#anyway this is not a robust theory of family abolition but do you see the vision

[starfieldcanvas]

it can be hard to imagine an alternative to kinship guardianship, and historically attempts to systematically separate children from their parents en masse are all just tragically horrifically racist and genocidal, but you don't have to go full crèche; you just have to make it really fucking easy AND NORMAL for kids to seek distance from their parents or to seek backup from other adults

like. imagine a world where instead of little kids "running away" because they're mad at their parents (about something that's only unreasonable if you're 5), they instead all learn in school that if they call 888, someone from the Children's Agency* will come pick them up and take them to a sleepaway dorm, no questions asked and no shade on their parents—kids get crazy mad at even reasonable adults sometimes! and they deserve a safe place to cool down! and if they want to go back after, they should get to!

and this continues to be true forever. if the kid wants to leave they just leave. the sleepaway dorm probably isn't the coolest, but if you want to stay longer you tell an agent what stuff you need from your house and they get it for you.

if the need to legally prove neglect or abuse wasn't a factor, if the kid could just fucking walk out for whatever reason whenever they felt like, AND THAT WAS NORMAL, normal enough that kids would coordinate their 888 calls to have sleepovers and the sleepaway dorm was a couple long-stay traumatized kids with a rotating cast of decently well-adjusted kids exerting their independence and a very large cadre of kids in active negotiation with their parents about the terms of their return....

or mix in an alternative: the Cool Uncle Agent. if your parents are doing something you don't like and you're not sure if it's normal, you dial 888 and you invite the Cool Uncle Agent to stay with you and see whether your parents will keep doing the thing you don't like in front of them. or your parents can call the Cool Uncle Agent themselves if they know they're going to have to implement discipline you're not gonna like!

if your parents won't sign your permission slip for sex ed? cool uncle agent. parents too busy to go to your parent-teacher conference? cool uncle agent. parents don't believe in psychiatry and you think you need some? cool uncle agent. parents checked you into a psych ward? cool uncle agent can check you out!

(this isn't, like, one person; it would be whoever was on shift and available. cool uncle agent is 300 people assigned to your age bracket in your city. they probably try to give you the same dozen agents if they can but the priority is having someone available whenever a kid needs, like, a ride to the abortion clinic or whatever, not that they have a deep relationship.)

the crucial thing would be ease, normalcy, and free choice. the cool uncle agent doesn't steal you, you call him as your free normal adult backup who is legally authorized to act in loco parentis. even if your real parents are there being mad about it. the only consequence to your parents is that you do the thing they didn't want you to do. after all, if you wanted to leave, you'd just leave! nobody has to take them to court to prove they're bad parents! nobody has to go to jail!

it would just take a big chunk of the current american military budget, and a complete reshaping of the way we think about the rights of our children.

but i like to dream about that world sometimes.

(frankly that's what i want for adults too. every parent should have to compete with the Government Cheese of guardianship, and every landlord should have to compete with the Government Cheese of housing: basic, decent, impersonal, nothing to write home about, and free.)

*the Children's Agency...it's a pun. get it. because it gives children agency?

sorry i woke up in my rantsona. but like seriously isn't it fucking twisted that every child in almost every country are basically legal property of their parents. like their parents have complete control over where they can go, who they can talk to, which words out of their mouth are truth or lies; they're allowed, encouraged even, to be the sole interface by which the child connects to everything else in this world. like isnt that extraordinary. like how is it a mystery to anyone that children are constantly dying under parental abuse or growing up into utterly dysfunctional traumatised adults. why are we talking about these nebulous narratives of "the unstoppable and nuanced cycle of abuse" instead of looking straight at the reality we've built specifically for this purpose