I doubt this is real, but I want it to be lol
this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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Chapotraphouse
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One of many reasons I never want to be a parent. Couldn't live with myself if I managed to raise a liberal who says "yeah, I'm a moderate leftist and all, but my mom's a crazy tankie" and such.
Raising a leftist takes sacrifice, you have to pretend to be a lib with chud tendencies so when they rebel you can subtlety point them towards the immortal science of marxism-leninism
Or do what my dad did and ironically quote Marx to your child who takes you at face value and really internalizes "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need"
The funny thing is, I think I ultimately ended up a leftist because I took all those things we teach children about sharing and community at face value. The first time I was ever called a commie, I was about 5 years old, and the incident all began because I asked why we can't just share everything so that everyone has what they need. (Idealism, sure, but I was five.) I had no concrete argument for Dad in response to the "but if everyone gets their needs met no matter what job they do, why would anyone do difficult or dangerous jobs" line, but I still thought he was wrong about capitalism being the best system, even if I didn't know the right system and how to advocate for it.
I'm not sure if my dad made me a communist in the same way that being told "oh, go hug a tree" when kid me tried to stop people from wasting water or electricity led to me actually hugging trees (which I highly recommend, it feels nicer than you'd think), or if I'm just a good example of "no one's born a capitalist". I don't know if I was made a communist by my strong sense of justice and equality, or I just always was one and it just took a long time to discover there's a word for the political and economic system I stand for.
“but if everyone gets their needs met no matter what job they do, why would anyone do difficult or dangerous jobs”
Yet the actual dangerous jobs don't actually pay more, and the dude who just sit in a chair all day are paid the most, curious.
Yeah, I know that now, but I didn't understand it as well when I was five. I just knew that my dad wasn't paid enough and that capitalism was stupid.
This is how it worked for me. I was raised in a christian household, where we were told to feed the poor, give the clothes off of your back to the people are cold, care for the widowed, orphans, etc. Then I did them and I argued for laws and policies that would further those things. Hell, I was told this is a "christian nation" and to me, that means we should be enacting policies that require giving to the needy, right? Well, apparently they just meant punishing people for being gay or whatever. I told them that sounds like a theocracy, and not a "christian nation" and that's how I found out communism is good.
"When I feed the poor, I am called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I am called a communist."
So many stories of Christians raising communists and then having an absolute shit fit that their children actually took to heart things like "feed the poor" and "love thy neighbour" and "it is more difficult for a rich man to enter heaven, than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle".
"When asked "what would Jesus do", remember that whipping capitalists is a valid possibility."
Honestly, in context of things like Liberation Theology or just any reasonable interpretation of the literal words of Jesus in the Bible, it is so weird to me that the Religious Right exists and that Cold War Christianity happened.
Yeah, that's really the crux of my family relationship now. They all think I'm insane, i've been poisoned by liberal college professors or something. But really I just read the fuckin book they claim to live by.
Yeah, definitely this. "No, I don't get these opinions from Liberal Society, I got them from the freakin' Bible. You people need to actually read your holy book." I like those kinds of Christians a lot more than the religious-right idiots.
One of the most satisfying things for me is growing up and finding answers, context, and explanations for gotcha questions. It's a cheap tactic and that's why you would usually use it on a child and not an expert.
Why would anyone do a difficult or dangerous job when their needs aren't being met? What if it's dangerous because their needs aren't being met? What's the best way to stop a job from being dangerous and difficult? What is the purpose of the job anyway?
That was also part of it for me too, I already had the strong sense of justice and equality, my dad quoting Marx just pointed me towards theory earlier than I would've found it myself
Yeah, checks out. Really wish someone had given ten year old me that push. Would have saved me a lot of tweenage political cringe.
I was just thinking, "when kids rebel."
I don't know why communists/socialists often raise libs but it's a pattern I've noticed
Material conditions. Most of us became socialists because we experienced injustice at the hands of capitalism. Hunger, homelessness, discrimination, exploitative work, colonialism, and so on. But when we become parents, if we are good parents, we protect our children from these things. They grow up well-to-do, not having to work in high school to put food on the table. They have health care, education, clothes, and a roof over their heads.
