4 ms·
All of the benefits described by the author's proposed "postmodern family" are already enjoyed by much of the world's population, a large portion of which lives
by jnbiche 8y ago
All of the benefits described by the author's proposed "postmodern family" are already enjoyed by much of the world's population, a large portion of which lives in extended family compounds. From India to the Middle East, and S. America to much Africa, families live together in multigenerational housing.
Indeed, even many Americans lived in this type of arrangement up until the WWII era. And the benefits to this living arrangement are significant: multiple income streams provide resiliency against sudden sickness and death, better living quarters, available childcare instead of having to pay someone outside the family to do so, etc.
Unfortunately, modern Western society has decided that living in multigenerational living arrangements is shameful, and indicates failure.
I support the idea of this author's "postmodern family clan" (although I don't like the name). Particularly for those people who don't have extended family, suffer from abuse from family members, or are estranged from their extended family. However, we should also consider the advantages of the living arrangements enjoyed by much (most?) of the world's population -- the extended, multigenerational family unit.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoThe likelihood of 6 adult individuals meeting and having sufficient overlap in goals and interests and habits to create a cohesive home is laughable. It's hard enough to do with just 2 financially independent individuals, not to mention navigating relationships when the value of one individual drops relative to the other(s).
- jnbiche 8y ago> The likelihood of 6 adult individuals meeting and having sufficient overlap in goals and interests and habits to create a cohesive home is laughable. I disagree. Already, there's a significant movement underway in the US called "co-living", which shares a lot of the features described by the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coliving https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coliving
- lotsofpulp 8y agoThat's great until you throw a child into the mix. Or a sick in law who needs care. Or anything more complicated than a clean kitchen and bathroom.
- jnbiche 8y agoSome coliving housing is even oriented toward families with children and other dependents. Look it up, you'll be surprised.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoI'm sure there are some people who can make it work, but my intent was to point out that it seems impossible to make it work for the vast majority. I would be interested in seeing how the normal political issues of a family are worked out between even more "chiefs". In a two person household, this is not too hard, as one person can yield to the other sometimes and vice versa, but I don't see many organizations functioning without some sort of hierarchy system.
- iguy 8y agoAre there numbers? The trend from what I understand is exactly the opposite. The US has passed 40% of births to unmarried mothers [1], so we're approaching a default family of 1 adult. (Possibly 1 adult present + some percentage of another's earning power, enforced by the courts, but still.) [1] https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/~/media/images/reports/2012/09/sr117/chart3.jpg https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/~/media/images/...
- jnbiche 8y agoOh, I'm not claiming it's a large national movement. I'm sure the numbers are tiny, well under 1%. Also, coliving is confined to urban areas. The main reason I brought up coliving was as a counterexample to the claim that multi-couple cohabitation could never work. Even though the number of participants is currently quite low, there are thousands of people successfully living like this even in modern America.