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Post Capitalist Parenting: A Dialectical Perspective w/ Breht O'Shea
🕑 Added 2025-06-18 12:00:12 +0000 UTCOne of the most radical things you can do is live your life in direct opposition to the forces that control our society. Not just fighting for policies or organizing your community, although those are certainly important parts of it, but also living with values that oppose the values of our dominant society. And even more importantly, raising the next generation to embody those values—not in a coercive way, but through organic parenting and role modeling that make radicalism irresistible. This is how we raise revolutionaries: instilling community, love, egalitarianism, and a need for justice into children. And this is just what our guest in today's episode has devoted himself to doing.
Breht O’Shea is an activist, organizer, political educator, and host of the podcast Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the podcasts Red Menace and Shoeless in South Dakota. He is a father of three based out of Omaha Nebraska.
In this conversation, Part 3 of our Post Capitalist Parenting series, Breht shares with us insights about parenting that he's learned over the years as a father of three and what Marxism teaches us about parenting. We discuss the classic text by Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, which is a dialectical materialist analysis of patriarchy and the family, tracing the emergence of the patriarchal family and it took through various iterations of class society but also exploring what families have looked like under actually-existing socialism and also what it might look like under communism. We also explore the anti-natalist position which attempts to argue that having children is immoral, why this perspective is deeply flawed, what Buddhism can teach us about parenting, and much, much more.
Further Resources
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Freidrich Engels
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence, by Kristen Ghodsee
Related Episodes:
Post Capitalist Parenting Pt. 1: Parenting Under Capitalism w/ Toi Smith
Post Capitalist Parenting Pt. 2: Reimagining the Family w/ Kristen Ghodsee
Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism w/ Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante
Red Menace: "The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and The State" by Friedrich Engels (Pt. 1)
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism w/ Kristen Ghodsee
Intermission music: "Cool 4 U" by Club Cafe
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Comments
Amy Erickson
Your relationship with your wife and your daughter’s mom (and their relationship) sounds exactly like my husband’s parents. They divorced when he was young. I only met him when he was 31, and I know things weren’t always easy, but I was instantly so impressed by their ability to be together for the holidays and what not. They walked down the aisle together (dad, step-mom, and bio mom) at our wedding. They go to concerts together, we’ve been on vacation together, and they share taking care of our daughter when we need them, etc. It’s so incredible, I am in awe of them. All of this to say keep fostering that relationship, it is such a beautiful and rare thing ♥️♥️
Bill
As a grandparent I can attest to the struggles parents (and grandparents) face in raising children under capitalism. It wasn’t easy when my wife and I did it and I believe it’s even harder now. I totally understand why birth rates are dropping as young people are deciding that the struggle is insurmountable. I don’t blame them but what a crying shame it is that our economic system turns one of the most joyful and essential human experiences into such a burden. I raised my own children and will drill it into my grandchildren as well the belief (as you stated above) that one of the most radical things you can do is live your life in direct opposition to the forces that control our society. It wasn’t easy for the teenagers but now they see the light. Living small, living real, not buying shit- and not buying into capitalist indoctrination- provides a degree of freedom (and sanity) in an otherwise insane world.
