Crisis in the Family

The fundamental crisis that is facing our nation--more fundamental that the economic, the fiscal, or anything that foreign nation is threatening--is the family crisis. I address this matter in my WORLDmag.com column this week ("The Family Crisis"), making reference to the much talked about New York Times article that summarized a recently released report and a Heritage Foundation report last year on the same topic.

The New York Times reports:

After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage. ... Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.

Child Trends, the group that produced the study, adds this:

While more than half of these nonmarital births (52%) occur to women who live with the father of the baby in a cohabiting union, these unions are less stable than marriages. Children born to unmarried parents are more likely than those born to married parents to be poor and to see their parents’ union end.

Marvin Olasky's column alerted me to this report.

Last June, Chuck Donovan at The Heritage Foundation called for "A Marshall Plan for Marriage." This is the summary of his report:

Marriage and family are declining in America, following a trend well established in Europe. This breakdown of the American family has dire implications for American society and the U.S. economy. Halting and reversing the sustained trends of nearly four decades will not happen by accident. The federal, state, and local governments need to eliminate marriage penalties created by the tax code and welfare programs and instead use existing resources to better encourage and support family life.

The report included this interesting chart:

After summarizing these reports, I consider that at times of national crisis a statesman emerges to lead the country out of it. Our "crisis of a house divided" over slavery brought forth Lincoln. The Nazi shadow over the continent of Europe brought Churchill out of the wings. Our national malaise in the 1970s gave Reagan his moment. But that is when the crisis has a happy ending. I see no adequate leadership in any direction on the family front. Rick Santorum is offering himself for that role but in my judgment he has neither the stature nor the judgment for the great statesman's role. The man in the sweatervest is neither a Lincoln nor a Reagan.

In my concluding thought, I cast an eye to the current president. "President Obama has a nice family. If he were to take up this cause with energy and understanding, he could become a great president in his second term. Sadly, he seems too committed to advancing the causes of the problem, such as the paternalistic welfare state, to appreciate the nature of the problem and its remedies."

The day after I published this column, my TIME magazine arrived in the mail, carrying with it Rich Lowry's column on the same subject! ("Just Not the Marrying Kind," March 5, 2012; p.13.) He shares some more stunning figures.

The benchmark for discussions of illegitimacy is always the controversial 1965 report on the perilous state of the black family authored by the liberal intellectual Daniel Patrick Moynihan. When he wrote it, 24% of births among blacks and 3% of those among whites were out of wedlock. It turned out those were halcyon days of traditional family mores. Today out-of-wedlock births account for 73% of births among blacks, 53% among Latinos and 29% among whites.

The unraveling that began in the underclass has crept up the income ladder, although illegitimacy is still a class-based phenomenon. Almost 70% of births to high school dropouts and 51% to high school graduates are out of wedlock. Among those with some college experience, the figure is 34%, and for those with a college degree, just 8%.

With reference to the merely 8% of out-of-wedlock births that occur among college graduates, the TIME article remarks: "That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education. 'Marriage has become a luxury good,' said Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania."

Lowry calls this "our most ignored national crisis." For my part, I begin on the same note, but more expansively: "Our nation is in a crisis. Yes, all eyes are on the financial crisis and the stagnant economy, and less certain but potentially ominous is the prospect of a nuclear-armed and religiously fanatical Iran. But it is possible that we might revive the economy at home and disarm our enemies abroad while losing the nation itself. I’m talking about the disintegration of the family that is quietly reaching crisis proportions."

Lowry calls for the sort of public campaign that usually attends a national crisis. Is it environmental? We know how to flood the discussion on all levels with that concern. In (what I am told is) my upcoming article in Relevant magazine, I call for the same national mobilization.

We need a twenty year policy agenda to strengthen and protect marriage and family at least as tenaciously as we protect waterways and wildlife. Ronald Reagan appointed a Special Working Group on the Family to examine all policies for their impact on the family. That was good, but the work needs to be less reactive. Thoughtfully crafted and fully coordinated family policy at every level of government should recognize the requirements for and impediments to healthy family life. Conservatives are rightly hawkish over how a tax or regulation will affect small business and job creation. The family deserves the same protective scrutiny.

