"... (J)ust as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, so will a little child — only more so." --- Dr. James Dobson, The Strong-Willed Child, 1992
This quote, more than any other, best sums up the parenting style of James Dobson, author and founder of Focus on the Family. I know all about his ideas on child-rearing because my parents regrettably decided to take them to heart during some of my formative years.
Far from "nurturing and defending" our family of four, as the group's mission statement goes, the ideas put forth by Dobson went a long way toward driving a rift between myself and my parents -- a rift that has healed only recently.
I'm not writing this for pity, but they say you should write about what you know. Although I don't have children yet -- my wife of three years and I may be trying soon, however -- I do have some ideas on parenting of my own. Most of them are a product of the examples set by my parents, and most of them are the polar opposites of their examples.
I was inspired to write this diary after reading the always excellent clammyc's recommended diary about moral leadership and religious hypocrisy. Clammyc laughed, and rightly so, at this quote from one of James Dobson's materials:
Meanwhile, the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.
Funny, huh? We can laugh at this because we are sane and rational. There are, however, thousands of parents who feel as though God wants them to raise their children in such a way -- and that they have a right to do so that should not be interfered with.
Some of Dobson's ideas are less funny, and a little more insufferable. You've already seen him equate teaching a child to training an errant dog. But the advice in his parenting books reinforces his underlying love of authority -- and little else -- as a tool to groom children.
By learning to yield to the loving authority... of his parents, a child learns to submit to other forms of authority which will confront him later in his life—his teachers, school principal, police, neighbors and employers.
I had a conversation with my Dad after our falling out. I avoided speaking with him after leaving the house for college. I won't get into specifics, but he had anger management issues to say the least, and was physically larger than me at the time.
I wanted to try one last time to mend the fence, and I told him that I just wanted him to be my friend. I was older now, and didn't need a parent, I told him. He said all he could do was be my parent, and could never be my friend.
In Dobson's view, you can't be both. After all, police, employers and other authority figures are not your friends -- so why should a parent be?
My Dad believed that discipline should be physical. So did one of his favorite self-help authors. He would tell me that he wasn't afraid to hit me even though I was practically an adult. At 15, he told me that the last time his father had hit him, he was 16. When I was 16, that age was increased to 17.
Here's what Dobson had to say in "The Strong-Willed Child" about corporal punishment.
"Some strong-willed children absolutely demand to be spanked, and their wishes should be granted. . . [T]wo or three stinging strokes on the legs or buttocks with a switch are usually sufficient to emphasize the point, 'You must obey me.'"
It started to go wrong in middle school. I wasn't adjusting to it at all because I'd been such a sheltered kid, and the kids at the private middle school figured that out quickly. When I came home depressed after a few days, my parents again turned to books like these for advice.
They were told that, no matter what, their kids were going to rebel against them. My mind and judgment, they read, were clouded with evil hormones that made me selfish and wild. I was accused of just about every form of juvenile delinquency imaginable -- drugs, sex, drinking -- when the worst thing I did at the time was watch "The Simpsons" when I wasn't supposed to.
It wasn't long before I thought to myself, "If I'm already being suspected of all this bad stuff that I'm not really doing, then why not just do it and be done with it?"
So I got some new friends. My first drink was Jack Daniels in a friend's garage, my first puff of marijuana was taken behind a bowling alley with friends, and my first sex was with a girl from a similar background who just wanted someone to notice her.
It all came to a head one night -- violently. My Dad maintained for years afterward that he was "disciplining" me and that I had "egged him on." I never forgot the hate and frustration in his eyes that night. It happened again later. My Mom looked on powerlessly. I don't know who I was more disappointed in.
[P]ain is a marvelous purifier. . . It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely.
I cried all right. Genuinely. And things were not the same between us for years.
I gave him another chance. I already told you how that turned out. He said he couldn't be my friend, even thought that was all I'd asked of him.
The saddest thing was that it took a life-threatening cancer (stage II secondary throat cancer with an unknown primary) to get his attention. He stopped working and got a new perspective. He and my Mom no longer go to church, and they don't read religious books.
Now that I'm through writing this, I don't know why I wrote it. People here are already aware of what a charlatan this man Dobson is. They already know him to be cruel, manipulative, hypocritical and untrustworthy. I just thought perhaps some of you might not have considered the consequences of the things Dobson and others like him are telling our parents.
As I've said, I hope to be a parent one day soon. I pray every day that I will know what to do, and that if I should need advice, I will find better advice than my parents had.
But despite my vow, people are still going to the man who poisoned my family for answers. I leave you with a "testimonial" for Dobson's latest "Dare to Discipline" book:
"Dr. Dobson's Dare To Discipline changed the course of my daughter's life when she was 3 years old. Before reading your book my daughter was spoiled, rude and doomed because of my lack of understanding about discipline. I read the book, prayed and worked at turning her around. She is now 32, emotionally sound, spiritually solid and happily married with children of her own. I am gifting her a copy of the book for Christmas. Thank you. " – Ruth G., Las Vegas, NV