How do you disrupt the nuclear family

[Motherofmonsters]

Hi,

Ive seen that BLM want to dismantle the nuclear family but I don't understand how you would do that.

Isn't it just something that just is?

What would it actually look like if it was dismantled?

I generally don't get it

Presumably women wouldn't be bound in service to men, children (for the benefit of men) and then the elderly (often excusing men from doing their bit or paying for professional care).

BLM have also spoken of breaking the patriarchy. No idea how that would work, but doesn't seen a terrible idea frankly. Patriarchy's been a bit shit for women for a couple of 1000 years, wouldn't you say?

I mean, it'll never happen. But it's a nice idea.

I imagine it would mean that most families would look like mine, where the man does his actual share and the woman isn't expected to sacrifice her career for her children.

What did you think it meant? What else could it possibly mean?

But what would that look like in day to day life?

All children in childcare? Father's stay home and all women go to work?

It just seems like a lot of words but no actualities

How do you force that to happen though?

You've got together with someone through choice who supports the family in that way.

How do you make that the same for all though?

Father's stay home and all women go to work?

No, that would be matriarchy.
If accompanied by legally excused abuse, and the financial and sexual exploitation, rape and murder of men by women, of course. HTH.

What did you think it meant? What else could it possibly mean? A family unit! Nothing to do with how it runs, just the members of "A family" - as in a financially viable family unit.

Years ago it might have had 3 generations in it.

Later just the 2.

How the internal workings were sorted isn't defined by the term, is it?

Or is it? Because it is seen as a 1950s term?? I thought it was a far older, mainly religious based idea and/or of serfdom - when every member of the family worked as soon as they were able.

Ach! I give in. Far too much is being rewritten. I can't keep up!

Again, the way we do it is that i work full time, DH works part time and DD is in nursery 3 days a week. We split parental leave, i took 3 months, he took 6, i took another 2. We do equal amounts of housework, we share parenting, we share the mental load. It's literally just equality. The average modern nuclear family still relies on the woman doing the lion's share while making no money, which makes her massively vulnerable. I imagine "dismantling the nuclear family" would make the default 50:50 on all things.

How do you force that to happen though?

By creating a society where women are TRULY equal to men, in all spheres. It will take probably hundreds of years, unfortunately.

Something, isn't that just what tends to happen now but in reverse (if youve partnered with someone responsible) man works full time, women part time.

It's still a nuclear family?

Definition. a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit

Interesting I took it to mean, less focus on marriage and people have children with one person and those people staying together to raise the children. Promotion/acceptance of 'blended families', single parenthood, people having children with multiple partners and not necessarily raising them. Personally I think that sounds like a shit idea that is awful for children but there are clearly some people who think it's a great idea.

It's a weird one because lots of research mainly from the US, shows that fatherlessness is one of the major issues for inequality in Black families.

Logically you might think BLM would want to build up the nuclear family.

i don't think it has anything to do with liberating women. In my view it would screw women further.

OP, a nuclear family would typically have a head, or nucleus, around which all the other members (including the woman) gather. In patriarchy, it is almost certainly a male power structure, with a man in the position of financial, sexual and reproductive power.

Societal views lock women in such a system, due to the strong disapproval of single mothers and the social abandonment of divorced (and even widowed) women. Socierysl disapproval and judgements mean that women find themselves default responsible for childcare decisions, often paying 100% from their wages and being looked askance at for leaving their children with strangers.

Conversely, an even half arsed singles Dad is lauded for being so amazing and women flock to "help".

This is patriarchy. This is the nuclear family. It is bondage for women - with other women as some of this bondage's harshest enforcers.

pics - I don't think you are correct at all. The nucleus is the unit of parents and children around which the extended family gather not a single person within the unit. The whole family form the nucleus, that's the point.

I believe black lives matter.

I think that the definition of a nuclear family includes what SomeoneElseEntirelyNow describes. 2 bio or adoptive parents with their dependents child or children. Regardless of who does what labour. I thought once you bring in grandparents and step parents and step kids it stops being a nuclear family.

