Pooping on Michael Pearl

[thoughtful]

I didn't see anything about this posted yet, though it is from August. Mods, please merge if I am wrong.

We all know how Michael Pearl has always scorned adults who can't handle children, who yell and lose control, who are not totally the masters of their kids (even if he had to make up imaginary straw-parents to do it).

Imagine that he heard a story in which a 2-year-old didn't obey, didn't eat all he was offered, then an adult read a story to try to get the child sleepy and took the child into his bed (instead of expecting him to sleep, immediately and alone, when ordered to do so), the child jumped all over the bed and the adult, grabbing, poking and smothering him, but the adult mostly yelled, whined, flailed and complained, then fell asleep and left the child unsupervised, and the child shit all over the kitchen floor! I can only imagine he would have included it in To Train Up a Child as an example of weak, permissive parenting.

But he tells such a story, and it's about him. :shock:

He "somehow" :roll: ended up briefly responsible for his grandson, who wouldn't eat anything he was offered but beans and cantaloupe, then wouldn't settle down to nap after having a book read to him. So Mike took him to his own bed, and they lay down together.

He kept fidgeting until he got bored, and then he started in on me. He climbed on me and jumped up and down like a bull rider. I bucked him off and told him in my most commanding voice, “Go to sleep.â€

Instead, he grabbed my nose and tried to unscrew it. My mother had it permanently attached, and it didn’t come loose, but it was not his fault. I pushed his hand away and tapped him on the head with a knuckle before whining my protest.

He lay still for a minute, and then out of nowhere, he hit me with a pillow, and let out his inherited rebel yell. I was under assault, so I grabbed a pillow and held it tight over my head so he couldn’t hit me with his. He was still for a minute, and then I felt additional pillows being piled on top of the one already covering my head. He then threw the covers over the pile of well-placed pillows and pressed his body down on the top. He was trying to smother me to death! I ran out of air real fast and had to come up gasping.

He rolled off the pile, but managed to bore his little finger into my belly button as he passed by. I catapulted him to the other side of the bed and commenced complaining strongly. He thought it was quite an achievement and complimented himself with a triumphant dance in the middle of the king-size bed.

Finally, I had had enough, so I searched into my past and found my scariest voice, commanded him in no uncertain terms that his mother expected him to take a nap, and that he was going to take a nap if we had to stay there all afternoon. He got quiet for the first time.

I guess I should be glad that the "tap" on the head and flinging the child off was as violent as he got. For Pearl, that's pretty gentle. But it sure doesn't sound like his usual "I said it once, quietly, and was obeyed, because training works" stories.

Pearl claims he's "won," but the child doesn't fall asleep - Pearl does.

I heard a yell coming from somewhere far away, and I struggled to consciousness. I had been asleep! He put me to sleep! I jumped up and staggered to the kitchen. He was standing in the middle of the floor with his legs spread apart, pointing to a pile… no, two piles… no, four or five piles… and a number of spears of brown, stinky, cantaloupe and beans poopoo—on my kitchen floor!

He was whining and complaining and explaining why he could not go to the bathroom, because he couldn’t undo the buttons on his pants. He was very unhappy with himself, and he blamed me for sleeping when I was supposed to be babysitting.

Then, he tries to clean the child:

When I tried to put him into the tub, clothes and all, he began to resist. I later found out that he doesn’t like to be in the tub. To hold on to him and get him undressed, I had to change my grip several times. You guessed it, I got contaminated.

I didn’t know whether to take my clothes off and get in the tub with him or to try to clean him up first. At the thought of sharing a tub with him, a premonition of impending disaster came over me. So I stripped him and washed him from head to foot—three times—him hollering the whole time. I knew he was going to tell bad things about me when the women showed up.

A child who doesn't like being in the tub? You'd be all over someone else for not "training" him to tolerate it, Mike.

He claims he also cleaned the floor, but, judging from this quote he didn't finish the job:

When the ladies returned, I handed him off to his mother and told them that I never could get him to take a nap. Shoshanna said, “Oh, I fed him and gave him a nap before I brought him over.â€

Then from the kitchen I heard my wife ask, “What is this brown stuff on the floor?†Over my shoulder, as I was heading out the door, I said, “See you girls later. So long, poop head.†To all mothers of two-year-olds, you have my deepest respect.

I guess he thinks that last line makes it all OK. :roll:

He may be losing it, mellowing (ha!) or this is his way of publicly shaming Shoshanna for not training his grandchild well enough, or not telling him that the child didn't need lunch or a nap.