The striking difference between Lowry's column and mine is that whereas I look to the president and find him an implausible hero on account of his policy commitments, Lowry looks to Michelle.

It's not hard to think of a spokeswoman. Michelle Obama is the daughter in a traditional two-parent family and the mother in another one that even her husband's critics admire. If she took up marriage as a cause, she could ultimately have a much more meaningful impact on the lives of children than she will ever have urging them to do jumping jacks.

The First Lady cannot turn things around on her own. We need someone who can redirect tax policy, restructure welfare programs, and refashion the way government presents what it does and the way it addresses citizens in their fragile social situations. But her influence would certainly get the ball rolling for a change in cultural attitudes and perhaps for future administrations to act on that momentum. The First Lady could conceivably have a better second therm than the Europeanizer-in-Chief.

Who Will Defend Family in 2012?

The Republicans bill themselves as the party of the family. They defend family values, or at least they oppose certain anti-family policies such as abortion and same-sex marriage. The reason for this concern is that the family is the bedrock of society. The family is the little society in which human beings receive their moral formation, fitting them for the larger society. As goes the family, so goes law and order and prosperity and decent service in the check out line.

The other reason for this concern--the negative one--is that the family has come under devastating assault over the last two or three generations. In some communities, it doesn't even exist. Those communities are the poorest, most crime ridden, most blighted in every way.

In my Worldmag column this week, "The Semi-conservative Republican Party," I take the GOP to task for not going beyond the defense of individual liberty (political and economic) to the rigorous and systematic defense of the family, the social unit on which the enjoyment of that liberty depends fundamentally.

I write: "Ronald Reagan appointed a Special Working Group on the Family to examine all policies for their impact on the family. That was good as far as it went, but the work needs to be less reactive. A thoughtfully crafted, fully coordinated family policy should recognize the requirements for and impediments to healthy family life, and inform the president of whatever measures are necessary and constitutional to strengthen it. State governors and local governments should do the same.

"Conservatives these days are hawkish over how a given tax or regulation will affect small business and job creation, and that’s good. But the family deserves the same protective scrutiny."

What to do with Children

If we're so clever at raising kids these days, why are there so many little monsters in the schools, in the stores, and everywhere? Yet what is more important than how our children become adults, and what kind of adults they become?

The thing about the current orthodoxy is that it is never current for long (though you are punished severely for violating it). So of course there is growing public discussion that is questioning the high levels of attention that we show our children these days.

My children attend a private Christian school in the metro New York area, and I attend the parent orientation night, the open house, the Christmas program, the spring play (I put my foot down at attending all three nights), and the "moving up" ceremony at the end of the year. I have begun to wonder how necessary all of this is. I don't remember my parents attending all of these things. If they attended any (I'm sure they were at some), it doesn't register with me now. This got me thinking.

You can read my reflections in "Figuring Out Kids" (Worldmag.com, July 20, 2011).

At one time you could fall back on the wisdom of the surrounding culture and perhaps not go far wrong. But today everyone else is at least as confused as you are. To complicate things further, both kids and culture keep changing as well. ...Take something as simple as how much time to spend with your kids. How much of your attention should you give them?...This emphasis on quality time and bonding is new. Is it necessary? Is it even good? Are boys becoming better men because of it? Are we who are men messed up for want of it?...

Of course, there has to be time and place for wisdom-transfer moments between a father and his children that we see in Deuteronomy 6. But the Deuteronomy 6 father did not trail his kids throughout their childhoods. If anything, they trailed him.

Children also need their father’s approval. Our heavenly Father bolsters us with unbreakable and oft-repeated promises and with assurances of his sustaining presence. He will greet the faithful at their journey’s end with “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:20-23). We were created to be satisfied in our heavenly Father’s approval and communion. Yes, fathers in particular are important to children’s development.

But some distance is good. It stokes longing in the souls of the young. It’s unwise to flatter and sate them. Forgetting this, fathers in particular have gone from unapproachable to irrelevant. How about adopting the stance of an important and busy guy (which you are, dads), an object of admiration whose sincere expressions of love at reasonable intervals lift your children upward and drive them onward to at least comparable levels of achievement.

