Visionary Womanhood Is So Full of... A Number of Things

[Witsec1]

So, I don't usually read fundie blogs, 'cause I'd rather let you guys do the work, and I'm a slacker like that. But lately I've been hooked on Visionary Womanhood- visionarywomanhood.com/

 

She has a review of a book, "The Faithful Parent" , which according to the Amazon reviews recommends beating 6 month old babies. Oh joy, another one!

 

One of the related posts under this review is a post on the Tripps' "Instructing a Child's Heart", which yields this delightful quote from the book:

 

 

Quote

…There is a popular method of child management that powerfully illustrates my point. “Honey, you can wear the red shirt, the green shirt, or the blue shirt. It’s up to you.â€

It does not occur to a three-year-old that there are more than three shirts in the closet. He makes his choice. Mother is indifferent to which shirt the child chooses. All are equally appropriate. On the surface it seems like a win, win. The child feels like he is a decision-maker, mother gets him to wear something appropriate, and there is no fight. What could be better than that?

While all that sounds very good and quite enlightened, in reality the subtext for the child is, “You are the decision-maker here. You have the right to choose. I may suggest the various alternatives, but it is your right to choose.â€

We as a culture are not shocked by this scheme and it doesn’t even seem inappropriate because we see the world as fundamentally horizontal. This child is not learning that God, who is good, has given him parents whom he is to obey; and it is a blessing to live under God’s authority. He is rather being taught to reject any authority other than himself.

When we make our children independent decision-makers, we give them an appetite for a liberty that does not exist and a mistaken notion about freedom. This liberty does not exist because individual freedom with no authorities does not exist in the will of God for creatures. We are always people under authority. Freedom is not being able to do whatever you want; freedom is knowing and loving God and living joyfully under the authority structures that he has ordained. “I will always obey your law, for ever and ever. I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought your precepts†(Ps. 19:44-45) (84)(

 

Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. War is peace.

 

 

Quote

Some people object that children under authority will not learn to be decision-makers. The reasoning goes like this. How can they learn to make decisions if they never make decisions for themselves?

The best training for making decisions is to model for children good decision-making. Take them into your confidence. Share with them how mature people with biblical wisdom and insight make decisions. Share the patterns of reasoning and evaluation that you use to make decisions. Help them learn to avoid pressure from others, avoid responding emotionally, or making decisions without enough information.

 

Because of course it is completely impossible to let your child make choices where appropriate and to model good decision-making. Idiots.

 

 

Also noted:

-Robert Louis Stevenson as well as being the author of my favorite 2 line poem*, conspired to bring down Western Civilization with Hardy, Shaw, etc.

 

-Liberals are just like Hitler, they hate real Christians.

 

- 3 posts about how children not born to mothers like Kelly Crawford are doomed to a life without imagination or creativity. Written by Bria Crawford, and illustrated with images ripped off from other artists, without credit or acknowledgment of any kind.

 

*The world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings

 

Edited to fix quotes

[CanadianHippie]

We can go letting the children think they have control over their own physical self. How else will they learn they can't say no to an adult for any reason? [/sarcasm]

[apple1]

"She has a review of a book, "The Faithful Parent" , which according to the Amazon reviews recommends beating 6 month old babies."

My first (only) grandchild just turned 6 months old. This just breaks my heart. I just plain canNOT understand this.

[Austin]

…There is a popular method of child management that powerfully illustrates my point. “Honey, you can wear the red shirt, the green shirt, or the blue shirt. It’s up to you.â€

It does not occur to a three-year-old that there are more than three shirts in the closet. He makes his choice. Mother is indifferent to which shirt the child chooses. All are equally appropriate. On the surface it seems like a win, win. The child feels like he is a decision-maker, mother gets him to wear something appropriate, and there is no fight. What could be better than that?

While all that sounds very good and quite enlightened, in reality the subtext for the child is, “You are the decision-maker here. You have the right to choose. I may suggest the various alternatives, but it is your right to choose.â€

We as a culture are not shocked by this scheme and it doesn’t even seem inappropriate because we see the world as fundamentally horizontal. This child is not learning that God, who is good, has given him parents whom he is to obey; and it is a blessing to live under God’s authority. He is rather being taught to reject any authority other than himself.

