David Brooks wrote an article in The Atlantic, The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake, that was incendiary and clearly designed to spark a lot of discussion. Now, I grew up reading a lot of sci-fi and was always attracted to Heinlein’s idea of a future family that was generally larger than a simple nuclear family and was family by choice rather than by birth.
After reading Brook’s article, I wrote a bunch of notes that I’m going to put here un-edited. Perhaps I’ll follow this up with some drill-down posts or some Q&A.
ISSUE: Modern life, with its hyper-individualism, has left the nuclear family (family with two adults) vulnerable, fragile, and lacking in a sense of community that humans need to achieve happiness.
- Nuclear families are vulnerable to issues such as unemployment, disease, or divorce in that any one of these events can shatter it and set it back by years
- Nuclear families are lonely without a diversity of strong adult relationships to support, nurture, and entertain them
- Nuclear families are over-worked with both adults often in demanding jobs and little or no support in child-rearing and house-keeping
- Nuclear families are not as wealthy as in the past due to extreme rents and house values in the cities
- Children are limited in their adult interactions to parents and teachers without much opportunity to have meaningful relationships with other adults
SOLUTION: “Poly-Family” where adults choose to enter into a familial relationship with other adults in order to gain the benefits of a large, extended family by sacrificing some amount of individual autonomy.
- This is not polyamory where couples or individuals enter into romantic relationships with one another. Those relationships are not stable enough for the type of long-term teamwork this requires.
- The vision is that the adults in this relationship have extremely close relationships with one another that are familial rather than romantic
- Emotional openness and supportive, healthy relationships are the goal. Adults should seek each other for interaction and fulfillment and will have opportunities for a much greater variety of interaction than available in the typical two-adult family
- Safety and security are primary values in these relationships which is why polyamory is discouraged as that can lead to jealousy and exclusivity. All members should feel loved and accepted and safe to be their true selves
- This is an equal marriage where all adults would have a voice in the governance of the family making decisions about: spending, investment, family rules, and family responsibilities.
- The Family would establish a charter detailing the Family goals and mission
- The Family would establish processes for handling management and disagreements. It would include items like how to run the family meeting, family votes, family finances, adding new members, managing conflict, parenting guidelines, and anything else the Family wanted to codify
- The Family would decide via governance how large to grow and which members to include
- Adding a new individual or group to the Family would be a very serious decision as divorce is very difficult and painful
- The Family would decide if they wanted to add couples with children, single people, or couples without children and decisions would have to be unanimous
- Newly added Family members would have to buy in to their shares in the Family LLC in a way that was agreed upon by the Family
- Newly added Family members would immediately be full members entitled to their voice in the governance and their share of the Family assets
- This is a financial marriage where adults would contribute earnings to the Family in some agreed upon ratio and the Family would use this money for Family expenses and Family investments
- An LLC would be formed to be the Family’s legal entity
- All individuals would have Shares in the LLC that gave them a legal right to a portion of the Family assets
- The Family would invest excess assets to fund future expenses such as Continuing Education and Retirement
- The Family would purchase home(s) for members and would issue shares of the equity so that all individuals could enjoy rewarding home life while investing for their futures
- While individuals would contribute financially to the Family with every pay check, each individual would have some allowance for their own personal money
- This is a co-parenting marriage where all adults would help each other with child-rearing responsibilities whether or not each individual adult had biological children of their own
- All Family members would have a say in large-scale parenting strategies
- All Family members would have authority and responsibility in day-to-day parenting and support of all children
- All Family members should support the education of children, both with direct instruction and indirect role modeling
- This is an intimate and supportive marriage where individuals would help one another even at cost to themselves because they genuinely love each other
- This is a fun and inclusive marriage where good times are shared by all in the form of vacations, parties, dinners, and events
- A Fund would be established in the Family finances for “good times” and the governance would decide how to spend it each year
- All members would be included in all Family events
- Individual members can use individual allowances to enjoy good times that are not Family events. The Family will manage itself to allow members to have as much allowance as possible to maximize these opportunities
- The marriage would expect that all members strive to achieve at the highest level but also support individuals at all levels of income and even in the face of catastrophe
- Individuals who work to support the Family directly (Ex. Home keeper, nanny, financial manager, etc.) would be paid a salary by the Family and provided with Benefits similar to individuals working outside
- If calamity strikes an individual such as unemployment or disability, the Family will support them emotionally and financially
- Individual retirement will be discussed by the Family and planned for in a way that doesn’t leave the Family financially vulnerable
- There would be a mechanism for an individual or group to leave the Family although it would be a sad event and only a last resort
- Leaving the Family is like a divorce, but the extended Family can handle it better than a nuclear family can handle it
- Every effort will be made to allow divorced members to cash out their share in the Family but not by selling assets that would put the Family in jeopardy (such as selling the Family home(s))
- In the case that the Family could not immediately cash out a divorced member, the Family would make periodic payments until the debt was settled
- Children are assumed to leave the Family as they enter adulthood but may choose to return as adult members later
- There is a difference between child members and adult members: adults contribute, children consume
- The Family is multi-generational though and can persist indefinitely as long as members belong and gain value from it
- Children may choose to leave the Family and pursue their own families (little f or big F) as they become independent
- Children may also choose to join the Family as adult members using the same process as any new members are considered. This may be a direct transition from child to adult roles or it may be a re-joining to the Family as an adult after a departure
I am Galt 