Democracy in the home

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Democracy in the home’is not a term in common usage, unlike its namesake in politics. But, in both, there are strongly similar characteristics. Let us reflect on how democracy in the home suggests changes in the way children are brought up, and in the end-product itself.

In my childhood days – a couple of years ago, for the record (lol) – there was no democracy in the homes of, for example, the UK, other European countries, North America and Australasia. With some exceptions of course, the fairly standardised approach was that dad ruled the family; period! He called all the shots, and if you misbehaved you were strictly disciplined; and nearly always by him. The family thus embraced a dictatorship, generally benign, with the exceptions of severe violence and other abuse that, regrettably, occur in all societies.

The women’s suffragette movement in the UK, in the early 1900s, had secured for women the right to vote. But, as well as ruling the roost in the home, men continued to have the best education and nearly all the jobs. Women were at best housewives; like it or lump it. As a result – and a little-known fact – is that the huge number of male fatalities in the First World War left many thousands of young women confined to a life of no job, no husband and no children, eking out their existence in bedsitters of the urban areas or stuck in the family home.

It was in the 1970s that an Australian, Ms Germaine Greer, spearheaded the Women’s Lib movement that reshaped the status of women in the First World. It also ushered in democracy within the family. Admittedly most of the time only a two-headed democracy – mother and father – but a regime where free speech and consensus emerged as the defining democratic factors.

Countries of the First World now espouse gender equality, with any dominance by the patriarch of the family more subtle and polite. The autocratic style of the father can now legitimately be challenged. Present-day social attitudes demand that a father keeps an open mind on the views of his children; and ‘father’ now increasingly interchangeable with ‘mother’. Perhaps one day society will use the term ‘mather’ as an alternative to ‘parent’, (lol).

Situation

The new democracy in the home is a healthier situation, but not necessarily an easy one to manage. Undoubtedly a degree of patriarchal control in the home is necessary, if only with the casting vote. But it is generally viewed as to the minor’s benefit that he or she grows up in an environment where questions and suggestions, conveyed sensibly and politely, serve to develop the mature and perceptive adult of the future.

But democracy in the family still has to work, and can only do so where there is a commitment to responsible behaviour by all participants, especially by those shaping the course of development for the youngsters. A learned contributor to the most recent edition of Sunday Times set out articulately the extent to which the parental contribution to a child’s upbringing directly impacts on the final product in adulthood. You abuse? You create abusers. You neglect? You allow all sorts of dysfunctionality to infiltrate the mind of the child. I always believed that a child’s ultimate character is shaped by the age of five; the writer said – it’s two!

And whether or not you consider it essential that would-be parents should be required to engage in training programmes in preparedness for the big responsibility, managing a child’s upbringing is not easy. You have to hit the happy medium in so many ways, encouraging productive activity, accountability, consideration for others, self-motivation, sufficient discipline and building self-esteem.

Occupants

As is entirely logical, since both the home and the political environment have the same occupants, namely ‘people’, democracy in both does demand almost identical principles and codes of behaviour. The truly democratic home, as for the country, is viewed throughout the genuine First World – one, even two, ‘big boys on the block’ excepted – as the morally correct environment. But it doesn’t happen overnight. Transition requires learning how to compete and to argue without fighting, respecting the rights and views of others, embracing fully the needs of those less fortunate, development of good listening skills and freedom from unwarranted deprivation. Practising democracy by allowing voting with the family regarding the choice of a TV programme or place for a weekend visit, is a charming little example.

But the home, whether with a strong democratic culture or not, today faces competition with, even intervention from, outside influences extensively facilitated by modern digital technology. This presents a significant challenge to the parent’s influence on the principles and behaviour adopted by the child and into adulthood. And of significant hindrance in progress towards the transition to domestic and political democracy, you get the good messages and the bad ones, the decent entertainment and the immoral stuff.

In the final analysis, a key question, indeed a challenge, is whether the adult from an upbringing in the democratic home develops a stronger resilience in the face of the negative influences and temptations from social media and other forms of digital communication.