Libertarian Parenting

Libertarian Parenting or Libertarian Childrearing refers to the parenting strategies advocated for by libertarian socialists to allow for the creation of children who accept freedom and responsibility. It is closely related and often overlaps with the ideas of democratic education.

Main Ideas

The aim of libertarian parenting is to respect and develop the individuality of the children. Some of these ideas include:

• Most parents in society are psychologically damaged people, who have built up walls to 'protect' themselves which result in impeding their ability to feel freedom, thereby causing unhappiness.
• The idea that children learn by mimicking their parents - children do what their parents do, not as they say. If parents lie to each other, scream, fight and so on, then the child will probably do so as well. Children’s behaviour does not come out thin air, they are a product of the environment they are brought up in (partly by, initially at least, copying the parent).
• Over the course of a few generations the number of progressive parents will continue to grow and raise ever freer children, who in turn will become even more progressive parents themselves, thus gradually changing mass psychology in a libertarian direction.

Notable Theorists

• Alfie Kohn
• Emma Goldman
• Max Stirner
• Mikhail Bakunin
• Wilhelm Reich