1 But I Love My Family! “There ar other ways of aming ech other rations ““Tifany Letbabo King! Abolish the family? You might aswell abolish gravity or abolish god. So! The left is tying wo take grandma avay, row, and confsate kids, and this is supposed to be progressive? What the fuck? Many people experience a reaction something like this ‘upon fist encountering the phrase “abolish che family.” ‘And that's okay. I wll either deny noe shy aay from the tlogan’s explosive emotional feghe. My purpose ini is pam, to be sre ocanfy and correct che many posible ‘aghast misapprehessons one can easy form about family bolton; for example, that t mesns forcibly separating people. But ultimaely, I don'e want to deny thac there is Something “scary” pschologicaly challenging) abou eis polis. This same Scariness i presen in all real revolt tionary politics, in my view. Our tepiation tour reflex {ve sesponse tothe premonition of an abolition ofthe self? All of seven those of us who own no property, whoreecve no guranteed care, and who subsist athe Blan tendof empire, whiteness, c-beteropatriarchy, and ass— ‘nll hae toe goof someting as the proces of our cllee- ‘ve lteraton ufos Ifthe words to be remade uted, ‘hen a person muse be wilng to be remade also. We sense this, And it dif, perhaps impossible, ight now, € imagine not being: manufactured through the private rcleas household and the cedipal kinship tory (mother fare father figure, hl) Ye personhood was not always crested this way which meane we could, we wanted to, reat it other Inthe neat, if yout knee eas: tion to the words “abolish the family” is “but I love my family” you ought ro know that you are one ofthe lucky foes: And Lam happy for you. Br everyone should be 0 icky, doa'e you think? Loving the people in your family mind you, isnot at ‘xs with commitment to family abolition. Quite the fevers will hazard a definition of love: to Tove a person ‘stostrugalefortheirautonomy aswell afr thes immer ‘ion in care, insofar such abundance is possible ina work choked by capital. If this i tray then restricting the umber of mothers fof whatever gender) to whom a chill has access, on the bass chat Lam the “rea mother isnot secesniy a form oflove worthy ofthe name. Peschancs, Iwhen you were wey young (assuming you gre up in & nuclear howehold), you guy nosced the oppresiv nes of the Function assigned 0 whoever was the mother inyour home. You sensed ber loneliness. You elt a twinge fof solidariy. In ry experience, children often “ze” this besterthan most when youlove someone, tsimply makes no ease to endorses socal techaology that isolates them, Prva thet hfeword, arbitrary assigns their dvell- Ingeslace, clas, and ery identity in lw, and drastically ciccusribes cei phere of itienate, interdependent ts, ‘But Lam gering ahead of myself. ‘Mot family abolitionists lve cei families. 1 true ‘of ous that itis usally the people who have had bad aperiences within a socal system, and who fee! dings bendes love for that system, who inate movement ‘overthrow it But loving one's Family in spite of “hard ‘hidhood” is pes typical ofthe would-be family abo SSonse She mayy foe instance, sense in her gur that she Sd the members of hee family simply aren’ good for ‘ach other, while algo loving them, wishing them joy, and tenowing fall well that there ae few oro available aler~ natives in this word when Ic comes to providing much reded cate for everybody in question. Frankly loving ‘one's family canbe & problem for anyone, Ke might pat (Xtra weighs around the ankles of a domestic batery Sarvivor seeking to escape (specially given the economic punishments imposed By capitalism on those who flee Commodi housing) emght hinder a cans or disabled ‘hid from claiming medical cae. I might dissuade some Ge from geting an abortion. Right now, few would deny {hat reproductive righte—et alone justice—are every were sjstematiclly denied co populations. Ansterity Policies purposively render proletarian baby-making eushingly unaffordable, even for two or three or four fiat working together, le alone one. Housework i ened, rcialzed, and (except in the houses of the ich) ‘towaged: Ics unsurprising, ia these global conditions thar large numbers of hans donor or amor love cher familie, Reasons range from simple incompatibility 0 ‘aris phobias, able, Sexual violence, and neglect. Tet me well you a secrets people et really angey when yoo suggest to them dat they deserved beter than