As I understand it, Americans raise children and British people bring up children."We raise children."
OR
"We bring up children"
We tend to rear cattle or chickens or horses etc.;-)And...we rear children.
We tend to rear cattle or chickens or horses etc.;-)
Well putLanguage, as a rule, has few, if any, clear cut boundaries. This is very true in America where people tend to move frequently. I would say that all three (raise, bring up and rear) are fairly common throughout the country. I was taught that you raise an animal and rear a child. I believe that, "to rear a child", is used more in the Mid-Atlantic area - south of New York. In the mountainous region one can still hear archaic English terms, some going back to the 15th Century or earlier.
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