A FEW YEARS AGO my aunt made a study of our family genealogy. She traced back ten generations or more and assembled a great number of facts, which she sent in a thick notebook to each of our family members. One detail caught my attention, and we joked about it at the time. Since neither my brother nor I have children, there is a noticeable gap in the family tree beneath our names. While all our cousins have children adding branches to the tree, it looks as if Bill and I haven't been keeping up.
For me, this raises an interesting question. Does everyone have to be a parent, or are there ways to encourage kids even if they're not your own?
The popular saying, thought to be an African proverb, hints at an answer: "It takes a village to raise a child." Experience suggests that children benefit from interaction with a variety of different people. Their lives are rounded out and enriched by it. Grandparents are a prime example. Grandparents can be profoundly important in a child's life. Aunts and uncles, too, because they can relate to kids in ways that parents don't, and they enlarge a child's circle of allies. Teachers, coaches, instructors, Sunday School teachers—all these people fulfill unique and necessary roles.
