
The Postmodern Family Clan - smashcash
https://macroaffairs.com/postmodern-family-clan/social/
======
hanklazard
Interesting read. I think this idea underestimated the challenges posed by
having more adults in a family unit, especially when major decisions are made.
Life events like moving to a new city, finding new employment, etc can be very
difficult even for two people. Add in a few more and it seems that every major
decision is being made by a committee—I imagine this could be very frustrating
and problematic.

Jim + Sally create a family clan with Dan + Steve. Amongst them there are 5
children. Dan loses his job and the finances get tight. Steve is supportive of
Dan taking a new job, but it is a two hr commute each way. That means that his
duties taking the kids to school on tues and thurs will have to be shifted to
Sally or Jim (Steve can’t drive due to a vision issue). Both Jim and Sally are
already working long days and would prefer for Dan to just keep looking for
another job closer to home. Many meetings and many arguments ensue.

In this way, a PMFC just seems to create more entanglement between adults who
would otherwise be free to make independent decisions.

~~~
sovietmudkipz
Entertainment instantiation of the multi-parent idea... Have you ever watched
Futureman (M rated comedy)? In season 2 in a post apocalyptic world family
units are composed of 5 parents. Each parent has a role to play.

Your proposal made me think of that family setup. How would a multi parent
family unit deal with personal relationships? In the show, every parent was
“married” to each other and they collectively engaged intercourse as a group.
In reality I bet people would have favorites and that would collapse the
parental dynamic.

~~~
lotsofpulp
It would seem that throughout history and across the world, societies with at
least a pretense of long term monogamous relationships have survived longer
than polyamorous ones.

------
jnbiche
All of the benefits described by the author's proposed "postmodern family" are
already enjoyed by much of the world's population, a large portion of which
lives in extended family compounds. From India to the Middle East, and S.
America to much Africa, families live together in multigenerational housing.

Indeed, even many Americans lived in this type of arrangement up until the
WWII era. And the benefits to this living arrangement are significant:
multiple income streams provide resiliency against sudden sickness and death,
better living quarters, available childcare instead of having to pay someone
outside the family to do so, etc.

Unfortunately, modern Western society has decided that living in
multigenerational living arrangements is shameful, and indicates failure.

I support the idea of this author's "postmodern family clan" (although I don't
like the name). Particularly for those people who don't have extended family,
suffer from abuse from family members, or are estranged from their extended
family. However, we should also consider the advantages of the living
arrangements enjoyed by much (most?) of the world's population -- the
extended, multigenerational family unit.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The likelihood of 6 adult individuals meeting and having sufficient overlap in
goals and interests and habits to create a cohesive home is laughable. It's
hard enough to do with just 2 financially independent individuals, not to
mention navigating relationships when the value of one individual drops
relative to the other(s).

~~~
jnbiche
> The likelihood of 6 adult individuals meeting and having sufficient overlap
> in goals and interests and habits to create a cohesive home is laughable.

I disagree. Already, there's a significant movement underway in the US called
"co-living", which shares a lot of the features described by the author:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coliving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coliving)

~~~
iguy
Are there numbers? The trend from what I understand is exactly the opposite.
The US has passed 40% of births to unmarried mothers [1], so we're approaching
a default family of 1 adult. (Possibly 1 adult present + some percentage of
another's earning power, enforced by the courts, but still.)

[1]
[https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/~/media/images/...](https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/~/media/images/reports/2012/09/sr117/chart3.jpg)

~~~
mcphage
> The US has passed 40% of births to unmarried mothers [1], so we're
> approaching a default family of 1 adult.

The parents being unmarried doesn't mean that the father is out of the
picture.

~~~
iguy
Of course, nor does having been married on day one imply that he is still in
the picture. But what I described is the trend. And the right order of
magnitude.

------
resiros
Funnily the postmodern family clan looks quite similar to the old fashioned
non-nuclear family: The grandfather would have multiple children, which all
live in the same household. Each of the marrying sons will bring their wives
(and then children) to the main household. The whole family will help each
other and the responsibility of children will be shared between everyone.

~~~
iguy
Where such families existed, they had ties of blood to bind them. The brother
who loses his job will be supported by first-degree relatives, not by people
he met on Tinder-for-couples. (And even better for stability if his wife is
also related to the clan.)

But it's worth knowing that such families were not common everywhere. Nuclear
families have certainly been the rule in England for at least 500 years (we
have good data) and likely much longer. France is the same, but Russia is
different, IIRC.

------
0x445442
I see these types of stories as propaganda aiming to placate younger
generations into accepting a lower standard of living than their predecessors.
The ones I really get a kick out of are all the Tiny Home shows popping up.

I know, I know, some people really are embracing simplicity and being
unencumbered by the responsibilities past generations faced. However, what
these types of stories are really saying is; sorry but because of inflation
and the ponzi scheme that is our financial system you young folks are just not
going to have what your parents and grandparents had so you'd better start
embracing things like family cohabitation and tiny homes.

Instead of accepting this drivel I'd really like to see the gen Zers call
bullshit and start demanding that they can be plumbers, electricians, nurses
etc. AND still have single, detached family dwellings in Palo Alto.

