MSNBC Host Elaborates on Her Claim That Children Don't Belong to Their Parents
Melissa Harris-Perry says she has received "hateful, personal attacks" in response to an MSNBC promotional video that featured the host talking about the need to "break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities."
In a blog post on MSNBC.com titled "Why caring for children is not just a parent's job," Harris-Perry fleshed out her thesis and scolded her critics for overreacting taking her at her word:
I have no intention of apologizing for saying that our children, all of our children, are part of more than our households, they are part of our communities and deserve to have the care, attention, resources, respect and opportunities of those communities.
When the flood of vitriolic responses to the ad began, my first reaction was relief. I had spent the entire day grading papers and was relieved that since these children were not my responsibility, I could simply mail the students' papers to their moms and dads to grade! But of course, that is a ridiculous notion. As a teacher, I have unique responsibilities to the students in my classroom at Tulane University, and I embrace those responsibilities. It is why I love my job.
Then I started asking myself where did I learn this lesson about our collective responsibility to children. So many answers quickly became evident.
I learned it from my mother who, long after her own kids were teens, volunteered on the non profit boards of day care centers that served under-resourced children.
I learned it from my father who, despite a demanding career and a large family of his own, always coached boys' basketball teams in our town.
I learned it from my third-grade public school teacher, who gave me creative extra work and opened up her classroom to me after school so that I wouldn't get bored and get in trouble.
It goes on like that for a while. Watch the original video:
H/T Reason contributor Matt Hurtt