Just about the only thing it has in common with his usual stories is his "it's me vs. the kid" attitude, and his apparent glee in grossing readers out. Obnoxious as ever, but obnoxious in a slightly different way, I guess.

nogreaterjoy.org/articles/dont-send-grandpa-mothers-work/

[MamaJunebug]

This elderly boydult is truly disgusting, as is anybody who admires him.

But this story doesn't surprise me. Debi writes rapturously in one of her books about Mikey swinging a couple of full trash bags around as he took them to the collection point. Eventually the movement of the bags broke them, trash scattered everywhere, and Mikey barely broke stride as he continued on, either implying or directly telling Debi that it was up to her to pick it all up.

Creating messes and walking away from them, telling the "girls" to clean them up, seems to be shorthand for his life and work.

Again, disgusting.

[Mama Mia]

Actually this struck me as really, heartbreakingly sad.

Here is an old guy telling a typical Grandpa type story - loving on his cute little toddler grandson. Trying to get him to do stuff. Being ignored. Wrestling. The kid is probably giddy with giggles most of the time. Grandpas loving every second. Then oops, falls asleep, big gross mess. But he's handling it and cleaning up the best he can with a struggling NORMAL toddler. Happy to finally be released he leaves the last of the clean-up to the kids mom.

It all sounds like such a nice, normal, loving ( if ultimately messy and gross) interaction. And then you realize this is the same guy who tells people to beat their babies. To not let them show any negative emotion. To obey always immediately, or be beaten some more.

Can he not even see the disconnect between his loving relationship with this little boy and the stiff, stilted, fearful relationships his advice causes? So sad.

[Trynn]

That is the sort of thing I like to know as a babysitter-- has the kid had a nap? How does he like to fall asleep, has he eaten recently, had a diaper Change, etc.

I'd sympathize with a normal man, pearl just deserves it.

I also doubt the child was trying to smother him to death. He probably just thought I would be fun to pile pillows on grandpa and didn't realize grandpa couldn't breathe. Stop attaching motivations to a child who probably can't think beyond "ooooohhhhh shiny!"

[polecat]

I don't understand how the kid managed to get multiple piles of poo across the kitchen floor if he couldn't get his pants off. In my experiences with kids, if there was a poop accident (and thankfully, I don't recall having too many of those), the poo didn't randomly fall out of the kid's undies but instead got all smushed up in there.

And I think this could actually have been a cute story about a grandkid getting one over on grandpa even if unintentionally had it not been for Pearl's hateful philosophy and language (rapping the kid in the head with his knuckles, etc.) and the fact that he left poop everywhere for someone else to clean up. Gross.

[Mama Mia]

Meh... I took the whole tone with the wrapping the kid on the head with his knuckles, the overly dramatic suffocation etc as just him trying to tell a cute story about a really special time wrestling around and being silly with his grandson. Obviously he wasn't really going to be smothered to death by a 2 year old. Just normal Grandpa rough housing.

That's what made it so sad to me. Why would you take those sweet, funny, disgusting stories of childhood and PURPOSEFULLY turn the child into an obedient little robot with no spark? Why would you want to turn parents into abusive task masters who must squash the personality out of a child. It's such a huge cognitive disconnect.

Eta: as to the poop accident itself.... I had one who somehow managed to do that, a lot. I really dont even understand how he did it, but transitioning out of diapers with that one- :ew:

[Jana814]

Why was he even briefly in charge of his grandchild?

[Walking Cat Bed]

Wait, is Mikey trying to pass this off as an event that happened? Because, aside from making a run for it when the women returned (so he wouldn't have to deal with poop-cleaning), I read it as his attempt to satirize "liberal"/non-beating parents.

[It'sFunToRun]

I love the title, and that story was hilarious! If that was all I knew about Michael Pearl, I would like him.

I don't get why he didn't beat his grandson though? Did he change his mind about corporal punishment?

[thoughtful]

Actually this struck me as really, heartbreakingly sad.

Here is an old guy telling a typical Grandpa type story - loving on his cute little toddler grandson. Trying to get him to do stuff. Being ignored. Wrestling. The kid is probably giddy with giggles most of the time. Grandpas loving every second. Then oops, falls asleep, big gross mess. But he's handling it and cleaning up the best he can with a struggling NORMAL toddler. Happy to finally be released he leaves the last of the clean-up to the kids mom.

