I hope I am not projecting here, but as yesterday was "Easter Sunday" and many of us are seeing our extended families for the first time in a while, I am almost certain that I am not the only one who dreads having to go around people who otherwise (if we had our choice) we'd probably not spend much time with at all. Without spewing too many details, I have a complex family situation, and at 24 years old, have yet to feel comfortable and accepted among the majority of them; I was adopted, so I have a "complicated family", but still, I don't feel as if my situation is worse or too tragically different than many others' family situations.
So many are dealing with loss during the ongoing pandemic, many go days without seeing their children, others who are forced to work through special occasions, different holidays, on nights, and on weekends. Others have to move away from their families and loved ones - for different reasons (some chosen and some not) - and some others don't even have a family to be with at all. The holiday seasons often expose some of the more obvious symptoms of our current family structures within Capitalist society, but many of these also go unnoticed and unmentioned on a daily basis.
In Capitalist society, family is complicated- what with many people not having time to settle down and have a family, not being able to afford to, or being scared to, given the awful geopolitical, economic, and environmental catastrophes happening daily. Also, given that many do not have time to spend with their own extended family, i.e., parents, siblings, grandparents, etc. they don't even consider the possibility of beginning their own relationships, or having children of their own. Many people don't have time or the ability to commit to serious relationships, whether that be intimate or even friendships, because they simply work too much, or are busy taking care of their homes, their children, their elderly family members, and themselves. Many people also suffer from symptoms of alienation and trauma, like depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc. and cannot or will not spend time doing things that trigger these feelings (which, for many of us, family is a big trigger).
When we look at family historically, however, things were not always as they are today. We know that today, women, LGBTQIA+ folks, and children commonly represent the most oppressed class, and the fathers, grandfathers, or whatever patriarch/family "leader" etc. represents the oppressor class. In many families this is very obvious, with women and non-straight folks being forced to do housekeeping, cooking, caretaking, shopping, childcare, etc. among also having to nowadays commonly maintain a full-time or multiple part-time jobs. Men are still often excused from this type of labor, though queer, and also non-monogamous relations are beginning to break from this tradition, it still stands strong in many cultures around the world. This "domestic" labor also includes an awareness of psychological, physiological, sociological, political, traditional/cultural and economic knowledge in order to properly tend to family, neighbors, community members, etc. Those who do this labor often go unpaid, are disrespected, and are used as a free source of care for those who do not do this labor, or will not.
There was a time where more communalistic societies, with more Matriarchal or more equitable social structures, existed. This way of life slowly but surely came to a close near the earliest stages of the onset of private property, along with a legalized + socialized system of Patriarchy, protection for the ownership of land, of trade, and of people. Thus, came things like mass slavery, a systematized version that expanded all across the globe; the ownership of women, and the dictatorship held by landowning men over them, politics, the military, trades, manufacture, etc. all of which continues to this day in different forms. These things, like child-slavery, mass exploitation of the labor of women, of incarcerated people, impoverished people, immigrants and refugees, is the very basis by which Capitalism-Imperialism exists.
This historical reality would, of course, make many families extremely rigid, controlling, judgmental, clique-like, and only tied together based on transactional or forced relations, which are usually quite exploitative. Family relations tend to be dehumanizing and disrespectful. In more extreme cases families are literally forced to sell off children - as wives, as workers, as slaves - and have for generations. Families also have broken from the previously held communal ties that once built the bedrock of societies, being forced and socialized into individualized housing, childcare, education, transportation, information and media consumption: aka existence. Many of us, due to alienation, trauma and experience, cultivate our own strong sense of internalized individualism, selfishness, and come to take advantage of those closest to us, or are the one's taken advantage of. This can come in many forms, most of the time it's through passing trauma on to children, or younger family members, or one another, when older family members or loved ones do not resolve their own internal conflicts and mend the wounds that come from it, they take it out on those around them, or dump it onto others to deal with. Not only the younger ones, but mainly this happens to those who people see as more submissive, compassionate, or passive.
Families of people who are oppressed systematically - Africans, Indigenous peoples, Asians, Latinos, Mexicans, etc. - commonly have to send children to work at younger and younger ages, commonly being forced to do the most exploitative and cheap forms of labor. It is this, or be forced into non-formal labor ("crime"). Lastly, for those who cannot do any of the above, they are forced suffer the consequences of poverty, oppression, mass incarceration, pollution, policing - the reality for millions living under Capitalism-Imperialism. This, of course, leads to contradictions, complications, and conflicts within families, commonly leading to early departure from families such as moving away for work, for school, for housing, or alienation for other reasons such as tension, trauma, and a lack of growth. We know that Black, Brown and Indigenous people suffer the brunt of this reality, being forced to deal with internal family dynamics and contradictions plus external oppression and threats of genocide. We also know that many LGBTQIA+ children, young adults, and even grown adults are forced to leave what little stability a family that hates you can provide, in a society that wants you dead, and many end up on the streets, unhoused, unemployed, and alone.