Thus, they do not experience capitalism first hand. They only reap the benefits, like many people in developed countries. Their class interests change from the class interests of their parents. Notice how Fred Hampton Jr. and Tupac Shakur remained committed leftwing ideals? Their class interests didn't change the way Pete Buttigieg's did. They are/were still black in a racist society living under de-facto apartheid. Pete, on the other hand, got to go to an Ivy League school and join the military.
if I ever have kids they're 100% getting a job from 18+, before going to college
"oh that's cruel how bourgeois of you" look I'm sorry but I feel like I fucked up college because I didn't go to class and do homework and I think that I would have not done that if I were a few years older and knew how much a lifetime of retail or food service drudgery absolutely sucks, and I know that me telling a kid "yeah this shit sucks, waking up at 8am for class is fucking easy you loser try getting up at 5am every day to go drive 30 minutes in to a job that will never pay you what you are worth (every job)" isn't going to result in them learning that same lesson as intimately and also $30,000 of debt to learn "dropping out of college and working really sucks" is a very expensive lesson
anybody aghast that I might call a kid a loser don't worry, I'm not having kids
Depends on the kid. Attending university was a big step for my own intellectual development, done on my own terms and outside of the influence of my family. Certainly wasn’t a direct path to where I am today (it never is) but the neat thing about materialism is that it asserts itself like a law of nature
did you have a job beforehand though? what if you did and appreciated it EVEN MORE
Nope, straight to uni although I worked some during
you'd probably be like 3 times more communistic if you worked a terrible menial or service job before going though like I bet you'd have ate up that educational material to destroy the bourgeoisie
that's my belief at least but also I think people shouldn't be parents and children should be in the care of trained, motivated professionals with the most research possible to back up positive childhood development because tbh it's kinda wack that two random people with no knowledge, skills, education or qualifications can just like have a whole person to raise and mold (but nobody needs to tell me how this could be twisted for weird ass fascist eugenicist purposes, it's still just like, weird to me, idk y'all. Like it's even weird to have a person raise a dog when they know nothing about dog training, there are people less motivated than those dog owners who are raising entire people, it's just... 
Also thank you I had no idea Fred Hampton had a son. Jesus christ, he was born less than a month after his dad was murdered. It sounds like he was also targeted by the cops and framed for shit. It also looks like there's a cool looking movie about his dad that he and his mom consulted for (Judas and the Black Messiah)
I'm surprised that movie even got made. They don't white wash Hampton or what the FBI did. Then it won an academy award. I do have to question who the Academy thought was the main character, though.
In many cases it's easily explained by the fact that those communist/socialist parents are western academics without a single revolutionary bone in their bodies.
Yeah, my experience is that socialists/communists who are actually involved in the movement raise socialist/communist kids.
Society raises your kids as much as you do; maybe more. And society is 
I imagine, in the absence of good communal ties, the biggest entryway into leftist thought is egregious overstepping by capital. A leftist, in their disgust for such things, tries really hard not to transgres onto the child and so they're not really familiar with the capitalist's game when they start forming opinions. You can't exactly just vote red like your father and grandfather like you can as a Republican - there was a whole lot of violence in order to take labor out of the zeitgeist
Yep. And I've noticed libs raise hippies. Lol
That's why the sprinkling of chud tendencies is important, you don't want to just raise a lib, you need something to push them left
Liz Truss mum and dad were pro union people, not sure about anything else, look how that turned out.
You would have failed as a parent, just imagine that
Yeah, I know I'd fail at it in a lot more ways than that, which is why I don't plan to ever do it.
The funny thing is, my dad says a lot that he failed as a parent, because he raised an ML and a left-anarchist, despite his own conservatism. I'll give him that my brother's an ideological failure, though not in the way he thinks. Maybe he'll come around when he grows up a bit more and his ideal politics start to clash with what's realistic and reasonable. Maybe I'll run into him at a party meeting or some multiple org coalition years down the line, once I get organising and he grows up.
Zohran in company with Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg having perpetually disappointed and frustrated Marxist parents.
WTTYP Liam counts for this community, Trudeau is 50:50 whether you believe him being Castros son
Me, personally? I choose to believe. 
Mamdami 
Mamdami
Mamdaddy
mamidadi
I denounce my son Mahmood Mamdani as a Kautskyite revisionist. I myself will continue to uphold the programme of the Second International and the ideas of Friedrich Engels.
Isn't the Second International, in part, sort of the apex of Kautskyite revisionism?
It had factions, but yeah. It's heavily Kautskyite. I just made something up without thinking too hard
I wanna believe