A friend of mine whom I mention described his emotionally distant but faithful and admirable father to me also put me on to this article. Essayist and Weekly Standard contributing editor, Joseph Epstein, wrote this account of his childhood which in some ways echoes my own and many others, it seems: "Kindergrachy: Every Child a Dauphin" (The Weekly Standard, June 9, 2008).

Also, have a look at this interview from the Atlantic.




Amy Henry mentions this Atlantic story in her own Worldmag column on this topic, "Being TOO Good a Parent?" (June 23, 2011). She cites many other books that no doubt fill out the subject for anyone looking to study it, including Wendy Mogul's The Blessing of the Skinned Knee and Jean Twenge's The Narcissism Epidemic.

One reader in the comment thread fears that this train of thought will just give license to lazy, negligent fathers to shirk their responsibilities as dads. Of course, you don't remedy the extreme of child neglect with the extreme of child-centeredness.

Same-Sex Marriage Response

There is much that has been written explaining how same-sex "marriage" is wrong morally, philosophically, socially, and so on.

Here is my two cents on "A Bronx Cheer for Real Marriage" (Worldmag.com, May 18, 2011).

Advocates of the change present same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue. They ask, if you can, why can’t we? ...

But there’s a problem. It’s not marriage. As I enjoyed my first and perhaps final stroll through the Bronx, I searched for a plausible analogy and settled on another unique human relationship: the church. In our society, churches have certain tax advantages over other organizations and a respectability that not every organization has. What homosexuals want is comparable to insurance companies demanding that they too be recognized as churches. This would improve their public image and their bottom line at the same time. There is a surface resemblance, no? Like churches, they have buildings, they bring in money, and they take care of people.

But there’s a problem. They are not churches. There is something essential to a church that does not and cannot happen in an insurance company as an insurance company, namely the worship of God. So, too, there is something essential to marriage that does not and cannot happen in an intimate, homosexual friendship, namely reproduction. Granted, there are heterosexual couples who cannot have children. But that is an accident of nature. In homosexual couples, it is a principle of nature.

I will have a fuller argument in my forthcoming book, Left, Right, and Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics, which I co-author with Lisa Sharon Harper who argues in favor of this novel arrangement. Russell Media will publish it in October.

Worth reading on the subject:

Esolen, Anthony. “A Requiem for Friendship: Why Boys Will Not Be Boys & Other Consequences of the Sexual Revolution,” Touchstone, September 2005.


_____________. “Same-Sex Marriage: Anthony Esolen’s Ten Arguments for Sanity,” Touchstone Magazine: Mere Comments, January 25, 2010.

Shell, Susan M. “The Liberal Case Against Gay Marriage,” The Public Interest, Summer 2004.

Tubbs, David L. Freedom's Orphans: Contemporary Liberalism and the Fate of American Children (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).

Tubbs, David L. and Robert P. George, "Redefining Marriage Away," City Journal, Summer 2004.

Here are the Crises. Where are the Statesmen?

What should we expect of our next president? What is the defining crisis of our times? It would help if we had a History of the Twenty-first Century, but that won’t be available for many years to come.

The remarkable thing about great statesmen is that, as though by intuitive grasp of the relative importance of things, they seem to see the present in the clear light of the future. Churchill, in the political wilderness, saw the monstrous threat of Nazism long before his more respectable contemporaries did. It was not a recent insight that he shared in his “Their Finest Hour” speech when he cast the coming Battle of Britain as a contest for “the survival of Christian civilization” and “the abyss of a new Dark Age.”

When we look for a presidential candidate, we are looking for a statesman.

Mitch Daniels says the great crisis is financial. There is a strong case to be made for this. But statesmen are also able to read and lead the public. Daniels stumbled in this. Last year, he told Andy Ferguson of the Weekly Standard that the next president would have to call a truce on social issues to focus on our nation’s more immediate and existential crisis of crippling debt. "It is just a suggestion I made once," he told World reporter Edward Lee Pitts. Both Pitts and Ferguson demonstrate that Daniels is pro-life to his bones. Ferguson quotes Curt Smith, head of the Indiana Family Institute, saying, “He has a deep faith, he’s totally pro-life, and he walks the talk.” Perhaps it was just a stumble. Perhaps he is a great man, and not the bean counter he appeared to be at that moment.