whatthey go rowing up. And I've noticed that lor of people have ee "but 1 Tove my fanny” easton withthe mest staring vehemence immediately afer they've spent Jong time talking rely to me about the sean, blackmail and cae-searved frastraton that hi theit “biological” upbringing. Angry opposition to the ‘ida that hing could be diferent comes, ve found, right ker we have voiced the wish that relatives of ours ould have been less alone, ess burdened hearing responsible Ses, less trapped, Those people ace quite another mates, this defensive spasm seems to sy: 1, mel, done need any family abolition, thank you very much. Sure, ie may bea disciplinary, scariy-based tauma-machine: But 's [MY disciplinary, seareity- based trauma-machine. Listen, I ge ites not jst that you'e worried about your dad geting all upset if he ses you with this book Tes havi’ exitencialypewifying to imagine relinquish ing the organized poverty ove have n favor ofan abn ddance we have never knowa and have yet o organize ‘Whats the family? So deep runs the idea that the fly isthe exclave place where people are sae, where people ‘come from, where people are made, and where people belong it does even fel ike an idea anymore. Let ws tunpick i, then “The family is the reason we aresupposed to want 0 60 ‘to work the reason we have oo Work, andthe reason we ean go to work, Is, at root, dhe name We use forthe fact that caves peivatzed in our society. And esause it feels synonymous with care, “family” is every cv: ‘minded individual’ raison de parexcllence:an osten- sibly non-individualse creed and unselish principle to ‘hich one vokuntaily sins up without thinking about i ‘What alternative could there he? The economic assump. sion the behind every “breadwinner” there is private Someone (or someones) worth being exploited for, nota: bly some kind of wile—that is person who i likely 2 Ireadwinnertoo—"ieely” making sandwiches with the hard-svon bread, or hising someone ese to do $0, vac luming up the crumbs, and cerigerating leRovers, sich ‘that more bread can be won tomozzow: this feels co many af us ke a description of "human nacre." ‘Without the family, who or what would ke respons bility forthe ives of non-workers, including the il, he young, and the eldey? This question isa bad one. We Aon't hesitate to say that nonhsman animals are beer ‘ff ouside of 200s, even if alternative habits for them te grovring scarcer and scarer and, moreover they have become wed othe abusive care of 20s, Smiley: ransi- tion out ofthe family will be tick, ye, but the Fay is ‘doing a bad job at care, and we al deserve beter. The familys geting in the way of alternatives Tn part the ertigious question “what's the alkema tive?” ares because it not just the worker (and ber work) tha che fay gives birth to everyday in theory. “The fail isaleo the legal asetion that 3 haby, a neo tal human ithe cation ofthe familial romaaci dyad; and tha his act of authorship in turn generates, fo the futhoes, propery rights in “thee™ progeny—poren- Jrood-but sso quasvexclusive accountabity for the clus ie. The near-rotal dependence ofthe young person fon these guardians is portrayed noe asthe harsh louery tha it patel i, bu eather as “natural,” not in need of socal mitigation, and, forcheemore, Beauifl forall concerned. Children, iis proposed, benefit from havingonly one o rw parents and, a est few other “second ay" caregivers Pacents, iti sppored, derive nothing #0 much as joy from the romance ofthis isolated intensity. ‘Constant allisions to the hellworld of sheer exhaurtion Parents inhabit notwithstanding, eheir condition i en reotalized to the ath degvee tis downright taboo to ‘rege parenthood. Alton seldom parenthood identified ‘san absurdly unfaiedstibuson of labor, and a desponic iseibuion of sesponibility for and power over younger people. A diseibution that could be changed Like a mierocosm of the nation stat, the family inca- bates chauvinism and competition. Like a factory with a billion branches, ie manufactures “indvidls” with cultural etic, and binary gender identi; a cass and racial coascioutness. Like am infinitely renewable energy Soare, it performs free labor for the market. Like an “organic element of historia progres.” writes Anne MeCintock in Imperial Laater, it worked for imperil- ism as an image of birarchy-uithinanity that giew indispensable fr legtimating exclusion and hierarchy” in general For all these reasoas, the fan Functions a