Parenting in the Occupy Movement, or Give That Kid a Megaphone!

I haven't personally spent much time at any of the Occupy Protests, though I do support the Movement's general principles and aims.  In lieu of joining in the festivities (we're more Direct Action advocates, I suppose, though both hands are necessary in a revolution) Last Word has donated $200 worth of gift certificates to Occupy Olympia, as well as sent down some clothes and blankets. And any cold philosophically inclined Occupiers are welcome to come down and Occupy Last Word Books' armchair for some stimulating conversation and some hot tea.

I am amazed and entertained by how divided people are on the issue of protests and children... and how quick to judge folks can be. It's either scabies, child-porn pushing police, random jack-offs and I-Can't-Believe-You'd-Put-Your-Child-In-That-Sort-Of-Situation mentalities, or it's the dawn of a new age, with ten year old labor organizers and soapbox speakers spouting anti-capitalist rhetoric with the best of 'em before joining in the drum circle. I have one thing to say to you people: the world is not this black and white. Go down to the nearest Occupy Protest, take some food and a blanket and a good book and have a few conversations. That's how minds are changed.

In the meantime, here's some interesting links regarding parenting and the Occupy Movement:

"OCCUPY" PARENTING: How Parents Have Been Sharing Occupy Wall Street With Their Children

"Occupy" Movement Parents Forum Post (Anyone can change their mind)

What the Occupy Movement Could Learn From Us Parents

Not All Movements Are Created Equal

Occupy Eugene Extends Reach to Children

'Children's Brigade' Joins Occupy Wall Street On Two-Month Anniversary

Occupy Denver: Protest With Kids

Occupy Children: Kids Night Sleepover at Zuccotti Park in NYC

Rad Dad Book Release!

Congrats to Tomas and the whole crew of us writers behind Rad Dad for several awards in the past couple years and for the recent release of Rad Dad, the book! I'm excited to see what we can muster next! Long live Rad Dad, Daddy Dialectic, Pirate Papa, 'Zines and Parent-Bloggers! ~

From the PM Press website:

"Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood combines the best pieces from the award-winning zineRad Dad and from the blog Daddy Dialectic, two kindred publications that have tried to explore parenting as political territory. Both of these projects have pushed the conversation around fathering beyond the safe, apolitical focus most books and websites stick to; they have not been complacent but have worked hard to create a diverse, multi-faceted space in which to grapple with the complexity of fathering.

Today more than ever, fatherhood demands constant improvisation, risk, and struggle. With grace and honesty and strength, Rad Dad’s writers tackle all the issues that other parenting guides are afraid to touch: the brutalities, beauties, and politics of the birth experience, the challenges of parenting on an equal basis with mothers, the tests faced by transgendered and gay fathers, the emotions of sperm donation, and parental confrontations with war, violence, racism, and incarceration. Rad Dad is for every father out in the real world trying to parent in ways that are loving, meaningful, authentic, and ultimately revolutionary.

Contributors Include:

Steve Almond, Jack Amoureux, Mike Araujo, Mark Andersen, Jeff Chang, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jeff Conant, Sky Cosby, Jason Denzin, Cory Doctorow, Craig Elliott, Chip Gagnon, Keith Hennessy, David L. Hoyt, Simon Knapus, Ian MacKaye, Tomas Moniz, Zappa Montag, Raj Patel, Jeremy Adam Smith, Jason Sperber, Burke Stansbury, Shawn Taylor, Tata, Jeff West, and Mark Whiteley."

Anarchist Parenting, Why Discipline is So Important.

From Identity Check:

There is an aspect to Anarchy that isn't often addressed, but has been brought to my attention through some well meant ribbing. That would be parenting. Because many people believe that Anarchists have little use for any rules whatsoever, and amount the entire ideology to that of a chaotic and violent world, it's only logical to assume that this thinking would apply to parenting as well.

Well, it doesn't...More...

Bill Ayers and Pirate Papa on Radical Parenting and So Much More

A slightly condensed version of this interview will soon be published in Rad Dad #17 on the eve of the San Francisco Anarchist Bookfair. Despite some continuity issues due to conducting an interview over the thankless medium of e-mail, I thought folks might enjoy the interview in its entirety. Please feel free to send me any comments, questions or advice on these pertinent subjects, take care of those kiddies and stay Radical!

_______________________________

PP: I’m chatting with Bill Ayers, Professor at the University of Illinois and former member of the infamous Weather Underground, which carried out a direct action bombing campaign against United States Government buildings in protest of the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism. For a period of ten years Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn lived on the lam from the Federal Government, eventually having two children before resurfacing in early 1980. In 1973, after the existence of COINTELPRO, a covert FBI program used to gather information on, as well as discredit radicals, came to light, Ayers was exonerated, but remained underground with Dohrn for an additional seven years. Dohrn eventually was fined and served three years probation for her acts with the Weather Underground. Both are now highly regarded experts in their fields, Ayers in Education and Dohrn in Law, both with an emphasis on juveniles and families.

I use the terms “underground”, “counterculture”, “anarchist”, and “alternative” within this interview... but these are all just synonyms for the same group of outsiders who have always been around. I’m sure Bill got called a dirty commie or a godless socialist more times than I’ve been called a hippy or an anarchist. Good old labels, just got to live with them.

____________________________________________________________________

BA: Well, and resist them—in your own life and in the lives of others.

PP: Just to set the stage here for our readers of Rad Dad and Pirate Papa, charges against you were lessened in 1973, but when were they dropped or dealt with completely? Bernadine surrendered to the FBI in 1980... so that leaves about ten years that you two were on the run, three years with one child then the last year with two, correct?

BA: Zayd, our oldest child, was born in 1977, and Malik in 1980. We adopted a third child, Chesa, in 1981 when his parents were arrested and sentenced to life in prison.

PP: How did you and Bernadine come to the decision to have children while living underground?

BA: I’d been an early childhood teacher for many years, and we both had strong relationships with children. We reached a point in our lives when if we were to start our own family, it was now or never. We chose now.

PP: How did having children affect your eventual choice to turn yourselves in?

BA: I’m not sure. Certainly the rhythm of our lives became centered on the awesome responsibility we took on by choosing to bring new life into the world.

PP: As a father, what were your personal reasons for having kids and how did this decision alter or reinforce your political ideals?

BA: Reason isn’t the exact register. Passion, desire, ecstasy, exuberance, awe…But raising these children was the best thing we’ve ever done, the least conflicted and the purest, the most astonishing and energizing, surprising and humanizing (followed by the experience of caring for our elderly and finally dying parents in our home for many years after our kids had left home).

PP: What were those last few years like living underground with kids? What were some of the ways this affected your family? I would imagine you had strict guidelines that all parties had to live by, structured fictions to deliver under certain circumstances? What else? What was your support community like? What resources were available to you? Did you both have good, steady jobs and sources of income or were you relying on the help of friends and family?

BA: No, none of that. We were quite poor really, sketchy incomes, work in the shadow economy mostly. But we had lots of friends and family, many of whom knew our former identities, some who didn’t. We were who we were, living in the margins but with our values and commitments intact, avoiding political demonstrations, of course, but open about everything but a few delicate details. And being focused on the lives of your children does not require money or equipment or stuff. We hung out in parks and museums and felt we owned them. The only investment the kids want is emotional, thoughtful attention, and money can actually obfuscate that.

