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

I've asked Mumsnet to change my title to disrupt instead of dismantle. I got mixed up

I haven't disappeared, just reading the replies

thatsnotgoingtowork - And that seems to be at the heart of the (official) BLM movement. Personally I think it is complete bollocks and that a very pure form of socialism is a terrible idea but that's just my opinion.

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.

Here’s the text. I understand it to mean disrupting the nuclear family as in expanding it to a wider support network, not to increase single parent households.

The Soviet Union tried this, way back at the start, just before Stalin IIRC. They thought the nuclear family was a capitalist trap that embedded privilege and forced both men and women into disadvantaged (and sexist) positions that benefited the oligarchs.

Their response was compulsory state nurseries, and no children raised by their parents, as the best way to ensure that every child had an equal start. Naturally (because humans are selfish, stupid hierarchical primates) it didn't take off.

Anything that allows adult human to escape the parent trap would massively improve society, but the BLM idea just sounds like groups of women collectively raising children; Could be bad, could be good but will do nothing to reduce inequality of either class or race.

Whereas I take it to mean more support of alternative family structures as opposed to the nuclear family i.e single parents, blended families, parents having children with multiple partners.

lemonsandlimes123 that's fair enough - obviously it's just a fairly abstract political theory and most people have a place on the political spectrum based on thier own personal situation and values.

I actually think that in theory undiluted by party politics and the existing power structures etc. pure socialism with a universal per head basic income would be the fairest form of society.

Sadly in practice, especially in countries with established financial elites and strong vested interests, and with large populations, it is highly unlikely to ever work as planned. Which is why communism has never actually worked the way Karl Marx theorised it should!

Almost nobody ever willingly gives up their advantage, even if it's a small and fairly fragile advantage over some people and a disadvantage compared to others. That's (most) human (and generally also primate and other animal) nature.

@lemonsandlimes123, . I guess Boris Johnson is already promoting that interpretation.

BLM is a "queer"-led organisation with a clear "queer" agenda, more than they are an organisation devoted to civil rights for black people.

What does a nuclear family look like? Definitely not "queer". So of course they want to disrupt/dismantle it.

I find this element of the movement quite sinister as it harps back to an era that simply doesn't exist in the UK anymore.

Lots of people will want or need to move away from their extended family and friendship groups out of economic necessity or a desire to improve their lives. Staying local for many people would be extremely limiting as anyone from a less affluent part of the country with fewer opportunities available will be painfully aware. So if you move away from your "village" and then choose to have a family where would this leave you in the absence of a nuclear family? Your expectations could be way off if you think that wider society will be falling over themselves to help a relative stranger raise their children.

Even if you did stay local who exactly would form part of the "village" that would help you? The women that would traditionally do this are now largely either at work or busy looking after their own dependents.

I think in reality it would be better to reinforce the idea that both parents shoulder equal responsibility for their children rather than looking outside the family to share the burden. This doesn't mean the parents have to stay together but it does mean that you can't abdicate your responsibility as "mum" or "dad" just because the relationship is over.

"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. "

But you're still a nuclear family. I wouldn't have thought who does what is relevant. A nuclear family is a father, a mother and their children living together.

So they want to separate out children, mothers and fathers living separately? Childcare for the children? Women sharing all the children? Bigamy? I don't know. Sounds horrific.

I thought the rise of the nuclear family was due to affluence (being able to have your own home instead of multi-generational living) and an increase in people moving away to different areas, far from their family group.

Nothing to do with patriarchy.

@forsucksfake

BLM is a "queer"-led organisation with a clear "queer" agenda, more than they are an organisation devoted to civil rights for black people.

What does a nuclear family look like? Definitely not "queer". So of course they want to disrupt/dismantle it.

^ exactly! If black lives actually mattered to this organisation, they would place a focus on building strong nuclear families.

Yeah well I don't think many parents will be farming out their kids to a village to look after.

Also why is only 'to the extent that mothers and children feel comfortable'? What about fathers being responsible for their children as well. Sounds the exact opposite of liberating women.

Does sound like queer theory to me.

Sounds like the rhetoric of taking kids away from their parents.

I think it is closely linked to disrupting patriarchy when you look at the other statements it is put among

I do worry about how this will impact children. Surely they need a solid foundation of parents/care givers. It sounds a bit like they will be passed around.

I think the assumption will be that very many of the poorest already have only one parent involved, or are cared for by someone who isn't even their parent. BLM is a US movement and more and more of the poorest children in the USA are brought up by a grandmother, not by either of their parents. They're often pretty much the most vulnerable children - they're already passed around to anyone willing to give them a roof.

Its a bit of a case of the horse already having bolted, not of only now openning the stable door.

However attempts at making the idea that children are not their parents' responsibility the moral ideal may make things worse... Actually I suspect it's a situation that arises in each individual case out of chaotic lives or desperate poverty or in other completely unplanned ways not because anyone decides its a great new social idea.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2888319/ that's an article from 2012 about a long term trend towards ever increasing number of children left in the care of grandparents in the USA due to a mix of increasing numbers of single parents and reduced real term wages and benefits for single parents. Penalising single parents through benefits didn't reduce the number of single parents, it just increased the number of grandparents taking on the children their single parents couldn't support on benefits or minimum wage.

@bottle3630 start your own thread on www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding

Thatsnotgoingtowork, the link isn't showing for me sorry. That does sound very interesting. Is this something that is affecting America more, what would cause that to happen

Sorry just reread it and you said why, it must be near the end of the day

I think it would mean that people live in groups as they decide between themselves rather than being forced into the 'standard family'. Families with childcare and housework shared in a way that is negotiated rather than women having to pick up the shitty end of the stick all the time.

In practice, I imagine many families will choose to be in a two parent family. I would hope that there is a lot more arrangements where both parents reduce hours rather than the woman loosing out on their career and the man loosing out of early bonding with their dc.

As PP pointed out, I read it as more of a "it takes a village" kind of idea. Having neighbours and communities looking out and pitching in, rather than just nuclear families in their separate homes.

I do think some places are kind of like this, but it was more so when I was a kid, and I'm only 30.
My neighbours have recently started a Facebook group for our street, which is nice.

I think it's a nice idea, I dont feel at all threatened by it. But then again I didn't grow up in a nuclear family and I dont see it as that essential, personally.

A nuclear family by definition is just a married couple with their own children - or at least that's what I found when I googled it. It doesn't seem to say in the definition anything about women being the sahp and the dad being the breadwinner? I didn't realise these things were essential to being a nuclear family.