How should children be raised in a post-revolutionary society?

[Obzervi]

I just wanted to see what other Leftists think about this issue. Personally I believe that children should be raised communally, as opposed to the current "family unit". The reason for this is that the "family unit" is an oppressive force which passes on patriarchy, racism, religion, and other bigoted ideas from one generation to the next. Perhaps children should be assigned caretakers, whose task is simply to provide shelter and protection while food and clothing will be provided by the state. Children should also be provided an education which focuses on workers' struggles and basic concepts such as labor, production, and equality among all peoples regardless of ethnicity/culture, gender, sexuality etc. I also believe that children can be used effectively to monitor the older generation in regards to bigoted ideas being propagated. Sometime in the teenage years the youth should beging working alongside their older comrades (I have not determined an appropriate age yet however).

[ContrarianLemming]

How should children be raised in a post-revolutionary society?

lovingly

[ContrarianLemming]

I just wanted to see what other Leftists think about this issue. Personally I believe that children should be raised communally, as opposed to the current "family unit". The reason for this is that the "family unit" is an oppressive force which passes on patriarchy, racism, religion, and other bigoted ideas from one generation to the next. Perhaps children should be assigned caretakers, whose task is simply to provide shelter and protection while food and clothing will be provided by the state. Children should also be provided an education which focuses on workers' struggles and basic concepts such as labor, production, and equality among all peoples regardless of ethnicity/culture, gender, sexuality etc. I also believe that children can be used effectively to monitor the older generation in regards to bigoted ideas being propagated. Sometime in the teenage years the youth should beging working alongside their older comrades (I have not determined an appropriate age yet however).

To be frank, that's rediculious, and the kibbutz folk tried it, it didn't work because they were raising they kids together, which caused all the local kids to have an inability to be attracted sexually to one another when they got older. When you are raised alongside another baby (not your reletive) you will see them as your brother/sister when your older and lose to ability to be attracted to them.
This caused many of the kibbutz to die out, all thek ids had to leave and go to the cities to find love because they couldn't fall in love with any of the local kids (they spent to much time being communally raised with them)

theres nothing wrong with family units, and I get the strong feeling you've never raised or help raise a family!

So your opposed to family because it passes on bad ideas? A communal souce could do the exact same thing, while a family force does not necessarily, and in post cases doesn't, pass on these ideas.

So I think your idea is very flawed and a superficial look at families.

[BAM]

To be frank, that's rediculious, and the kibbutz folk tried it, it didn't work because they were raising they kids together, which caused all the local kids to have an inability to be attracted sexually to one another when they got older. ... This caused many of the kibbutz to die out, all thek ids had to leave and go to the cities to find love because they couldn't fall in love with any of the local kids (they spent to much time being communally raised with them)

that's an excellent point. I always thought that communal child-rearing was a silly idea anyway.

[Red Saxon]

lovinglyYeah, how else are you supposed to raise a child :laugh:

But in all seriousness, I don't really have anything against family units, it is just when families force their political or religious views down their children's throats is when I have issue with it. The family unit has been instrumental in the development of the human race, I really can't invision a future where the family unit is completely removed because there are just too many biological attachments involved. (ex. mothers having strong emotions about holding the baby and caring for it while no one else being allowed to do so is a natural psychological response )

Leftists shouldn't be Spartan in their treatment of children, nuff said.

[Robocommie]

Forcing parents to place their kids into community creches instead of being allowed to raise them themselves - how wonderfully creepy and Orwellian.

This is a great way to recruit workers to the cause - join us and we'll take your kids from you!

[Red Saxon]

This is a great way to recruit workers to the cause - join us and we'll take your kids from you!Might I add that Ayn Rand's book Anthem is actually something we should try to avoid. :P

[Robocommie]

Might I add that Ayn Rand's book Anthem is actually something we should try to avoid. :P

Exactly. Just because people think the ideals of Marxism are to turn us all into weird hive-living bug people, doesn't mean it actually is that way.

[28350]

I am actually quite against the nuclear family; I think much psychological trauma arises from it (or rather, the nuclear family under capitalism).

Either way, we'll see what happens.

[Antifa94]

hmmm.
Ever see the movie Blame it on Fidel?
A bohemian anti-bourgeois environment of intellectualism and freedom.

[Obzervi]

Forcing parents to place their kids into community creches instead of being allowed to raise them themselves - how wonderfully creepy and Orwellian.

