>> The sibling-cohort theme is set with Abioud's nieces and nephews, when the family had so much trouble finding a school that would treat the cousins even as a group, let alone as siblings. <<
I was thinking of that.
School isn't an issue for the Finns, because any of the kids can be homeschooled by whichever adults are available for that, and some will want or need another type of school. Dairinne is sprawled across homeschool at home, homeschool with grandparents, Circle School, and whatever thematic school playgroups are available.
It might come up if the kids want to do a group bonding activity like attending the same camp. For the Finns, it's not a financial issue, but rather that treating the kids as separate subgroups would really upset them -- and they're not exactly safe to upset, you know?
>> It's a dynamic I'd like to see more of, since it's not the same as the familiar 'lots of cousins' dynamics. <<
I would love to see more of that too.
A fair number of traditional cultures kind of aggregate relationships. Older men in your family are 'uncle' or 'grandfather,' people your own age are 'brother' or 'cousin,' and so on.
In Terramagne, the Picts do that, because they expect people to reproduce to keep the clans going -- but in return, people are not pressured to raise the offspring unless they just want to. There are always some people who love kids and have hordes of their siblings' and friends' children underfoot. It works for them.
>> Truthfully, the way America treats families now it's as if they're ALL interchangeable and just something that happens when people aren't at work or school, <<
Yeah, that's a problem. It doesn't work very well, and most people are unhappy, but they don't understand how to fix it. They don't realized that they've made a society which is terrible at meeting human needs.
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dancing_serpent
Re: LOVELY!
Date: 2021-03-21 04:27 am (UTC)I was thinking of that.
School isn't an issue for the Finns, because any of the kids can be homeschooled by whichever adults are available for that, and some will want or need another type of school. Dairinne is sprawled across homeschool at home, homeschool with grandparents, Circle School, and whatever thematic school playgroups are available.
It might come up if the kids want to do a group bonding activity like attending the same camp. For the Finns, it's not a financial issue, but rather that treating the kids as separate subgroups would really upset them -- and they're not exactly safe to upset, you know?
>> It's a dynamic I'd like to see more of, since it's not the same as the familiar 'lots of cousins' dynamics. <<
I would love to see more of that too.
A fair number of traditional cultures kind of aggregate relationships. Older men in your family are 'uncle' or 'grandfather,' people your own age are 'brother' or 'cousin,' and so on.
In Terramagne, the Picts do that, because they expect people to reproduce to keep the clans going -- but in return, people are not pressured to raise the offspring unless they just want to. There are always some people who love kids and have hordes of their siblings' and friends' children underfoot. It works for them.
>> Truthfully, the way America treats families now it's as if they're ALL interchangeable and just something that happens when people aren't at work or school, <<
Yeah, that's a problem. It doesn't work very well, and most people are unhappy, but they don't understand how to fix it. They don't realized that they've made a society which is terrible at meeting human needs.
>>and I want to show something better. <<
I am all on board with that.