Its an off repeated phrase isn't it, and I suppose to some extent everyone of us were "brought up", or raised by a combination of people outside our parents, and immediate family, (such as influential teachers we admired and took a particular interest in encouraging our progress).
However, I believe there is an element of the wider community taking ownership of our own children inherent in the topic phrase. Do each one of us try to take ownership of the children we might have something to do with, friends children for example, and go so far as to interfere in their lives, (I'd guess most would say no to that question?)? .
Does it take a village to raise a child in your opinion?
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A village is not needed.
Reflecting on my own childhood, when I was growing up there wasn't a neighbour in our hood that I would have felt uncomfortable approaching and asking for help if help is what I needed, and in fact I remember my mom telling us kids, if you need something or it's an emergency, you are to knock on so-and-so's door.
To a large degree, everyone watched over everyone, because everybody knew everybody, and in many ways, I believe that helped guide children to better manners and conduct, even providing children with a sense of safety and calm. Also remember when moms stayed at home, there was always someone in the home for a child to go to.
As for taking control of and extending a sense of ownership of a child in your care, that was me. I did a lot of babysitting growing up, and while I was fair, I was strict, and I lived up to the ideal of owning other people's children in my care, right down to administering a spanking when a spanking was due.
I think that's where society today I failing, because most homes I know of, both parents work, so there's no one at home for the children to go to, and unlike yesteryear when everybody knew everybody, it's not like that anymore, and even more troubling to me is the fact that so many parents nowadays don't even know their own children's parents, which was unheard of when I was growing up.
To touch on how my childhood was in relation to ownership, and how important that fundamental was, the mothers of my friends used to make random telephone calls to my mom every now and then to do surprise checkups on their kids, just to make sure my friends were actually where they said they were going to be, and my mom used to do the same with me, unbeknownst to me at the time, so going back to the whole ownership thing, I feel a stronger sense of responsibility existed back in the day compared to nowadays, because had you let your guard down (back in the day when parenting was actually parenting, unlike today), and Mrs., so-and-so decided to call to do one of her check-ups, how embarrassing and undermining it would be to get caught red-handed in allowing so-and-so's daughter or child under your watchful eye to wander off outside of the boundaries that were stated as to their visit (i.e., I'm here to visit Margaret).
Related to my own younger years, single digits, had I stepped out of line bad enough at a friends or neighbours house, I could expect the same punishment/discipline as my friends got, right down to and including a spanking. That's the way it was, and I seen and still see not a thing wrong with it.
So while I don't believe it takes a village to raise a child, I'm a firm-believer in the idea that an extra set of responsible, caring hands, along with a couple extra sets of watchful eyes can't hurt.
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