I posted this on a message board, some people thought it was an interesting question.
Is it weird that I hate the concepts of families now and consider the "family" to be a primitive biological prison, that I hope humans evolve beyond? My husband to play devil's advocate talks about "brave new world" and Utopian commune solutions that failed when I bring this subject up. I think the tribes probably had the best system where one was not limited to nuclear families but had others, but many tribes and native cultures did not develop the numbers of psychopaths like we have in this one, or had ways to deal with them.
Also one thing I have noticed is the family seems to be the crucible of so much pain in our society ranging from child abuse to other violence, alcoholism, cut-throat competition, extreme authoritarianism coupled with religious programming and just plain misery. For most people who are related to their families, does DNA determine any true camaraderie? Imagine a world where a child could leave a family perhaps knowing there may be another they 'fit into" better. I know these are just some strange thoughts off the top of my head.
I think the advent of the abusive family in American society is largely attributed to houses with sound-proofing, and heavy locked doors. Imagine a mother abusing her child in a tribal situation: all the other mothers would be telling her to stop hitting her child, or to pick up the baby when it is crying. With no eyes on the situation, silence allows abuse to fester and grow. If parents can totally isolate their kids, it can quickly turn into Turpin-style parenting. Family privacy and protecting family honor when it is hiding abuse isn't a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI believe the abuse worsened even with the 1950s, because extended family communities were decimated especially as people moved away from home towns, so there were no aunties, grandmas or others around to stand up against abuse. I was isolated, 500 miles away from any relatives with the "nuclear family" for most of my childhood and then it was 120 miles away in my teens which is pretty useless for other relatives to step in or even know what was going on, and we know how they put on the bright smiles and act loving and kind in front of company. Yes even as houses advanced with sound-proofing, all weather windows, rarely opened, and heavy locked doors, the abusers were more hidden. I agree in a tribe, they would step in, if they saw a mother rejecting or abusing a child, from what I know of many tribal cultures, a child probably even could go to another "household" willing to have it within the tribe, at a certain age. The isolation of the nuclear family I believe has worsened, with "every home is a castle" philosophies and especially in some conservative circles, with the home-schooling, and more where the kids can be kept out of the larger community, this is why The Turpins got away with some much with the forced isolation, that is now possible. I do believe in American society children were commodified too, seen as objects of status--if they achieve the "right amount" or look the right way, and possessions for many.
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