Newt Gingrich tells us that Islam will swallow us if we do not rally against it. This could be true, and rally we must. But in America, unlike Europe which has already committed moral and demographic suicide, we still have a backbone to stiffen, and our uniquely free society encourages Muslim Americans to moderate and assimilate. As for Newt, he is not a great man. He is strong on insight and analysis, but profoundly deficient in character. No man as morally hollow as Newt Gingrich should be President. We suffered that from 1992-2000. Newt is the Bill Clinton of the right

In yesterday's Worldmag column, I make my case that abortion and the disintegration of the family are the great moral crises that threaten to destroy the nation ("Facing the Crisis of Our Times").

As for abortion in particular, not only does it present serious demographic and workforce challenges, it is a moral blight that invites God's righteous judgment.

We need to repent of our evil, return to the Lord, and reform our ways. George Washington saw the flourishing of our nation as inseparable from our national repentance before God’s righteous majesty and from our trust above all in the strength of his arm on our behalf. He wrote at time when the Lord’s government of the nations was commonly recognized and with a clear political conscience for doing so.

In his General Orders of March 6, 1776, as Commander of the Continental Army, General Washington declared, “a day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation to implore the Lord, the Giver of all victory, to pardon our manifold sins and wickedness’s (sic.), and that it would please him to bless the Continental Arms, with his divine favor and protection.” (I thank Dr. Peter Lillback for sending me this reference.)

Tears for Our Children

This video montage, mostly of dad's coming home from service in Iraq and surprising their children (warning: you will cry), testifies to the depth of what children lose when divorce takes their fathers away or when they simply never know their fathers. It is a huge hole that nothing can fill. The Lord, our heavenly father, made us to have earthly fathers who love us and serve us with pure and manly love and whom we can love in turn with trust and devotion. Yes, Hanna Rosin, we will always need men, and we (I mean women and children) need them to be MEN.


Leon Kass, in his sad but marvelously illuminating 2002 essay, "The End of Courtship," evokes tears of a different sort with this description of what David L. Tubbs calls freedom's orphans:

The ubiquitous experience of divorce is also deadly for courtship and marriage. Some people try to argue, wishfully against the empirical evidence, that children of divorce will marry better than their parents because they know how important it is to choose well. But the deck is stacked against them. Not only are many of them frightened of marriage, in whose likely permanence they simply do not believe, but they are often maimed for love and intimacy.

They have had no successful models to imitate; worse, their capacity for trust and love has been severely crippled by the betrayal of the primal trust all children naturally repose in their parents, to provide that durable, reliable, and absolutely trustworthy haven of permanent and unconditional love in an otherwise often unloving and undependable world.

But we are too self-absorbed and pleasure saturated to care. We learn those pathologies as children, and perfect them as sexual consumers in the dollar store of young adulthood...or what Kay Hymowitz more accurately says has become "postmodern postadolescence."

For a challenging sermon on manhood, go to Rev. Benjamin Miller's sermons on SermonAudio.com, and look for "A Jesus Kind of Guy" (August 8, 2010). For many, regardless of your age, the road to manhood will lie on the other side of hearing this. The preacher is kind, but he is not gentle. Ben Miller pastors Franklin Square Orthodox Presbyterian Church on Long Island with Bill Shishko.

As a footnote, if anyone knows anything about the song on the video, please pass along the name of the artist and title.

Your Children Will Arise and Turn You In

In an earlier post, "Life Under the Regime of Science," I shared this MasterCard "Priceless" ad to which Jonah Goldberg in The National Review drew my attention. It features a child instructing his father in how to shop in an environmentally responsible way. But the father is not asking for the advice. The cute child is presented as wiser than his young, unshaven, slightly goofy looking father who we are supposed to believe is clueless and careless. "Making dad a better man: priceless."



A reader in Ottawa, Canada, alerts us to a similar ad that was aired in our neighboring country to the north where individual liberty is viewed as a dangerous notion among those who think only politically pure thoughts.



Mr. Glennie shared these insights:

In Canada here, there are `public service announcements' that feature the `scientist' / TV host / environmental nut David Suzuki.

