So I've got 3.5 month old son right now and oh boy its some crazy shit. He's very nice and I love him lots but it breaks my heart knowing I'm gonna have to tell him 'how the world works' at some point. Like of course I wanna instill him with communist values but its tough cos there's a reality of how things work now which is impossible to ignore. Of course all this is way off for now, essentially I need to live in the moment as he does and enjoy every moment with him, but it's tough when you know there's a very high chance many of his future moments are gonna be super fucked up. How do you explain climate change to a child? Yeah the world you've been born into is fucked because we need to burn dinosaurs for money son but don't worry because the economy is doing good well it was but now its not. Anyway thankfuck I have a big garden and honestly he can live with me as long as he wants. Fuck knows what's gonna be going down when he's 5 10 15 20 etc all I know is he can have whatever he needs from me. The boomer individualist paradigm is dead we are all in this together now.
I guess the best you can do is teach him empathy and a materialist worldview.
Always worth remembering that Marxism isn't good because its virtuous, its good because its an effective tool for navigating society.
This is a super understandable and relatable anxiety, but try not to lean into it too much. Part of accepting that your son is his own person with a life distinct from your own will be accepting that he will experience the vivid depths of human suffering and that there is nothing you can do to save him from that. He will also experience indescribable joy and euphoria at times. It’s all part of the package. You can bias him towards less suffering and more joy, but that’s all.
All of that said, right now he’s very much entangled with you. You’re worrying about a lack of control at a time where you couldn’t possibly have more. When the time comes, you’ll do your best to be patient and kind and the teachable moments will come. You won’t need to preach to make him a communist. You’ll just need to do your best to live your values and talk through his frustrations with the world. The world is fucked up on his own. He’ll have plenty of questions.
Maybe this doesn't apply to you, but the prospect of me having kids often puts a kind of fear into other people. It makes them realize I'm serious about the stuff I advocate for and I would in fact try to instill the stuff I know into a kid. It's made at least one person try to talk with me seriously, whereas normally the stuff I say is dismissed as insane gibberish. I don't know what that says about how children are seen and treated, but maybe having a kid could help you involve yourself in some organizing efforts.
