Family is a terrible way to satisfy our desire for love and care, according to the writer and academic Sophie Lewis. The solution? Abolish it.
— The New Statesman (@NewStatesman) September 24, 2022
~ thread ~https://t.co/rZk2LZ1brM
These people are certifiably nuts.
Clarissa's Blog 
“These people are certifiably nuts.”
Dear Clarissa, please allow me to disagree. These people are criminally insane.
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I accept this amendment as very reasonable. 🙂
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I can’t read the article but she previously had a column in the New York Times, “How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans”. Her relationship partner at that time was a “non-op trans woman”, so basically they’re a heterosexual couple who get to call themselves “queer”. She was promoting a book called “Full Surrogacy Now”, promoting some vague kind of biotech collectivism for the raising of children; the title is a play on “full communism now”.
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Ah well. This really explains why she hates the concept of a family.
It’s always an incapacity to organize one’s own life that gives birth to these fantasies. Why we have to be exposed to this instead of having the afflicted sort out their neuroses with a psychiatrist is what I don’t understand.
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Was doing some Googling, she basically wants to get rid of the family it seems because the family is a source of misery for many and not love, and also is a basis for the oppression of women, and we thus need to get rid of it and create a society where we all love each other and so the family won’t be needed.
Like most utopians and communist-types, she mistakes legitimate problems that exist with fundamental social institutions as meaning that said institutions are replaceable when they are not as they are part of human nature. For example, she is correct that not all families are sources of love, many are sources of misery and oppression, but those are what we call broken families and need fixing. She is the equivalent of the communist saying, “Corporations pollute and mistreat workers, therefore we must eliminate the free-enterprise system.”
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As adults, we are completely in control of what our personal life is like. If her family is miserable, that’s on her. Her position is akin to saying, “I made dinner but it tastes like crap. This must mean that food is terrible. Let’s abolish food.” It’s learned helplessness at its worst.
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“These people are certifiably nuts”
and at the other extreme of crazy you get this…. (from twitter)
“The family is from God. It is His design, His way to meet our needs, the sexual needs of adults and the emotional, relational needs of every family member. The family suggests a power higher than the state”
This sounds about as appealing as a bath in battery acid… why isn’t there anything more towards the middle that sounds reasonable?
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\ why isn’t there anything more towards the middle that sounds reasonable?
Because sane majority doesn’t see a need to type clichés about what a family is?
They – and I – think it’s self-evident. Who writes posts “grass is green, sky is blue” ?
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Yes, it’s either the Christian Right-wing in this country who want everything God, or the communist Left-wing who hate Western civilization and the family unit and want communism, even if they don’t call it that now.
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I’ve looked her up and she’s one of these people who’ve had a bad childhood that messed them up, and they want everyone else to be messed up. Her ideas of communal child-rearing and abolishing the family and her communism are repellent, I love my family and have always been close to my older relatives and cousins.
Then again, this fits into a pattern I’ve seen with a lot of Anglo white people who seem to hate their families and blame families for holding them back and stifling them. Too many Anglo white people aren’t close to their grandparents or see being around family as draining or a burden, that people are better off on their own. This is alien to me, having grown up in a big extended Cuban American family with my aunt as godmother. My older relatives, if they read this, would think she’s both crazy and evil and a warning for their sons not to date Anglo white women
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I live in the Midwest but I am not Anglo (immigrant from continental Europe). On average, the relationships of parents and kids I see around me are less physically affectionate than, for example, how I am with my kids. I’m not saying everyone is like this, but just on average. When the kids were little, daycare teachers commented on how affectionate my kids were (e.g., would give hugs freely) presumably versus the norm. A lot of this is thanks to my husband, who grew up in a warm, loving family. Mine was cold and withholding and very guilt-trippy, and I never wanted that for my kids. Thanks to husband who naturally transmitted warmth and relaxation, we were able to create a warm environment for the boys. We shower them with I love yous, hug and kiss them, and keep things in the home light and fun. Various immigrants, such as Latinos and people from the Indian subcontinent are also very physically affectionate with their kids. In my experience, Anglos simply aren’t, not past a very young age. I don’t know if that’s Protestantism or something else Anglo, but for most people physical warmth and affection is the glue of relationships, and critical for kids’ development and well-being. Without it, kids feel unloved and alone; they will eventually build defenses to be able to do without, but it does not make for happy adults.
As for grandparents, the US work culture is punishing, and most people don’t live close to grandparents. To traverse that distance on a regular basis, you have to have a good relationship with grandparents, and many parents simply don’t. So distance plus weak bonds equals no significant roles for extended family.
This is just my 2 cents. Or more like 28 cents, given the length of this comment.
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Well some of us have bad families. Other than my very immediate family, I want little to nothing to do with any of them. And by that I mean other than my mother and sister. My father was a piece of crap to my mother (to put it very lightly) but I grew up with him, so there is a form of love/hate there, so I still talk with him, but on a limited basis. My grandparents were not the greatest people at all, and as for my aunts, uncles, cousins, etc…HA! No way I want anything to do with them. All greedy, horrible people.
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I’m guessing if you met her family, it’d make perfect sense.
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To clarify, it’s one thing if you have a bad relationship with family but if one has a good relationship with family but isn’t close to them that’s weird to me. The author sounds mentally ill and seems to think all families are awful, they’re projecting. She sounds like one of the more radical feminists who think being a housewife is horrible and that having kids is a burden, because she thinks so doesn’t mean everyone else does.
My mother had three kids and is the manager of a supermarket and has worked at various jobs since high school, yet she insisted on keeping the house clean and did home-cooked meals for us growing up. Now as adults my brother and I do much of the cooking and cleaning so she isn’t exhausted, so I grew up with a working mom as normal. Her sister, my aunt, has always been a housewife and never wanted a career, yet she’s content as a housewife and dotes on her 12 grandchildren. She gets offended when people ask if she resented being a housewife since that’s what she always wanted, she loves being a mother and grandmother. So some women want to work outside the home and others are content to be housewives, both are valid
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