08/16/2026
When someone says “traditional family values”; which families is that asking us to erase?
Patriarchal households with father as head, mother and children under his authority, really were the historical norm in a lot of places, for a long time. That’s exactly what “traditional” is asking us to return to.
What it asks women to sacrifice (if they really mean “traditional”): authority over their own lives, work, and decisions.
What it asks LGBTQ+ people to sacrifice: their relationships, their kids, their right to be seen as a family at all. Treated as an exception rather than just another family.
What it asks single parents, blended families, grandparents raising grandchildren, and chosen family to sacrifice: legitimacy. That love and effort don’t count unless they come in the sanctioned way.
What it asks all of us to sacrifice: the truth that families have always taken many many forms: multigenerational, communal, in exchange for one narrow arrangement, sold as the only real one.
True family values don’t ask anyone to sacrifice who they are to qualify as a family. True family values don’t demand any family fit a predetermined mold.
True family values asks something simpler: Are the children loved and cared for? Are you showing up for your partner? Are you choosing each other, and building something real?
That’s the only values that ever mattered. 💕🐓
Happy Sunday to all!