So if people or groups want to dismantle the nuclear family, why? I'm sure every parent who introduced a step parent to their family did it for the best reasons, but I'm not sure many would advocate breaking up family units just to facilitate this for the sake of it. It is nonsense!

And I'm a feminist.
If you really want to dismantle something that performs a function, you need to think about how else you will perform that function. Kibbutz? Given that we can't even open schools properly right now, families (nuclear or not) are doing more than usual and I think we should value them more, not less.

@lemonsandlimes123

pics - I don't think you are correct at all. The nucleus is the unit of parents and children around which the extended family gather not a single person within the unit. The whole family form the nucleus, that's the point.

In practice the man is centred.

Just have to read one day of MN threads (or a week of news - and the horrors happening to women) to see that.

But dismantling that nucleus wouldn't solve that woman centric load, would it? It would make it worse!

Educating it, strengthening the self belief of women would...

I just don't see the steps needed to make dismantling family a good thing.

picsinred - patriarchy is not the same issue though and you shouldn't conflate the two. Dismantling the nuclear family is more about dismantling 'traditional' values than it is about attacking the patriarchy. Believe me if there is no societal pressure to maintain nuclear families, women will be even more screwed than they are now.

Well if anyone could be bothered to read what's on the BLM website:

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

So it's 'disrupt' not 'dismantle'. And it's fairly clear it means broadening the family structure, not restricting it to the nuclear family (mum, dad, 2.4 children).

And there are probably a lot of 'Western' people thinking "but my family is like that already".

Plexie - I have read it and it seems pretty clear to me. No need for Dad to hang around as there will be a whole village of 'aunties' to look after the kids. In fact if we all have lots of children with lots of different people in the 'village' then the 'village' will become even more connected, how lovely.

SomeoneElseEntirelyNow you live in a nuclear family and have neither dismantled nor disrupted it, you've addressed gender stereotypes and gender roles, which is related but not the same at all!

As others say though the thread title is inaccurate.

Actually disrupting the nuclear family requirement is more about compensating for the disadvantage single parent/ caregiver (overwhelmingly mothers or grandmothers) or extended family carers and their children are at on a statistical level compared to two parents plus their own children. The disruption of the requirement would mean "it takes a village". Two parent families are usually at a financial and/ or time advantage. Expectations are also lower of the children of other types of family set up (not just single parents but living with an aunt/ older sister/ grandparent/ family friend - informal fostering of older teenagers).

@lemonsandlimes123

picsinred - patriarchy is not the same issue though and you shouldn't conflate the two. Dismantling the nuclear family is more about dismantling 'traditional' values than it is about attacking the patriarchy. Believe me if there is no societal pressure to maintain nuclear families, women will be even more screwed than they are now.

The nuclear family is a substructure of patriarchy, as are most laws and structures in our society. This is to be expected when they come out of the very society we live within. Which is patriarchal.

picsinred - well I am sure we can agree to disagree. We obviously interpret that part of the manifesto very differently.

At the heart of the nuclear family is marriage. Look at the original design of marriage, how easy it was for men vs women to divorce, who used to lose all their own money and property on marriage, and lose the children on divorce.

Look beyond the happy, loving ideal and look at what marriage and the nuclear family has actually done for women ... then look at the benefits for men. With court permssion still required to exit that structure.

Women are often advised to marry in order to ensure their children are provided for. Many times, this advice is correct. But why do women need to legally bind themselves to a man to force him to be responsible for his children? Why are the children of unmarried mothers less provided for? Again, that is patriarchy.

Actually disrupting the nuclear family advantage would require a very pure form of socialism and most certainly a universal per head basic income (applied in some way to both children and adults to ensure a two adult, no children, family wasn't automatically receiving double what a lone parent/ carer with 8 kids, some of whom were perhaps grandchildren or nephews and nieces, received...). It would need to go beyond everyone helping one another out with babysitting or lending cups of sugar...