The Transformed Wife

In 1946, Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote a child raising book that changed parenting styles everywhere. I am going to take some quotes of his and give a response and try to keep it biblical and from what I have seen as a result of his teachings. The majority of Americans still believe that spanking, NOT physical abuse, is still acceptable, thankfully, since they have seen how effective it is in dealing with children’s bad behavior. “In all 50 states and the District of Columbia, you are not forbidden by law to use corporal punishment on your child as long as the form of punishment is reasonable and does not cause injury.” (Here are each American state laws on it.)

“[Physical punishment] certainly plays a role in our acceptance of violence. If we are ever to turn toward a kindlier society and a safer world, a revulsion against the physical punishment of children would be a good place to start.” (p. 173) This is in direct contradiction to what God tells us in His Word. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” (Proverbs 22:15) “Oh, but the rod isn’t a physical instrument,” people will tell me. Really? Please study all of the verses that mention the rod and you will see that this isn’t true.

How does God discipline us? Is He only positive and encouraging? No! “For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6). Chasten means “to correct by punishment; to punish; to inflict pain of reclaiming an offender; as, to chasten a son with a rod.” Scourge means “to afflict for sins or faults, and with the purpose of correction.”

Who are we to think we know better than God? No, God doesn’t mean that we should physically abuse our children in any way. We use the rod of correction as a tool to make them obey and this teaches them self-discipline which benefits them for life. Many things in God’s Word have been taken to extremes and have caused harm for people. This is not God’s way. His way ends in peace and goodness not in evil and harm.

“My other reasons for advising against physical punishment are, in brief, that it teaches children that might makes right, that it encourages some children to be bullies, and most fundamentally, that to the degree that it results in good behavior it’s because of the fear of pain. I have a strong belief that the best reason for behaving well is that you like people, want to get along with them, want them to like you.” (p. 173)

On the contrary, pain and fear are great motivators for good as I shared in the above verse about how God disciplines us. My children were all spanked when they sinned against us or others and none of them were bullies or got into physical fights with others. They were kind to others, respected authority, and were a joy to raise. A one year old can’t comprehend “liking people” as much as they can quickly comprehend a small amount of pain that is swiftly administered for disobedience.

“I don’t think physical punishment is necessary or particularly effective.” (p. 215) It sure has been for centuries before you wrote your book, Dr. Spock. Children were much better behaved than they are now. God’s ways will always trumps man’s ways.

“All schools should be friendly, creative places like the best I’ve seen. We should wean ourselves away from physical punishment.” (p. 33) When I went to elementary school, the principal had a wooden paddle in his office and he used it! Children were well-behaved for the most part. There was nothing going on like there is in the schools today. A swat on the back side is a quick, effective method against disobedience. (I just did read that 19 states still allow corporal punishment in schools.)

“Recently I visited a small private school . . . with the idea of asking children . . . what advice to parents they’d like me to incorporate in the forthcoming revision of Baby and Child Care. In a thoughtful mood, the class was unanimous that parents should not hit their children. . . One child added that if you’re crying and your parent tells you to stop and then hits you when you don’t stop, it only makes you cry more.” (p. 229-233)

And asking children how they should be disciplined is a wise thing? If he asked adults how they would like their government to run, I’m sure some immature adults would say that they shouldn’t be put in prison for abusing drugs, driving drunk, and getting tickets for speeding and running red lights. Children do NOT know best how they should be raised. Why not interview parents of adult children who are now upstanding citizens and ask how they raised their children instead?

“I hope American parents can outgrow the conviction . . . that physical punishment is necessary to bring up well-behaved children. . . [T]here are parts of the world where it has never occurred to any adult to strike a child. I have known personally or professionally dozens of families in which the parents never lifted a hand–or otherwise punished or humiliated their children–and yet the children were ideally cooperative and polite. Children are eager to be ever more grown up and responsible.” (p. 13)

Yes, I am sure parents can raise good children without ever spanking them but it takes a lot more time, energy, and effort and to tell you the truth, I haven’t seen many who are successful at it. In order for spankings to work, a parent must be consistent, firm, and loving. It doesn’t work without these three key ingredients.

