Elise M. Boulding - The Role of Family in The Peace Process

The Role of Family in The Peace Process

Boulding claimed that families are the “practice ground for making history”. Boulding emphasizes family as the environment that grounds individuals for all their future endeavors. As a family sociologist, Boulding believed in the inherent worth of every child. This belief stems from her devotion to Quakerism. (See below) From her own experience as a mother, as well as the knowledge she acquired through research, Boulding developed an ideology that places importance on the influence children have on the greater society. She believed that children would be co-creators of a reformed visionary future if adults would accept their influence. Boulding believed that within the dynamics of a family parents must take their children seriously, listen and converse whole-heartedly, and finally fully accept their ability to influence parents own social imagination

Boulding has a collection of writings, but none represent her views on the importance of family quite as well as One Small Plot of Heaven: Reflections on Family Life by a Quaker Sociologist. This writing of hers represents in a most complete sense, her thoughts on families, parenting and the important relationship that exists between the family, God and the individual’s Quaker worship. She also emphasizes the importance of the “personhood of children”, the acknowledgment of time in solitude, and the need for interactions across age gaps

Boulding suggests that networking and partnerships built between men, women and children are what will cultivate the peace culture.

“We must look towards societies that set a high value on nonaggression and noncompetitive ness, and therefore handle conflicts by nonviolent means. We can see how child rearing patterns produce nurturing adult behaviors.”