WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #333 - Punish the parents too! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Several ministers and political figures, including Macron, have

threatened to punish the parents of young people who participated in
last June's revolt. A despicable threat, particularly unjust and which
clearly indicates that this power knows nothing other than punishing.
---- First, several sociologists (Laurent Mucchielli, among others) say
that, when a young person begins to engage in more or less delinquent
behavior, his parents almost always notice it. It is then a question for
these parents to intervene, but a question arises: do they have enough
authority over their child to be able to be effective?
We are not asking for more parental authority here, especially not
regarding the riots of last June. However, it is a question of
dissecting the State's discourse and understanding the reasons for the
lack of authority which can sometimes occur in a certain number of
families living in working-class neighborhoods and, therefore, how the
reproach is leveled against these families. to lack authority is paradoxical
Our unequal capitalist society places working class parents in great
material difficulties: housing, food, energy, etc. This has
repercussions particularly when it comes to playing their role as
parents. There are not only these material causes of course, we are here
in the human domain and several factors can play a role. But we most
often ignore the importance of living conditions.
When you don't have money to buy your children a computer while other
children have them, or fashionable clothes while other children have
them, and you don't have a car or money to take them on vacation when
the other parents do, etc., it may happen that your children wonder if
you are an adequate parent, a parent as valid as the others. If,
moreover, you have unsanitary, cramped housing, your children from the
age of 8 or 9 have spent a lot of time on the street, and it then
happens that it is the authority of the gang leader which takes
precedence over yours. In fact, it is the living conditions in which you
live that can deprive you of this authority that parents from wealthier
backgrounds may normally have. But this does not stop these people from
wealthier backgrounds (whether they are in government or not) who have
never experienced the slightest of the difficulties with which you
struggle every day, from coming to lecture you and threaten you.
punishment if your child behaves in a way that bothers them.
We must also consider the situation of single parents with children, the
vast majority of whom are women. If they are from a modest background,
their life is to do their 7 or 8 hours of work, laborer or otherwise,
very tiring and for a small salary and, as soon as they return home, to
work on cleaning and cleaning. cooking, taking care of the children
before going to bed exhausted. It is also the difficult negotiation,
never satisfactory, with the employer to have schedules that allow you
to be present a little before the children leave for class or when they
come home in the evening or also during school holidays. We understand,
or rather we should understand, that some people are unable to establish
or consolidate with their children, especially if they are teenagers, a
good relationship which would mean that, when necessary, their word is
heard with sufficient weight.

Furthermore, let us also point out that the ways of dealing with
children in a working class environment are not, or were not, the same
as in a middle class environment. They are more "physical" (We can
think, for example, of Annie Ernaux, who says in "A Woman." that her
working-class mother educated her with slaps and punches). These
practices are now discredited in the media or on the part of social
workers as at school, that is to say where a "modern" educational model
is valued, which, in fact, is more common in the "middle classes», where
it is the discussion that is put forward. This is undoubtedly desirable,
but many parents cannot easily adopt other ways of doing things. By this
means too, we disqualify parents in the eyes of their children and then
reproach them for not having authority.

And then finally, and perhaps above all, how would parents who are
themselves revolted by Nahel's murder go, with sufficient confidence, to
reproach their children for protesting in the street. How do parents who
are in widespread fear that their own children will one day be targeted
by the police, parents who also experienced police pressure on young
people in the neighborhoods in their youth and still experience it on
occasion, how Would these parents be convincing if they decided to tell
their children not to protest the behavior of the police? How could
parents who experience near-misery and discrimination on a daily basis
credibly dissuade their children from rebelling against contempt and
detestable living conditions? Didn't some of these parents of 2023
themselves participate in the revolt of 2005? Isn't it natural for them
to believe that their children are right to protest? M. H. Bacquet (1),
for example, declares: "It seems that families and youth professionals,
youth leaders, those who are sometimes described as "big brothers" share
the anger of young people, even if they do not do not join violent
demonstrations.»

In the end, faced with the revolts, the State seeks to exonerate itself
by transferring responsibility to the parents of the working classes who
would not be able to support their offspring. But we have just seen it,
it is this capitalist society that we impose on us that is very
materially responsible. Responsible for the lack of authority,
sometimes, of parents and responsible for the explosion of anger.

Gerard

(1) Marie-Hélène Bacquet, sociologist and urban planner (The
Conversation July 9, 2023)

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article3949
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