Personal responsibility is a vital part of parenting.

It may be true that raising a child takes a village, but there is a difference between friends and family willingly helping out the parents they know, and those parents assuming that they will take over duties that they are simply not able to. At the end of the day, the parents are the ones who have to be the principal caretakers of their children, unless extenuating circumstances say otherwise.

This is an issue that can cause difficulties in families where parents hope that their close relatives will step up and help them to a higher level than they are able. The fact is that other people have plenty of responsibilities too, and they have to work around that to care for somebody else’s kids. They can’t always afford to drop everything just because it is convenient for the parents that they know.