The Mosuo: A society that shuns fatherhood.

{via Flickr}

WHY?: National Geographic has an informative video that briefly explains the tradition of the Mosuo people to shun marriage and raise kids in matrilineal homes with their entire extended families (but no dads). I think people who are not born into functional family structures can use as many examples of successful family structures as they can get, especially in America. I see many instances where the onus of reconstructing a functional family structure is placed entirely on a new generation of youth because previous generations were not able to escape dysfunction (for many reasons, some justifiable, some not). Nevertheless, in many situations the tools to construct a "mother/father/children" family aren't there (missing fathers, for example). So perhaps expanding our realm of the "possible", outside of the dysfunction we may know, can help some of us transform inherited dysfunction into function with the resources we have on hand, if only we can think outside of the box more.

[Also of interest: "Best Animal Dads" (via National Geographic)]