"Family Abolition" and the COVID Pandemic
Covid vaccine promoters and hateful media fractured families. Can we heal?
Many influential thought leaders are calling for “family abolition.”
Their vision of the future world is nicely illustrated by an important proponent of “family abolition,” Sophie Lewis. Check out this picture:
OpenDemocracy.Net explains:
We all want “kinship, love, and ‘good things to eat’”. It’s just that the family as we currently know it is not necessarily the best way to satisfy those desires. More importantly, the family assumes central responsibility to provide for these needs in a society that fails to do so.
The nuclear family does not just hold the promise of fulfilling needs of love and kinship, but as an institution it is built on intersecting racism, sexism, and homophobia. As Melinda Cooper points out, for example, welfare restructuring in the United States explicitly enforced a particular model of the married nuclear family that would exclude African-American single mothers from receiving benefits. Defending the “monogamous, heterosexual, many-children family” is therefore not a neutral act of defending the right to a safe and cozy home but is more often than not tied up in other conservative political goals.
The above might sound strange to my readers. Are families inherently “homophobic”? Is a way for people to live monogamously and procreate “exclusionary”? How are families, which include members of all genders, “sexist”?
Families are not exclusive to humans: many mammals (which all breastfeed their babies) form families as a matter of routine. Consider this beaver family:
The above-pictured beavers are not ideological. They are doing what comes naturally: making, breastfeeding and bringing up babies and building dams.
Beavers thrive by creating complex river flow control systems as the necessary building skills are passed down the generations, as this amazing video shows:
Such advanced knowledge would be impossible for the little beaver babies to acquire outside of nurturing but demanding families that protect them and teach them to build dams.
Pandemic Puts “Family Abolition” in Overdrive
Many of us might dismiss “family abolition” outright as a fringe idea occupying only a few deranged minds. While that would be a partly correct characterization, be aware that the pandemic put “family abolitionists” in overdrive.
Indeed, as if by design, every aspect of the pandemic response appears to have been perfectly designed to fracture previously intact families.
The pandemic mitigation measures inflicted family chaos:
Vaccines made it even worse.
The corporate media’s propaganda against familial relationships was relentless:
The divisive, hate-filled press succeeded in creating discord and alienation among many families. According to a professionally conducted poll, two-thirds of vaccinated Americans planned to ban unvaccinated relatives:
The poll found that 58% of vaccinated people cut familial ties with at least one unvaccinated relative:
Of the 65% who are fully vaccinated, six in 10 (58%) have reportedly cut off family members who refuse to get vaccinated, while 63% don’t feel comfortable inviting unvaccinated relatives to their parties.
More details here:
She Ghosted Her Entire Unvaccinated Family
A redditor describes ghosting her entire family (archive link) in a series of disturbing posts. She lied about relatives “skipping her wedding,” as the wedding venue selected by her prohibited the parents from coming. She is infuriated by the suggestions to reconcile.
Unlike many family estrangements, which involve deeply unhappy childhoods, the OP admits to having had a happy childhood (archive link) as part of a loving family:
The poignant, respectful, loving, well-written letter from her mother (archive link) haunts the OP for a good reason. A piece of it is here:
In the end, seeing the hate and rejection, the last sibling remaining in contact decided to end the relationship (archive link). I cannot blame that brother!
The relationship remained irretrievably broken two years later (archive link).
Do We Give Up and Let Them Win?
The family abolitionists, vaccine promoters, and the hate-filled divisive media succeeded in breaking many families. Most ridiculously, the vaccine that they promoted does not even work and makes vaccinated people more likely to be infected - but the damaged familial ties often remain unhealed.
I was amazed by the quantity, thoughtfulness, and emotional charge of 1,329 replies that my previous post on this topic received:
Sorry for not posting in the last five days. I spent the entire last week researching this topic and writing this post because of the obvious importance and tragic nature of this problem.
I spent several days reading estranged people’s forums.
What I found was depressing.
The estranged people (children, parents, and siblings) are almost universally unhappy and lonely and wish that they could have a functional, loving, and friendly family.
They congregate in “estranged kids” and “estranged parents” forums. These forums are emotionally toxic echo chambers that forbid dissent, normalize dysfunction, discourage understanding, and celebrate hate against former relatives.
The result of all this is millions of unhappy people hating “toxic narcissistic parents” or “ungrateful, disrespectful, entitled children” without venturing outside of comfortable, coddling support echo chambers, which often perpetuate the problem.
Oftentimes, family discord passes from generation to generation, poisoning people's lives and making them unable to resolve even minor, inevitable family tensions.
According to research, 23% of people are estranged from at least one close relative.
This video does not take sides and presents interesting data on family rifts. They asked for input from those estranged by choice and the relatives they rejected, a thorough approach that is very unusual in this field.
Often, estrangement happens for very good reasons, involving past child abuse or irresponsible or drug-addicted relatives (parents and children). I get it. Some people are genuinely better off without contact!
However, refusing the Covid vaccine should have never been a reason for breaking up ties. In 2024, it makes no sense to be alienated from people based on their vaccination status. So, if you know any people not talking because of COVID vaccines, ask yourself:
Do we want to allow family abolitionists, hateful media, and Covid vaccine promoters to succeed with their plan to create discord among people?
My answer is no - we should not allow this to happen. So, I hope that families that broke up for the sole reason of refusing Covid vaccines will eventually reconcile.
Do you know anyone who was able to mend the broken ties? Do you know any previously united family that was broken up? Do you think that I am wrong?
Whatever your opinion, you are welcome to express it in the comments.
Thank you for listening!
Sorry for not posting during the last five days - I was working on this article
I was kicked out of my running group for not vaxxing, I couldn't go into the office for not vaxxing, and my brother told my mom in the spring of 2023 that my wife and I belonged in a camp for being unvaxxed.
Until any of the people involved in each of those groups apologizes to me for their uninformed segregation, they can fuck off.
Sorry Igor, no amnesty without an apology.