There is nothing natural about the way we arrange families under capitalism—in fact, there are many who would argue that there is something quite unnatural about narrowing the experience of romance and child-rearing into the rigid form of the nuclear family. That there are much better ways of arranging these things might come as a surprise to some—but for those who have researched it, it’s no shock: there are much better ways of arranging things, and there’s quite a bit of evidence to back this up. 

Kristen Ghodsee is Professor of Russian and East European Studies and a member of the Graduate Group in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the critically acclaimed author of Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism and Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons From Five Revolutionary Women.

In today’s episode, Part 2 of our ongoing series on Post Capitalist Parenting, we take a deep dive into Kristen Ghodsee’s work around the family and parenting. What restraints and barriers are imposed upon us through the capitalist nuclear family? What do the pro-natalists get wrong about the obsession with birthrates and the “return to tradition” when it comes to childrearing? And what alternative arrangements are out there which can provide parents and children alike with an experience that is arguably much more healthy and sustainable than the way we do things now? These are just some of the questions we explore in this conversation with Kristen Ghodsee. 

This episode was produced in collaboration with EcoGather, an experimental educational project focused on heterodox economics, collective action, and belonging in an enlivened world. EcoGather hosts gatherings to bring some Upstream episodes to life—this is one of those episodes. The EcoGathering for this episode will be held on Sunday, May 25th from 11-12:30pm ET. Find out more at ecogather.ing.

Further resources:

• Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life by Kristen Ghodsee 
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence by Kristen Ghodsee
• Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons From Five Revolutionary Women by Kristen Ghodsee 
• The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind by Melissa S. Kearney
• "Women’s Unpaid Labor is Worth $10,900,000,000,000" by Gus Wezerek and Kristen R. Ghodsee

Related episodes:

• Post Capitalist Parenting Pt. 1: Parenting Under Capitalism w/ Toi Smith
• Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism w/ Kristen Ghodsee
• Everyday Utopia and Radical Imagination with Kristen Ghodsee
• A Socialist Perspective on Abortion with Diana Moreno & Jenny Brown
• Post Capitalism w/ Alnoor Ladha

Intermission music: "Venus (feat. Alex Mansour)" by Stratøs

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