As Libby Anne, from Love Joy Feminism, says, I grew up in a Michael Pearl, child training, environment. When your baby "throws a fit", you train it out of them by beating them. Some may say that the word "beating" is too harsh a definition of what Michael Pearl advises, but, anything is a beating when you're hitting a baby when he's crying - because he's crying.
Michael Pearl is an idiot and displays it perfectly in his writings. His "love" for children is a sick kind of love. A love that can only be cashed in when they make his life bearable to be lived. He may twist my words and call me a liar, but he really is the dishonest one.
In this story, by Libby Anne, she relates how she watched as her son Bobby "threw a tantrum" after she took him out of a swing. As I read the story, I thought about the many times I have taken my babies out of a swing or simply changed up their activity - for no other reason than I wanted to go sit on the park bench and do nothing. When they inevitably communicated to me in the only way they knew how - through crying, sobbing, and thrashing - I would walk away and do whatever I wanted.
The fact is, life was about me and me alone. I never really cared, then, about what my babies wanted. I was vindicated by the likes of Michael Pearl because I had a license to be what I wanted to be and no child was going to destroy my chance at happiness and peace.
But I loved them!
Sure.
The fact is, if you have a child, you are not responsible for yourself anymore. It is now your duty (hopefully your privilege) to feed, clothe, bathe, love, play with, and be there for that child until they fly the nest, through every stage of development. Some days will be hard. Hell, some YEARS will be hard. But you are the closest thing they have to be able to learn about everything there is to know about life - through your eyes.
Don't teach them selfishness.
In reality, I am still preaching to myself, as I struggle from time to time with cleansing myself of viewing my children as distractions to my life. They are not. They depend on us. Be there for them.
Michael Pearl is an idiot and displays it perfectly in his writings. His "love" for children is a sick kind of love. A love that can only be cashed in when they make his life bearable to be lived. He may twist my words and call me a liar, but he really is the dishonest one.
In this story, by Libby Anne, she relates how she watched as her son Bobby "threw a tantrum" after she took him out of a swing. As I read the story, I thought about the many times I have taken my babies out of a swing or simply changed up their activity - for no other reason than I wanted to go sit on the park bench and do nothing. When they inevitably communicated to me in the only way they knew how - through crying, sobbing, and thrashing - I would walk away and do whatever I wanted.
The fact is, life was about me and me alone. I never really cared, then, about what my babies wanted. I was vindicated by the likes of Michael Pearl because I had a license to be what I wanted to be and no child was going to destroy my chance at happiness and peace.
But I loved them!
Sure.
The fact is, if you have a child, you are not responsible for yourself anymore. It is now your duty (hopefully your privilege) to feed, clothe, bathe, love, play with, and be there for that child until they fly the nest, through every stage of development. Some days will be hard. Hell, some YEARS will be hard. But you are the closest thing they have to be able to learn about everything there is to know about life - through your eyes.
Don't teach them selfishness.
In reality, I am still preaching to myself, as I struggle from time to time with cleansing myself of viewing my children as distractions to my life. They are not. They depend on us. Be there for them.
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