PP: Once you had resurfaced, did your children attend public school? Did you ever homeschool or unschool them at any point? Did you or they ever get denied certain resources or opportunities because of your radical past?

BA: They attended public school in New York City, and when we moved to Chicago, the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Certainly our past has meant that Bernadine, for example, has never been admitted to the bar, but I don’t think it’s had any negative impact on any of us (who needs the stinkin’ bar to be happy?).

PP: What advice would you offer to young parents in trouble with the law, or forced to live in hiding for whatever reason? What resources are available to them without exposing themselves to watchful eyes?

BA: Breathe, hydrate, eat real food, sweat, sing, and then keep on breathing. The world is large, and most people are compassionate and decent. Be a full human being, active and participating with others, and don’t hide or slink around.

PP: Before you had children of your own, what were your views on kids, parenting, over-population and their inter-relationship with politics?

BA: I taught little kids starting in 1965. I oppose poverty, war, empire, capitalism. Those are problems that we can and must address.

PP: How closely has the government continued to follow your work since you resurfaced and became an upstanding citizen?

BA: Ask them.

PP: At one point in your book Fugitive Days you describe your lives underground as “extending childhood indefinitely.” I was hoping you could talk about that idea a bit more.

BA: I was being glib: we were going to live our Peter Pan complex forever. I still feel connected intimately to my childhood.

PP: How do you view parenting within the contemporary anarchist/alternative/peace/activism movement?

BA: What do you mean?

PP: How do you think this intersection has changed since you raised children within the counter-culture movements of the 1970s and 1980s?

BA: No idea.

PP: For young parents who have not yet built some sort of infrastructure to financially support their families within a capitalist society, it can be quite hard to remain an effective part of whatever social movements they may belong to. These voices and opinions are seldom heard due to hectic schedules, lives based on eking out a meager living for one's family, and a general lack of communal resources available for struggling parents. While small, dedicated groups of activists are working hard to combat some of the anti-breeder philosophies within these movements and provide child care at anarchist book fairs and other gatherings, what other strategies could we use to better include parents in our ongoing political dialogues and activities?

BA: Build your community—right here, right now, just this. Share everything. Pay attention. The greatest gift we give our children id the gift of integrity, and that requires authentic dialogue starting in the first minute of life: I see you, I hear you, I understand. Don’t let anyone—the school, the teacher, the neighbor, the comrade—disrupt that precious and irreplaceable thing.

PP: How can parents support their families and still find the time and energy and monies necessary to tune in, turn on, drop out or some combination of the three?

BA: Priorities—live your values, and include the kids.

PP: In your book A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court you make the simple but astute observation that “violence against children generates violent children.” Most violence, I would go so far as to say, is a direct result of poverty and the myriad difficulties which ensue. What, then, are some simple ways that we, as communities and as individuals, can support parents and children around us, as we strive together for lasting social change? How can we effectively combat violence and poverty both on a local level and on a national and international scope?

Your role within our educational system since the early 1980s speaks for itself and you obviously carefully chose which ways to re-engage the system, approaching matters from an educational standpoint with an eye on the juvenile justice system. What have you learned about social justice and creative ways to engage the system from within, as well as from the outside? How does this relate to the youth of today and their parents?

What are some strategies that you’ve learned for engaging with troubled youth? With young parents?

How do you see racism rearing its ugly head in the 21^st century and what anti-racist parenting tactics can we employ to combat its negative effects for future generations?

Do you think there is enough direct action being taken within the activist communities today?

BA: No.

PP: Armed in hindsight by your parental history and assuming you could turn back the clock, would you change anything? Would you still embrace direct action and the destruction of government property to prove your political points and draw attention to neglected issues?

BA: It’s quite impossible to make any causal claims in regard to something as massive, complex, and indistinct as “changing the world.” In the 1960’s a French journalist asked the Chinese premier Chou En Lai how he calculated the impact of the 18^th Century French revolution on the Chinese revolution of the 20^th Century. His response: It’s too soon to tell. Quite.

People make all kinds of quick judgments on history, and most turn out to be bullshit.

If you take perhaps our most straight forward and easily understood goals, you would have to say we failed to achieve them: we wanted to end a particular war, and even after much sacrifice and struggle and success at persuading people to oppose it, the war ground on for ten excruciating years, and 3 million people were thrown into the furnaces of death; and then we wanted to end empire and usher in a world of equality and mutual recognition, a world without war, and look where we are. We set out to create a society built on a foundation of racial justice, and decades later, massive disparities (life expectancy, infant mortality, incarceration, school success, employment) are still etched along the color line, still reflecting the astonishing power of white supremacy; and then we wanted to eradicate poverty and upend economic exploitation, and the yawning chasm between haves and have-nots intensifies.

From there it gets both murkier and lighter: We wanted to say goodbye to schooling that’s arid, dry, self-referencing and self-satisfied, to teaching as a trivial pursuit of the obvious, to deference, didactism, ego and complacency in a heartless world, to prisons and border guards and walls—whether in Palestine or in Texas—and to quarantines, deletions, and closures. Goodbye to all that. We wanted to welcome the unknown, to say hello to jumping off the edge, to endlessly learning how to live again and how to love anew, to the dance of the dialectic. We tried to embrace relentless curiosity, simple acts of kindness, the complexity of humanity, the wonder of it all, struggle and the poetics of resistance, history, and agency, world peace and inner peace. We wanted to embrace the surprising and contradictory harmonies of love at all times, stunning in all the hopes it held out for a better world. We wanted free love and free land, free food and free housing, dancing in the streets and daring to taste it all with a kiss...I guess we have a ways to go there as well.

So my expansive and expanding dreams are not realized, of course, not yet, not in my lifetime, but neither are they dimmed nor diminished. I’ve always lived with one foot in the mud and muck of the world as it is, and another foot striving toward a world that could be, but is not yet. Like other freedom lovers, I dwell in possibility.

PP: What advice would you offer to young activists flirting with the dangers of direct action? How about young parents? What can they do, short of taking risks that might endanger the safety of their children or their ability to provide for their familes?

BA: The world is as it is, a mass of contradictions and tragedies, rich with beauty and human accomplishment and possibility, vicious with human denial—an organism that both drains us and replenishes us, gives us life and kills us. What gets me up and going every morning is all the unnecessary suffering, the undeserved pain. I choose to love the world and embrace the moment, but my love is neither romantic nor blind. Rather it’s edged with horror and anger, charged with new discoveries and understandings.

It’s great to feel the energy of rising expectations, to hear the sounds of heavy chains dropping from our minds and our imaginations, to see the shining faces of hope everywhere. Like last year’s election, it’s a moment to embrace, a moment to hold onto in tough times. But as I said to students on election night, there’s no sense trying to read the new leader’s mind—it’s up to us now to get busy transforming ourselves, linking up to change the world.

After all, Lyndon Johnson, the most effective politician of his generation, was never involved in the Black Freedom Movement, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt wasn’t a labor leader. Abraham Lincoln didn’t even join an abolitionist political party, but reality forced upon him the freeing of an enslaved people. Each of these three in fact responded to grassroots movements and reality on the ground to do the right thing when it mattered.

And it’s to movements on the ground that we turn as we think beyond the election or the administration, and consider the problems and possibilities of building a future dramatically and decisively different from today. We must agitate for democracy and egalitarianism, press harder for human rights and a sustainable world, link the demands that animate us—for peace and education and universal health care and lifetime guarantees of income, against war and incarceration and surveillance—learn to build a new society through our collective self-transformations and our limited everyday struggles. We must seek ways to become real actors and authentic subjects in our own history.

