Incident: I was just watching a CNN Weekly report and several other ½ hour programs that I inadvertently stumbled into regarding the raising of children in today’s environment. They were expounding upon the various solutions to keeping children happy while Mom and Dad were working. Maybe I’m missing the point, but isn’t the "Family" suppose to be a "Family Thing" and not the "Village Thing" that Ms Clinton so enthusiastically proclaimed? The first solution to the problem of "Latch Key Kids" was having a phone number to call, like a Kid’s 911 for psychological needs and unfulfilled needs for parents. The second was the solution to the "Taxi Parent" that can’t be in two places at once, i.e. working and shuttling. Day Care centers are beginning to be recognized for what they should be, in that they are Parents - raising other parent’s children. They are teaching the codes of conduct during the 8+ hours of day care time.

Thoughts: I look at it this way. If today’s parents want to have and raise children, they need to make a commitment to do that. There are many parents today who are making that commitment and doing it quite successfully. There are others who aren’t or don’t choose to. Some feel that it is there duty to have a family (not recognizing the fact that it’s OK not to have one) but are more interested in their own career path – under the guise of having to do it for the income to raise the family – but in reality are pushing their own agenda. Nothing wrong with pursuing your own path and it is much encouraged as it leads to some sort of fulfillment, but not at the expense of another, in this case the children. Being at work all day, evening and nights is no excuse for sending children home with a key to an empty house believing that some well meaning sole (who should be having children of their own) will comfort the child and act as a proxy-Parent until the real one shows up. Obviously one can only do what one can, as in the case of the poorer folks who simply have no alternative, but they need the Day Care Centers in any case.

In the "Taxi Parent" the children are picked up by a bus driver and delivered to the door step of the place they need to be. The parent is off doing something else (recognizing of course that sometimes it is necessary due to occasional conflicts in scheduling). The children begin to relate to the driver and the other kids riding on the bus and a family link starts to form. Nothing wrong with that, in fact encouraged.

The problem is that the children are relating to more that one set of parents. The "Kid’s 911" operator acts as a parent in some respects as trying to comfort the child in loneliness, fear, and general Feel Goodness that is experience at Home alone. The "Taxi Parent" has the same situation in that the Taxi is shuttling them around, taking care of their schedule and showing a general concern for the child on the way to and back from the location. The concept of Poxy-Parenting is certainly not new as with the wealthy class having the Nanny’s, Au pairs (of recently questionable qualifications) if you please, but is now slowly leaking down to the Middle Class, the Working class, and it is being accepted. With Child day care centers, again Proxy-Parents, I see a new and more important set of parents that, at this point in time aren’t acting yet as parent but as caretakers, emerging and doing a better job than the normal parent. They can or will be doing a better job since they will be trained to raise better children according to the current methods of Better Child Rearing procedures. They will be trained in the motivational skills, moral codes, and the basic instincts that are setting the building blocks of their moral being. As more and more parents see the value of the day care centers the more they will be willing to pay for the expert services and belief systems taught at that particular center, just like choosing a school. The staffing at the Centers will become highly qualified in child forming years and will be instilling in the child more than the ordinary parent would be able or willing to do. Majority of parents love their children and would not object to having them raised by other (although you won’t find any parent that would agree their children are "..Being raised" by a center, but in fact that is just what is happening) guardians that they have screened to concur with the parents upbringing and ideals. The child will grow up in the formative years with the Center’s guidelines, under the auspices of the parents. They will probably do a better job at it.

Conclusion: With the increasing role the "Taxi Parent", "911-Parent", and the "Center-Parent", all these come together to influence and direct the upbringing of the child. The Real-Parents are off doing their thing, with some sort of Quality Time allocated to the "Family Thing". With the influence coming from all these different directions and done in better, more caring ways, it is bound to help the child, improve the emotional and mental state, but it will do it in a different way. No longer will the family be considered a Blood-line family, but of a Modular-Family. There’s a child’s family for coming home, a family for day care, a family for transportation and finally the Real-family of the Blood parents. I’m certainly not saying this is bad for the development of the child unless the Blood-Family has any further significance or use in today’s environment.