Queer, Marxist, Black and Indigenous feminists call for the abolition of the family (Gumbs 2016; TallBaer 2019; Redecker 2020; Nash 2021; Lewis 2019; 2022; Weeks 2023; O’Brien 2023). But what exactly do they want to abolish, and why?

This paper offers a critique of the privatization of reproductive labour in nuclear households from the perspective of children. In short, I argue that the private household limits the visibility of forms of life which differ from the parent’s form of life. What is more, it limits the child’s capacity to identify with deviant forms of life as role models. This is especially problematic insofar as it undermines the development of autonomy with regard their own choice of a future form of life.

Note that I focus on the privatization of reproductive labour as opposed to, e.g., its gendered division. Thus, my argument holds even if the labour is, within households, divided equally and in a non-gender-specific fashion. In other words, the wrong of the privatization of reproductive labour exceeds the gendered division of labour, i.e. both the wrong of its unequal division as well as the wrong of the division being gendered.