In the heat of the primary battle, Senator Obama was asked which candidate he thought Martin Luther King Jr. would support, and he responded that Reverend King would not likely endorse any of them, because he’d be in the streets building a movement for justice. That’s a good place to begin again, both in the US, in Australia, and around the world.

Become radicals (go to the root of things), study, learn, organize, talk to strangers, mobilize, display your ethical aspirations publicly. On the important issues of the last two centuries, political radicals from Jane Addams and Emma Goldman, John Brown and Harriet Tubman, to Eugene Debs and WEB DuBois have gotten it right. The legacy continues with the work of Ella Baker and Septima Clark, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X 40 years ago, and on up to today. Of course as Ella Baker said, “Martin didn’t create the Movement, the Movement created Martin,” and it’s true: for every remembered leader there were hundreds, thousands putting their shoulders on history’s wheel. We might reflect then on the people as they make and remake history.

I have no nostalgia for the so-called 60’s, now thoroughly commodified and sold back to us as myth and symbol. It happened—and it was neither as brilliant and ecstatic as some would have it, nor the devil’s own workshop as others insist—move on. Whatever it was, it remains prelude to the necessary changes and fundamental upheavals just ahead. Let’s get busy living, loving, linking arms right now.

The tools are everywhere—humor and art, protest and spectacle, the quiet, patient intervention and the angry and urgent thrust—and the rhythm of and recipe for activism is always the same: we open our eyes and look unblinkingly at the world as we find it; we are astonished by the beauty and horrified at the suffering all around us; we dive into the wreckage and swim as hard as we can toward a distant and indistinct shore; we dry ourselves off, doubt that our efforts made enough difference, and so we rethink, recalibrate, look again, and dive in once more. Repeat for a lifetime.

Parenting as a Green Anarchist

I consider myself to be a pirate in some contemporary sense of the word. This is the lens through which I try to view our world. I am a nice pirate, where others rape and pillage I salvage and sow; where others sack and burn I liberate and grow. I pirate software, vegetables, herbs, bulk food aisles at corporate grocery stores, garbage, books, clothes, thrift stores, free boxes. I find homes for books lost on these high seas of a culture that, for the most part, doesn't read. I steal from the rich and give to the poor whenever possible. I try to be free in the fullest sense of the word and dream always of furthering that freedom.

I live with my twin three year old daughters on an old 250 acre farm outside of Shelton, Washington at the inner-most tip of Puget Sound. I try to live as a Green Rebel and a Pirate in this commodified world of disposable consumables. Does this mean I live a zero-sum harmonious existence with my local ecosystem, feeding wild animals by hand and growing or scavenging all my food while refusing to pay taxes and stockpiling an enormous underground arms cache of sustainably gathered weapons of creation? Well... not yet.

So I try instead to let these simple ideas bleed into my everyday interactions with nature and with the individuals around me. I try to be anti-authoritarian with my children for the most part, but every parent raises their voice or demands some sort of obedience from their kids, because that is the world we live in, try as we might to escape it. But I have become acutely aware of what a collaborative process parenting is and, as surely as I am raising two beautiful, intelligent, gentle girls in this crazy world, they are raising and molding a new kind of parent in me. And these new kinds of people we are helping each other foster and create and assemble from old bones will be the same people faced with solving the growing problems of tomorrow and bridging our polarized communities with what common ground we have: our children and our desire for them to be healthy and survive.

I vaguely recall mulling over possible titles for my fatherhood blog before settling on Pirate Papa: An Anarcho-Green Journal of D.(o) I.(t) Y.(ourself) Parenting. The ones I remember are: Running with Scissors , Don't Tell Mommy, and Hip-Pop. When I use words like 'Anarcho-Green' I am attempting to bend accepted norms by sheer use of language, I am attempting to lure in folks who are curious about these ideologies (even while I am obviously alienating whole other groups), I am attempting to extract everything I deem to be of value to contemporary parenting from both movements and synergize it into a harmonious, sustainable whole systems anti-corporate naturally organic approach to parenting and child-rearing in this day and age.

I relate 'Anarchism' to parenting in several very simple ways: I firmly believe that large-scale industrial capitalism is inherently bad for babies; I think all children are inherently anarchists and that these qualities need to be nurtured and respected rather than repressed; I advocate a refusal to follow accepted norms (without massive research) as applied to my children's diet, medicine, entertainment, education, etc.; I think that families are best served and children best reared by as much economic and political freedom as possible. I believe in creative problem solving, involving children in political activism, and being as anti-corporate, anti-capitalist and anti-standard as possible. I believe we need localized communities operating on a face-to-face basis in equilibrium with each other and their surroundings without official hierarchies and centralized establishments to arbitrate and rule our lives. We have learned from this system of coercion, capitalism, domination and patriarchy that it does not work, does not jive with the natural human spirit or bodily rhythms. Now it’s time to try something else.

I relate 'Green' to parenting thusly: I see today's generic diet and monocropped culture as definitely deadly to the kids and mothers and fathers of the future (that's all of us); I see lowering the ecological footprint of today's typical American family as a fundamental first step to saving tomorrow's children, as well as maximizing our own limited time here on the planet; I believe that, as a species, we require a healthy chunk of re-wilding in order to return to some sustainable balance with nature as well as with our own collective psyche; I believe that a resurgence to THE LOCAL for food and medical needs for our families and elderly and children will best sustain our communities and revitalize our economies with the inherently unique culture granted them by place.

If we don’t want a world full of standardized testing and rulers and competition then we need children who can live outside the box and be the most unique individuals they can be. If that is what they want to do. And I think it will be. If we want a world without bars on its windows then, more than ever, will we need children who are free.

Further Reading:

http://www.grizzlybird.net/greenparenting.html

http://motheranarchy.blogspot.com/

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/01/too-cool-for-kids-how-anarchist-bigotry.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-methods-of-child-rearing-do.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/02/revolutionary-parenting.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/01/taking-children-seriously-and-anarchy.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/05/taking-children-seriously-future-of.html

This essay was first published by Tomas in Rad Dad #7, July/August 2007.

Smashing Capitalism One Canoe-Pool At A Time!

That's right, I'm a friggin' genius. Screw the kiddie pools that cost money, my dual-purpose canoe rules the day.

Censored thanks to those fucking sickos who viewed the naked pictures of my daughters I accidentally put on Flickr so long ago. Note the resemblance of censored bars to frowny faces and buzz off, we're well armed out here in the woods.

My Anarchist Parenting Hero

Sorry China, my review is still pending. But I frickin' love the book! So here, I'm reposting this other review just for you. Come visit us again sometime. We're still here while you're shooting to stardom. You deserve it.

The Future Generation
China Martens Created Her New Book the Way She Raised Her Daughter--One Day at a Time

By Violet Glaze

If you went to a punk show in Baltimore in the early '90s, you remember Clover Martens. She was the only toddler in attendance, a wispy-haired imp in Goodwill sundresses darting in and out of the crowd of slam dancers and malcontents. Her supermodel-tall mom, China, was always with her, available for a quick snuggle or suckle but otherwise letting her daughter zip around at her own whim.

