Quote:
the freedom of soul and conscience that mine do
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He could raise a family full of Mother Teresas and I would still not use his lab-rat style behavioristic methods. The end does not justify the means.
And he doesn't really know which part of his family life contributed to these qualities in his children (if indeed he can claim credit) -- the Pearls emphasize some very GOOD things with which we would all agree: perhaps the children benefited from the fun times of relationship building they all had together, the supportive inter-relationships of a large family, or the groundwork laid by breastfeeding and co-sleeping. Perhaps their parents were gifted teachers of bible stories which the children took to heart.
Too often people (of all parenting stripes) generalize from a certain personal outcome without realizing that their lives and their children's lives aren't science experiments. They haven't isolated all the variables. They can't repeat the experiment with one variable changed. For example, Pearl can't tell us how much "freedom of soul and conscience" his children had with the same upbringing minus the behavioristic whippings.
And lastly, and I say this gently, as the parent of grown kids, knowing Michael Pearl is also the parent of grown kids: we have wonderful children--he does, I'm sure--and so do I. But without even knowing his children I can know this about them: they are not perfect. They hurt. They make mistakes. They struggle. They are prideful and overly simplistic at times; and crippled by shame and hesitancy at others. Yes--they are beautiful examples of human beings, his children (I assume), and mine (I know.) But they are not perfect. If they were, they would not be human. If it were possible to raise children to perfection, then God would have sent a parenting method, not Jesus. Our marching orders are not to raise our children by a method to be like Michael Pearl's children. Our marching orders are to be Christians to and with our children.
Ooops--Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now.