The better way to live and of raising kids

People accused us of many things, including «ruining children’s natural instincts». We replied that we on the contrary revealed and encouraged those instincts, and that it is current inhuman society that is obscuring and ruining children wholesale and that the evidence of that is clear. We told them we reject the massive, sinister establishment propaganda.
We gathered in a squatted building in Soho, London in the days and nights following the Summer Solstice celebration in 1988, chasing our dreams and visions and yearnings stronger than ever before. Our numbers rose a bit, fell a bit, until it stabilized at fifteen. Those fifteen, eighth women and seven men stayed. A few more added themselves and subtracted themselves now and then, but that was the core.
Everyone there had long since become deeply dissatisfied with the current inhuman society, and sought a different life. We set out to make that both within the confines of our new home and outside it. We shared our minds and bodies willingly and eagerly with each other. Even though there was the occasional one on one coupling, orgies were by far the most common. We repeated the Summer Solstice celebration in Hyde Park many times.
The first children arrived early next year. We agreed early on that we would all become their parents, unrelated to biological origin. It worked great from the start, like most things between us.
The occasional disagreements arose, of course, but remarkably little of it. It is indeed remarkable how little true disagreement there are where true freedom are encouraged and fostered.
We set out to do everything different, becoming one island, one commune of ecosocialism/communism/anarchism/paganism in the poisonous world of capitalism and oppression. We did it for ourselves, but also because we hoped countless islands would appear across the world, and change human society at its very foundation. Our conviction was/is that society can be changed in one or two generations if children are taught truly critical thinking, and fierce action against injustice. We knew our children would be self-reliant even in the pale, broken society of our birth. They pretty much confirmed that early on.
We decided on an alternative way of raising them without really pondering the issue much. The ideas were already there. We just had to implement them in a caring environment.
All the children, of both sexes were dressed the same from day one. Clothes could have different colors or designs, but they weren’t sex specific. No one wore dresses or skirts. The boys had long hair. We played with them, encouraging their creativity. When they started participating in the conversations, we used a talking stick. Those holding the stick spoke. The others didn’t. We hardly that to enforce the rule either. It could be said that it wasn’t really a rule at all. It felt amazing to watch how everyone came into their own. We spoke with them, not to them, during the homeschooling and not, also on the subject of going to ordinary «schools» and «kindergartens». We watched those children and ours and felt both great joy and great sorrow when we compared the stark differences.
Girls growing up in the inhuman society speak in general less than boys in a mixed crowd or group. Boys are taught downright unhealthy ideas of dominance and competition. Girls also learn to more or less deal with a brutal, cutthroat environment. Both sexes quickly lose their creativity after the first year of attaining school. By the time they become adults, almost all of it gone. There are countless other unfortunate, horrible results of growing up in the inhuman society subjected to its oppression and destructive thinking.
We were thrown out of our squatted building by brutal police officers while the children were still small, and moved to the smaller house in Hampton Court, one belonging to a couple that had been a part of the outer circle of the commune for some time. They joined us fully, became one (or two) of us after a brief period of hesitation. We were left in relative peace there. The police and the establishment supporters among the general population kept hounding us, but they didn’t do more for years, giving us more than time enough to make it a lasting. lifelong experience.
All the children growing up in the Midnight Fire commune has become great, independent people taking no shit from authority. People growing up in a more or less free environment, where the attempt is made to encourage their creativity and critical thinking and compassion, not blocking it become such great people. Which is why establishment rules of raising kids differ significantly from that.
Yes, truly alternative, autonomous societies aren’t the problem. The mainstream, establishment society of conformity and oppression is, in so many ways. The truly alternative, autonomous communes are humanity’s salvation and path to free freedom, and truly good life.