Parenting and capitalism

« Parenting and Capitalism In order to begin our research on the development of parenting under the capitalist system, we must first show and read the history of the formation of the so-called family. With the first division of labor, women were left at home to take care of their new borns while men owned lands and exploited slaves for production.

Little after that, with the industrial revolution, women and children began working in lands and industries to try and create the demand wanted by the bourgeois and so try to supply the market immensely,by this their exploitation had begun too- let alone the work women do in the house(cleaning,cooking,caring for children…), and not to forget, all this implies the wage difference between men and women, therefore exploitation. Coming to these days, women labor yet to find its way in most societies, and as Engels said in the Origin of the Family, the first condition for the liberation of women is to bring the “whole female sex” back into public industry.

Paid work outside the home weakens the economic and financial dependency of women on individual men within the family and gives them the confidence to challenge traditional ideas about their role in society. Tackling our subject, and talking about a middle class parenting affected by the world’s capitalist system, though it seems too precise yet the system has imposed nearly the same material conditions on all middle class people (here we can clearly say the effect caused by imperialism on those people), therefore we can expect the same analysis for almost every ordinary parenting of the social class mentioned. First, this capitalist system left both parents working a normal shift (8hours a day for 5 days) in order to gain their wages for them to spend it on essentials for the life of their kids. And with all the social aid the state provides for the middle class (especially here in Lebanon, since it.... »