There was sometimes talk that China Martens didn't have a steady partner to help raise her daughter, that her anarchist principles meant she wasn't going to enroll Clover in school or immunize her. One of two things (or sometimes both) crossed the minds of the callow suburban punks who'd never seen this model of parenting before: That kid is going to have an amazing life, or Is she going to turn out all right?

She turned out great. Seated next to her mom at the dining room table at a reporter's house, the now 19-year-old Nadja (nee Clover) Martens is much curvier and darker-haired than her toddler self would have indicated, but you can tell it's her in the almond-y slant of her eyes and the unselfconscious way she owns the space she occupies, in marked contrast to the cringing unease affected by some teenage girls. She says "please" and "thank you" and asks to interrupt when she's got a good idea. If she's any measure of the validity of an anti-authoritarian rearing, there ought to be Emma Goldman memorial day care centers nationwide.

"This is my new realization of my parent stage right now--of how incredibly great it is," China Martens beams. Her voice is gentle and tentative--it sucks any intimidation out of her prodigious height and enviable slimness. "Like, when you have a baby they think you're the best, and they always want to be near you," she continues. "And then preadolescent--I can't speak for everybody, but I think it's pretty common you start to not like your parents and everything your parents like is not cool. And so when they become a young adult, for the first time in your life you experience [your child] kind of balanced. They don't love you too much, they don't hate you too much, you can have conversations, you have history and in-jokes. Nobody ever told me how great it would be to have a young adult for a child."

That realization is the culmination not only of China's experience as a parent, but as creator of the zine The Future Generation, one of the first publications dedicated to alternative child-rearing. This week, Atomic Book Co. (co-owned by erstwhile City Paper contributor Benn Ray) releases a paperback collection/retrospective of China's magnum opus, a two-decade endeavor that addresses the question "What is an anarchist parent?"

"That's a hard question," China acknowledges, addressing the common conundrum of defining a political movement that resists all dogma and decree. "When you are a parent, by nature you have some control and power over this person who's smaller than you. So [anarchist parenting is] such an oxymoron in some ways. But I think that's what's so interesting about it, because that's a very practical subject." In other words, there's no room for ivory-tower hypothesizing when kids in your care have immediate needs. China agrees: "Parenting is in-your-face, daily experience."

China, who herself grew up in a "very maternal, loving family" with her peripatetically employed government-worker dad and housewife mom, addressed that immediacy in The Future Generation's very first photocopied issue in April 1990, from how the struggle to snap one last button on a fussy infant's clothes can be a microcosm of military force vs. diplomacy, to a love poem to her infant daughter: "can't say it here/ but we are revolutionaries." It's heady with the unfettered spirit of China's first years as a young mom.

"I had this very romantic, different reasoning," she recalls. "I will have the perfect witch baby, she doesn't really belong to anybody, we don't belong to anybody and we're free."

The experiment showed fruit early. Clover grew into a gentle child who was better behaved than any other kid during story time at the library. But as the years went on, China, who dropped out of high school (a decision she still stands behind: "It was the first and best radical thing I ever did."), found it increasingly difficult to provide for her daughter. After staying on welfare for eight years until the Clinton-era reforms kicked her off (just as she had just gone back to college to earn a nursing degree) she worked a variety of low-prestige jobs that could never provide enough cash. By the zine's ninth issue, she documented a humiliating venture to the welfare offices, and the pang she felt at the now preteen Clover's ubiquitous question, "When we have money, can we (fill in the blank)?"

"This is intensely embarrassing," Nadja admits with a sheepish grin. "Because when your mom is this anarchist cool writer mom, then you become, `Oh, let's go to the mall, and get a crush on all those'--I don't know any of the cutesy guys names anymore, but you know, those heartthrobs. You want to be a cheerleader and date the captain of the football team." China says she knew her daughter had undergone a sea change when Nadja declared she would never shop at thrift stores anymore because "the clothes smell."

"I went through that phase and it was intensely embarrassing," Nadja blushes. "I was just outrageously bad."

"By 16, you were great," China assures her, with a mom's forgiveness.

After positive experiences in free alternative schools, Nadja experienced tremendous culture shock when China finally did enroll her in public school in the second grade. "I couldn't take those people bossing me around," Nadja recalls. "I went through a phase where I was totally the outlaw child." And she hit a rocky patch in adolescence experimenting with the same identity crises and chemical opportunities common to many teenagers. But due to the self-discipline instilled by her anti-authoritarian rearing, she curtailed her destructive activities when their benefits became dubious.

"You think about [drugs and alcohol], What has it really brought me? A whole bunch of bad memories? And then you just stop," Nadja says. "I think for my friends who live in a house where [the parents] don't want you to do that, you do it anyway. But you do it in a more irresponsible way, a more chaos-type way, whereas I did that and I learned. I didn't go to any other crazy drug, I didn't get pregnant, because basically, you just learn."

"I also think an anarchist parent offers more to their child of being alive and doing cool stuff," adds China, who let Nadja make her own decisions on nearly every front. "Every year it's like, `Do you want to go to school or do you not [want to] go to school?' So I feel like in [an anarchist] family you have more of a model of freedom of different opportunities you can do."

Like her mother, Nadja also dropped out of high school when its limitations became too frustrating. "For years [my mom's] telling me, `High school destroys you, why would you want to go to high school?' And [then] she was like, `Do you really want to drop out of high school?'" Nadja gently jibes.

"Because I had gotten used to her conservative self," China counters. "She was always talking about, `I'm going to go to college.' So I just wanted to make sure there wasn't some kind of problem. She seemed so different, so I was concerned." Sure enough, after a stint in an alternative high school, Nadja opted instead for a GED and enrolled at Baltimore City Community College, from where she's hoping to transfer to a film studies program at UMBC. She's also started her own zine, Dildo, subtitled "Masturbation for your brain," a serendipitous continuation of "the family business" that tickles her mom.

"It's been a long trip, this parenting thing," China reflects. "And I think that's why the book's going to be really exciting because it goes through all these different eras."

"I feel kind of like a movie star, because you can really see me growing up," Nadja concurs.

Compiling The Future Generation into a book was not China's idea. "I'm a very shy person." she says. "I feel like I'm a very--it's not the right word, but like an unofficial person. Not a person who's in the media. I like the informalness of zines. So I don't think I would have ever approached anybody on my own."

After China was invited to read with Ariel Gore (founder of Hip Mama, the most prominent alternative parenting publication) on a book tour, The Future Generation started attracting more attention from places like WYPR's The Signal and from Rachel Whang, co-owner of Atomic Books and the Atomic Book Co. "When I came back from the book tour, Rachel was like, `We want to put out your first book,'" China says.

With the help of Gore, activist/friend Vicky Law, and suggestions from Nadja, China sifted through 18 years of typewritten journal entries, original cartoons, birthing photos from compatriots, and culture-jammed ads for baby wares to form the book's text. "[The zine] just wasn't really meant to be a book," she says of the herculean effort. "It was before the internet, so I would reprint essays. I was researching things in the library and reprinting things from books. I was trying to foster a network, and communication, and stuff for us to share, and it's all Xeroxed and cut-and-paste goodness." The finished book preserves some of the DIY feel of the original but has a much snappier layout that impresses China to no end. "It looks so good," she gushes.

Nadja is grown and China says she's not as much of an "active parent." ("When you're the mother of a teenager, you're wiped out. It does a number to you.") So China is refocusing her efforts on building that kind of all-ages community spirit in the counterculture.

