Classes in Russian schools will start again on Monday. The new subject of family management is intended to teach children their identity – based on “marriage, large families and chastity”.
At a celebration commemorating the Second World War, Russian girls appear in Soviet uniforms. It is becoming increasingly difficult for children to escape the state’s teachings about patriotic duties.
Vladimir Vyatkin / Imago
Tatyana Larionova recently said at a session of the Moscow State Duma that the birth rate, divorce rate and the survival of her beloved Russian homeland are bad. The soon-to-be 70-year-old MP from Tatarstan does not want to simply stand by and watch this “decline”. Only 1.4 children per woman were born in Russia last year, a similar number to Switzerland. Seven out of ten marriages end in divorce in Russia, while in Switzerland, according to the Federal Statistical Office, 40 percent of all marriages end in divorce.
Larionova, like other MPs from different parties, has been calling for measures to save her country from the “demographic abyss” for years. Where, if not in school, can children be taught that their reproductive function can save the fatherland?
Young people, according to the Duma Committee for the Protection of the Family, must be introduced to “the traditional system of family values typical of our homeland.” This is to be done with a new school subject called family management. From the fifth grade onwards, students are to learn what “family-friendly values” are based on: marriage, large families and chastity. Schools in Russia have long since become institutions of indoctrination, just as they did in Soviet times.
The state knows what makes you happy
Next Monday, the so-called “Day of Knowledge,” classes will start again across Russia. “Family Management” will also begin for children aged eleven and over. 34 hours per school year are planned for this, the same amount as, for example, chemistry in high school. It is not intended to be a compulsory subject. But neither were the so-called “Conversations about Important Things,” the subject in which even third-graders learn that there is nothing more important in life than dying for one’s fatherland. But children who do not attend this often run into problems with the school authorities or even the youth welfare office.
The “conversations” for the start of school also have a patriotic theme: “The image of our future.” Russia, which invaded its neighboring country Ukraine and robbed many of their futures, is discussing in classrooms how bright tomorrow will be. Meanwhile, the war – even in our own country – is taking fathers and grandfathers from some of the children in these classrooms.
The situation is similarly hollow with the highly praised “family values”. Last December, President Vladimir Putin declared 2024 the “Year of the Family”. Family – in Russian politics this means a “complete family, i.e. a man and a woman, with three or more children” – should be popularized and even become the social norm. Single parents, families with only one child or childless families are increasingly seen as something “abnormal”.
The fact that men no longer come home from the front and that the “completeness of the family” is not achieved because of this alone is irrelevant. Moreover, it is not unusual in Russia for children to grow up with their mother and grandmother. Homosexual relationships are considered “extremist” in the country, so queer families with and without children do not exist for the state.
The new subject is explicitly intended as a replacement for sex education classes, which are still not available in Russian state schools. While in the USA, according to the handbook on “family management”, even the youngest children are “tortured” with sex education classes, Russian children should learn a lot about the “warm feeling of love”. In grades five to nine there are five blocks of “family management”. In “People, family and society” the children should learn how to find a “right companion for life”. “Not everyone lives in a complete family, but everyone should strive for a complete family, because that is the only way to be happier,” is the message the teachers are supposed to give their class.
In “My relatives,” students should tick to what extent their mother fulfills the role of cook, cleaner or homework helper, whether she likes to knit or prefers reading and playing the piano. They do not have to categorize or evaluate the role of their father. “Is dad the head of the house?” the teacher should ask, or: “Who do you greet with a smile: mom or dad when they come home after a long day at work?”
In the block “Family warmth and more” the program focuses on “beauty and comfort at home”. Here the young people are explained how to furnish an apartment. Because the atmosphere at home is the most important thing. The students are asked to evaluate their behavior in tables and award points for the household chores they do. The teachers are then asked to compare and evaluate them. As tips for a “comfortable atmosphere” something as banal as “joint walks and excursions” is suggested, or it is recommended to clean together. In “Modern family and its rights” the young people learn how to fill out the documents for the registry office or what money they are entitled to as future parents.
Marry early and think about the children
In grades ten and eleven, teenagers are supposed to work on their “readiness to have children” by acquiring “knowledge of the intimate aspects of human life.” The manual does not explain what these “aspects” are. 13 of the 34 lessons are devoted to the block “Families and their age.” It says that young women are ready to marry at the age of 20 to 22, and young men at the age of 23 to 28. By then, they have “civic maturity and a moral consciousness.” They are supposed to be taught how to prepare for their wedding, meet their in-laws, and put their reproductive health in order. Because “when conceiving children, young people must be in a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being,” it says.
“Subjects like this rob children of their personality. The state is telling them about the only true way of love, family, growing up. It’s absolute rubbish,” says Dima Zicer, an educator who now lives in exile. But that’s exactly what the Russian state is trying to do: to ensure that people grow up without any doubts.