“There are several reasons to avoid physical punishment. It teaches children that the larger, stronger person has the power to get his way, whether or not he is in the right. Some spanked children then feel quite justified in beating up on smaller ones. The American tradition of spanking may be one reason there is much more violence in our country than in any other comparable nation.”

No, it teaches children that they must obey and respect the authority in their lives, whether they be parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, and government which is a good thing. My children never beat up on the smaller ones. If they did, they would have been spanked and would have never done it again!

Since your book has been practiced, Dr. Spock, violence has sky-rocketed in our nation. No, thank you. I much prefer God’s ways to your ways since God is our Creator who made us and knows the right and perfect way to parent children.

Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.
Proverbs 19:18

If you are a mother, your job, career, and calling is motherhood. It doesn’t matter whether or not you like it or if it bores you, your life on this earth isn’t about doing what you want and liking it. It’s about believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and obeying Him. Therefore, you can choose to love and enjoy motherhood as God’s ordained calling on your life. You can learn to accept that godliness with contentment is great gain and you can live out motherhood heartily as unto the Lord.

Since women have so many choices today, it makes it easier to be discontent with God’s calling on our lives. Motherhood just doesn’t seem very glamorous but what job or career is truly glamorous? There are none! I remember reading about Carrie Underwood’s “glamorous” life traveling in a bus all around the country and away from her family. That doesn’t sound very glamorous to me!

If it’s fame and fortune a woman seeks over motherhood, we can label this pride since their life is only about themselves instead of what’s best for their children. If it’s so they can have more stuff than they actually need, we can label it greed since their life is not about doing what is right for their children’s spiritual lives.

Years ago, I read about Brother Lawrence and how he learned to find joy in peeling potatoes all day long. Learning to find joy and contentment in motherhood is attainable if women renew their mind with God’s will for them. God’s will is for them to raise their own children and find joy in it; for the joy of the Lord is their strength!

Yes, motherhood is hard and full of self-sacrifice but as my pastor taught: “Grace calls us to love. Love calls us to serve. Service calls us to sacrifice.” Loving your children is serving and sacrificing for them. In the end, there is a lot more joy and contentment one learns in serving and sacrificing for others instead of serving themselves. Motherhood is all about serving and sacrifice and this is what the Lord calls mothers to do. He did it for us. We can do it for Him!

Do your children know that you love motherhood? Do they know that you love being their mother? As you find joy in motherhood, you are teaching and training your daughters to find joy in motherhood, in the menial, in the every day messiness and sacrifice of life. This is what our Savior calls us to do and you can do it because He has given you His Holy Spirit that works mightily within you!

She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Proverbs 31:26, 27

Written By Jonas Sikes

Why is this generation of kids, out of touch with Jesus, more disrespectful than ever, not caring about anything what so ever?

Well, lets take a look back in time… not so long ago, there was a generation who started to ignore God’s Word, allow the devil into their homes, via cable TV, and in many cases, had two to three jobs so they weren’t really home doing the “Family Thing”

Compromise kept increasing and much evil slowly became good….

Many young couples don’t want to have children because they are fearful and see how evil the world is around them. Should they bring children into this world when there is so much turmoil? I was listening to Nancy Wolgemuth last week and she was sharing the idea that we are living on the dot. Time on this earth is short, very short compared to eternity. Eternity is the line after the dot. Are you living for the dot or for eternity?

God commanded that we be fruitful and multiply and He’s never taken back this command. He tells us that the man who has a quiverful is blessed and that children are a gift from Him. Recently, I have been watching three of my grandchildren a lot. I love it! They bring so much joy into our lives. We often laugh at and with them. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to bring the joy of children into their lives if God blesses them with them!

Birth control and not wanting children are not from God. The mindset that we shouldn’t have children because of the evil culture we live in is not from God, either. Because we live for the line (eternity) instead of the dot (here and now), we don’t have to live in fear. We have freedom from fear! We don’t need to fear the future since we know what our future holds and that God controls the future.

When I asked the women in the chat room about this question, Lindsay Harold responded with the following:

“Having children and raising them to know the Lord and make a difference in their world is one of the best ways to make the world a better place. Plus, while our society is certainly in decline, we still have far more freedom, wealth, health, and knowledge of God than most of the people who have ever lived. Countless generations before us managed to bear and raise children in a truly terrible world. Most did not even know if their children would survive to adulthood. If they could raise children in poverty, in squalor, in a godless world, and hold out hope for a better tomorrow, who are we to complain or lose hope when we live in far more wealth and luxury than the kings of their time and we know that the King of Kings has come and given us new life?

