antiparent book club thread: Family Abolition, Part 1

A few weeks ago I debuted my book notes and discussion guide site (books.antiparent.com). I chose to cover the book Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care by M.E. O'Brien because it addresses so many of the questions I get over and over, such as:

• Why are you so anti-family, even though you're married with kids?
• What does family abolition mean for kids in general? What happens to people who love their family?
• What kinds of societal structures do you want to see aimed at supporting children and teens? What would it take to create them?

These are good questions, great questions, fundamental questions. I'm very happy that people are curious enough to ask them. But at the same time, it's hard to answer them well when there's such a massive gap of historical/theoretical context between the question and the answer.

This is where Family Abolition comes in. In my opinion, it's a great introduction to the history of the family as well as the intellectual traditions of family abolition and social reproduction theory. (It was the book that sparked my own exploration into all of these subjects!)

But I don't just want to throw book notes up on a site and call it a day; I want to encourage people to engage with the text, ask for help when needed, and draw connections between these ideas and their own life experiences. So in service of that, here's a thread to discuss the introduction and Part 1 of Family Abolition, which covers:

• Introduction: The Oaxaca Commune
• Chapter 1: Private Households
• Chapter 2: Family Terrors
• Chapter 3: Lines of Flight

Here's how this'll work. If you want to participate, log into your member account at this link, and post your comments at the bottom of this page. Here are some ideas for what to share:

If you haven't started the book yet:

• Check out the pre-reading guide on the book notes site.
• Pick a couple questions from the "Establishing Understanding" and "Establishing Personal Perspective" sections that seem interesting to you.
• Share your answers in a comment.
• As of right now I have no plans to delete these threads, so feel free to come back to them later once you've read the material. I'd love to hear the difference in your perspective before and after reading!

If you have read some/all of the book:

• Feel free to do what I've outlined above, or:
• Share your thoughts and ideas on the book up to Chapter 3! Some things I'm especially interested to hear about:
  • Do you feel like the book is accessible?
  • Are there any concepts you had trouble understanding?
  • What are you curious to learn more about?
  • Are there any claims in the book you disagree with?
  • How do you feel about these concepts compared to your own experience as a child or as a caregiver?

Rules:

• No personally identifiable information besides names (and even then... use a fake name if at all possible). No attempts to get others to reveal their personally identifiable information.
• No harassment or bigotry.

Looking forward:

• The discussion thread for Part 2 (Chapters 4-9) will be posted on September 15th, 2026.
• The discussion thread for Part 3 (Chapters 10-13) and the conclusion will be posted on September 29th, 2026.

Let's see how this goes! This is my first time trying something like this, and I'm open to feedback on how to better facilitate these discussions going forward.