This is a great way to recruit workers to the cause - join us and we'll take your kids from you!
Under the current system a person has no choice what sort of household they are born into, so it can be seen as forcing the person into undesirable circumstances. Reactionaries hold the view that the nuclear family is ideal but realistic people know that "traditional" families are far from perfect; often exhibiting domestic violence and sexual abuse. I don't see whats so crazy about young people being raised communally where they are safeguarded against abuse because they are under the watchful eyes of many, rather than being treated like property by two older people who never asked the young person if he or she wanted to be born into their household.


Yeah, how else are you supposed to raise a child :laugh:

But in all seriousness, I don't really have anything against family units, it is just when families force their political or religious views down their children's throats is when I have issue with it. The family unit has been instrumental in the development of the human race, I really can't invision a future where the family unit is completely removed because there are just too many biological attachments involved. (ex. mothers having strong emotions about holding the baby and caring for it while no one else being allowed to do so is a natural psychological response )

Leftists shouldn't be Spartan in their treatment of children, nuff said.
Those "biological attachments" you speak of are social constructs used to reinforce the "traditional family". Also your analogy of Spartans is flawed because the differences are vast. For one the Spartans practiced eugenics, which is something I am absolutely against. Secondly, the Spartans forced young people into a harsh training program and severely punished those who couldn't make it through; a form of Social Darwinism. This is another thing which would have no place in a post-revolutionary society. Instead younger people will be more free because they won't have to serve in a slave role to their birth parents as under the current capitalist system.

[Red Saxon]

Those "biological attachments" you speak of are social constructs used to reinforce the "traditional family". Also your analogy of Spartans is flawed because the differences are vast. For one the Spartans practiced eugenics, which is something I am absolutely against. Secondly, the Spartans forced young people into a harsh training program and severely punished those who couldn't make it through; a form of Social Darwinism. This is another thing which would have no place in a post-revolutionary society. Instead younger people will be more free because they won't have to serve in a slave role to their birth parents as under the current capitalist system.Spartans took people's children away from them to train them at age seven. That's what I was talking about.

Also, before the rise of farming and when we were all still a hunter-gatherer species, there was the idea of a family relationship. The nuclear family has nothing to do with capitalism because it predates it by about 190,000 years.

[9]

Spartans took people's children away from them to train them at age seven. That's what I was talking about.

Also, before the rise of farming and when we were all still a hunter-gatherer species, there was the idea of a family relationship. The nuclear family has nothing to do with capitalism because it predates it by about 190,000 years.

Actually, the nuclear monogamous family corresponds directly to the rise of class society. Read Engels' "Origins", this chapter (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02d.htm) in particular. So it is not unreasonable to suppose that part of the abolition of class society will necessarily include the abolition of the nuclear family.
It is just that people are so steeped in ruling class bullshit that they hear this and panic because they imagine this process as something armed militias will bring about by snatching little babies away from their parents by force, rather than the luxury of socialized childcare being offered to parents, and that the superiority of this form of raising children and the liberation that it would offer women in particular (but also children and men), would ultimately render the nuclear family obsolete.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The proletarian revolution isn't a religious sect that we can "recruit" workers to. It's a necessity arising out of material conditions.

Just as revolution won't occur when 50% + 1 tick a box in some election, revolution also won't occur when 50% + 1 are "recruited" to "the cause."

Arguments to the contrary (i.e. that we need to moderate our views as not to put off potential recruits) are nothing but opportunism in action. That's the realm of petty-bourgeois functionaries striving to build mass parties that can participate in the bourgeois political circus. It has nothing to do with proletarian revolution.

As the saying goes, better to fight for what you want and loose than to fight for what you don't want and get it. Ask a working-militant who fought in the Iranian Revolution; if you can find one the Islamic State hasn't got their hands on.

The entire capitalist system is based on the exploitation of the working class, a class made up of people who have no way to survive other than selling their labor to the owners of the means of production. Despite creating and running everything, the members of the working class receive only crumbs in return. In order to liberate themselves from this modern form of slavery, working people must eliminate the foundations of capitalism and class society: private ownership of the means of production.

By ripping up the capitalism system by its roots--which by necessity includes eliminating the state that corresponds to it--and reorganizing society in its own image, the working class will liberate all of humanity from all the forms of social misery that arose out of class society.

Yes, that includes the "nuclear family" as it exists today.

Are we talking about Secret Police snatching children from their parents in the middle of the night to be trained as some sort of shock troops? Of course not. That's nothing more than paranoid fantasy deriving from 1950's Red Scare propaganda films.