When we make our children independent decision-makers, we give them an appetite for a liberty that does not exist and a mistaken notion about freedom. This liberty does not exist because individual freedom with no authorities does not exist in the will of God for creatures. We are always people under authority. Freedom is not being able to do whatever you want; freedom is knowing and loving God and living joyfully under the authority structures that he has ordained. “I will always obey your law, for ever and ever. I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought your precepts†(Ps. 19:44-45) (84)(

WTF?

That is seriously one of the stupidest things I have ever heard with regard to child-rearing. Like if stupid was a crime, she'd be doing life. God save us from the children these people raise.

[Swamptribe]

The difference is, most if not all of the parents posting here strive to raise their children to be competent adults who are capable of making decisions. We desire to give our children the tools they will need to survive in the world.

Sadly, many of the fundies discussed here are more concerned about controlling their children instead of giving them the proper tools to become independent adults. Hence, why they beat them into submission and strictly limit their thinking and education.

We live in the real world, and try to raise children that are equipped to live in the real world.

They live in a fantasy world, and try to raise children to fit their fantasy.

[margiebargie]

Hmmm. I guess I'm way off the fundie path. My kid is 5. I let her choose whatever she wants to wear. After a bit of coaching, she now knows what's appropriate for the weather (hot, cold, rainy) and for the occasion (school, beach, church). There are sometimes too many clashing patterns for my taste, but I couldn't be prouder.

I'll never understand parents who want to force their kids into a mold. Who they really are is better than anything we silly parents could dream up.

[luckylassie]

These fundie parents that teach their daughters to be Vision Forum following maidens are doing their kids a huge wrong. These girls and even the boys are not equipped for a real living. The girls just look for the kind of man you read about in a fairy tale book their whole lives. I think back to the Duggar courting episodes where Josh and Anna would hand sex. She looks at him like he's her white night...now, we see a tore up tired Anna. Maybe her fantasy is over?

[luckylassie]

It seems from what I can tell that fundy girls are just left to wait until the daddy approved guy shows up. If they are never asked to court then they just stay in their parents house cooking, cleaning, or writing books that non-fundies don't care to read. The Botkin book...I don't know. I can think of dozens of better books to be reading.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

So Mom always knows best. And Daughter is supposed to grow up to be Mom. Well - how does Mom ever learn to make decisions, with no practice?

Oh, Mom just listens to Dad, of course.

But how does Dad ever learn to make a decision, when he's still a Son, if his own mother won't let him even choose the color of shirt to wear in the morning??

Once again we have this "we weren't raised this way at all, but we're forcing this radical new culture on our kids" thing happening.

[Burris]

While all that sounds very good and quite enlightened, in reality the subtext for the child is, “You are the decision-maker here. You have the right to choose. I may suggest the various alternatives, but it is your right to choose.â€

It teaches what a parent is supposed to teach her child: Self-government. Some of these fundie parents train their kids to be overly reliant on an authority figure to make even the most basic decisions, and this carries over into adulthood.

I think some of these fundies simply, plainly want power - over someone; anyone - merely for the rush of having authority.

There is no reason why kids can't make bounded choices, as offered by their parents. There's no reason why a baby should be hit with a stick. There's no reason for any of this horseshit beyond the naked desire for control on the part of some parents.

Here's what I believe the fundies are saying, when all the extra verbiage is stripped away:

'We see children as a gift from God, unlike The World, which is bound up in a Culture of Death. We also see children, variously, as ammunition to be shot at enemies, a chance at personal celebrity, evil little sinners who need the devil beaten out of them, the means for a personal legacy, retirement insurance, unpaid household staff, and property in the same way as a parcel of land is property.

'Anyone who disagrees with our interpretation of child-rearing advice in the Bible is not only foolish, and probably raising a lawless malingerer, but also in opposition to God: They'll burn in hell forever because they didn't whack their infants with a wooden dowel for wanting to be fed when hungry as opposed to on whatever schedule is convenient for the parent - and yet we'll castigate parents who work, or who plan their family size, for being selfish and convenience-oriented.

'In short, we're hypocritical control-freaks.'

[desertvixen]

When we make our children independent decision-makers, we give them an appetite for a liberty that does not exist and a mistaken notion about freedom.

No, we help make them into teenagers and adults who can make their own decisions. That's sort of the whole point of parenting, working ourselves out of a job because our children have Grown Up, not because we had enough daughter-slaves to take care of the rest.