It all sounds like such a nice, normal, loving ( if ultimately messy and gross) interaction. And then you realize this is the same guy who tells people to beat their babies. To not let them show any negative emotion. To obey always immediately, or be beaten some more.

Can he not even see the disconnect between his loving relationship with this little boy and the stiff, stilted, fearful relationships his advice causes? So sad.

It could be that he was really enjoying the tussle with his grandson.

Here's the thing about Pearl, though. He tells all kinds of stories gleefully -- especially stories about disciplining children. I've read a lot of what he's written (insert shudder here) and even I wasn't sure if this story was meant to be all in fun, or he really was trying to make the child calm down, and failing badly.

A lot of what he considers fun is pretty sadistic, too.

But either way, you're right -- whether he was thinking "hey, forgive me -- I'm an old dude who isn't good with kids" or "I was having fun with the kid," it's sad.

He doesn't seem to have a clue how much damage he's done over the years. So many children whipped and beaten in his name, and for what?

:(

[16strong]

He doesn't seem to have a clue how much damage he's done over the years. So many children whipped and beaten in his name, and for what?

:(

For his sadistic pleasure, that's what.

[thoughtful]

That is the sort of thing I like to know as a babysitter-- has the kid had a nap? How does he like to fall asleep, has he eaten recently, had a diaper Change, etc.

I'd sympathize with a normal man, pearl just deserves it.

I also doubt the child was trying to smother him to death. He probably just thought I would be fun to pile pillows on grandpa and didn't realize grandpa couldn't breathe. Stop attaching motivations to a child who probably can't think beyond "ooooohhhhh shiny!"

I didn't think he was trying to smother him to death, and I'm sure Pearl didn't either. It is the kind of thing, however, that Pearl would have jumped on if the story was about someone else, which was pretty much my point for posting about the whole episode.

After all, Pearl claims that babies are in full rebellion and sinning just for crying -- a two-year-old piling bedclothes on an adult who is just trying to hide from flailing arms and legs is the kind of thing he'd love to point out as a sign of bad parenting in someone else.

He loves to tell this story, proud of his little girl:

My nine- and eleven-year-old daughters came in from a neighbor's house complaining of a young mother's failure to train her child. A seven-month-old boy had, upon failing to get his way, stiffened, clenched his fists, bared his toothless gums and called down damnation on the whole place. At a time like that, the angry expression on a baby's face can resemble that of one instigating a riot. The young mother, wanting to do the right thing, stood there in helpless consternation, apologetically shrugged her shoulders and said, "What can I do?" My incredulous nine-year-old whipped back, "Switch him." The mother responded, "I can't, he's too little." With the wisdom of a veteran who had been on the little end of the switch, my daughter answered, "If he is old enough to pitch a fit, he is old enough to be spanked."

And I'm with you about the information -- he passive-aggressively implied that it was his daughter's fault for not telling him the child was fed and had taken his nap. He could have asked before the women left.

[Jana814]

That story above is disturbing!! The fact that a 9 year old said that is just sad!!

[Coco]

That description of the 7 month old in the second story just shows how twisted his theology is. To attribute that much anger and spite to a tiny baby is just projection. (bared toothless gums and called down damnation? yeah, no. If there ever WAS a baby with that much anger it would be a dietary problem or sleep problem or previous abuse) That young is still old enough to learn from a calm parent helping them get through the problem. (sounds like bs but i actually do this technique every day with my kids and it does work). A calm mom gently redirecting their attention or helping them get over the problem can teach them to think about what is making them upset and figure out a solution if the parent TAKES THE TIME. But a mother of many doesn't have that time. So, hitting the child. (i'm not perfect but i don't want to repeat the shit that i experienced, and thank fsm for gentle parenting websites and parent groups).

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood (the pbs show) is great at this. They show solutions for sharing, for going potty, for when two kids want to play different games, etc. etc. With a song for everything. :lol: My almost 5 year old sings those songs to her little brother already. Sometimes it annoys me because i don't want to take the time to actually fix the problem, but hello -- that's parenting. Michael Pearl just needs to STFU and stop trying to passive-aggressively punish his daughter with his fake-cute story, for raising what he'd call a brat in any other example he'd write.

[thoughtful]

That story above is disturbing!! The fact that a 9 year old said that is just sad!!

That's classic Pearl -- he's got a million of them.