This is all intentional.
The family is a "nucleus" by which propaganda, exploitation, alienation, and abuse can become normalized, systematized, and atomized. This has been true since the beginning of what we call "class society", where one class (formal grouping) exists by exploiting the other(s) and their labor. The breakdown of formerly communalistic, tightly knit groups of people, where labor, caretaking, food production, defense, and development were more or less shared in common, was a direct assault on something that constituted a threat to things like private property, Patriarchy, Colonialism, and Capitalism-Imperialism. Things such as ties that existed (and still exist) between the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, between the Indigenous peoples of Africa, and the Indigenous peoples of Asia, posed not only a social, but a political and in some cases a physical threat to the Colonists and Imperialists. The resistance of formerly enslaved communities and people who were never enslaved because of their resistance, proved deadly to the settlers many times over, and still looms over their head as they step evermore cautiously on the throats of the oppressed.
The necessity to have smaller and smaller "nuclei" to exploit of course allows the State to assume more and more power, with communal institutions like neighborhood schools, childcare services, cafeterias, etc., or even more open, "neighborly" and communal relations no longer existing as they once did. This trend led to more control over individuals, families, communities, and nations. Things like the Black Panther Party's breakfast programs were immediately co-opted by the State - which institutionalized free breakfast in all federally funded schools - as soon as they posed a threat to the ability for the State to exploit the impoverished masses through hunger and food scarcity. The Indigenous practices of communal raising of children and national relations were destroyed by Residential schools, reservations with no funding, mass discrimination and racism in public schools, and outright genocidal campaigns by police, the military, and settlers to kill indigenous children in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Formerly defendable communities were disarmed, criminalized, encircled and slaughtered, whether they be those who fought back, like Indigenous nations, "maroon" communities, runaway indentured workers and enslaved/unpaid workers, or those unable to fight back, like the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly, and children- they have all been targeted for genocide.
All of these phenomena are happening at once and are interrelated: the onset and development of Capitalism, the consolidation of Patriarchy, the advancement of class society, the systematization of racism, the terror of Imperialism, and policing, among many other tools of repression. These, combined with the tools of oppression contained in our current family structure, are used as ways to extract wealth, labor, and cheap resources from nations around the world. But this system is not as strong as it once was; Capitalism-Imperialism, Patriarchy, Colonialism, are no longer the sole dominant forces on the map. Nations like Cuba, with their recent passing of the Family Code shows that once again, not only is Cuba far ahead of the world, but Cuba also shows us that things can and must be different. Nations like Nicaragua, commonly ignored by the Western left, fights against these tools of oppression from the UN Human Rights Commission sham to the contra-violence and coup attempts that have happened many times over, down to the very structure of family, community, and relations, are developing and being struggled against by the whole people of Nicaragua, not just the Ortega administration. Nations like China, Venezuela, Vietnam, and the former socialist/national liberationist nations in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, have fought tooth and nail against the reactionary Church, against Imperialism, and against all techniques used to keep them in isolated, individualized nuclei to be oppressed and exploited.
The reality is becoming more evident every day that relations of the Family, community, and nations, under Capitalism-Imperialism, are exploitative, rotten, toxic, and can prove dangerous for us all. It is up to us to fight against all forms of oppression, within our families, within our workplaces, and within our communities, countries, and throughout the world. Many are leading the way, from Socialist nations to former national liberation struggles, to Nationalist governments, social movements, political struggles, organizations and mass mobilizations within all sectors of society are guiding us forward. But our path is not yet clear for some, and it is our duty to bring those who want an end to exploitation to come to the same understandings as those before us who have fought against, in their own nations, Imperialism, sexism, Patriarchy, exploitation of person by person, poverty, and dehumanization.
It is not impossible or ridiculous to expect that the world will and must change. The way in which I and countless others have had to be raised, educated, socialized, exploited, and abused, not to mention the degrees by which third world nations are far more exploited, should not and CANNOT be allowed to be the status quo anymore. I'm sick of this shit, and I think many others are too. I want to see another world where extended families, communities, partners, friendships, and other relations can be formed on equitable, conscious, and positive grounds, for the benefit of all. That is the future we must fight and strive for; that is the future that is coming, that we will bring into existence. All power to the People!