I'll never understand parents who want to force their kids into a mold. Who they really are is better than anything we silly parents could dream up.

margiebargie - This, exactly. The only thing I can come up with is that these people aren't happy with who they became, and they're blaming their parents.

They'll burn in hell forever because they didn't whack their infants with a wooden dowel for wanting to be fed when hungry as opposed to on whatever schedule is convenient for the parent - and yet we'll castigate parents who work, or who plan their family size, for being selfish and convenience-oriented.

'In short, we're hypocritical control-freaks.'

This.

[jenny_islander]

While all that sounds very good and quite enlightened, in reality the subtext for the child is, “You are the decision-maker here. You have the right to choose. I may suggest the various alternatives, but it is your right to choose.â€

This is supposed to be bad? Human beings make choices every day; it's part of living in the world God made. The fundamentalist ideal seems to be a sort of meat-robot that clicks along a predefined track built by other meat-robots and shut off from the fullness of Creation by a high fence.

[Austin]

I found that giving a limited number of choices to my children when they were very young to be very effective.

Fundies liken the parental relationship with their children to God's relationship with them, but they're not even in agreement with their own theology. Christianity teaches that God created people with a free will and gives humans an unmeasurable number of choices. If, according to their own religious teachings, God wanted people to be perfectly obedient, he would not have created humans with free will - he would have created robots. So clearly they think they know better than God on how to relate with one's children.

Oh, that's right. . . they believe children = robots = good.

[Dinorah]

I really don't get what's so "visionary" about being brainless and spineless and never doing anything that's not dull and menial.

[keen23]

If you are so narrow minded as to not allow your child what color shirt they are wearing, why bother to buy them anything other than plain white shirts (or blue, or whatever color you pick). I swear, these people have NEVER heard of "don't sweat the small stuff, and it's almost all small stuff."

They make me ill.

[Dinorah]

But their whole lifestyle's based on sweating the small stuff-that's what legalism is all about.

[AmandaP]

But their whole lifestyle's based on sweating the small stuff-that's what legalism is all about.

This.

[Joykins]

I really don't get what's so "visionary" about being brainless and spineless and never doing anything that's not dull and menial.

It's the man's "vision."

[MrsYoungie]

I can't imagine in what universe your child's choice of a blue shirt or a green one to play in makes a pinch of coon shit bit of difference.

Forcing your decision on them just reinforces that they have no free will and that you are an unmitigated bully.

[Guest Anonymous]

But their whole lifestyle's based on sweating the small stuff-that's what legalism is all about.

Not to mention, that they'd HAVE no lifestyle otherwise.

[finleeport]

Out of curiosity, what do families like that do all day? do they all just discipline children and study the bible?

They do sound like a boring bunch

[babs]

“You are the decision-maker here. You have the right to choose. I may suggest the various alternatives, but it is your right to choose.â€

Hmm...sounds familiar. Oh yeah, God wants us to do just that. I haven't read my bible in awhile, but doesn't Jesus have some things to say about choices? And didn't He allow people to make their own?

[Kitten]

Christianity teaches that God created people with a free will

Actually, Christianity teaches that God created man and woman to live in blessed ignorance in the Garden of Eden, never questioning, never feeling shamed for their nakedness, just "existing," like any other ANIMAL, until Eve listened to that darn serpent. Once they ate of the fruit on the tree of KNOWLEDGE, they knew they were naked and they were embarrassed.

I guess by raising their children to never question authority and blindly follow rules, the fundies somehow hope they can live in their little Garden of Eden on earth until God calls for them.

So my question - why aren't they all nudists? If the best condition to live in is the same condition Adam and Eve were in before The Fall, why not attempt to emulate them in all things? Why be ashamed of nudity?

Anyway, it certainly explains their fear of KNOWLEDGE. After all, that's what got Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden...

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Austin]

But Eve did have the ability to choose. She and Adam were not preprogrammed robots who could only go in one direction, according to the Christian faith, at least.

I heard a lot growng up fundie-lite that God created people in order to have fellowship with them. I think it's hard to "fellowship" with a robot, even for God.

It just seems like these people are trying to create robots instead of raise children.

[Kitchen Princess]

I just can't imagine, having raised 3 to adulthood, how horrible it must be to have adult children who can't make their own decisions! I don't WANT to make decisions for my kid. I have a hard enough time deciding for myself!

I do appreciate that they ask me for input on their major decisions, though.