"We [alternative parents] can't do this on our own," she says. "We fall through the holes and we wind up struggling in more mainstream things. So that's been really important to me, to build community, to not focus on nuclear families per se." After all, she has no regrets about the unconventional path she's taken raising her daughter. "Being a single mom, I got to explore and grow on my own," China says.

"Well," Nadja says as a vulnerable smile creeps across her face and everyone in the room knows what she's about to say, "You were growing with me."

MARRIAGE AND LOVE

I'm on a quest to dig up anything relating to parenting and children that Emma Goldman and other anarchists may have postulated or (better yet) practiced. so send anything pertinent my way!

By Emma Goldman, from Anarchism and Other Essays. Second Revised Edition. New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. pp. 233-245

THE popular notion about marriage and love is that they are synonymous, that they spring from the same motives, and cover the same human needs. Like most popular notions this also rests not on actual facts, but on superstition.

Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some marriages have been the result of love. Not, however, because love could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can completely outgrow a convention. There are to-day large numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based on love, and while it is equally true that in some cases love continues in married life, I maintain that it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of it.

On the other hand, it is utterly false that love results from marriage. On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable. Certainly the growing-used to each other is far away from the spontaneity, the intensity, and beauty of love, without which the intimacy of marriage must prove degrading to both the woman and the man.

Marriage is primarily an economic arrangement, an insurance pact. It differs from the ordinary life insurance agreement only in that it is more binding, more exacting. Its returns are insignificantly small compared with the investments. In taking out an insurance policy one pays for it in dollars and cents, always at liberty to discontinue payments. If, how ever, woman's premium is a husband, she pays for it with her name, her privacy, her self-respect, her very life, "until death doth part." Moreover, the marriage insurance condemns her to life-long dependency, to parasitism, to complete uselessness, individual as well as social. Man, too, pays his toll, but as his sphere is wider, marriage does not limit him as much as woman. He feels his chains more in an economic sense.

Thus Dante's motto over Inferno applies with equal force to marriage: "Ye who enter here leave all hope behind."

That marriage is a failure none but the very stupid will deny. One has but to glance over the statistics of divorce to realize how bitter a failure marriage really is. Nor will the stereotyped Philistine argument that the laxity of divorce laws and the growing looseness of woman account for the fact that: first, every twelfth marriage ends in divorce; second, that since 1870 divorces have increased from 28 to 73 for every hundred thousand population; third, that adultery, since 1867, as ground for divorce, has increased 270.8 per cent.; fourth, that desertion increased 369.8 per cent.

Added to these startling figures is a vast amount of material, dramatic and literary, further elucidating this subject. Robert Herrick, in Together; Pinero, in Mid-Channel; Eugene Walter, in Paid in Full, and scores of other writers are discussing the barrenness, the monotony, the sordidness, the inadequacy of marriage as a factor for harmony and understanding.

The thoughtful social student will not content himself with the popular superficial excuse for this phenomenon. He will have to dig down deeper into the very life of the sexes to know why marriage proves so disastrous.

Edward Carpenter says that behind every marriage stands the life-long environment of the two sexes; an environment so different from each other that man and woman must remain strangers. Separated by an insurmountable wall of superstition, custom, and habit, marriage has not the potentiality of developing knowledge of, and respect for, each other, without which every union is doomed to failure.

Henrik Ibsen, the hater of all social shams, was probably the first to realize this great truth. Nora leaves her husband, not---as the stupid critic would have it---because she is tired of her responsibilities or feels the need of woman's rights, but because she has come to know that for eight years she had lived with a stranger and borne him children. Can there be any thing more humiliating, more degrading than a life long proximity between two strangers? No need for the woman to know anything of the man, save his income. As to the knowledge of the woman---what is there to know except that she has a pleasing appearance? We have not yet outgrown the theologic myth that woman has no soul, that she is a mere appendix to man, made out of his rib just for the convenience of the gentleman who was so strong that he was afraid of his own shadow.

Perchance the poor quality of the material whence woman comes is responsible for her inferiority. At any rate, woman has no soul---what is there to know about her? Besides, the less soul a woman has the greater her asset as a wife, the more readily will she absorb herself in her husband. It is this slavish acquiescence to man's superiority that has kept the marriage institution seemingly intact for so long a period. Now that woman is coming into her own, now that she is actually growing aware of herself as a being outside of the master's grace, the sacred institution of marriage is gradually being undermined, and no amount of sentimental lamentation can stay it.

From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed towards that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that. Yet, strange to say, she is allowed to know much less about her function as wife and mother than the ordinary artisan of his trade. It is indecent and filthy for a respectable girl to know anything of the marital relation. Oh, for the inconsistency of respectability, that needs the marriage vow to turn something which is filthy into the purest and most sacred arrangement that none dare question or criticize. Yet that is exactly the attitude of the average upholder of marriage. The prospective wife and mother is kept in complete ignorance of her only asset in the competitive field---sex. Thus she enters into life-long relations with a man only to find herself shocked, repelled, outraged beyond measure by the most natural and healthy instinct, sex. It is safe to say that a large percentage of the unhappiness, misery, distress, and physical suffering of matrimony is due to the criminal ignorance in sex matters that is being extolled as a great virtue. Nor is it at all an exaggeration when I say that more than one home has been broken up because of this deplorable fact.

If, however, woman is free and big enough to learn the mystery of sex without the sanction of State or Church, she will stand condemned as utterly unfit to become the wife of a "good" man, his goodness consisting of an empty head and plenty of money. Can there be anything more outrageous than the idea that a healthy, grown woman, full of life and passion, must deny nature's demand, must subdue her most intense craving, undermine her health and break her spirit, must stunt her vision, abstain from the depth and glory of sex experience until a "good" man comes along to take her unto himself as a wife? That is precisely what marriage means. How can such an arrangement end except in failure? This is one, though not the least important, factor of marriage, which differentiates it from love.

Ours is a practical age. The time when Romeo and Juliet risked the wrath of their fathers for love when Gretchen exposed herself to the gossip of her neighbors for love, is no more. If, on rare occasions young people allow themselves the luxury of romance they are taken in care by the elders, drilled and pounded until they become "sensible."

The moral lesson instilled in the girl is not whether the man has aroused her love, but rather is it, "How much?" The important and only God of practical American life: Can the man make a living? Can he support a wife? That is the only thing that justifies marriage. Gradually this saturates every thought of the girl; her dreams are not of moonlight and kisses, of laughter and tears; she dreams of shopping tours and bargain counters. This soul-poverty and sordidness are the elements inherent in the marriage institution. The State and the Church approve of no other ideal, simply because it is the one that necessitates the State and Church control of men and women.

Doubtless there are people who continue to consider love above dollars and cents. Particularly is this true of that class whom economic necessity has forced to become self-supporting. The tremendous change in woman's position, wrought by that mighty factor, is indeed phenomenal when we reflect that it is but a short time since she has entered the industrial arena. Six million women wage-earners; six million women, who have the equal right with men to be exploited, to be robbed, to go on strike; aye, to starve even. Anything more, my lord? Yes, six million age-workers in every walk of life, from the highest brain work to the most difficult menial labor in the mines and on the railroad tracks; yes, even detectives and policemen. Surely the emancipation is complete.

Yet with all that, but a very small number of the vast army of women wage-workers look upon work as a permanent issue, in the same light as does man. No matter how decrepit the latter, he has been taught to be independent, self-supporting. Oh, I know that no one is really independent in our economic tread mill; still, the poorest specimen of a man hates to be a parasite; to be known as such, at any rate.

