Tribe

Are you still in love with the person you were sleeping with a while ago, just can’t let go, can’t rationalise your way out of it? No matter how wonderful this new beau is? Or how really really okay you are, all on your own?

I believe you. You’re over it, and you don’t care. … except that little niggling want deep, deep inside that makes you want them to make babies all night, every night, with them. Still.

Tonight’s blog post will be brought to you by an interesting little chemical called: oxytocin

I just had a very interesting discussion with a Polish man named Yerick, I think. I’m sure he was Polish, but I’m only almost certain his name was Yerick. In fact there’s a very good chance it wasn’t. I digress.

I have an example for you. An example of what I believe to be the perfect modern family. I’d like to stress now that in no exaggerated terms I’m entirely certain that the words that I just wrote are those which I intended to write – the perfect modern family. If the media and all of the other gaining institutions stopped capitalising on reinforced stereotypes of Forever and basically stoped being the media and gainers stopped gaining on capital then this might work. But that’s a little fictitious at the moment, so you’ll have to bear with me. It’s going to hurt to read about, hurt to talk about, and hurt to practise. But we must never give up.

Just Imagine.

For a moment, if you will, Demi Moore

mating with Bruce Willis

and the coupling produces a child which is then successfully brought to term and given a place in the system of our modern 1st world human society which will assist it to properly grow with mummy as the sole care giver and the father providing plentiful spoils to create a happy home environment.

Three years later Demi and Bruce end their relationship. Once the child is deemed safe and on an acceptable path towards a self-sufficient life the hormone oxytocin has worn off and a breakup of the pair-bond is inevitable. After initialising trust within the pair this hormone generally wares off after a time between 1.5 – 3 years once a baby has been born (unless a second child is created by the pair.) Further reading on this hormone can be found here and here.

Now that the pair-bond hormone has worn off the pair find themselves without a drive to bond and without further reproduction they are left with little more than a routine and shared memories. They have once again become individually separated humans. Demi and Bruce each realise now that they are in fact in a relationship with someone that is actually their opposite, attracted initially through a mutual desire to further deepen their pool of effective genetic features. This opposition now serves little purpose other than to annoy. Without this hormone or the prospect of a new child these opposite traits render the couple not matched for Forever, as institutions abound would have us believe, but destined instead for repulsion.

***

Luckily the couple broke up while the child was still young. After the breakup the child is still in need of care and with the event of this couple end happening early enough for their individual instincts to ensure that their offspring is in fact definitely raising completely to a satisfactory level, they remain on pleasant terms. They find themselves in a well ended breakup with the parents able to forgive past oppositions and stay close to the child for the foreseeable future. So close that the child is still well provided for by both parents; they are close enough for the child to see them with his own eyes, to still smell and also touch the parents.

In pertaining to her own biological needs for human connection as well as her still remaining drive to continue to reproduce – Demi has found a new mate. She has mated with another near perfect alpha male. And although compared to her original catch not the most near perfect, he is otherwise very almost near perfect. Demi finds a new husband in Ashton Kutcher. With her primary alpha child already created and her best biological legacy ensured to carry on through the child with super alpha Bruce, Demi is now able to settle down with someone she will last longer in a relationship with, with a man that can nurture not only her child safely but also her own more day to day personal needs.

At this time for the same reasons Bruce now finds a new partner: Emma Heming. Not as near perfect and alpha as Demi Moore, but rather a closer match to his own intellect and his own position in life.

***

Here-in lies the Second Act.

There is a table set for four in the dining room. There is a second room with a television set, a little tea set and a toy truck.

At the dining room table we find four adults sitting at the table having a meal and two children playing near the television in the next room.

The couple on the left of the table is Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher; the couple on the right is Bruce Willis and Emma Heming. The children on the ground are the offspring of Demi and Bruce, and secondly the child of Bruce and his Emma.

This, and now to the crux of my point, is the modern tribe.

One of the children in the lounge begins to cry.

Both mothers stand up to help.

One mother is on the closer side of the table and promptly helps the child to sort out it’s problem. The other mother sits straight back down.

The child is subdued with a cuddle, the adults return to their meal and resume conversation about their next game of tennis and the needs of Bruce’s 50th birthday party.

***

My question now, can this be the ideal? Can this be MY deal? My answer: Not in this life-time.

Even though this divorce situation is actually statistically normal, it is still not considered the norm. Do people actually realise this?

Why am I still taking three bookings a day to use the Powerhouse function room for new weddings? All of the spaces are booked until next August, but the people, they keep calling. New people, new brides, never grooms, looking for a venue to marry in. To have a reception in.

Why are people still chasing the ever-love dream when it’s so clear that the tribe is more fruitful? That single partnership, the concept of Forever is so fatally and consistently proven to be flawed?

When I have a child I want a second mother to help me. Another woman to watch my little one while I hop down to the shops. I want her to live with me, with my man, with her man, and we all look after the children. We all take turns sharing the burden of dinner, there is space for all of our cars in the large garage we can afford with our pooled income.

I want two fathers for my son. I want one locked in, focused on my sons needs, his life, his biological dad – and one fancy free man to take me skating on the weekend. I want my daughter’s father to have a woman to go on a mini break with, to handle his complaining while I bask in the glow of my perfect offspring.

Doesn’t everyone?

Why can’t I have it?

Our supply and demand easily caters for it. There is no war nor famine I need to fight to keep my child alive, none higher in the food chain I need to be worried of.

I want to grow two children to call my own and only bear the birthing pain of one.

I don’t want the government to tell me I can’t leave my husband and see another man. I don’t want to sign a contract proving nothing other than the fact that I will have less rights after signing.

I don’t want the institutions to decide if I’m allowed to abort my child or not – when the technology is here, we have it. When the willing doctor is there. When a probable future with a better child, at a better time is undeniable.

I don’t want to be judged as terrible by my peers, judged as wrong for wanting a tribe, a split family like my primate cousins have.

I don’t want to refer to my family, my tribe’s support group, the extended love looking after my offspring as a broken home any more.

I don’t see any of these stop-gaps as useful for our species. I don’t see any of this as assisting evolution, progression and individual and collective growth.

I see only false representations in rom-com movies, the ever present stupidifying of my mind, the reinforced want for a white dress on my wedding day.

There are too many rules on human love/sex/life. Too many rules emposed on top of evolution, on top of our instincts, on top of and entirely conflicting with our needs, conflicting with that which is BEST for our children.

I want to see the movie where the family all understands human nature and the needs of an actual person, not the best economically viable military-driving option.

I want to see the movie where the woman has the child for the male gay couple and then lives next door for a few years until the kid turns three and then moves to England to fuck movie stars while her child is in perfect parental care back home.

I want to see the movie where the women all love the men, are never abused, are impregnated and bear perfect children in groups and everyone is happy because no one has the burden of too much. Everyone has time. The children aren’t raised to carry prejudice and taught jealousy, they instead have adventures in turn. No one goes without, no one is trodden on or looked down upon for nothing. Everyone is significant and has everything they need, not what they are told to need.

And on top of all of this … I want marriage, kids, and a house in one spot for ten years.

I want it, and it makes me so sick that I don’t want to get up tomorrow. I don’t want to get up ever again. I will never have children. And my instincts are murdering me from the inside.