I criticize the idea of the nuclear family because I am incredibly pro-family and pro-community. I criticize the construct of the nuclear family, not because I want to destroy the familial bonds, the warmth, and the nurturing grounds of the home, but because I want to extend this warm place to more people in our social networks.
{This post is about to get very US American, rest-of-the-world.} I want to normalize multigenerational families, I want to normalize uncles and aunts living with their siblings in adulthood, I want to normalize a best friend becoming an uncle in a household and moving in. I want to reinvigorate monastic and neo-monastic community structures, with the service that their communal focus provides to the greater community. I want to promote neighbors to be neighborly, and I want to promote neighborhood activity that the suburbization associated with the nuclear family undermined by removing communal spaces. More than anything, I want to decimate the myth that everyone is disconnected. Itâs not only false, but it simply exists to further business interests.
I mean, the strict boundaries of the American social construct of the nuclear family, serve business interests. The nuclear familyâs disconnectedness from the greater community allows big business to demand people uproot their families whenever it serves coorporate interests to move. The nuclear familyâs disconnectedness from relatives causes families to spend more on childcare and eldercare than they otherwise would. The nuclear familyâs model has been that one partner {a woman} stays home to support another partner {a manâs} full time work schedule, and is now shifting so that the modern nuclear family consists of two working partners, who are modern âherosâ who raise their kids as well. The word âheroâ is a mask for a social issue. The only reason taking care of a family isnât already considered a serious workload for a family is because its traditionally womanâs work, and a patriarchical society always denies the value of womanâs work. The nuclear family limits intergenerational contact, and leads to domestic knowledge being lost, such as how to can fruits and vegetables from the garden, how to do your own repairs, and how to produce certain processed foods {i.e. bread loaves}. This, in turn, also serves business, because people buy cheap, mass-manufactured versions that they would traditionally {and until very ! recently} make. The idea that we exist as financially seperate miniscule units in little nuclear families undermines communal knowledge, caretaking, and domestic productivity.
I think family, the quality of childhood for kids, homemade things, food-work-and-culture access for the elderly and disabled, and togetherness should be the priorities of a functional society. Not business, not selling as many teapots to as many household units as possible {by breaking existing units into smaller ones}, and not some false mythology of independence. We are all interdependent: if you want to live with your parents all your life and take care of them in old age, sharing resources and a teapot - good for you. If you want to form a family unit with some friends - good for you. If you want to develop religious community {such as monasticism, or more informal collections} than good for you. If you and a partner want to raise children, then good for you, you shouldnât feel pressured to both work full-time, and at a social level we should take responsibility for work-family balence issues. If you want to live with your siblings, then you should, if you donât want romance to be the glue to your closest relationship than it shouldnât.
Iâm pro-family, pro-loyalty and commitment, pro-domesticity, pro-cooperation and for those reasons I am anti-nuclear family.
stormborns
prguitarman
dailybridgerton
areudirty
germansingergirl
discoholicmusic
gracieabrams
2087
tangentwithtanner