The woman considers her position as worker transitory, to be thrown aside for the first bidder. That is why it is infinitely harder to organize women than men. "Why should I join a union? I am going to get married, to have a home." Has she not been taught from infancy to look upon that as her ultimate calling? She learns soon enough that the home, though not so large a prison as the factory, has more solid doors and bars. It has a keeper so faithful that naught can escape him. The most tragic part, however, is that the home no longer frees her from wage slavery; it only increases her task.

According to the latest statistics submitted before a Committee "on labor and wages, and congestion of Population," ten per cent. of the wage workers in New York City alone are married, yet they must continue to work at the most poorly paid labor in the world. Add to this horrible aspect the drudgery of house work, and what remains of the protection and glory of the home? As a matter of fact, even the middle class girl in marriage can not speak of her home, since it is the man who creates her sphere. It is not important whether the husband is a brute or a darling. What I wish to prove is that marriage guarantees woman a home only by the grace of her husband. There she moves about in his home, year after year until her aspect of life and human affairs becomes as flat, narrow, and drab as her surroundings. Small wonder if she becomes a nag, petty, quarrelsome, gossipy, unbearable, thus driving the man from the house. She could not go, if she wanted to; there is no place to go. Besides, a short period of married life, of complete surrender of all faculties, absolutely incapacitates the average woman for the outside world. She becomes reckless in appearance, clumsy in her movements, dependent in her decisions, cowardly in her judgment, a weight and a bore, which most men grow to hate and despise. Wonderfully inspiring atmosphere for the bearing of life, is it not?

But the child, how is it to be protected, if not for marriage? After all, is not that the most important consideration? The sham, the hypocrisy of it! Marriage protecting the child, yet thousands of children destitute and homeless. Marriage protecting the child, yet orphan asylums and reformatories over crowded, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children keeping busy in rescuing the little victims from "loving" parents, to place them under more loving care, the Gerry Society. Oh, the mockery of it!

Marriage may have the power to "bring the horse to water," but has it ever made him drink? The law will place the father under arrest, and put him in convict's clothes; but has that ever stilled the hunger of the child? If the parent has no work, or if he hides his identity, what does marriage do then? It invokes the law to bring the man to "justice," to put him safely behind closed doors; his labor, however, goes not to the child, but to the State. The child receives but a blighted memory of its father's stripes.

As to the protection of the woman,---therein lies the curse of marriage. Not that it really protects her, but the very idea is so revolting, such an outrage and insult on life, so degrading to human dignity, as to forever condemn this parasitic institution.

It is like that other paternal arrangement ---capitalism. It robs man of his birthright, stunts his growth, poisons his body, keeps him in ignorance, in poverty and dependence, and then institutes charities that thrive on the last vestige of man's self-respect.

The institution of marriage makes a parasite of woman, an absolute dependent. It incapacitates her for life's struggle, annihilates her social consciousness, paralyzes her imagination, and then imposes its gracious protection, which is in reality a snare, a travesty on human character.

If motherhood is the highest fulfillment of woman's nature, what other protection does it need save love and freedom? Marriage but defiles, outrages, and corrupts her fulfillment. Does it not say to woman, Only when you follow me shall you bring forth life? Does it not condemn her to the block, does it not degrade and shame her if she refuses to buy her right to motherhood by selling herself? Does not marriage only sanction motherhood, even though conceived in hatred, in compulsion? Yet, if motherhood be of free choice, of love, of ecstasy, of defiant passion, does it not place a crown of thorns upon an innocent head and carve in letters of blood the hideous epithet, Bastard? Were marriage to contain all the virtues claimed for it, its crimes against motherhood would exclude it forever from the realm of love.

Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?

Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly, completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil, once love has taken root. If, however, the soil is sterile, how can marriage make it bear fruit? It is like the last desperate struggle of fleeting life against death.

Love needs no protection; it is its own protection. So long as love begets life no child is deserted, or hungry, or famished for the want of affection. I know this to be true. I know women who became mothers in freedom by the men they loved. Few children in wedlock enjoy the care, the protection, the devotion free motherhood is capable of bestowing.

The defenders of authority dread the advent of a free motherhood, lest it will rob them of their prey. Who would fight wars? Who would create wealth? Who would make the policeman, the jailer, if woman were to refuse the indiscriminate breeding of children? The race, the race! shouts the king, the president, the capitalist, the priest. The race must be preserved, though woman be degraded to a mere machine, --- and the marriage institution is our only safety valve against the pernicious sex-awakening of woman. But in vain these frantic efforts to maintain a state of bondage. In vain, too, the edicts of the Church, the mad attacks of rulers, in vain even the arm of the law. Woman no longer wants to be a party to the production of a race of sickly, feeble, decrepit, wretched human beings, who have neither the strength nor moral courage to throw off the yoke of poverty and slavery. Instead she desires fewer and better children, begotten and reared in love and through free choice; not by compulsion, as marriage imposes. Our pseudo-moralists have yet to learn the deep sense of responsibility toward the child, that love in freedom has awakened in the breast of woman. Rather would she forego forever the glory of motherhood than bring forth life in an atmosphere that breathes only destruction and death. And if she does become a mother, it is to give to the child the deepest and best her being can yield. To grow with the child is her motto; she knows that in that manner alone call she help build true manhood and womanhood.

Ibsen must have had a vision of a free mother, when, with a master stroke, he portrayed Mrs. Alving. She was the ideal mother because she had outgrown marriage and all its horrors, because she had broken her chains, and set her spirit free to soar until it returned a personality, regenerated and strong. Alas, it was too late to rescue her life's joy, her Oswald; but not too late to realize that love in freedom is the only condition of a beautiful life. Those who, like Mrs. Alving, have paid with blood and tears for their spiritual awakening, repudiate marriage as an imposition, a shallow, empty mockery. They know, whether love last but one brief span of time or for eternity, it is the only creative, inspiring, elevating basis for a new race, a new world.

In our present pygmy state love is indeed a stranger to most people. Misunderstood and shunned, it rarely takes root; or if it does, it soon withers and dies. Its delicate fiber can not endure the stress and strain of the daily grind. Its soul is too complex to adjust itself to the slimy woof of our social fabric. It weeps and moans and suffers with those who have need of it, yet lack the capacity to rise to love's summit.

Some day, some day men and women will rise, they will reach the mountain peak, they will meet big and strong and free, ready to receive, to partake, and to bask in the golden rays of love. What fancy, what imagination, what poetic genius can foresee even approximately the potentialities of such a force in the life of men and women. If the world is ever to give birth to true companionship and oneness, not marriage, but love will be the parent.

Taking Children Seriously & the Future of Liberty

This chick kicks ass.

TCS: The Final Phase of The Enlightenment

Transcript of a speech given at the World Libertarian Conference in London, Ontario, in July, 2000.

by: Sarah Fitz-Claridge

Taking Children Seriously (TCS) is the name of an organisation I founded to promote the libertarian educational philosophy.

How can there be such a thing as the libertarian educational philosophy? Aren't parents in a libertarian society free to educate their children in any way they wish?

Yes. But that doesn't make every possible choice morally right, or best for the child, or compatible with the survival of the libertarian society. To satisfy these criteria, we must look more deeply than libertarian political philosophy – which is basically about how a society can run without the initiation of physical force.

