Political compass for the21st century

[Eric the Green]

I question the notion that the counter-culture was composed of people who neglected their families. For one thing, most hippies were under 30 years old, and probably didn't have children or married partners. Some of them formed communes in which children were looked after by everyone there. They engaged in free love because they could. Later, many settled down. The birth control pill made freer sex out of wedlock more possible. This pill was not the result of the self-actualization movement.

Self-actualization does not mean neglect of families. As I already mentioned, a lot of therapists during the Awakening helped to cure the results of oppression within families, and thus healed family relationships. Virginia Satir and John Bradshaw are examples. A self-actualized person has awakened and developed themselves into a full human being, and that certainly involves being able to care about and for others.

Gen Xers gained a lot because they were neglected. They became excellent survivalists and independent, self-reliant people. The Awakening era saw a rise in divorces and single-parent families, which was the main reason for this neglect. There were latchkey kids, which was also the result of more women working. Single-parent families was not necessarily a good thing, for many children. I remember Bradshaw said it wasn't. But it was a general trend of the time, and it was not a direct result of the counter-culture or the self-actualization concept. But the general trend of the Awakening was for more freedom in lifestyle, including freedom from marriages that were not happy or supportive for women's aspirations (e.g. The Feminine Mystique), and divorce laws were weakened. So the trend of those times did create more neglect of children. But people who just wanted more freedom were not necessarily self-actualizing people.