Parenting and Anti-Oppression Work

The Best Anti-Oppression Training I Got from a Two Year Old

By Clayton Dewey

Finishing up my B.A. in Humanities even the idea of having children was pretty much a far off, sporadic thing that would pop into my head. Like most of my peers I was concerned with how I would be able to make a living and have that fit with my radical politics as much as possible. Kids were something I could think about once I was settled down and had some sort of stability.

With that said, I was definitely interested in children, my girlfriend at the time wanted to be a midwife, my best friend had worked her whole life working with kids and the last summer I had worked as a camp counselor with youth as young as 5 to as old as 18. Still, in my activism I hardly worked with parents and kids. Many of the people I worked with on social justice issues looked strikingly similar tomyself- white, male college students.

That reality was altered when I suddenly found myself profoundly in love with a woman, who along with playing many other incredible roles, is a single mom.

In my hopeless romantic sort of way I said that love could conquer all, including the fact that I couldn’t really change a diaper and had no clue how I would fit in with Obsidian’s life. Still, being with this woman made me feel like I could do anything, including entering the world of parenting.

Pretty quickly I discovered another reason that I thought I could do this and that was Obsidian. He was incredible. One year old at the time, he only had a few words in his vocabulary but would tug me around my house’s yard and we’d explore the tall grasses, weeds and flowers that were growing rampant that spring. I taught him how to blow the tops off of dead dandelions and from that point on a walk took 4 times as long because he wanted to stop at every flower to see the seeds spread to the wind.

Though I found so much of my joy with these people I soon found that my anarchist lifestyle and the lives of many of my anarchist friends conflicted with their anarchist lives. It took some effort to make our collective house child friendly and even after that we’d unintentionally leave things out that Obsidian could hurt himself with. When we went to other cities to visit friends it was oftentimes difficult to find safe spaces that were quiet at night so he could sleep. Even when people did make those accommodations others (housemates and/or visitors) failed to maintain that safeness. Also, just the way some people treated Obsidian was surprising.

Overwhelmingly it was women that paid attention to Obsidian, whether it be playing with him or responding to his calls for help. I’ve seen countless times men straight up ignore him when he is talking to them or calling for them.

I started noticing these dynamics in other contexts too. I noticed women doing much of the work that without it a project would fall to pieces while men took on the work that typically gets rewarded and applauded by anarchists. I also became more aware of just general vibes in groups, being aware of my surroundings in large part because of the necessity to know what Obsidian was doing when I wasn’t immediately with him. From caring for and working with him I developed a new lens from which I saw the world, one where I am more acute of gender dynamics and oppressive behavior.

Towards the end of college I became very interested in male identity and how to be a feminist male. What I consistently found was the connection between the way men approach child-rearing and its effect on what boys internalize as ok or “manly” or not ok which often meant “girly.” When men’s primary role with children is a stoic, aloof disciplinarian, boys learn not to cry or express their emotions. They also learn not to be caring, that role is reserved for the mother or in other words, women. Often boys feel very conflicted because while they understand that they are male, like their fathers there is very little connection beyond that. When fathers and male figures in children’s lives, particularly boys, are absent we learn that we do not share personal things with men. These beliefs and behaviors lead to sexist behavior such as homophobia, insensitivity, the inability to understand and relate to others, even abusive personalities in the form of domestic violence or sexual assault. All of this information I was absorbing through books began to play out in my everyday life with Obsidian. After taking the time to listen to women I started to hear more and more stories of abuse, sexual assault and other manifestations of patriarchy. I knew now that in very real and concrete ways did feminist theory affect my life and the ones close to me.

Still, most people do not look at children or parenting as a radical act. While I have been seeing more and more articles and focus placed on families, there is still a real lack of resources and importance placed on men and children. Sure there might be childcare at a conference or gathering, but more often that not take a look at who takes on that responsibility and they’re mostly, if not all, women. There seems to be more talk about radical parenting, but very little of it is written or meant to apply to non-parents. What does it teach Obsidian when he tries to reach out to men and they ignore him? Or if he goes to an event and the only people that are with him are women?

I hear many men say, “I’m just not a kid person” or something similar. What if someone were to say “I’m just not a woman person” or “I’m just not good around gay people.” I don’t mean to say that the struggles of women or the glbtq community are the exact same, but people should definitely examine why exactly they aren’t comfortable around children and whether that is ok. I personally don’t think it is. It doesn’t mean you have to be Super Dad, but you should at least be able to interact with them and be aware of them when they are present. The inability to work with kids, especially for men, is one that stems from our white supremacist patriarchal capitalist society that teaches men not to be major forces in children’s lives and to look out for one’s self and not be tied down by responsibilities like family.

This article could go further into issues of fathering, male identity, patriarchy and myriad other issues but I want to end by simply stating that Obsidian has been one of the greatest teachers to me on issues of privilege and oppression. Working with him has helped me in a huge way to see and observe what I have been writing in this article. I never thought that a two year old would be such a great mentor to my continual work on truly living out my anarchist principles. I hope other men take notice whenever kids are in their lives and take the time to listen and learn from them as I have.

Radical Parenting