Families

I think Jess is broadly right. I'd imagine there'd be more leeway and openness in a post revolutionary society but probably remaining around the orbit of parental figures of sorts. Not necessarily a nuclear family as the Daily Mail might see it, but then again I don't see the point in berating monogamous couples for being repressed squares.

I don't see the parental relationship as being inherently oppressive/repressive, though I suspect it helps if there are outside influences (extended family, community). Personally though I hate the idea of the community being involved in raising kids, I hate them and want nothing to do with them. But in the abstract I guess this idea is ok.

I think children's say in a post revolutionary community would be based on what I would have thought is a common sense approach. You give them a reasonable say over things that affect them while recognising that they may not see or understand the fuller picture. Same might apply to people with learning disabilities or dementia. I don't think it's oppressive when a support worker for a person with Down's Syndrome suggests that it might not be a good idea to spend all their money on, say, DVDs.

There is an anarcho-parenting email list which i will put up if anyone is interested, they discuss these sorts of topics but with an emphasis on raising kids today in this society, not on a commune or something. There are also several good books the most famous of which is "My mother wears combat boots", which is easily found on AK or Natterjack press.

I think the traditional family structure is inherently opressive because it is based on patriachy and domination of the child. Shouting at a child does not make them understand the danger they are in, with things like fire it is often better to equate it with being hot, rather than just scaring them into not playing with matches or something. And if this happens most children will be curious enough to play with fire when there parents aren't watching.

The most important value that should be a part of a future society is the idea that children do have independent rights as people. They are not extensions of their parents and their parents dont 'own' them, children are themselves. Their capacity to understand things does not make them property, i would be appalled if someone said they owned a person with learning problems. and whilst people generally dont say ' i own two kids', it is manifest when people say 'they are my kids'.

Our society doesn;t view kids as being property, you can't murder your children or sell them because not surprisingly children have rights. Also our society (the uk that is) isn't that patriarchal when it comes to children, generally it is the bond between the child and its mother that is viewed as most important legally and socially.

If your kids two years old they aren;t going to understand your appeal to rationality though are they. Also as tigeriskillers points out your first instinct is to stop your kid getting burnt, physically stopping them or shouting at them will achieve that goal, sitting watching and calmly explaining the chemical properties of heat is unlikely to be succesful.

As tigersiskillers pointed out earlier in the thread, it's useful to relate this to people with severe learning difficulties, some of whom have no sense of danger and will quite happily stroll out into a busy road or try to pick up broken glass on the street. When you have a situation like that, there simply isn't time to patiently explain why it's a bad idea to do these things, that has to come after you've stopped the dangerous behaviour.

dp

OK, perhaps it makes sense to call it sexism, but its clearly very bound up with the sexual division of labour between women reproducing labour through housework and childrearing whilst formal ownership and 'work' proper is the domain of men. This has lots of clear implications in terms of access to space and power, and is very clearly a hangover from the formal patriarchal systems you are talking about. I was using the more general feminist understanding of patriarchy as male-dominated society, rather than men as being the exclusive owners of property in society, which didnt really exist even in the Victorian period, let alone feudal times. That aristocratic women might have had access to nurses in lots of cultures doesn't really change the fact that there are social roles which are gendered in a patriarchal society.