“Every child in a Christian home is a tangible hope that life will go on, more people will be taught about God, and more people will be in heaven. That’s far more important than an idealized and impractical notion that children should only be born into the most perfect of situations. If our ancestors had taken that view, none of us would be here.”

We are choosing to either live on the dot of the here and now and have the attitude that Gina has towards not having children: “That’s a good thing! The world is overpopulated. We need less sperm count and less straight couples reproducing.” Or you can live on the line of eternity and have the attitude Amanda has about having children: “If every Christian couple that were able, had many children and raised them in God’s ways, there would be so many more Christians in the world – families raising up their small armies for the Lord – more of a majority to stand for the things of the Lord. Maybe so much wickedness wouldn’t be abounding.”

Let’s live for eternity, women. Every child that you bring into this world is an eternal soul and a blessing. Raise your children up in the Lord and in His wonderful ways. In this way, you are making  your spot on this dot a beautiful  and joy-filled place!

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
Psalm 127:5

God is a God of beauty and order. The roles He has ordained are for beauty and order. As the Church submits to Christ, wives are to submit to their husbands. This brings beauty and order to marriage. Husbands as providers and wives as keepers at home bring beauty and order. Nothing but chaos results when we leave God’s created order.

In the book “The Boy Crisis,” the authors clearly spell out the problems boys and men are having today. “The boy crisis cannot be solved, then, without addressing the most important single crisis in developed countries: dad-deprived children and especially dad-deprived boys. The boy crisis’ primary cause is dad-deprived boys. Depriving a child of his or her dad is depriving a child of part of her or his life. Dads – like moms, air, and water – are essential to our lives. Dad-enriched boys tend to fill the purpose void with constructive new senses of purpose; dad-deprived boys are more likely to either drown in their purpose void, or fill it with destructive senses of purpose.”

I have only read about a fourth of this book but a few of their solutions are unbiblical and are what have led to this boy crisis of fatherless boys. “Help our daughters and sons free themselves from the rigid roles of the past toward more flexible roles for their future” and “The good news is gender roles within your son’s lifetime have the potential for a greater liberation of rigid roles for our son as well as your daughter.”

No, Dr. Farrell and Dr. Gray, we can’t leave the “rigid roles of the past” and expect good results. God has created mothers with their sensitive and emotional nature to be the ones home full time with their children and He has created fathers with testosterone pumping through their bodies to be the ones to protect and provide for their families. These roles create beauty and order in families. Leaving these roles will continue to create chaos.

Yes, I do agree that boys desperately need fathers. I believe mothers need to stay married to their son’s fathers until death do they part. I believe fathers need to make time to be with their sons and model godly manhood to them. They need to teach their sons to work hard and be faithful but they don’t need their fathers to take their mother’s role in their lives and they don’t need their mothers to take their father’s role of providing. This isn’t how God created it to be.

God is perfect and His will is perfect for us. If we expect to get good results in raising children, we must follow His instruction manual. He created us and knows exactly what He created us for. Let’s not mess with His created order.

Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.
Jeremiah 6:16

*I do recommend this book even though the authors write highly of the Women’s Rights movement. They do tackle many of the problems boys and men are having today and give some great solutions so it’s worth reading, however, I wanted to make a huge disclaimer of why I can’t wholeheartedly endorse it.

One of the main arguments for sending Christian children to public schools is so that they can be salt and light. Is this a valid argument? Here is what Lindy Johnson had to say about it.

“If we are to go and be salt and light, why do parents never put their kids in Muslim schools? Those schools could certainly use some light. Why don’t they send their kids to the bars on the weekends to preach the Gospel?

“And how can a kindergartner who is not even saved yet be salt and light?

“And how can we teach our kids to be salt and light if they are not with us to see our example?

“Do we just ignore the Biblical commands to teach our kids throughout the day from Deuteronomy 6? What about to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? (The Greek word here used for “nurture” literally means to educate.)