In this spot, Suzuki is seen sitting (in a treehouse, apparently in the middle of the night) with a group of children, who are letting him know how they are `reducing their carbon footprint.'

Then, one of the children whispers to Dear (Leader) David: `Jimmy's parents don't believe in conserving...'

Beyond the obvious question as to why a 70-year-old man would be in a treehouse at night with a group of children unrelated to him, it shows the totalitarian mindset behind present-day `environmentalism'.

After all, the lad isn't informing on "his own" parents, but those of someone else.

It is startling that neither Suzuki, the producers of the spot, nor yet the energy company that subsidizes the production cost, would have stopped to think about these things.

There is an interesting little detail they throw in. When one of the children addresses him respectfully as Dr. Suzuki, he interrupts and insists that she call him "David," and then the conversation continues. Why would Powerwise* take this extra step in undermining adult authority among children? (This "Call me David; Mr. Suzuki is my father" attitude is common enough as it is.)

*According to their website, powerWISE is funded by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, Ontario Power Authority and local distribution companies.

Principal Children's Films

Now that three of our children are between ages six and nine, we've seen many children's movies. Of course, you have to be discerning. Even G-rated films contain a lot of potty mouth, back talk, and rebellion that is unhelpful to be pouring into the tender souls of little people. There was a lot of gutter humor in Cars, and in The Little Mermaid Ariel defies her father and she is neither reproved nor suffers unhappy consequences for it.

There are also social and political messages that Hollywood wants children to internalize. They are generally the self-congratulating themes of that spoilt and irresponsible 1960s generation--wise in their own eyes--with which they continue to indoctrinate the rest of us. Essentially, they tell us that families are hopelessly dysfunctional, children are wise, and parents are foolish, and so children must save their parents and the world.

But there are films, even recently made films, that teach children in artful and entertaining ways that family is good, parents are wise, and children have a lot to learn. They teach that there are worthy objects of striving, and that obtaining them requires great effort, moral self-restraint, and even sacrifice.

Here are some examples.

The Sound of Music (1965; Dir. Robert Wise) - Both the children and the nanny learn self-control. On the other hand, the uberdisciplinarian and distant father learns humanity. Together, led by the father, an Austrian army officer, they defy and eventually flee the inhumane and tyrannically disciplinarian Nazi occupiers. The film is about love, charitable discipline, and healthy relationships in both the family and the political community.

The Incredibles (2004; dir. and screenplay, Brad Bird) and Meet The Robinsons (2007; dir. Stephen Anderson) - Both films celebrate the irreplaceable value of a loving, traditional family.

Pinocchio (1940; Disney Studios) - The wooden boy has a conscience! He disobeys his father and gets into trouble! He goes to an island where children get to indulge their selfish desires, but they end up enslaved. Sin does that. Notice how he gets to be a real boy.

Peter Pan (2003; dir. and screenplay, P.J. Hogan) - Peter can indulge all his childhood fantasies forever, but he has no family, no mother and father to love him and care for him. His freedom is premature, stunting, and unsatisfying. The children see this and head home to their parents. The end of the film is touching.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971; screenplay by Roald Dahl) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005; dir. Tim Burton) - Both these films set bad children in contrast with a good child who loves his family and sacrifices his pleasures for the sake of his moral obligations.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968; Disney Studios; screenplay by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes) - The father is an oddball inventor who ekes out a living, but he works hard to provide for his children. It is he who must save them from Baron Bomburst after they disobey their father and succumb to temptation. The baron's vice is not fundamentally that he hates children, but that he is altogether childish himself, which would be fine except that he is not a child.

Mary Poppins (1964; Disney Studios) - In this film, the parents are foolish, but it is not the children who save them. It is a nanny named Mary Poppins, a gracious, otherworldly woman who is full of adult wisdom. Clearly, a father should not be so devoted to his work that he neglects his family which is the more important responsibility. If you save the company but lose your children in the process, you are a failure. But the film drives the lesson too far. In the end, all the elders of British banking have learned to be childish and silly. They have cut back their hours at the bank and are flying kites instead.

