ABSTRACT
The Ranch was well known in regional communal circles as a place devoted to natural childbirth. The birth of a child in a rural hippie commune—particularly if the birth is "natural"—is sometimes the occasion of a collective celebration of great significance. In spite of the praise of childhood and the dispraise of grownups, age is still one of the universal criteria for role allocation and social stratification, in communes as anywhere else, and there is no good reason to expect it to disappear soon. Children are not, as a matter of policy, forbidden to use even stronger psychedelics, like LSD-25, peyote, or mescaline. But these drugs are not often used frivolously. Sexual behavior in commune children is governed by principles similar to those that permit children to smoke dope on the grounds that it is not demonstrably harmful to them: the predisposition in anarchist communes generally is to believe that the sexuality of children is not demonstrably harmful.
