my point is I'm not sure we're really doing "raising kids" in the best way anymore - I don't understand how it's acceptable that
1. Parents need to spend the majority of time away from children to provide food and shelter for the children
2. Two people with minimal "parenting" skills are entrusted with the raising of children from birth to adulthood
EDIT: These thoughts apply to American white culture. Asian cultures still involve grandparents heavily in raising the child (grandparents raising the kids while parents are at work - I got my own issues with that as well but this isn't the place for it) and pockets of Black American neighborhoods where kids are raised by the community / large family units. (There's actually really great books written on how Black American kids grow up super socially adjusted, verbose, and confident because of how much time they spend hanging out with various adults)
You appear to be describing the difference between a communist society and a capitalist one.
The elders, and everyone, helps to raise the child in the "agrarian" because they realise the benefit acrues to all of society, and they have humanity; the modern way is to not do it because you can do other stuff that makes you more profit and puts you ahead of the others.
People in "The West" are much more involved in competing against other people rather than cooperating with them.
I don't think so, just trying to use the context of "agrarian village life" that the parent used. The point is that Capitalism provides a framework in which time, and particularly action, is linked directly to financial recompense and in which profit motive - rather than other firms of value - is lauded most highly. That moves away from community spirit, cooperation, fostering others, and towards greater emphasis on individual monetary wealth (and consumption that indicates such wealth).
All unsourced speculative thoughts:
So, traditionally, across all early human civilizations (including pre-ag revolution), my understanding is that kids weren't "raised" by their parents - everyone just kind of hung out in their villages, doing misc tasks/work, while the children ran free. The "raising" was done by the village as a whole, with the village elders taking an authoritative stance.
Unlike in today's society, there isn't this massive, silo'd burden of ensuring a kid grows up sane / well adjusted / useful to society lumped onto two people who have literally never done it before and have to juggle the responsibility with as much as 8 hours a day or more of work to provide food/shelter for the kids. On average, these couples get about 1.5 "kids" worth of "raising kids" experience, and then that knowledge just dies off because they don't raise any more kids and don't really participate in the raising of their grandchildren.
Compare that to a village where everybody is involved in raising kids, in particular the elders who might have seen tens of children growing and developing, from birth right up to adulthood.
I guess my point is I'm not sure we're really doing "raising kids" in the best way anymore - I don't understand how it's acceptable that
1. Parents need to spend the majority of time away from children to provide food and shelter for the children
2. Two people with minimal "parenting" skills are entrusted with the raising of children from birth to adulthood
EDIT: These thoughts apply to American white culture. Asian cultures still involve grandparents heavily in raising the child (grandparents raising the kids while parents are at work - I got my own issues with that as well but this isn't the place for it) and pockets of Black American neighborhoods where kids are raised by the community / large family units. (There's actually really great books written on how Black American kids grow up super socially adjusted, verbose, and confident because of how much time they spend hanging out with various adults)