You’ve suggested that, to further democracy, people should be
“seeking out authoritarian structures and challenging them,
eliminating any form of absolute power and hierarchic power.” How
would that work in a family structure?
In any structure, including a family structure, there are various
forms of authority. A patriarchal family may have very rigid
authority, with the father setting rules that others adhere to, and in
some cases even administering severe punishment if there’s a
violation of them.
There are other hierarchical relations among siblings, between
the mother and father, gender relations, and so on. These all have to
be questioned. Sometimes I think you’ll find that there’s a legitimate
claim to authority—that is, the challenge to authority can sometimes
be met. But the burden of proof is always on the authority.
So, for example, some form of control over children is justified.
It’s fair to prevent a child from putting his or her hand in the oven,
say, or from running across the street in traffic. It’s proper to place
clear bounds on children. They want them—they want to understand
where they are in the world.
However, all of these things have to be done with sensitivity and
with self-awareness and with the recognition that any authoritarian
role requires justification. It’s never self-justifying.
When does a child get to the point where the parent doesn’t need to
provide authority?
I don’t think there are formulas for this. For one thing, we don’t
have solid scientific knowledge and understanding of these things. A
mixture of experience and intuition, plus a certain amount of study,
yields a limited framework of understanding (about which people
may certainly differ). And there are also plenty of individual
differences.
So I don’t think there’s a simple answer to that question. The
growth of autonomy and self-control, and expansion of the range of
legitimate choices, and the ability to exercise them—that’s growing
up.