After living in North America for more than forty years, I still find myself totally bewildered by some of the false notions that exist in this part of the world. Take child-rearing for example.

We find it normal to raise our children in a small cell made out of mom, dad, and the kid sister. Sadly, this goes against the dictates of our species. We are social and intelligent animals. We need in our formative years the influence of many other adults besides our parents.

We often hear that it takes a village to raise a child. However, most of us do not have a clue as to what that means.

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I consider myself very lucky. I benefited from the clan upbringing and my family was financially comfortable.

I was born, and spent the first 20 years of my life, in Cairo, Egypt. My family was originally from Italy. I am myself a third generation Italian born in Egypt. While French is my mother tongue, I spoke both French and Arabic fluently. For the “true” Egyptians, we were considered as Afrang (foreigners). Foreigners or not, we benefited from the special atmosphere that existed in this wonderful country without suffering from the poverty that plagued most of the Egyptian people.

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In my book, Equal Partners, I have a chapter on child care. This chapter includes a section on the Children of the Kibbutz. Since in our modern Western society we cannot resurrect the clan upbringing, it occurred to me that the kibbutz system could serve as a substitute.

In some kibbutzim* the children live in a Children’s House (Bet Hayeladim) rather than with their own families. They are organized into social units of 5 or 6 children of the same age under the supervision of a caregiver (Metapelet). Each unit has its own bedroom, bathroom, dining room, playroom, and yard.

In the case of infants, mothers spend time with them and the metapelet in the Infant’s House (Bet Hatinokim). However, after the first year, they usually see their parents and siblings only for two hours in the late afternoon. These visits with the parents are purely social. The metapelet care for the children on the physical, emotional and developmental levels.

* I understand that the above system is becoming less and less prevalent in kibbutzim across Israel. No matter. I am interested in the idea itself rather than the extent to which it is still being used.

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I discussed the clan upbringing from the children’s perspective. But what about the parents? I have no doubt in my mind that parents would benefit just as much. However, since I left Egypt at the age of 20, I did not experience it first-hand. I can however make some intelligent observations.

Imagine being able to send your kid away for 3 months and get a chance to renew your romance. Imagine being helped by many people to carry out your duties as parents. Imagine not being blamed for everything that went wrong in the life of your children. Gratitude is in short supply in North America and, in many cases, a blaming game takes place. This is sad and it needs to be changed if we are ever going to have a sane and balanced society.

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