Here's one:

THREE-YEAR-OLD MOTHER

The other day at our house, a three-year-old little girl was playing with dolls. (Let me interject: All children's dolls should be BABY dolls, not "Barbie" dolls. The fantasy arising from playing with baby dolls causes the child to role-play mother. The fantasy arising from Barbie dolls causes a child to role-play a sex goddess. "As a [child] thinketh in his heart so is he (Prov. 23: 7)."

This little girl was role-playing mother. Up until about a year ago, she was disobedient and spoiled. After some counseling, the parents straightened up on their training and discipline. Today she is an ideal little girl, always obedient and cheerful. What was interesting is the role she assumed with her baby. In her imagination the baby started crying after being given a command. She scolded her baby, turned her over and spanked her. She then spoke comforting, reassuring words and praised her baby for being good. She perfectly mimicked the loving, patient tone and firmness of her own mother.

As we sneaked a peek at the proceedings, she continued her "mother practice" session. Several situations arose with her rag baby which she promptly and firmly dealt with like an old pro. In fact, I could not have handled the make-believe situations any better. She told the screaming child (a rag doll). "No! That's not nice. You can't have it now. Stop your crying. SWITCH, SWITCH. If you don't stop crying, Mama will have to spank you again. SWITCH, SWITCH, SWITCH. OK, stop crying now. That's better. Now see if you can play happily."

Here is a three-year-old "mother" already prepared to rear happy obedient children. She knows exactly what to expect from her mother. And, what is further amazing, she knows exactly what her mother expects from her. She disciplined her baby doll for attitudes, not actions. This three-year-old little girl is a near finished product. The battle is won.

[It'sFunToRun]

That's classic Pearl -- he's got a million of them.

Here's one:

The most disturbing thing wasn't the baby spanking; I had expected that. It was this line:

She disciplined her baby doll for attitudes, not actions.

They're not trying to get good behavior; they're trying to control thoughts :shock:

[It'sFunToRun]

That's classic Pearl -- he's got a million of them.

Here's one:

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:

Just wanted to add: when I was in the military, we sometimes got lectures on all kinds of different topics, and one of them was from a school psychologist talking about classroom discipline. She said you should do the exact OPPOSITE of what Michael Pearl said, and punish and criticize behaviors only. The example that she used was that you shouldn't tell a kid "Jacob, I was unhappy with the way you disturbed the class today.", instead you should say " Jacob, I was unhappy with you for clicking your pen on the table all day and throwing paper at the other students." I.e, you blame the exact behavior (clicking pen, throwing paper) and not a general attitude (being disturbing)

[FloraKitty35]

Michael Pearl is an evil sadistic shit for brains.

[Jana814]

Michael Pearl is an evil sadistic shit for brains.

This times 100!

[polecat]

The most disturbing thing wasn't the baby spanking; I had expected that. It was this line:

She disciplined her baby doll for attitudes, not actions.

They're not trying to get good behavior; they're trying to control thoughts :shock:

I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I do understand this. I don't want my kids to outwardly obey while struggling internally. IOW, I would be far more concerned with a child who had a lot of anger, resentment and hatred simmering beneath the surface while *acting* right compared to a child whose heart was in the "right" place but whose behavior left something to be desired. If that makes sense ...

That said, punishing a child for his/her thoughts and feelings is ignorant and abusive. Finding the root of the problem and helping the child sort it out seems like it'd be far more productive . I feel awful for the child in this story either way.

[It'sFunToRun]

I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I do understand this. I don't want my kids to outwardly obey while struggling internally. IOW, I would be far more concerned with a child who had a lot of anger, resentment and hatred simmering beneath the surface while *acting* right compared to a child whose heart was in the "right" place but whose behavior left something to be desired. If that makes sense ...

That said, punishing a child for his/her thoughts and feelings is ignorant and abusive. Finding the root of the problem and helping the child sort it out seems like it'd be far more productive . I feel awful for the child in this story either way.

But punishing someone for a bad attitude will just make them suppress their feelings more (or act out more), not get over it.

[polecat]

But punishing someone for a bad attitude will just make them suppress their feelings more (or act out more), not get over it.

Yeah. I said that.

[RosyDaisy]

That doll story is very disturbing on so many levels.

[Jana814]

That doll story is very disturbing on so many levels.

So very true!!

[RosyDaisy]

If you inflict pain on a child he/she will cry. This is logic 101, oh wait, we're talking about Mike Pearl.