[6boysmom]

This pamphlet was written by Pat Fabrizio. The pastor at a church gave this to me on my first mother's day as a "gift". On an earlier thread, "I don't understand" I mentioned that a pastor preached on and demonstrated discipline. He and his wife swore by that booklet and that's the booklet they gave me. I ended up being so upset by the book that I invited them over for dinner and asked them why they were promoting a book that tells parents to abuse their children. Oops! I didn't realize at the time how ingrained these people's beliefs were. I really thought they didn't know. They literally said I had a rebellious spirit in me and later told my mother that she had the "spirit of Jezebel".

Obviously we left that church soon after, but I had never been exposed to this type of discipline in my life. I was raised with getting an occasional swat and that was my perception of spanking at the time. One reason I joined this forum was because of my experiences at this church and how many people are being taught that this is how to discipline a child.

As a side note, I felt something was off when we started attending the church. One family sat in the front row with 4 "perfect" children (ages 1,2, 4 & 6!!!!) I also invited this mother over for lunch because I was so impressed (and just gave birth to my first precious son). I had been a nanny for 10 years and had never seen such wonderful children so I was curious. Well after our discussion, my eyes were wide open and my heart still cringes in fear and disgust as to what she told me. Her main advice was to never take my child to a doctor within a couple weeks of a good spanking because the bruising was so significant. Believe me that this was many years ago and if I knew what I know now I would've called CPS.