An Image of the Family
If I had to make a general rule for living and working with children, it might be this: be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued.
—John Holt, Freedom and Beyond
Now that we understand the problem, what can we do to solve it? How can we subvert our own self-sabotage and empower ourselves once again?
Just like with hierarchy, it starts with the family. If kids are taught hierarchy and are disconnected from each other in their youth, we must teach them horizontality and let them connect with each other instead.
If we want a better family dynamic, we must prefigure it. This means doing what we can to connect with each other within the existing society, without waiting for some mythical utopia before we can start. We can start fitting the pieces we have together at the same time as we search for and create the missing pieces.
The foundation of any attempt to prove our relationship with kids is agency. Kids are full people in the here and now and deserve the same respect and dignity adults are supposed to have. By treating them as people, we radically change the way we interact with them. The way we treat kids now is how they will expect to be treated in the future.
Parents often try to form kids after a certain image, especially in more authoritarian religious families. This leads to a perpetual struggle to subdue the kid's agency and turn them into what the parent wishes they would be. The values parents work to instill can be godliness, a strong work ethic, citizenship, or any other supposed virtues. But these values are never instilled perfectly. When a kid chooses a different path, the parent may become distressed and wonder what they did wrong, or, worse, blame the kid for not following in the steps prepared for them. This is an abusive way to raise a kid.
If we center agency as the guiding principle for our interactions with kids, we give them the tools they need to navigate the world and pursue their goals on their own terms. This empowers them to build powerful relationships with others. If we show kids the benefits of collaboration, they will choose to do so on their own. Centering agency means letting kids interact with the world as they wish and watching in awe as they build things we could have never imagined.
This process of education is self-subverting. As one teaches another, the learner becomes adept like the teacher. Any authority that may have exsited before becomes moot. Every step of the way, the parent should seek to become the kid's peer, initially in walking, in eating, and other basic physical skills, but eventually also in discourse and in decisions. This is a new person, with new thoughts and a fresh look at the world. Their opinions are valuable, especially regarding themselves.
A family that embodies these principles is going to look different than what families look like now. It would decenter the parent-child relationship and instead raise kids in common, where kids are able to learn from many different people and where they receive care from countless others. Kids would be treated as equals to adults. Adults would interact with them as people, giving them advice when warranted and learning from them when appropriate. Any violations of the autonomy of a kid would be treated as seriously as the same violation against an adult.
Every step of the process of raising kids would be about bestowing agency on the kid. Kids need to be taught how to exercise their agency. This involves everything from teaching them how to take care of themselves to having healthy social relationships. This also involves decision-making power.
When a kid wants to take an active role in the decision-making procedures in their family, their parents should let them. In most households, decision-making is centered in one or both parents, with kids having little input beyond their opinions sometimes being heard (and often discarded). The final say always belongs to the parents. This needn't be the case. As soon as the kid wants to take part in the essential decision-making for the household, we should let them. We should listen to kids about their needs just as much as we listen to fellow adults. Family decisions should be made based on the consensus of all members, including the kids. Many kids don't want any place in decision-making, especially when they discover how taxing it is. If they don't want to participate, we don't need to force them to do so. But it should always be an option for them, and the adults in their lives should take their opinions seriously.