~~~
poilcn
That's not mainstream and won't ever be. It's kinda sensationalism. I thinks
such low-effort "ideas" are republished once in 10 years. This maybe happens
somewhere, but in general it's just noise. Average household size decreases in
the US and in other developed countries.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-
of-h...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-
households-in-the-us/) Speaking about "tiny home", it's not a trend as well.
Median and Average Square Feet of Floor Area in New Single-Family Houses
Completed by Location:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190105112830/http://www.census...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190105112830/http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf)

~~~
iguy
Totally agree about these articles.

Note that the trends in the sizes of new homes completed are a little
misleading, I think, as they reflect boom suburbs, rather than the occupied
stock. Not an expert, but here's an attempt to track the floor area of
occupied housing, and it's much closer to flat (US, 20th C):
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4532357/figure/...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4532357/figure/pone.0134135.g007/)

------
josephpmay
This concept really appeals to me, but I’m disappointed the article failed to
talk at all about what could go wrong. Another comment here discussed the
difficulty in decision making for big life choices, but in addition to that
what happens when one of the couples falls out of love and wants to divorce?
Suddenly the other couple might be expected to “choose sides” and the
messiness of a normal divorce is compounded by semi-related children and
communal responsibilities.

~~~
lotsofpulp
It's basically reinventing an LLP business. Operating a home or family has a
business aspect to it, and a single spouse is great for providing a backup
income, labor, and obviously to help procreate. However, even a single spouse
comes at a cost of adding politics to the business, just like adding a
business partner would. And the more business partners you add, the more
politics you get.

------
UweSchmidt
The claim that the changes outlined in the first paragraph are good for the
individual and society could use some proof. Either way, the fact that the
article speculates about a revolutionary new family concept shows that there
are a few unsolved issues.

The ideas proposed in the article seem completely delusional to me. I would
consider staying on good terms with a former partner a success, and being cool
with their new partner a nice bonus. Moving in with those guys, even
shouldering that other dude's unemployment, as the article suggests? An
unfair, possibly disrespectful proposal.

Stereotypically, it could be the idea of someone who likes to have both the
earning power and stability of the former, and the curious attractiveness of
the new parter, conveniently combined in one household?

Fundamentally, the idea of a 'clan' goes contrary to the overarching trend of
Individualism, which has brought us so many individual freedoms but dismantled
so many formal and informal social constructs. Individualists will not submit
to an artificial 'clan' unless forced by massive external pressure. A struggle
to survive that has created those social constructs in the first place.

------
Communitivity
I loved Robert Heinlein's books. Though I disagreed with his philosophies
about women, his predictions about the future were amazing.

He predicted something similar to this, and called it S-Groups.

------
smashcash
As explained in the article, postmodern family clans have a lot of (financial)
benefits over single-couple families. But it would be very sad if financial
reasons (such as expensive housing) would be what drives people to live in
such clans.

~~~
chobeat
Well, material limitations always determinated societal structures. I don't
see why it should be different or more sad now.

------
sandyhatches
"...and they probably met online." That's _really_ gonna need some citation.
Given the rise of online dating to cultural acceptance is only within the last
decade or so (sorry no source, I'm not a journalist :p), I find it incredibly
unlikely that those family units have surpassed offline meets in number so as
to make "probably" accurate.

------
shard972
I'm sorry but i just find the idea quite horrifying for the children involved.
On paper everything is just daises but I just don't see this turning out well
if this were to start becoming a common trend.

Or maybe the human race can transcend the nuclear family, I guess we will find
out soon enough.

~~~
kaybe
What kind of problems do you envision?

------
quantummkv
Everything old is new again

------
patrickg_zill
Heinlein speculated about this in the book, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
Except they were family corporations that were multi-generational as well.

------
bmj
This is straight out of Walker Percy's _Lost in the Cosmos_.

------
loudtieblahblah
It's as if Lennart Poettering redesigned the family.

~~~
brodouevencode
Complete with feature creep.

~~~
sandyhatches
I love this so much.

------
gjsman-1000
Overall... great way to cover up the lower living standards. What next? 5
parents? 6 parents? In fact, could the entire society be parents together?

Completely idiotic.

------
tryum
They call that a cluster in the NAG :P

------
tuned
is the concept of clan by definition pre-modern?

------
purplezooey
_Together, the couples can purchase a large home..._

Yes, of course!

------
leovingi
Congratulations, you have invented the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_apartment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_apartment)

------
loraa
Cults are good at this.

