It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us. - book reviews

National Review, March 11, 1996 by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

HILLARY Rodham Clinton chose the title of her new book from the African proverb, 'It takes a village to raise a child,' because, she says, the proverb 'offers a timeless reminder that children will thrive only if their families thrive and if the whole of society cares enough to provide for them.' 'Nothing,' she concludes, 'is more important to our shared future than the well-being of children. For children are at our core -- not only as vulnerable beings in need of love and care but as a moral touchstone amidst the complexity and contentiousness of modern life.' As an antidote to that complexity and contentiousness, Mrs. Clinton offers the folksy image of the village with its nostalgic evocations of a simpler, more harmonious past.

It Takes a Village flows as effortlessly and comfortably as an intimate chat over coffee or iced tea, skillfully blending personal anecdotes, unimpeachable pieties, and carefully shrouded policy prescriptions. Settling into a welcoming armchair or a rocker on the porch, the reader is lulled into acquiescence by inviting chat and familiar home truths. Mrs. Clinton writes of a wondrous transformation that engulfed her and Mr. Clinton following Chelsea's birth. She takes us back into her and Bill's childhood and introduces us to family members, while she marvels at the different ways in which with love and solicitude parents can make things come out right even under difficult circumstances, provided the village supports their efforts. We follow Chelsea through childhood and adolescence, although without invading her privacy. And always, from the lives of the Rodhams, the Clintons, and the many people Mrs. Clinton has encountered, we learn object lessons about the importance of religion and service, the bonds of communities, and the heroic resilience of families. Time and again Mrs. Clinton reminds us that even the best families can never do it alone.

Today, families face more formidable difficulties in ensuring a decent childhood and future for their children than they did in even the recent past. Thus, as she focuses on the present, the paeans to civic institutions, voluntary associations, and communities increasingly intertwine with reminders of the centrifugal forces that are mustering against them. Economic concentration, global corporations, downsizing, divorce, violence on television, video games, irresponsible commercials, crime, the failure of education, and more have put the coherence and resilience of families at high risk.

Mrs. Clinton scrupulously refrains from blaming individuals for our current travails. Neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party receives specific mention. At most, she raps the knuckles of those unnamed individuals who believe differently than she, especially those who favor a decisive reduction in the scope and actions of the Federal Government. In contrast, she warmly commends individuals and companies of whose policies and actions she approves, including 'my husband' and Al Gore. In general, her recommendations for the ways in which we might improve our 'village' so as to support the work of families remain so general as to appear disingenuous.

As a result, throughout most of the book she says little with which any moderately responsible and decent adult could disagree -- at least in public. Who does not want children to benefit from supportive families, safe neighborhoods, good education, and wholesome entertainment? Indeed, Mrs. Clinton frequently takes a more conservative position on some sensitive issues than many of her liberal allies may feel comfortable with. She acknowledges that divorce almost always harms children, that television programming should be restricted or at least clearly rated for its violent content, that there might be a place for uniforms in public schools. She writes boldly of the value of prayer, church affiliation, and religious education. She even warmly endorses children's need for both a mother and a father.

In more ways than one, It Takes a Village disconcertingly resembles Mr. Clinton's recent State of the Union address: It is a skillful, seductive, and engaging performance. The rhetoric and 'values' expressed make this book hard not to like. In this case, as in an increasing number of cases these days, the problem lies not with the rhetoric or the values, but with the underlying commitments and attendant policies to which they are bound and which they implicitly articulate. To the extent possible, Mrs. Clinton avoids naming the policies over which honest people might disagree, but the informed reader should not find it difficult to recognize her preferences.

The need to promote children's health leads her to praise the 1993 vaccination program and bemoan the budget cutbacks that threaten it, but we hear nary a word about the charges that it has resulted in the needless waste of vaccine. Predictably, her discussion of the importance of service includes a resounding endorsement of AmeriCorps. Thus, even as she praises private voluntary associations, she reminds us that they, too, require government assistance. Withal, Mrs. Clinton exercises admirable discretion in urging governmental intervention in the lives of families and communities. When she speaks of how children can be our consciences 'if we don't burden them with stereotypes' and if we 'teach them affirmative thinking and feeling,' she may well intend parents to do the teaching. But then again, she may not. Since the National Educational Association has ranked among the most generous contributors to her husband's presidential campaigns, it is equally plausible that she expects the war against stereotypes to be conducted by professional educators.