The Family

I. The Family

Mothers and fathers naturally love their male children. Still, from birth, boys in our present societies have been treated differently than girls. The family is the first place the role-definition of "what it means to be a man" is taught and enforced, the first place most boys receive a model of what they are and aren't supposed to grow up to be like. From the very beginning, boys are held and talked to less than girls, under the false assumption that being a man means that boys must be able to handle things "on their own" and must not complain. As they have grown older, boys have been pushed out to handle the world by themselves. Within the family, boys have often been isolated, have often had violence perpetrated upon them, and have been encouraged to isolate and hurt others for showing any emotion, zest, or curiosity. They have even been typically harshly condemned for standing up for themselves.

In the present societies, parents usually "intentionally" prepare their boys to "fit in." Unfortunately this means preparing them to become perpetrators of oppression toward women and "bullies" or "victims" of other men. The family installs patterns of self-abuse and of addictive numbing-out that make it possible for men to go to war, endure overwork, and not have satisfying lives nor close relationships with others.

Boys must not be abandoned. They need parents close to them, providing nurture, information, guidance, companionship, and cherishing. They need parents who are actively involved in their lives from birth until maturity at least. Boys need to be truly appreciated just for their existence, independent of what they might do for someone else and independent of their families' dreams for them.

Many cultures assume that fathers will not be closely involved with their children. In most "First World" societies, where men are rewarded for overwork and where productivity is valued over humanness, fathers are seen primarily as the providers, who sacrifice for the family unit rather than being involved supportively in their children's lives. This is hard on both fathers and children, depriving them of closeness with one another.

GOALS

Transform the family into a functioning unit that provides full support for boys.

STRATEGIES

a) Eliminate the ways that parents are kept on the edge economically, as well as exhausted physically, so that they, instead, have the optimum chance and time to think about their children. Provide families with the resources and support, the information and the models, to let male children become adults with their confidence and self-respect intact. Provide all children with a community of adults to think about them and their families and to intervene with assistance when necessary.

b) Encourage parents to hold and stay close to their male children, and to cherish their male children for who they are, rather than for what they do. Encourage parents to commit themselves to never isolate or hit their male children.

c) Eliminate any economic or social structure that keeps men from being actively engaged in parenting. Make paid paternity leave from work a right everywhere, and, where it already exists as a right, encourage men to use it. Provide all fathers, whatever their circumstances, with counseling and support to reclaim their inherent desire to have real relationships with their children, including their sons. Organize support groups for fathers to meet, communicate, and discharge.
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These nine institutions and their supporting structures are the forces that principally stand behind and direct the extraction of the spoils of the class society. These are the structures that men and their allies must courageously outmaneuver, take apart, and replace with a decent society.19
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Rational Island Publishers
Reprinted on this site with permission of the copyright owner.