We're talking about the individual or "traditional" family dissolving in a new kind of society. And in fact, that is already happening to a large extent. Despite what we're told, the "traditional family" isn't all that traditional at all. It didn't even exist for the biggest part of human history. It arose in and corresponds to specific material conditions.

Originally a way for men to assert their ownership of women and transmit their wealth to their offspring and/or a business arrangement between two existing families, "traditional" marriage is increasingly becoming obsolete. With new information and opportunities, women and children are less likely to accept being the property of others; with different economic conditions, marriage and the nuclear family no longer serve the same purpose.

Not only is the number of marriages decreasing in the most economically advanced regions, the number of divorces is also rising. In the U.S., nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. Of existing marriages? Studies show that upwards of 70% of married people engage in extramarital sex. Instead of doing this openly and freely, they are guilt-ridden into doing it in secret, damaging all parties involved.

The "traditional family" unit and "family values" are the bedrock of bourgeois society. They teach youths about "natural" hierarchy, power, and accepting their position in society; serve as a transmission belts of bourgeois ideas; and serve to generally repress all involved. Would thinking people flock to religion if they were not fed the god myth from birth? Would children "naturally" develop nationalist or racialist ideas?

That's why the defenders of the bourgeois order and reactionaries of all stripes so viciously denounce anything and everything outside of the "traditional family," from same-sex relations to single parents to promiscuity and "non-normative" sex. And that's also why it doesn't disappear.

The decline of capitalism is not enough to eliminate something so ingrained in our minds as "right" and "natural" from birth. Thus we end up with a majority of married people saying "adultery is wrong" and cheating on their spouses, divorced Catholics who "don't believe in divorce," etc.

Only the sharp break of the revolutionary elimination of capitalism itself will free us from all the inherited crap weighing us down.

In a new, classless society, in which all participate, what will be the basis for atomized individual family units? When production is organized to meet human need, and wages no longer dictate what one has, what will be the basis for neighborhoods with 1000 homes each running their own inefficient heaters (instead of being connected to a central system)? What will be the basis for 500 housewives spending 2 hours each doing 1 load of laundry when the laundry of 500 households can be done in one 2 hour session by a 1 or two people in a central facility? What will be the basis for 500 housewives spending 1 hour each cooking food for 3 or 4 people when 10-15 people can cook for 500 households in a 1 hour session in a central kitchen?

When the needs of all are met, how can spouses be trapped in marriages for economic reasons and lack of other opportunities? When the free development of each person is the goal, and equality fundamental, how can we expect parents to spend their entire days meeting the every want and need of their children? When cooperation is the basis of our entire society, how can we isolate children from their peers and subject them to the control of one or two people?

People are not property.

Revolution is a radical rupture. It is the overthrow of all social conditions. It is the creation of a new society, with new social forms.

We don't simply need to remodel our house and sod our backyard. We need to tear down the house, build a new one in its place and plant a garden where the yard once was.

[Antifa94]

You're beautiful, Alien. That is some of the most inspiring literature I have read since Marx, and almost moved me to the extent of my sentiments upon completing the Communist Manifesto two years ago.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

"But women are offered a universe of their own: the family. Like woman herself, the family appears as a natural object, but it is actually a cultural creation. There is nothing inevitable about the form or role of the family any more than there is about the character or role of women. It is the function of ideology to present these given social types as aspects of nature herself." - Juliet Mitchell

I also recommend reading Liberation of Women: Sexual Repression and the Family (http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/limpus/liberation.htm).

[Red Saxon]

I read your post, but I still can't believe the family, a social unit so seemingly tied into our very being, could just be done away with.

It's like facing up and expecting to see the ground.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The "traditional" nuclear family is not "tied into our very being." It's a social institution, not a biological characteristic.

Nothing new there.

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm)

[Antifa94]

I take the time to compliment you and I don't receive a response. Thanks.

[Obzervi]

I read your post, but I still can't believe the family, a social unit so seemingly tied into our very being, could just be done away with.

It's like facing up and expecting to see the ground.
Well you are living proof of how ingrained these social constructs are into our minds from an early age that it seems impossible for things to be any other way. Did you grow up in a "traditional" household? Because I sure did, and its nothing special. Sometimes I feel that many people who support the nuclear family are those who didn't experience it themselves so they in their minds they glorify it from a distance. As Alien said, the nuclear family rose in collaboration with capitalism and owning of capital. Indeed it is patriarchal in its structure in that the wife and offspring are designated as property of the husband/father in exchange for his material provisions. This oppressive structure has no place in a post-revolutionary society, heck it doesn't even have any place in modern society as women are becoming increasingly more liberated and independent.

