Words like father and mother as biological terms for those who reproduce and create a child together no longer have the same meaning. Women give birth to children and if the women survive, they are the biological parent, but they are not the sole providers and educators for their children. Women raise children as part of a larger community, giving the child a sense of identity above and beyond the facts of their birth. We no longer own children as adults, they have lives and identities and an existence that the community tries to inform.

I am a father/mother/parent in the sense that all people in Thunder Mountain are parents to the children in the community. Many women die while giving birth, and few women have children with men as long term partners. We accept all children birthed within Thunder Mountain and raise them as members of our community. The old capitalist belief of children being the possession of their biological parents no longer works. We do not have families or biological parents for the most part. As a community, we raise the next generation together, at least that is what we have chosen at Thunder Mountain. We have classes of all types where we teach literacy, life skills, sex education, philosophy and ethics, anything that someone knows and can offer to others. Children live communally in large rooms together until they reach team age, and then they are assigned private rooms for themselves and their teams.

I know I am not a father yet, in the sense of biologically contributing my genes to the development of a child. But even if I contributed to the creation of a child at some point in the future, I would not be the father per say. The community would raise the child. I would hope the child would learn the values we share in Thunder Mountain, to rebuild humanity in better and more inclusive ways. We do need more women to have children, if we want humanity to rebuild itself. But for women to want to have children, our society as a whole must take responsibility and support women and the raising of children. We can not go back to the world before the Big Death, where women were left to fend for themselves and raise children on their own.