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing category:

Nanny McPhee (2005; screenplay by Emma Thompson) - One lesson we learn in this film is a good one. Well-mannered children are a blessing both to themselves and to others, and that begins with simple habits such as saying please and thank-you, and going to bed without complaining when one is told. What mars this otherwise edifying film is that it presents the little boy as wiser than his father who, he says, "never listens." So it is not surprising that it is the children (in their suddenly discovered wisdom) who save the day in the end.

There is also one very regrettable line near the end of the film when Evangeline, the girl whom the family has employed as a maid, tells old Aunt Adelaide to "Sod off, you old trout." Regardless of old auntie's behavior, this rebuke is appallingly disrespectful on account of both its content and its source. But the film holds it up for admiration. That alone would be enough to disqualify this film for recommendation to your children.

Though there is a good lesson at the beginning, the end of the film undermines it. Through firm but wise discipline (albeit magical), Nanny McFee swiftly trains the children to be self-controlled and obedient, and thus frees them to be happy and sweet (but, alas, also wiser than the adults). In the end, however, they save the day through the same wild, ill-mannered, childishly destructive behavior--although now put to a "good" purpose--and all the good adults join in the fun. The children learn a degree of self-control from Nanny McFee, but only enough to know how to use terrorism selectively for socially constructive ends, and the adults learn to be more like the children. While this film is styled after Mary Poppins, it is no Mary Poppins.

A few other great children's films:

Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005; dir. Andrew Adamson) - This is C. S. Lewis's great allegory of the gospel. In Edmund, we see repentance, and in the great lion, Aslan, we see redemption through Christ's substitutionary atonement.

Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008; dir. Andrew Adamson) - Peter brings disaster upon himself and others when he follows his own wisdom and trusts in his own strength rather than waiting for Aslan and trusting in his wise, almighty and gracious provision. Aslan, of course, represents Christ.

Anne of Green Gables and The Sequel (1985 and 1987; dir. Kevin Sullivan) - Simply one of the most delightful films ever made, and a fitting tribute to the classic of Canadian literature.

The Indispensable Mom

It is not only homosexuals and Sesame Street who are trying to redefine the family out of existence, and along with it civilization itself. Ordinary moms and dads--even Christian ones--are doing the same thing. When moms and dads, husbands and wives, become merely "parents" and "spouses," indistinguishable bread-winners with careers and all the time constraints and pressures that go with careers, then children need to be raised by day-care workers and school teachers as well as by televisions and video games. If you change the family, you change the civilization. If you destroy the family, you will destroy civilization.

The role of the mother qua mother is indispensable. Children need her wise, minutely attentive, and loving attention to the thousands matters of protection, instruction, and discipline that come up in the course of every day from waking to sleeping. No one else can provide this. Many children survive childhood without it. But it is surviving, not thriving. Civilization depends on a critical mass of people thriving.

Anita Renfroe's "Mom Song," set to the tune of the William Tell Overture, captures some of what's involved in the mother's task.


The Mom Song from Northland Video on Vimeo.

Evangelical Christians need to develop a political philosophy that begins with the family and extends to the highest authorities.

(Go here to see the original with Renfroe herself performing and with a better ending. You can also see the words written out.)

Modern Child Discipline

Children are the citizens of tomorrow, and how we raise them shapes the world of tomorrow. In truth, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Child discipline, therefore, is political. That is why the cultural left is ferocious about stamping out corporal punishment, and bringing all children at the earliest possible age under the formative influence of the government school system.

Mindful of this, I read this parenting tip in an email today.

Most people think it improper to spank children, so I have tried other methods of child discipline when mine have one of 'those moments.'

One method that I found effective is just to take the child for a car ride, and talk.

Some say it's the vibration from the car, others say it's the time away from any distractions such as TV, Video Games, Computer, IPod, etc.

Either way, my kids usually calm down and stop misbehaving after our car ride together. Eye to eye contact helps a lot too.

I've included a photo below of one of my sessions with my son, in case you would like to use the technique.

Interesting.

I personally don't recommend this method. For greater wisdom on the subject of child-rearing, I do recommend Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp (Shepherd Press, 1995), Withhold Not Correction by Bruce Ray (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1978), and the whole series of books from Babywise onwards by Gary Ezzo.

Harold adds:

Spare the hotrod, spoil the child, I always say.