Train up A Child – Part 2
TimeWatch Editorial
January 04, 2016
In part 1, we looked at the theory of child rearing put forward by Dr. Benjamin McLane Spock, an American pediatrician who in 1946 published a book entitled: The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. Reb Bradley, of the World Net Daily website, on January 27, 2009, in his article entitled: “How Dr. Spock Destroyed America.” says:
“Spock wrote his book in response to a cold, authoritarian philosophy of parenting that had been dominant in America. For years, parents had been told to withhold affection from their children – not to touch them too often – not to respond to their tears. Understanding of children had not been encouraged, and fathers had held a minor role in their nurture and care. These things distressed Spock, and they would have upset me had I been born back then. Children need our tender affection, understanding and respect. However, Spock’s solutions reflected total ignorance of the hedonistic bent of human nature and fostered an over-exalted sense of self-importance in children. Homes became hotbeds for narcissism, entitlement and victim thinking.”Reb Bradley, World Net Daily, January 27, 2009, “How Dr. Spock Destroyed America.”
Reb Bradley places the responsibility for the condition of the family, and the lack of morality in the society upon the head of Dr. Spock’s and his influence. His instruction to parents to allow their children to develop their own personalities without restraint is seen as the cause of the slippage in society’s moral standards.
“Since 1960, the rate of violent crimes has more than tripled. Every day there are news reports of heinous crimes unheard of in America a generation ago. Children murder their playmates, their teachers and their parents. Teenage mothers abandon their newborn babies in trashcans, and every year students commit carnage on their classmates. Our culture has sunk so low that children are no longer safe with their teachers in school or at church – scores of men and women are arrested every year for preying on the children under their care.” Reb Bradley, World Net Daily, January 27, 2009, “How Dr. Spock Destroyed America.”
Reb Bradley does not stop there. He continues to develop his argument specifically placing the blame where as far as he is concerned, it truly belongs.
“The sexual revolution that started in the ’60s continues with many casualties. Promiscuity has become so rampant that 1 of every 4 teenage girls now has a sexually transmitted infection. In the last five decades, practices have become so deviant that the number of distinct STDs had risen from five to more than 50 – a sudden increase of a thousand percent. Obsession with sexual violence has brought a 318 percent increase in sexual assault.” Reb Bradley, World Net Daily, January 27, 2009, “How Dr. Spock Destroyed America.”
Reb Bradley very closely approximates the counsel given by another author. The name of the book is, Fundamentals of Christian Education, written by Ellen G. White. Listen to this statement found on page 57, paragraph 1:
“No work every undertaken by man requires greater care and skill than the proper training and education of youth and children. There are no influences so potent as those which surround us in our early years. Says the wise man,
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." The nature of man is threefold, and the training enjoined by Solomon comprehends the right development of the physical, intellectual, and moral powers. To perform this work aright, parents and teachers must themselves understand "the way the child should go." This embraces more than a knowledge of books or the learning of the schools. It comprehends the practice of temperance, brotherly kindness, and godliness; the discharge of our duty to ourselves, to our neighbors, and to God.” {FE 57.1}
That counsel might seem to be enough, but there is more, much more. Indeed in another one of her books, the Adventist Home, on page 182, paragraph 6 she says:
“It is by the youth and children of today that the future of society is to be determined, and what these youth and children shall be depends upon the home. To the lack of right home training may be traced the larger share of the disease and misery and crime that curse humanity. If the home life were pure and true, if the children who went forth from its care were prepared to meet life's responsibilities and dangers, what a change would be seen in the world!” {AH 182.6}
Reb Bradley is not that far off the mark at all. Indeed, the fruit of flawed parenting has already produced the seed of the future. But for those of you who are paying attention, in your homes, the process can be reversed.
Cameron A. Bowen