[Red Saxon]

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm)Thanks for the read suggestion.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I take the time to compliment you and I don't receive a response. Thanks.

I'm glad you agree, but I find it's not incredible useful to make one line posts like this agreeing with your agreement. It's sort of like a virtual high-five. Nothing personal partner.

[mikelepore]

The reason for this is that the "family unit" is an oppressive force which passes on patriarchy, racism, religion, and other bigoted ideas from one generation to the next.

That's quite a leap. There are probably several ways to disrupt the transmission of those bigoted idea, for example, different kinds of formal education. I wouldn't even have thought of using the method of removing the training of children by their parents.

[BAM]

The proletarian revolution isn't a religious sect that we can "recruit" workers to. It's a necessity arising out of material conditions.

[...]

Revolution is a radical rupture. It is the overthrow of all social conditions. It is the creation of a new society, with new social forms.

be careful in how you choose your metaphors.

[AK]

(In a redneck voice) Don't tell me how to raise ma childrun! *aims shotgun at OP's head*

[ed miliband]

Under the current system a person has no choice what sort of household they are born into, so it can be seen as forcing the person into undesirable circumstances. Reactionaries hold the view that the nuclear family is ideal but realistic people know that "traditional" families are far from perfect; often exhibiting domestic violence and sexual abuse. I don't see whats so crazy about young people being raised communally where they are safeguarded against abuse because they are under the watchful eyes of many, rather than being treated like property by two older people who never asked the young person if he or she wanted to be born into their household.


Because there haven't been loads of high profile cases involving child abuse in situations outside the nuclear family, right? I don't think sexual abuse is a product of the "traditional family", I think the most you could say is that it helps to conceal it - but the same could happen in a communal arrangement, and just look at the lengths the Catholic church went to to hide details of children abused who were in their "care".

[Tablo]

I see no particular problem with the family, but I do not want the enforcement of a traditional/nuclear family structure. I think the main problems with the current family structure is the sexism against women and the ageist attitude towards children. I feel like a child will be considered an independent adult the day they start working and being a contributing member of the community. To allow ownership of a child by a parent is just sick. It is also sick to allow a husband ownership of a wife. Will families exist in Communism? I'm sure they will, but they will be organized in a much more suitable manner.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The point many here are missing is that social institutions like the family aren't just willed in and out of existence. They rise and fall with corresponding conditions. The "traditional" family arose in a specific historic epoch. It is not "natural" or everlasting. When the conditions for the family as we now know it no longer exist, neither with the family as we now know it.

[AK]

Yeah, how else are you supposed to raise a child :laugh:
With an iron fist and an AK at the ready.

[Saorsa]

In bacterial tanks. Nobody will be let out until they're at least 20 and have accepted Marxism-Leninism into their hearts.

[Robocommie]

Because there haven't been loads of high profile cases involving child abuse in situations outside the nuclear family, right? I don't think sexual abuse is a product of the "traditional family", I think the most you could say is that it helps to conceal it - but the same could happen in a communal arrangement, and just look at the lengths the Catholic church went to to hide details of children abused who were in their "care".

Hell, forget the Church.

Look at the hellacious rates of abuse in the foster care system. It's a nightmare. Not to mention that children raised in foster care are shown to have a noted difficulty bonding with people for the rest of their lives. This is essentially a suggestion to put every kid through that shit.

[Robocommie]

(In a redneck voice) Don't tell me how to raise ma childrun! *aims shotgun at OP's head*

It's true, rural working class whites ARE ignorant savages. :rolleyes:

[Hexen]

The nuclear family system as it exists currently under capitalism in a nutshell is basically a man alone owns the house (hence "head of the household" which is also the same thing as a "slave master" as well) and the women & children are just his personal belongings (well serfs/slaves actually) the same thing farmers raise cows/horses/pigs which is rather a vomit inducing disgusting system if you deeply think about it.

It's also very identical to slavery and "houses" are really just mini plantations. Of course the entire reason for this is train children to be obedient slaves to the capitalists while the wife is just the husband's personal maid that he uses (and abuses)...that's the reality of it.

Overall, the family system is a atrocity and it's up there with slavery which should be abolished/vanished out of thin air and left behind as a memory of the past (or rather a important history lesson).

