The importance of children

How we raise our children is the most important thing humans do. But we don't act like it in the way our societies have become structured. This includes the built environment and its relationship to the land, in addition to, all the various relationships we have to each other. 

I was thinking about the importance of treating our child as if they truly matter. I'm sure for some people that is a given. But there are others who have difficulty doing that. And the reason why they have difficulty is because we don't raise our children communally anymore. It used to be people lived in one place or one town or one neighborhood for most or all of their lives. This means they knew the people who lived in their immediate surroundings. The reason why people in small towns used to say they'd call a kid's parents if he was caught doing something wrong because A) living in a decent community means people abiding by the same basic virtues of civility and honesty and, B) the parents were friends with each other, meaning, they shared the same basic values and had common interests.