Co-Parenting
"Children belonged to all of the family, not just one set of parents."
- Kaili'ohe Kame'ekua, Moloka'i Hawaiian, 1800s
The more we progress toward a native, clan-based way of life and the less we function in our old nuclear family format, the more rewards we find in co-parenting. Several of them are mentioned in this following excerpt:
"Collective parenting is a Human evolutionary trait; each adult is biologically programmed to help care for all the children in the clan, whether or not they are direct offspring, and a child is biologically programmed to relate to all clan adults as parents. This means that every adult would be involved in caring for the children -- their well-being, their safety, their happiness. The children would grow up in a sea of trust and love, where no adults were strangers and there were no adults to be wary of.
This resulted in all adults being very influential in the lives of the children. They had multiple role models; if they did not resonate with one parent, for whatever reason, they could go to another, or another, or another. They never had to run home in a time of need because they were always home. They did not have to worry about favoritism or having enough of anything, because everything was shared."
- Tamarack Song, Blossoming the Child