Page:Alexandra Kollontai - Communism and the Family (1920).djvu/19

 of the obligations of the family toward its children, particularly after it has been relieved also of the greater portion of the material cares involved in having a child, except for the care of a very small baby while it still needs its mother's attention, while it is still learning to walk, clinging to its mother's skirts? Here again the Communist State hastens to the aid of the working mother. No longer shall the child-mother be bowed down with a baby in her arms! The Workers' State charges itself with the duty of assuring a livelihood to every mother, whether she be legitimately married or not, as long as she is suckling her child, of creating all over maternity houses, of establishing in all the cities and all the villages, day nurseries and other similar institutions in order thus to permit the woman to serve the State in a useful manner and simultaneously to be a mother.

Let the working mothers be re-assured. The Communist Society is not intending to take the children away from the parents nor to tear the baby from the breast of its mother; nor has it any intention of resorting to violence in order to destroy the family as such. No such thing! Such are not the aims of the Communist Society. What do we observe to-day? The outworn family is breaking. It is gradually freeing itself from all the domestic labors which formerly were as so many pillars supporting the family as a social unit. Housekeeping? It also appears to have out-lived its usefulness. The children? The parent-proletarians are already unable to take care of them; they can assure them neither subsistence nor education. This is the situation from which both parents and children suffer in equal measure. Communist Society