When the word “community” is spoken, it pulls with it feelings of other words: “kindness,” “hospitality,” and maybe even “warmth.” It is certainly a good word to put in a headline, but as time goes it has become a lofty ideal, bereft of its substance. A plea then: to recognize what has been lost so we may attempt to recover it.

Long ago, community began with a villager’s child when they came of age to work: they would be taken to a blacksmith, seamstress, or similar trade to apprentice for years under a master to learn all they could of the craft. They would also come away with watching an adult—their master—interact with customers and strangers.

The children would have an adult that they would model themselves after, and in turn the apprentices would be watched over by the master of the craft and their needs would (should) generally be tended to by both the master and their family.

In the community beyond that, many families would work together to fish or farm, often spending time getting to know those they lived amongst with all the passing of the seasons, and if things went well, they would aid each other in times of need to survive. Granted, no doubt some personalities wouldn’t mesh well with each other – but it was do-or-die back then between famine and war and disease – and like siblings forced to learn to keep the peace with each other or face their parents’ ire, so would communities of old when tribulations and difficulties came by.

“It takes a village to raise a child," the proverb goes, but it is only a half measure. It should be: "It takes a community to raise a child, and if done well, the new adult will perpetuate the community.” That apprentice was the engine that would perpetuate the community. But as time moved on and society changed, what have we done with half of our communities the children and our elderly?

The elderly we shove in “homes" which are not unlike schools which are not unlike prisons. All three places have rules about leaving the buildings under certain conditions. All three have guards to some degree to keep those inside from leaving, with locked doors at every entrance. At schools, elderly “care" homes, and prisons the occupants spend more time inside with rooms overflowing with people.

With more families than ever having both parents work, and grandparents sent away to die in care homes, who is there for children to model themselves after? The overworked, underpaid, and exhausted teachers in a building where kids are locked inside plain, white-walled rooms that are too hot or too cold? They will model their behavior after the other inmates – other children, and it is worse yet, when they are not at school they are scrolling endlessly through videos of immature youth.

"It takes a community to raise a child, and if done well, the new adult will perpetuate the community.”

And if a child feels abandoned by the “community?” They shall not want to perpetuate it, but reject it – or even punish it for leaving them without adults that would otherwise show and aid them in navigating interactions with bullies or despots. Furthermore, a lack of adult oversight means those youth that have been consumed by hate and revenge will go unnoticed, and tragedy will follow. And what future do youth have before them as they look up and forwards?

At work bosses can now be on the other side of the world and have no empathetic connection to their employees, and as such have no problem paying pennies and cutting benefits or taking massive bonuses and cutting hundreds and thousands of employees. Parents worked to exhaustion for less than they deserved and seemingly, to youth, the only people making money are those same immature social media “influencers” who are certainly influencing them and likely not in a positive way.

 And at our modern, large homes where families can go to different levels and retreat into different rooms and slip yet further away on social media – when we hardly know those in our neighborhood and lock up the elderly, why would children – or people – want to perpetuate a community that does not show love or empathy to their struggles? 

It is high time that the institution of schooling and care of the elderly move away from their current models and be completely reformatted to be smaller and more individualized in the community, with less money lost to greedy bureaucratic overhead and instead heavily invested in hiring a greater number of passionate teachers to reduce strain in the classroom and are supported more strongly by parents.

It is time to vote for those who want to radically reformat schools, and if parents are unavailable to be models of good behavior due to work, then they should make sure that other adults in the community who are positive role models are actively around their children. Otherwise, what can we expect of future communities if the only people that children see to model their behavior after are other children? Moreover, can good behavior be cultivated if there is no adult around to notice it? Or bad behavior caught and expunged if there is no loving and empathetic adult to notice it – who also has time and energy to expunge it?

With houses being bigger, and people living farther apart and never having to get to know those that live around them, those adults that do have free time that could lend themselves to the community will never be known. Endless entertainment, and the separation of ages – children, adults, elderly – into their “new” respective domains that are too free of each other has made a hollow “community.”

In the words of the stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius when giving thanks:  “...to have good teachers at home, and to realize that this is the sort of thing that one should spend lavishly.”

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to me to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.

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