#((I thought I'd queued this forever ago but I had in fact not))

[lilflowerpot]

I have a question about Galra parenting! I know in previous posts, you've talked in length, about colonies who's job is to raise Galra children, and that their parents, if soldiers, request to be put on planet, as a form of guard. If so, who raises Galra children, since they are mostly raised in group? Is there an assigned nanny of sorts? What qualifies a care taker to be put on a planet such as that? Is there a more maternal subcategory of Galra that is known to fill the position? Part 1

(cont.) Would the caregiver have any children of their own? Human society tells us that females make better caregivers. Is that true for Galra? Followup question what would a misdeed as a child be? What would be considered misbehavior? As a human getting into fights would warrant punishment but for Galra this isn't the case. And what would an appropriate punishment be? For humans, unfortunately, spanking is commonplace. Is this the same/similar to Galra? Ignore me if you've covered this before.

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The Galra are very much a collectivist culture in that the needs of the Empire as a whole are prioritised over the needs of the individual, and so the practice of communal child-rearing has long-since been considered the norm because it’s always made sense for the community to look after their young as a whole rather than expect individuals to do so while simultaneously juggling full time employment. It’s also both physically and mentally beneficial for young Galra to be surrounded by other kits as opposed to suffering isolation, but as Galra genetics are aggressive to the point of limited fertility (dual-foetus pregnancies being virtually unheard of, as one typically absorbs the other), having more than one sibling is relatively uncommon and more than two a rare occurrence indeed, so by the time a second conception occurs the first child might have been alone for many decaphoebs: ergo, nursery colonies are the obvious solution, allowing young Galra to socialise regularly with a large group of peers.

Your average Nursery Colony might have 40,000 children (all Imperial citizens but not necessarily all Galra), an equal if not greater number of parents doubling as educators, and a handful of specialists (likely a hundred or less) who are there in leadership roles as the most educated in the Empire: these are the Dayak [i] [ii], scholars held in the highest regard as they possess a deep knowledge of many subjects.

Galra parents may apply for a position upon any given nursery colony alongside their child/children providing their trade will benefit the community there rather than solely drain its resources (and the Galra abhor idleness, it goes against their entire culture as a very physical people, so this is not usually a problem): this includes soldiers, yes, but also agricultural workers, engineers, scientists, artists, and scholars most of all. Imperial children are provided the best of all things, and chief among these is a top-tier education as they are the future of the Empire. Rather than having designated “teachers” the Galra believe in a hands-on approach to cultivating their youngest minds (kinetic learning is generally the most effective method for rambunctious little kitlings who would riot if kept at a desk from dawn til dusk) and so they’ll have people of all professions on-planet for the express purpose of allowing the children to really experience the world rather than just hear about it second-hand. They express an interest in science? Let’s go and see the new shuttles being built! Art? Well there’ll be no understanding how sunlight plays on water if you haven't witnessed it for yourself! Agriculture? This is how we plow the fields and moderate the ph of the soil to produce only the finest food for the Empire! History? The druids have kept archives dating back millennia, and many of the recent ones take the form of AI, so why not ask your questions of Empress Zetian herself? 

In humans, the whole “women are better caregivers” thing is a distortion of the fact that way back when humans were a hunter-gatherer people, men were sent out to do the actual hunting & gathering while women stayed back to care for the young. Why, you ask? Not, as many people seem to believe, because the females of our species are predisposed to be weaker than the males, but rather because they are more valuable on a biological bases. In terms of ensuring the longevity of a clan’s bloodline, one woman could realistically carry no more than one pregnancy per year, whereas one man could impregnate any number of women: this means that if all the clan’s men went out hunting, and only one returned, the group would replenish and survive, if the reverse occurred, they would almost certainly die out. Ergo, that lingering belief is a product of misogyny, because there is no reason that being biologically one sex or another should make you a better/worse caregiver in modern society.

...Which is a long-winded way of saying that no, the Galra firmly believe that the best caregivers are the most educated and naturally nurturing, which has absolutely nothing to do with sex or gender or anything other than an individual’s personality.

As for misbehaviour, it’s less about the physical act of fighting and more about the way in which the child conducts themselves (once again linking back to the Galra code of honourable conduct): sparring against a playmate or even brawling in a group? Good! Acting with your peers to victimise one child and/or not allowing the individual you are sparring with to yield? Absolutely not. While corporal punishment is used within the military - lashings for acts of insubordination or misconduct, typically - it is not done so outside of that, and never against children. As I’ve said, they’re considered to be far too precious, and additionally where an adult Galra has the mental capacity to understand that X action results in Y punishment, and will therefore know why they are being subjected to physical repercussions, for children this is not always the case and considered quite uniquely cruel because of it. When a kit misbehaves, they would instead be subjected to a sort of "time out” (the worse / more frequent their misconduct, the longer they would be kept separate from their peers) and as the Galra are incredibly social creatures, this threat of isolation is typically an ample deterrent.