Introduction

Welcome to Modern Times Parenting! First, I want to explain the name which should give the readers a better idea of the philosophy that our advice, suggestions, and ideas are based upon. Modern Times was the name of a colony in New York from 1851-1864 founded by the “1^st American Anarchist”, Josiah Warren. Warren was an individualist anarchist hence he honored the individual sovereignty of his fellow man; no government had any authority over an individual’s person or property. So, when Modern Times was founded and throughout its duration, it was anarchistic; it had no government (no police or legislation). Modern Times was incredibly successful for 13 years before the American Civil War caused the town to dissolve and eventually become Brentwood, NY. During its 13-year experiment, there was no violence and no crime.

Now, if you go to the Wiki page, you’ll see that Modern Times “failed”. I don’t see it as a failure whatsoever. Just because something doesn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it was a failure. How many communities go crime-free for over a decade?

To tie this to parenting, it is my belief that the less control over a society, the more prosperous, and more importantly, peaceful it will become. This goes for parenting as well. If we try to take a strict approach to parenting by controlling our child’s every move or scaring them into obedience, it will backfire. We need to take a step back and view our relationship with our children in a different way than we may have been raised. We need to honor the individual sovereignty of each child to let them grow into the amazing person they were born to be.

Unfortunately, as a society, we too often consider a “good” kid as a child who is obedient and quiet, while a “bad” kid is disobedient and wild. Because of this, parents, educators, doctors, etc. try to control children too much and by doing so we potentially hold back their brilliance and create societies of obedient, unhappy adults looking for pats on the back by authority figures to get their dopamine hits.

Imagine the worst atrocities committed throughout human history and think about the person who perpetrated those atrocities. Perhaps the most famous of those horrific events is the Holocaust led by Adolf Hitler where up to 6 million Jews were estimated to have been murdered. But how was this possible? Hitler was just one man. It would be impossible for one man alone to commit murder on such a massive scale. Of course, Hitler didn’t do the killing himself; he convinced thousands of people to do his bidding for him. He was a very manipulative speaker and was able to get many German people on his side prior to the Holocaust and convinced them he was a good guy. Eventually, as Hitler took more power, Germans believed him to be a legitimate authority to be obeyed. Did some Nazis believe Hitler’s lies about Jews? Absolutely. But many did his dirty work because they believed they had to. They believed he was a legitimate authority figure, and it was necessary to obey him. But Hitler’s authority was not legitimate. Because no human authority, other than that over one’s self, is legitimate. Had nobody viewed Hitler as a legitimate authority, the Holocaust probably never would have occurred, at least not to the scale that it occurred at.

Now, what does this gruesome history have to do with parenting?  It is my sincere belief that these atrocious historical (and ongoing) events, most of which have been committed by governments all over the world, would not be possible had more people simply disobeyed or had the mindset to be able to question and recognize manipulative language. As we have witnessed time and time again, blind obedience to authority can be extremely dangerous. As parents, we must teach our children not to blindly obey anyone, even ourselves. We must speak to them in a way that doesn’t manipulate them into making our lives as parents easier. We need to allow them to question everyone and everything. We must allow them to make their own choices. We must teach them that respect needs to be earned, no matter who the recipient is. We must honor their individual sovereignty and let go of some control.

There are many societal issues that cause great harm. And oftentimes, we look to the wrong people in the wrong places to fix these issues. The solution to these problems starts at home. When we bring children into this world, or into our homes, it is our responsibility to foster an environment in which they become healthy, happy, and strong individuals. The world is not black and white. Sometimes it is difficult to know who the good guy is, or who the bad guy is. We need to make sure our children grow up to have the confidence and skill to figure this out, and not to blindly trust anyone, no matter the title by their name or the uniform they wear.

The goal of this blog isn’t to determine the proper amount of screen time, or what kind of diet your child needs; the goal is simply to try to shift how we view our relationship with our children, and how we can communicate in such a way to raise peaceful, free-thinking, and truth-seeking individuals.

The basis of our parenting philosophy can all be brought back to these three ideas: non-aggression, property rights, and consent. Essentially, we are opposed to parenting in a way that initiates aggression onto a child’s body and even property. We also believe it’s crucial to teach consent as early as possible and honor the child’s consent (or lack thereof). Because of these main principles, we will try to guide our children without physical punishments, we will allow them to have control over their bodies (for example, something as simple as letting them get their hair cut when they want to, not necessarily when we want them to), and we will try to communicate in a way that doesn’t manipulate them into obedience for our parenting ease.

Of course, we shouldn’t expect to follow these guidelines to the tee. We, as parents, are not perfect. We have our preconceived biases, imprints, etc. from our own upbringings and life experiences. We will slip and shout to our whining 5-year-old, “because I said so!”. We’re going to yell. We’re going to cringe at some things we do as parents. We aren’t perfect. We are often sleep-deprived. We experience many external stressors. The goal of this blog is simply to help us start looking at our relationship with our children with a different perspective: that our children are their own sovereign individuals with their own instincts, emotions, body, and natural rights and it’s our job to foster that within them, so they grow up to be happy, healthy, and strong adults.

Welcome to Modern Times.