Is there anything that can be learned from cases like Buttigeg and Harris where at least one of their parents was ostensibly a proponent of Marx? Have any of you known or had communist parents?
I'm trying to avoid my own kids becoming reactionary and the only thing I know to do to avoid that is show them internal consistency with my own views(valuing consent, consistency, openness, compassion, reason, creativity, and an unbreakable will), educate them on class conflict and historical materialism, and give them opportunities to reinforce the innate kindness within them while also introducing them to various other groups so that they grow up to feel a human connection to anyone regardless of differences in age, gender, nationality, etc.
I'll be closely involved in their school work to help counter imperialist propaganda in their public school education.
I'll be involving them in programs like 4H so they don't become alienated from the means of production and their environment.
I'll be insisting they get part time service industry jobs when they're old enough to help radicalize them against the inhumanities of capitalist exploitation
Additionally, the only communities I can think to raise them as a part of are SRA, and UU. If y'all have any suggestions I would love to hear them.
This is very reassuring since I'm in a somewhat similar situation where my partner agrees with every point I make regarding food, housing, healthcare, education, acab, anti-colonialism, anti -imperialism, systemic racism, environmentalism and the problem that comes from having a society where a working class does not own the means of production, BUT only if I call all that shit socialism, not communism because communism bad, and they're also pretty anti gun but at least they consistent and don't think cops should have guns either. They want to be rich though, because they'd rather escape oppression by having enough wealth to not have to sell their labor anymore. So, kinda sus but not at all interested in teaching our kids political philosophy nor in interfering with my education plans for them so mostly benign parenting-wise from my perspective and potentially a useful foil considering the kids already don't like them.
I'm glad to hear a similar situation works out for you. I will definitely take what you have shared and use it to improve my own parenting.
Yeah, I once asked my wife, who currently benefits a great deal from belonging to a union, if she would support the formation of a union at her workplace, like assuming none had ever been formed there before. Would she support the workers, or the bosses? She said of course she would support the workers. Then I was like, okay, what about just like one big union for the whole world? That's basically what communism is. (Yes, I know it's not exactly that.) She just rolled her eyes and the conversation was over.
I want to believe that as things generally get more fucked up, that more people will be converted to anti-capitalism, but the ability people have to blame individual bad actors when the socioeconomic system they favor is at fault is pretty impressive. I think my wife's anti-communism also comes not only from childhood abuse, which she suffered a great deal of, but also the political environment she spent most of her life experiencing in South Korea. Anti-communism is a thing, there, where it is actually illegal to be a communist (although I don't think the government has prosecuted anyone for quite some time), while in America, for most of my life, communism was almost never discussed at all. Until 2015, it was just something occasionally mentioned in the background, an uninteresting failure.
It sounds like our partners have a lot in common, ideologically. I don't know. Things are working out for the time being, but who the hell knows what's in store for all of us?