Politics of the Family
diseased nation, diseased thinking, diseased existence
And after these things shall a Star arise to you from Jacob in peace, and a Man shall rise from my seed, like the Sun of righteousness, walking with the sons of men in meekness and righteousness, and no sin shall be found in Him. And the heavens shall be opened above Him, to shed forth the blessing of the Spirit from the Holy Father; and He shall shed forth a spirit of grace upon you, and you shall be unto Him sons in truth, and you shall walk in His commandments, the first and the last. This is the Branch of God Most High, and this the Well-spring unto life for all flesh. Then shall the sceptre of my kingdom shine forth, and from your root shall arise a stem; and in it shall arise a rod of righteousness to the Gentiles, to judge and to save all that call upon the Lord.
- Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs; Testament of Judah
Family Politics
JD Vance is a reanimated OSU sweater vest with an extremely odd shape and odious connections in the tech world. His book sucked, the movie was worse, and now he’s a Star! who might become one of the most powerful people in the United States. That’s how it works in America, general. Can I sell you an avatar for a nonexistent past you’re nostalgic for?
I’m writing this discursive newsletter on vacation at the beach with my family. It’s amazing in every sense of the word: the setting remains static (my folks rent the same house regularly), yet there are my children and they are bigger and they are doing things that signal that they are growing more independent etc. This isn’t a parenting blog so I’ll keep the sap to a minimum (plus I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this sentiment at length in some past essay), but the long and short of it is that our children remind me of the miracle of existence. Being on vacation amplifies that feeling because I can focus 100% of my energy on them. My son is ripping whiffle balls for the first time and I’m wearing a bucket hat, something I only do within the tight borders of Delaware.
It’s later on (usually near a television) that I think that the politics of the family — the psycho JD Vance stuff — is the main reason I’ve disengaged from socio-political hardliner thinking. I’ve wanted to have kids my whole life. In no way did I ever think of that desire through a socio-political lens. I did not think about what having children said about me, or whether having children was a “conservative” or “progressive” notion. Are you out of your fucking mind? I occasionally thought about whether I could afford it and then remembered that extremely impoverished people make it work, therefore not being able to “afford” children seemed like a convenient excuse deployed by people with commitment issues. “Skill issue,” as the kids say online these days.
What kind of goober sees their existence as an avatar for state ideologies? Children are not a consumer choice — or, put differently, if one does consider the decision to have children to be a consumer choice or political statement, that person has maybe been turned around a bit. Yet, children are inherently political because Da State tends to put a lot of parameters around the “correct” way to raise one, or a couple’s ability to adopt a child in need. My family provides cosmic permission to ignore the outside world. I’d rather not do that, though, because then I would be kind of a jerk.
The image of mother and child stretches back to the times before the proverbial “We” had words for any of this stuff. In Ethiopia, for example, the most common depiction of the Savior is not the crucified Christ but the child on Mary’s lap holding the book of the Word. Reverence for the family is often laid at the feet of religion, but that feels a little backwards based on the aesthetic of the icons. Religion was born of reverence for the nurturing grace of the Mother, meaningless without the context of family and unconditional love. The icon of St. Mary and the Savior reinforces this foundation, a reminder that the Son is given grace to pursue wisdom only within the confines of the Divine Feminine. The crucifixion reinforces the other part of that equation, which is why chauvinists like it so much.
With each new generation comes a new variant of the Word. The Catholics beat that out of people over here and convinced their subjects that it was the old guys (and specifically one old pervert in a hat) that uniquely understood the divine. Sorry, boys, but I’ve been to Lalibela and seen what they paint. That dog don’t hunt.
Despite my fervor for the miracle of childbirth, when a pasty State Farm Insurance rep like JD Vance says that the “Childless Left” is ruining America, I don’t like it much. I don’t really think the issue is equally odious on “both sides” either. I’ve engaged with the most “extreme” positions on family on the left — the Abolish the Family pamphlet is an extremely fun starting place — and most of it is just young person stuff compared to Vance’s brand of evangelical fascism. Abolish the Family is annoying, but Vance’s worldview is frightening. I’m already annoyed most of the time so I don’t mind the former as much as I despise the latter.
“Abolish the Family” is about how the idea of the family is oppressive to people with bad family experiences and that society oughta change to accommodate that. Gnosticism is an individual matter, so if family abolition is the framework that helps in the present, then go get ‘em. From the socio-political side of things, it’s also quite rational that there should be less barriers to adopting children, more state-sanctioned avenues for diverse cultural expression of how families are composed and defined.
It has a little bit of fanfiction stuff in there about how families are capitalist, but what can you do? Marxist-Leninists only have a hammer, so even the family is a small business nail. The pamphlet is a little silly because it is idealistic, which I strongly prefer to right wing family politics that stop just short of calling for reeducation camps for women that don’t want kids. That’s why I don’t like “punching left” (an intensely dumb term; nobody is punching anyone) on “family politics” (an intensely dumb term; spectator’s view of having a family).
The right wing focuses on the aesthetics of the family for ethnonationalist purposes; the nuclear family as the ultimate disruption engine for communal institutions. Want to destroy public schools? Get a few illiterates to show up at school board meetings complaining about books they haven’t read. The customer is always right in America, and any given parent enjoys diplomatic immunity from its child — always an avatar, never a decision maker — and the theoretical corruption inherent to a progressive society. It’s all nonsense, but it’s easy to sell to parents like me that are often searching for the illusion of control after a day of arguing with developing minds.
Using one’s faith to deny another family’s child an education is so inherently unethical and immoral that it feels silly to waste energy arguing against it. Using one’s faith as an excuse to focus exclusively on their home environment feels equally odious because (speaking only for myself) would mean denying my own children’s observations about the world around them. It was my children who astutely observed (and subsequently asked me about) some of their classmates needing the free breakfast and lunch more than they do. Maybe I could spin up Vance-esque Carnival Barker parable that casts their friends’ parents in a negative light to make myself feel better, but I prefer to tell them the truth about this place and how luck works.
I think the reason that I hate politicization of family in discourse is the way it creates the illusion of solidarity. I have very little in common with other parents aside from the fact that I want my kids to have good schools where they are safe, and would like the cars to drive slower in my neighborhood. I have nothing in common with fathers who think like JD Vance or the people who write articles about the birth rate or what women should be doing with their time. That’s the opposite of my worldview — known colloquially amongst my closest friends as “87 Brain” (a phrase this blog may deploy more of in the future).
Do it or don’t do it, just leave me out of it. I got stuff going on, you know? Lotta shit I gotta get done around the house, Tafari. I’m teaching the kids to play whiffle ball.