Editing Kibbutz (section)

=== Children ===
[[File:PikiWiki Israel 6009 Gan-Shmuel sh1- 14.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Children of Kibbutz [[Gan Shmuel]], 1998]]
When the first children were born at the kibbutz there were inevitably some ethical dilemmas that needed to be solved. One of these was that the kibbutz was striving for equality, including the equality of the sexes. Women were only seen as separate because they gave birth to children, automatically tying them to the [[Separate spheres|domestic sphere]]. In order to liberate women and promote gender equality, they could not be tied to solely domestic duties and child care giving. The Kibbutz wanted to give women the opportunity to continue their work in the agricultural sector and industrial sector.<ref name="Full Circle">Rothman, Paul, dir. ''Full Circle: The Ideal of a Sexually Egalitarian Society on the Kibbutz''. 1995. Filmmakers Library, 1995. Videocassette.</ref> As such, Chayuta Bussel states: "Communal education is the first step towards woman's liberation."

Along with gender equality, the issue of parenting under the communal way of life was a concern. The parental tendency is to view the child as a personal possession and to dominate them. The founding members of the kibbutz agreed that this was not conducive to community life. They also thought it was selfish of parents to want to control their children and that this did not give room for the child to grow as their own person.<ref name="Full Circle" />

To solve these issues the founders created the communal children's houses, where the children would spend most of their time; learning, playing and sleeping. Parents spent three to four hours a day in the afternoon with their children after work and before dinner.<ref name="Spiro Kibbutz" />

Collective childrearing was also a way to escape the patriarchal society that the founders came from. Children would not be dependent on their fathers economically, socially, legally or otherwise and this would eliminate the father's authority and uproot the patriarchy.<ref name="Spiro">{{cite book |last=Spiro |first=Melford E. |title=Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia |edition=4th |location=New York |publisher=Schocken |year=1970 |isbn=0-8052-0063-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/kibbutzventurein0000spir }}</ref>

In the children's houses, trained [[nurse]]s and teachers were the care givers. It was felt that relationships of the children and their parents would be better because parents would not have to be the sole [[disciplinarian]]s. Children grew up in the community environment and grew up with children who were born in the same year as them. The financial responsibility of the children was shared by the community.
[[File:PikiWiki Israel 7369 Gan - Samuel - 1953 - Temporary diningroom.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Dining room at [[Gan Shmuel]], 1953]]
The founders of the Kibbutz sought a dynamic education for their children, that can be summed up in this statement from the founders of [[Degania Alef|Kibbutz Degania]]:<ref name="The Kibbutz Experience">{{cite book |last1=Criden |first1=Yosef |first2=Saadia |last2=Gelb |title=The Kibbutz Experience |location=New York |publisher=Schocken |year=1974 |isbn=0-8052-0511-X }}</ref>
<blockquote>From formal education to knowledge acquired from life, From the book to the physical work. From a discipline based on blind obedience to a regime of activity and creation in an atmosphere of freedom.</blockquote>

The adults in the community did their best to make the children's house into a children's home. They fully furnished them to accommodate every age group. "It is surrounded by a courtyard, well equipped for the growing child's needs, with flowers and bushes, hiding places, and playgrounds."<ref name="Spiro Kibbutz" />

Under Freud's influence, the importance of the early years of childhood development were understood by the Kibbutz and much emphasis was put on fostering the child's sense of individuality, creativity, and basic trust.<ref>{{cite book |first=S. |last=Golan |chapter=Upbringing in the Family, in Institutions and the Kibbutz |title=Sugiot |location=Tel Aviv |publisher=SifriatPoalim |year=1956 |page=308. H }}</ref> In practice transmission of family traditions and views was replaced by indoctrination into kibbutz and kibbutz movement views and also resulted in much uniformity vs. individuality. Significantly, this method of child rearing was not only "collectivization" of children, but a near complete conscious break with a cornerstone of Jewish life: focus on [[family]], especially the nuclear family.