“What about when Scripture tells us to not learn about other gods? (Greek mythology taught in schools).

“What about when Proverbs warns us against foolish companions and the NT tells us not to fellowship with unbelievers?

“And can children not be more effective at being salt and light when they are not bound to a building for seven hours a day where they are not allowed to boldly and clearly preach the Gospel but instead going to the park with their parents to tell others about Christ there?

“The people I have met who use the salt and light argument do not spend the couple of hours a day they have with their kids to teach them how to share the Gospel. They take them to even more activities in the world. The salt and light argument is an excuse to live the way they want to live. Otherwise, we would be having revival in our public schools.”

Then Simon Turpin wrote this about children being salt and light: “One of the objections Christians raise to taking their child out of government schools is that they need to be ‘salt and light’ in that school system (see Matthew 5:13–16). However, this argument is not based on a proper understanding of the text. In Matthew 5, Jesus is telling his followers (those who believe) that they are salt and light, not that they should be salt and light. It’s a statement of fact, not a command to go and do something. The purpose in educating our children is to train them with the intention of sending them into the world.” (Simon Turpin)

Mature Christians who have deep roots in the Word are salt and light. Children need to be raised up in the admonition and nurture of the Lord by their parents in order to be salt and light when they are mature and grounded in their faith.

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
2 Corinthians 1:16, 17

“Can you maybe write a post, on your blog, regarding African-American mothers of young children and how we are the same as other women? You see, I am often cut-off from family and friends because my husband and I do NOT buy into the ‘you should teach your kids black pride’ narrative. When I tell even close family (siblings), that ‘diversity’ is NOT important to us, that only JESUS is important to us, they get angry with me…….

“I do NOT want my kids to grow up thinking that the world owes them something because they are African-American and because they are ‘victims’; they are NOT, but they are sinners just like everyone else and they need a SAVIOR. My hubby and I think that this narrative is TOXIC and one of the ways that Satan uses to keep people from truly knowing Jesus. Therefore, I MUST keep my kids, unfortunately, from being influenced by MOST of my family.

“That hurts me a lot, but I remind myself (and them) that my allegiance does not belong to them, only to my husband and children, and we want our children to grow in CHRIST, NOT based on RACE!

“It makes me so sad and angry! They NEVER want to look at themselves to see what they are doing wrong, they only want to push false narratives…..! Its SICKENING!

“Do you ever have anyone else ask you that question, Miss Lori? Have any African-American men ever asked Ken that question? Sometimes I am not sure how to deal with it, and I have lost many family members who have been offended because I will NOT let my children hang out with them.

“They also get mad because of where hubby and I have decided to live….as if we should live next to other African-Americans even if it means that our children will not see and be exposed to Jesus, which is the ONLY thing that matters to me!

“Lori, is there any chance that you can address this in one of your posts on your blog, specifically? Please forgive me if I am being too forward or if I m asking too much or if I am being long-winded—I am trying to find like-minded women but they seem to few and far…..”

I received this email from a woman and here is my post for her. First of all, this is what God states about pride: “Pride goes before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). The only thing that we should take pride in is knowing Jesus Christ as our Savior. “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14). 

When I was growing up, we sang a song that went, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” This is how we should be raising our children. The color of one’s skin means nothing. We are all equal in value and worth. We are all sinners in need of a Savior as this woman stated and once we believe, God calls us saints no matter what the color of the skin.

God hates division among His children. He has called us to be a peace with ALL men as far as it depends upon us. “Black pride” and division should not be named among us; for we are all one in Christ. “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).

Raising children with a victim mentality is one of the worse things you can do for them. Teach them, instead, who they are in Christ and that they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them. Teach them that life isn’t fair and they need to learn to work hard, love others, and treat them as they want to be treated. Teach them how destructive bitterness is and how we are to forgive each other 70 times seven times, yes, even the sins of past generations. Teach them to be full of grace and mercy towards others.

In this way, you will raise children who are a benefit to their culture. They will grow up to be productive citizens who hold nothing against others. They will be salt and light to a wicked and adulterous nation since they are not grumbling and complaining about their “lot” in life but thanking the Lord for all the good they have; for godliness with contentment is great gain!

Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.
Philippians 2:15