[Glenn Beck]

Children should be raised by machines.

[Ocean Seal]

There are certain things wrong with the nuclear family in that many families support their children and many do not give a damn about them. This creates inequality which is why I used to be against the nuclear family in favor of a communal alternative. Unfortunately the communal alternative takes away support from all children. So that's like saying that if one man was stabbed might as well stab everyone in the room. But hopefully with the elimination of the class structure more and more parents will be able to spend time with their children and be able to support them better, so that every child in a post-revolutionary society can grow up justly.

[this is an invasion]

The problem isn't the family. The problem is a society that turns the family into an institution. If people are into having traditional families, that's fine. If people want to do otherwise, that's fine too, and it shouldn't be stigmatized in society.

That being said, I think children should raised as if they are functioning individuals, because they are. They aren't the property of their parents, so they shouldn't be treated as such.

[Spawn of Stalin]

Nobody is taking my kids and putting them in a commune thank you very much, I'll raise my children exactly how I see fit and I will do it in my own home. Post-revolution, children should be raised exactly how Communists raise their kids under capitalism. I will be raising my children as Marxist-Leninists, so I guess there is your answer.

[Palingenisis]

Nobody is taking my kids and putting them in a commune thank you very much, I'll raise my children exactly how I see fit and I will do it in my own home. Post-revolution, children should be raised exactly how Communists raise their kids under capitalism. I will be raising my children as Marxist-Leninists, so I guess there is your answer.

That smacks of what the Nazi did...Didnt they use the Hitler Youth and stud farms later on exactly to gradually replace the family?

[Palingenisis]

Working class and peasant communities do though tend to take a more communal attitude to child rearing than the middle class...I think thats a good thing. However there is a difference between that and kibbutzh style craziness.

[The Red Next Door]

Actually that how some of my friends and family was raise.

[The Red Next Door]

Working class and peasant communities do though tend to take a more communal attitude to child rearing than the middle class...I think thats a good thing. However there is a difference between that and kibbutzh style craziness.

True.

[Across The Street]

Raising a child, by the very nature of it, tends to be a communal thing. The realm of education illustrates this point. However, it is up to each man and woman who decides to have a child how they raise that child in his/her early years. I really don't think much will change about the family in the future, except people's conceptions of how much interaction the child will have with others.

[Quail]

I think that raising children will be more of a communal thing than it is now, but I don't see the nuclear family completely disappearing ever. The conditions of communism would make the nuclear family less relevent - for example, there won't be a need for the greater stability money-wise of having two parents committed to each other - but people will still have monogomous relationships where they want to raise their child as a couple. There will also of course be no stigma for single parents, gay couples raising children, etc., so people wouldn't force themselves to stay in a monogamous heterosexual relationship to bring up their child.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

In a new, classless society, in which all participate, what will be the basis for atomized individual family units? When production is organized to meet human need, and wages no longer dictate what one has, what will be the basis for neighborhoods with 1000 homes each running their own inefficient heaters (instead of being connected to a central system)?

In a society with a level of productivity high enough to allow people to take according to their needs, would this kind of thing really have to come into consideration? If production is organized to create such a level of abundance that remuneration is no longer necessary then I hardly think it will be a problem for people to have their own household heating system.


What will be the basis for 500 housewives spending 1 hour each cooking food for 3 or 4 people when 10-15 people can cook for 500 households in a 1 hour session in a central kitchen? You mean, like, a restaurant? Also, why stop there? What will be the basis for 10-15 people cooking for 500 households when factories can mass produce frozen dinners? The basis will be the the diverging tastes of individuals.


When the needs of all are met, how can spouses be trapped in marriages for economic reasons and lack of other opportunities? Why do they have to be "trapped"? Is monogamy for reasons other than economic dependency really that inconceivable to you?


When the free development of each person is the goal, and equality fundamental, how can we expect parents to spend their entire days meeting the every want and need of their children?Strangely enough some people like spending time with their kids and family, while disliking having to spend half their day working away from them to earn a living. In a society that has achieved communism very little of a persons time would be spent working to do so.



When cooperation is the basis of our entire society, how can we isolate children from their peers and subject them to the control of one or two people?Where do you live where this currently happens? Schools, day cares, does none of that exist for you?


People are not property.People are not communal property.

To be honest your post sounds less like anything to do with what Marx conceived than it sounds like the barracks communism of Bakunin that he criticized mixed with flowery marxist sounding rhetoric.