What justifies both libertarian political philosophy and TCS education theory in my opinion is reason – something which, I fear, has yet to emerge in the spheres of education and childrearing.

Many parents do a very good job of bringing their children up to believe in authority and obedience to dictators, whether parents or the state. Recently, I had the misfortune to be present when someone I know was subjected to a violent attack by his parent. I was very shaken and didn't throw myself between my young friend and the angry adult, but I did manage to pluck up the courage (once I poked my head up from behind the sofa where I was hiding) to express the opinion that hitting children may not be the best way to deal with disagreements, and that it may not be entirely morally unobjectionable. Perhaps I was less diplomatic than the parent thought appropriate, because he accused me of trying to coerce him into changing his parenting practices, and then played the “children-are-property” card: “It's none of your business how I raise my child.” ...Read More...

More TCS links:

Wikipedia - Taking Children Seriously

Genius Toiling in Obscurity's take on TCS

This is not the same as that... so don't any of my Aussie readers mistake the two.

The First Carnival of Radical Feminists

Thanks to my gang down under at http://www.katipo.net.nz/stanselen/ for bringing this to my attention:

The First Carnival of Radical Feminists

I can't wait until we have stuff like this organized for fathers and groups of young men.

Other recent highlights from my radical anarchist sister:

Trafficking of Women and Children

Raising children collectively…


So I hacked the tip of my left thumb off with a two-century old sugarcane harvester about a week and a half ago. That's been a joy to deal with. Got to learn how to shuffle cards, change diapers, garden, shower, dishes, etc. with no left thumb. Give it a shot sometime, it's trickily challenging and it might even be fun if you were only pretending to be a crippled gimp. Good thing my gorgeous girlfriend has been around to pamper me and help with the near-impossible tasks.

Still plugging away on my goddamn lawn and garden, trying to knock most of the grass down before the girls' birthday bash on June 2nd (e-mail Steph or I for details if you're planning on attending). Camping with your favorite crazies, big and small! Anyway, I've devised a brilliant system for keeping the deer (and my stupid cats) out of my garden:



or







just kidding. i just curse at the deer and throw kids books at my cats and dream of the days (next year?) of fancy fences when my future fat wallet learns to be a little less fickle.

Despite my infrequent posts and scattered correspondence skills, Pirate Papa has been getting more and more traffic. I just have yet to find that happy medium of personality and privacy demanded by this marriage of publicity and parenthood. So as soon as I find my new voice we'll get this hunk 'o junk really up and running.

Thanks to my faithful, loyal audience (friends and strangers alike) and to all those weirdos who find my site through google image searches or strange poorly spelled pornographic searches resulting in the mangled english versions of my twin toddler's twisted talk. It takes all kinds.

Had a great trip to Walla Walla with Hannah and the girls. More decompression time (there's never enough) at my old cabin near the Oregon border. Girls got Grandma and Grandpa time. All those friggin' books got worked on and over a bit more, the slow evolution of our little book empire.

My vegetables are thirsty and so my words must wait until this clock again corresponds with the proper channels of inspiration, piled-up notes and housework apathy.

Raising a Working-Class Culture

Building a radical working class culture is part of the aim of many activists, unionists, and workers. For us in the Industrial Workers of the World, that idea is part of our very preamble: we say that “By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.” But it is not only our workplaces that need reorganization and solidarity: it’s also our homes and families, no matter what they look like. Women and single parents are especially hard hit by the way in which capitalism considers childrearing a ‘personal choice’ with no bearing on employer responsibilities. Pregnant women are pressured to leave decent jobs, and after giving birth find it increasingly difficult to find a job that will pay their bills. No parent wants to give up their children, but our society makes it intensely difficult to both have children and care for them. This burden falls disproportionately on women. Working women are 41% more likely to live in poverty than men, according to a study published by policy research center Legal Momentum. Another way of looking at this same statistic is to note that of all the adults living in extreme poverty - defined as making less than half of the poverty standard - sixty percent are women.

Childcare is a part of this problem. Parents who need to work to pay for housing, clothing, and groceries need to pay for childcare, and the average monthly cost of childcare in 2003 was $340. Single women are again hit disproportionately by this problem. Although men like the author of this sentence may talk a lot about gender equality and feminism, we rarely pull equal weight in the home, whether the work involved is the raising of our own children or the doing of the dishes. Even in dual-income families, women still do the vast majority of this ‘reproductive labor.’ Increasingly, we recognize the importance of supporting parents and children in this culture. Once they have children, new parents - especially mothers - often find themselves marginalized and overworked by the very movements that they helped build. Dependable childcare is often not provided at events. This is a problem for all parents, but women are perhaps the hardest hit. Across nearly every category, women still do the vast bulk of childraising. While women are doing this most vital of labors, radical men tend to have more relative freedom to engage in public work, union organizing, or activism. By default, men continue to dominate our institutions, set our priorities, and find themselves as the most active members of our union... Read More at the Embassy of Arcturus

a-parenting@lists.mutualaid.org

An awesome discussion group I've known about for awhile now but just got around to joining. So I'm stealing their welcome letter and sharing it with ya'll. Makes me want to say: See we're not all commie-slackers, Louie! Louie is this guy who drinks across the street from my bookstore and ducks his head in to yell: "Godless Commies!" at anyone inside. This one's for you, Louie.

"Anarchist Parenting" is a forum dedicated to the sharing of practices and experiences which relate towards non-coercive parenting, child care and community support (or building such support structures) in a society in which strong emphasis is placed on hierarchy, domination and isolation of the nuclear family.

This is a place intended for the discussion of how parents and other child caregivers do and should treat and relate to children and young people, while focusing on the anarchist perspective. This forum also explores how various forms of hierarchy and domination, such as the State, capitalism and patriarchy, affect and relate to child-raising. This is also a place to exchange ideas on how to overcome the hierarchy and domination that exists in the area of parenting and child care.

Though it may touch on it, this is not specifically a forum for the discussion of schooling or educational approaches. Nor is this a forum for the discussion of anarchism or youth liberation in general.

This e-mail list exists to have an informative, respectful, and open discussion about anarchist parenting. With this being the case, it must be clear that anyone who persists in behavior contrary to this will be kicked and banned from the list. Here are some clear examples
of the behavior I am talking about:

- flaming or personally insulting other list members (including guilt-tripping others about their parenting methods)

- inhibiting a clear understanding of anarchism by continually insisting that anarchism is "pro-capitalism" or "pro-chaos".

- spamming the list with commercial advertisements
______________________________

___________ You may be interested in joining some other e-mail discussion lists that are indirectly related to anarchist parenting. Some of these lists are:

The TCS List, dedicated to discussing Taking Children Seriously and it's implications. To subscribe to this list, send a message to: listserv@listserv.aol.com saying (in the body of the message)

subscribe TCS your-first-name your-last-name

then follow the instructions to confirm your subscription.

The Radical Unschoolers List, dedicated to all families who choose to radically unschool their children. To subscribe to this list, just send a blank message to: RUL-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

The Anarchist Education List - "Discussion of various facets of anarchist thought as relates specifically to education." To join, send an email to: majordomo@boink.clark.net with the words: "subscribe anoked-l" in the BODY of the message.

The Anarchist Teachers list A list for anarchist and anti-authoritarian teachers, educators, schoolworkers, free skool instructors, and educational workers. You don't have to teach a class
in anarchism to join. If you teach math, but consider yourself an anarchist, please feel free to join. If you work in a school cafeteria, you can also join.