Although, for many of the original founders of the Kibbutz, the arrival of children was a sobering experience: "When we saw our first children in the playpen, hitting one another, or grabbing toys just for themselves, we were overcome with anxiety. What did it mean that even an education in communal life couldn't uproot these egotistical tendencies? The utopia of our initial social conception was slowly, slowly destroyed."<ref name=Segev254>{{cite book |last=Segev |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Segev |title=One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate |publisher=Metropolitan Books |year=2000 |page=[https://archive.org/details/onepalestinecomp00sege/page/254 254] |isbn=0-8050-4848-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/onepalestinecomp00sege/page/254 }}</ref>

==== Child rearing ====
{{see also|Kibbutz communal child rearing and collective education}}
From the 1920s until the 1970s, most kibbutzim had a system whereby the children would sleep in communal children's homes, called 'Beit Yeladim' (בית ילדים), instead of in their parents' apartments.

[[File:PikiWiki Israel 161 Kibbutz Babies החינוך המשותף.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Kibbutz babies]]
Although the children were not raised directly by their parents, they knew who their parents were and formed close bonds with them. Throughout the morning, parents looked forward to the end of the work day when they could go to the children's house and pick up the children to play with them and dote on them.<ref name="Spiro" />

Children's societies were one of the features of kibbutz life that most interested outsiders. In the heyday of children's societies, parents would only spend two hours a day, typically in the afternoon, with their children. In Kibbutz Artzi parents were explicitly forbidden to put their children to bed at night. As children got older, parents could go for days on end without seeing their offspring, other than through chance encounters somewhere in the grounds.

Some children who went through children's societies said they loved the experience, others remain ambivalent. One vocal group maintains that growing up without one's parents was very difficult. Years later, a kibbutz member described her childhood in a children's society:
<blockquote>Allowed to suckle every four hours, left to cry and develop our lungs, we grew up without the basic security needed for survival. Sitting on the potty at regular intervals next to other children doing the same, we were educated to be the same; but we were, for all that, different.... At night the grownups leave and turn off all the lights. You know you will wet the bed because it is too frightening to go to the lavatory.{{sfn|Gavron|2000|p=168}}</blockquote>
Examples of children raised under the Kibbutz system of equality are given by Yosef Criden. When an aunt from a nearby city comes to visit her niece or nephew and brings a box of chocolate as a present for them, the child will excitedly open it up and eat a few of the chocolates. Then the child will go over to the rest of the group and give the rest of the chocolates to their peers. This is the ideology instilled in the children, to value the self but also to always think about others. Another example Yosef gives is that when his son, who was born and raised on a kibbutz, went into the army, he and his fellow bunk mates asked their supervising officer for a box. They wanted to keep the box in the middle of the room and whenever they would get care packages, they would put the items into the box and share them communally. They did not want to be like most of the units of officers from towns and cities, where each officer would hide their packages under their beds.

In a 1977 study, Fox{{Citation needed|date=June 2009}} compared the separation effects experienced by kibbutz children when removed from their mother, compared with removal from their [[caregiver]] (called a ''metapelet'' in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]). He found that the child showed separation distress in both situations but, when reunited, children were significantly more attached to their mothers than to the ''metapelet''. The children protested subsequent separation from their mothers when the ''metapelet'' was reintroduced to them. However, kibbutzim children shared high bonding with their parents as compared to those who were sent to [[boarding school]]s, because children in a kibbutz spent three to four hours with their parents every day.

In another study by Scharf, the group brought up in a [[Intentional community|communal]] environment within a kibbutz showed less ability in coping with imagined situations of separation than those who were brought up with their families.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Scharf |first=M. |title=A 'Natural Experiment' in Childrearing Ecologies and Adolescents' Attachment and Separation Representations |journal=Child Development |year=2001 |volume=72 |issue=1 |pages=236–251 |doi=10.1111/1467-8624.00276 |pmid=11280482 }}</ref> This has far reaching implications for child attachment adaptability and therefore institutions like kibbutzim. These interesting kibbutz techniques are controversial with or without these studies.

A mixture of criticism and nostalgia by some 20 adults born in Kibbutzim in the 1930s was documented in the 2007 film ''[[Children of the Sun (2007 film)|Children of the Sun]]''. The film raised much controversy and brought about a flood of reactions in favor and against the practices of child raising in Kibbutzim in those early years of the Kibbutz. Interviews were interlaced with original footage.

The organisation of child rearing within the kibbutzim was largely based around adult imperatives rather than what was best for the children; collective parenting was seen as a means of establishing gender equality between men and women. This was a common feature of many utopian communities.<ref name="auto">[[Nicholas Christakis|Christakis, Nicholas A.]] Blueprint: The evolutionary origins of a good society. Little, Brown Spark, 2019.</ref>