The Great Tech-Family Alliance
…we are now faced with a new authoritarianism. The tech industry, once able to peacefully bury its head in the golden sands of California, has woken up to its most important choice: whether to ally with the powers of the state—as Big Tech did during the COVID era, becoming the useful pawn of an authoritarian censorship apparatus—or to rapidly course-correct and ally itself with decentralized authority.
There is no greater decentralized authority than that of the family. And the philosophy of the early internet is at its nature, too, one of decentralization. It prizes creative destruction—birth and death and birth again—of ideas and companies, and the freedom that comes from ensuring that no central authority can ever control, stifle, or break the long arc of creation and innovation. This is fundamentally the philosophy of technology, and one we must ensure is embedded in our most consequential technologies going forward.
So far, so good.
We must also normalize working from home as a benefit for mothers of young children. Not a right, but a benefit. It is more important than fertility benefits, maternity benefits, child care benefits. I single out mothers here because we can’t ignore the trends showing that women workers are essential to the growth of the American economy—and we desperately need more of those working women to become mothers.
As someone raised in part by a mom who worked from home, I agree.
I was recently asked how I would make motherhood high status if given the opportunity, and many people were surprised by my suggestions. I didn’t mention tax incentives, reducing the cost of childbirth, or increasing the housing supply—all important parts of a pro-family agenda that others are better equipped to discuss. Instead, my suggestions were small, focused on seemingly insignificant changes to the culture, which can have an outsize impact on altering the status hierarchy of daily life. We are living in an age of memetic power and memetic war. Meme it and we will be it, the operating principle goes. This means that we need a society that praises the family in little ways, both on screen and off.
I would argue that technology is already doing a better job of this, as many platforms and popular influencers now celebrate motherhood, homeschooling or family-centric ways of living. But the physical world can help signify these priorities as well, through things like changing the name of “carpool lanes” to family lanes, making it a norm that families always board first in all forms of transportation, and ensuring that parking lots have family-reserved parking for the safety of mothers and children.
Nope. She lost me.
I've long had complicated thoughts on the concept of family. As a gay man, I've grown to resent the privileges granted to people who, by virtue of who they fuck, have kids (i.e. straight people). All those little concessions made for moms and dads and their children. Parents get away with murder in this culture, and the entitlement we teach them to expect is an astounding thing to behold.
Of course, my friends with kids don’t see it. It's like that analogy of culture being the water a fish swims in: the fish doesn’t know what water is, having always lived underwater, until it’s pulled from it. In the same way, we’re only made aware of our culture in its absence. Parents come of age expecting that the rest of us will make thousands of little compromises on their behalf. Not knowing any other way, those parents come to believe they deserve those concessions.
But as a dear friend once put it, "how is it my fault you fucked up your birth control?"
And yet my thoughts on the matter have evolved. I've learned to recognize the importance of strong family units in a healthy society. As I've grown, I've come to realize my immediate family unit was the greatest privilege I've been given. As a direct consequence, my childhood was idyllic. I owe much of my sense of security, safety, and confidence to my parents.
I've noticed too that as I get older, the friends that tend to really 'stick' are those that come from similar backgrounds — nuclear families (though not exclusively) with two parents who remain married (though there are some exceptions). It's not something I was conscious of when choosing my friends, but I wonder how this shared background has enabled certain relationships to last while others seem to fall away?
As I travel around the country, I meet a lot of angry, damaged, hurt people. The influence of trauma on the American public cannot be overstated, and I'm shocked by the trauma some have had to endure. Abuse, neglect, poverty, violence… It's astounding what so many people carry around in their minds and in their bodies.
While I once held resentment toward the privileging of 'family' in our culture, a bit of reflection helped me realize that I myself owe everything to a strong, healthy family — so why wouldn't I want to support the development of that same thing for everyone else?
Still, I have my limits, and I draw the line at “family lanes.”