To subscribe, send an email to: lists@tao.ca with the message: "subscribe teachers" in the body of the message.

The Organise class struggle anarchist list, dedicated to discussing class struggle anarchism and related matters. To join this list, please go to: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/org_list.html And read the Organise List Statement.

Revolutionary Childcare

Very interesting, thanks for the link Blog Green.

...Organizing themselves and imagining strategies to defeat the Architects of Despair was not an easy task for these mamas. They came from different places and spoke different languages. Sora was from Chile; Olivia was a black woman whose family lived in Bushwick for as long as she could remember; Celia was from Ecuador, and there were other mamas who came from around the world. Despite their differences, they created a new organization called Pachamama: the Bushwick Childcare Cooperative.

Pachamama means something like “Mother Earth” in Aymara, an Incan language. It was a good name because it reflected the Latin American roots of many of the mothers, yet still had the word “mama” in it, so people who spoke English could understand the name too. With a room full of toys and games in the Sista II Sista office, and with lots of determination, they invited more mamas to join them in raising their children together…Read More...

And another article on the same topic from Zapagringo.

More links and articles:

Regeneración Childcare NYC is a network of awesome childcare volunteers in New York City. We provide childcare to facilitate the participation of low-income mothers of color in building movements for collective liberation.

How Collective Childcare Liberated Women in Maoist China

Children of Che: Childcare and education in Cuba - An interesting book I came across awhile back.

Community Child Care Co-operative is a not-for-profit organisation established in 1978 to promote, support and advocate for quality children’s services, meeting the needs of children, their families and the community. - God, Australia is so cool.

Too Cool For Kids – How Anarchist bigotry supports the nuclear family.

Superb article I dug up thru a back-link from New Zealand's Anarchist Forums. Kudos to Kakariki at BlogGreen!

This article was first published in The State Adversary (Aotearoa Anarchist Mag, Winter 1996


By Billie Clayton.

" This is a rant born of my frustration, some of these views are personal – no apologies.

It seems anarchists in general consider that children suck and people who have them are boring dickheads. It is quite acceptable in anarchist circles to slag off children in a way that would be condemned if it were any other group. Jokes about mutilating babies generally find favour. So do jibes about people who chose to stay home with children “not having a life” or “selling-out”. Comments such as “Oh God, I would never have children” are delivered with a scoffing snideness. I’m sure most of my readers are in amused agreement about my observations so far. Before you get too comfortable I have a few revelations about the origin and implications of the anti-child view.

Firstly, being anti-children and anti-parenthood is not rebellious or unique. It seems many anarchists express these views as part of a rejection of the parents values. Just because you can’t understand your parents doesn’t mean the values of any person choosing to become a parent are incomprehensible. As anarchists we have many criticisms of mainstream society, including such concepts as “family values”. However, dismissing children and parents all together is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

There is nothing unique about having no respect for children or parents. This is not only the attitude of many anarchists, but of New Zealand capitalist society. Children, like any other unwanted minority are institutionalised – in their case in schools. There is no place for children and babies in a capitalist society. Buses and public transport are difficult to use with babies and children. Cities and buildings are designed for adults, children are seldom considered. Many people object to women breast-feeding in public. Babies and children are not welcome in workplaces. What’s more, babies take women out of the work force, where capitalism wants them, because women are cheap to employ. Women also look nice round the office and besides, who else would do some of the work that women do?

Mainstream views on children and parenthood have changed since the fifties. The world is now considered overpopulated and the need to reproduce the workforce has diminished. Industry can now depend on third world and immigrant labour. Pressure is put on young people in our society not to settle down and have children, but to “succeed”. Young women who want to be mothers are looked down upon, young women who want to be lawyers are applauded. Rather than challenge these values, anarchists have swallowed them hook, line and sinker. The disdain for children and parents expressed by many anarchists is typical of the individualist grab-what-you-can-and-fuck-everyone-else values fostered by capitalism today. Good one Generation X.

While the anti-children view is not rebellious or unique, it is bigoted and oppressive.

I define bigotry as the belief that someone is inferior to you simply because they are different. Many of you will have experienced bigotry as vegetarians, punks, queers, feminists, Maori, anarchists, women and as many other things. Bigotry against children is no different.

When you discriminate against children, you also discriminate against the people who care for those children, mothers, fathers and other caregivers. This again is nothing new. Anarchists are repeating the exact dynamic which patriarchy uses to discriminate against women, who are more likely to be primary caregivers. Children and parents are so underrated by mainstream society that they are pushed out of public places, into dormitory suburbs or sub-standard urban housing. Many, as punishment for procreating, live on, or just below, the breadline. Women (and some men) who fall victim to the stress of raising children with no money, no support and no recognition of the value of their work, are written off as “hormonally unstable” and treated for “post natal depression”.

Yes the nuclear family sucks, I’m sure almost all anarchists agree. But the nuclear family does not exist because people who want children prefer to live that way. The nuclear family exists because children and parents have been pushed into a corner by industrialisation. Post-industrial western society has been divided into public (work) and private (home) worlds. Work done in the private sphere is not recognised, financially or otherwise.

The last thing you need when you are trying to raise children in this environment is to be scoffed at by the I-want-to-be-a-rebel-and-get-in-the-paper young people with too much leisure time on their hands to appreciate the reality of working class existence.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, I want to offer some suggestions of the implications for the anarchist movement of these anti-child views, and some ideas of how a change of attitude might be beneficial.

I see anarchist ideas as a haven and anarchist activities as the first building blocks of a new society based on cooperation and egalitarianism. I believe anarchists should be able to offer alternatives to institutions that are oppressive and alienating, such as the nuclear family. Anarchists further entrench the nuclear family in their attitudes and in practice. Anarchist ideology offers a new vision of work, love and sexuality, evolution and revolution. Yet there is no new vision of family and what family might mean in an anarchist society.

The reality is that people have children, and having children today is a difficult task. Parents and children do not deserve to be discriminated against. Discriminating against children and parents alienates against people who may potentially be involved in the movement.

Anarchists can avoid discriminating against parents and children and further the idea of collective responsibility in the following ways:

* If you chose to be childless, remember this is a personal choice that should be valued and respected as much as choosing to have children. When you voice your preference try to do it without denigrating other peoples choices. The choice not to have children is as influenced by socialisation and mainstream as the choice to have children.

* Start seeing yourself as responsible for children around you. If a child is doing something dangerous or disruptive at a gathering don’t just expect the parents to deal with it. Be involved, offer to help.

* If you are planning an anarchist gathering consider the needs of children and parents as you would any other group. Provide a crèche if necessary, toys and a quiet place for parents and children. Offer pregnant and breastfeeding women the comfortable seats. When there is food, offer to hold babies or mind children while parents or caregivers eat. People with babies have to wait to eat most nights; you could wait for your meal once in a while.

* Be prepared to have children present at any anarchist event including meetings. Remember, excluding children, means parents are also excluded. Children and babies are often noisy – tough shit – their parents have a right to be there and anarchists should learn to cope with children. If a child is proving too disruptive to a meeting offer to look after them while the parent or caregiver attends.

Most importantly, anarchists need to understand and appreciate the work of parents and caregivers. If looking after children was valued by society, more men would be involved with the children they are happy to help conceive, but not take responsibility for, and more people would take on support person and co-parent roles for children in their community. This would be the most effective way to break down the nuclear family."