radical parenting

a-parenting at lists.mutualaid dot org

I've got two teens. I can't say there's really a "radical" parenting other than allowing them the room to discover themselves. But don't hide your beliefs, be open to them challenging you and never push your politics on them. They have their own lives and desires.

My 13 y/o boy came up a couple of weeks ago and asked if I knew that the IWW had a famous songbook. They had talked about it in school. So I got to talk about the IWW, how his great-grandpa had been a hobo and IWW organizer, what the songs were about, etc. I could see him absorbing the information.

Very very

Sounds like some hippy rhetoric to me. practically speaking what does that mean - that parents should give their little girls toy guns as well as the boys? Maybe. but as far as I've seen little girls like playing with dolls and stuff and little boys like playing with toy guns - not always, but generally speaking. maybe that's sexist or something, but I'm just saying what I see and hear. Just because the instincts of little kids of different genders are different doesn't make some "better" than others. I think it's a load of bollocks trying to deny the differences between the genders.

"hierarchical education"? Well, as Bakunin said, when you're talking about shoes you submit to the authority of the cobbler. When you're talking about maths junior had better listen to teacher or he isn't going to get very far, is he?

Is there really an 'instinct' to play with certain toys? Are boys naturally more agressive and girls naturally more caring?

Do you think maybe part of the function of school, aside from teaching facts and figures, is to teach conformity and obedience - to prepare children for the capitalist workplace? I would imagine most anarchists would want to teach their children to think independently and question authority. There are also other ways to learn (maybe better ways) than to sit silently and copy equations from a book. I've always thought unschooling was an interesting educational philosophy.

Sort of. No doubt, as Pallis and Reich point out, the family and other structures we experience in childhood serve to ensure the reproduction of the prevailing order. Indeed, Reich suggested that a revolutionary organisation only need offer the young the opportunity to live independently from parental discipline to be assured of their support. However, the reactionary nature of these institutions have more to do with the middle class values proffered by the parents and teachers rather than the structures per se. I mean, the schools where I live don’t do much of job teaching conformity and obedience to working class kids with dysfunctional parents, unless by “conformity and obedience” one means doing drugs, fucking like rutting pigs, shop lifting and baiting coppers.

Yes let’s. It’s about time you were given a proper seeing too. Firstly, misbehaving challenges the prevailing order, regardless. Just because you see the results as bad doesn’t mean “they want us to do it” and are utilising some bizarre form of reverse psychology. Secondly, individualist escapism seriously rocks and anyone who thinks otherwise should just fuck off. Finally, whilst losers and inadequates will always moan that this-or-that hedonistic rebellion just plays into the hands of the middle classes, the “permissive society” is part of the grand undoing of capitalism, as per Pallis’ “The Irrational in Politics”, which I suggest one digests before calling me out on these matters. Oh and finally-finally, the wish to “hurt the establishment” is an example of precisely the middle class values I refer too. The point is to positively develop a system of production and power, I couldn’t care less whether the bourgeoisie are hurt in the process or not. That’s up to them.

Yup.

Well sure, everything can be abused, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. early education is "hierarchical" by definition. Young kids do not have the maturity to self-direct their learning. Teachers should get a feel for their interests of course, but they're still the ones who are on the one hand the adult and on the other hand the teacher.

Sure. But there's a difference between a healthily skeptical mind and a stupid knee-jerk reaction against every percieved authority. Kids should learn to be respectful. What is this world coming to? Kids are growing up thinking parents are servants to be bossed around and buy them stuff. Anti-social crime is a product of that. Self-centered little sods with no respect and no thought for others.

I think unschooling is appropriate for older kids perhaps, tho I don't know too much about it.

I disagree with you - there's nothing inherent about boys wanting to play war and girls wanting to play princess. We teach children appropriate gender roles from the moment they're born. Girls are expected to be gentle, quiet and calm, boys are expected to be boisterous and physical. A little boy who loves his baby doll, or pretty pink dress, is quickly taught by the reactions of adults and his peers that his behaviour isn't appropriate. The gender differences between small children are negligible.

Of course that's not to say girls should be made to play with cars and boys with dolls - but I would think that radical parenting would include raising children in an environment where they are not expected to behave in gender-appropriate ways.

does this stuff daniel is posting count as flaming?

because it's utter shit - especially the stuff about gender roles.

Step 1 - be a total gender bigot

Step 2 - ensure that own children internalize gender roles

Step 3 - witness own children conform to the gender roles that parent/role-model has strongly pressured conformity towards and present as evidence that gender roles are 'natural'.

personally I blame Warren Buffet and the Walmart family, but if premature pregnancies seems like a viable explanation to you ...

ok - gender bigot was a bit harsh, but I was just interested in whether you actually meant what you said, or were simply trying to start a fight.

Seeing as you seem to be taking this seriously, are you saying that differences between genders are genetically produced, or socially, or both, or neither?

On the contrary, we are increasingly inclined to question the messages sent to children through toys. I think it’s safe to say it’s down to the child’s own preference, rather than the wishes of the parent. For what it’s worth though, males and females do tend towards different psycho-sexual configurations by biological predilection. Their toys are no doubt designed to appeal to common-place infantile fantasies, it’s hardly a secret that boys get a thrill from violent gore and combat glory that is generally (although not universally) unshared by their sisters.

Hmm... seems far feetched to me. The fact that women are biologically suited for raising young would strongly suggest they'd be mentally suited for raising young too, wouldn't it?

But what does that mean exactly?

I'd say we're hard wired with certain boundaries and possibilities. We can shift around all over the place within those genetic parameters though. There are violent tendencies in males, and there are passive tendencies in females. "tendencies" being the key word.

Good point but as i said, I'm talking about general tendencies here. There's a lot of flexibility. That's the human condition, I'd say.