Manipulative Babies, Cry-it-out Methods, and What That Says about our Theology

Good News: God loves us!

This week I posted the below clip from Douglas Wilson, a prominent reformed pastor who cofounded the CREC denomination, started a K-12 school, university & seminary, and seeks global reach through his media empire Canon Press.

This sort of “tough love,” cry-it-out-and-don’t-let-your-babies-win approach is quite common in Christian parenting resources. Case in point: Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo claimed to have reached millions of families through their global parenting empire based on similar ideas.

In the online discussion surrounding Wilson’s clip, I heard from several people who were willing to distance from Wilson but still held onto these ideas that babies are master manipulators.

For instance, a pastor responded:

I replied:

Christian parenting mythology echoes with anecdotal story-telling that sets up sinful babies/children are the aggressors with parents as the victim. Often this messaging comes with laughter and joking:

For instance, here’s Voddie Baucham calling babies “vipers in diapers”:

Bundles of sin. Little terrorists. Small sociopaths. Christian pastor-teachers use phrases like these to get laughs.

Such dehumanizing rhetoric teaches new parents to imagine up motivations and then speak for their child’s interior world, an approach that can set up patterns of parental omniscience and emotional/spiritual enmeshment.

Rather than taking an approach of curiosity, patience, compassion, or wonder at the complexity of infant development, adults instead project “sin” or manipulation onto very young children. And if you add up these ideas?

Babies/children are out to “get” parents + parents must “win” + corporal punishment is the primary tool + parental overwhelm & frustration = the mistreatment of children.

And in communities (like Wilson’s) that teach adults to suppress their own emotions, to just Try Harder? Parents are ill-equipped to process their own emotional responses and are often told to ignore or override their parental intuition.

Exhausted, frustrated, angry, or triggered parents are left to pray, detach, and follow made-up steps for “calm” spanking sessions or ends-justifies-the-means disciplinary methods.

They, too, are left to “count it all joy” and cope on their own.

In this sense, adults and children alike become the inconsolable infant in Wilson’s story.

No one is permitted to have complex needs, cries, or pain.

Difficulties will be met with efficient solutions that make “everything...fine.”

They, too, are told that “man is born to trouble” and they might as well be “miserable all on their own.”

They, too, learn that they are unable to summon help in their time of struggle and even suffering.

Christian parenting approaches are undergirded by beliefs about God. What mythology might we find here?

• God is irritated and angry with me.

• My needs/emotions are probably due to sin.

• It’s normal for spiritual authorities to identify my motivations for me.

• God is distant & uninterested in my pain.

• My pain is a problem to solve alone.

• Crying is pointless or something to hide.

I wonder what you would add?

The dismissal of human needs is especially odd for Christians who appreciate God’s creative design and believe in the incarnation. Did God incorrectly design:

The infant crying in the night?

The child who acts impulsively?

The tween who’s overwhelmed by hormonal shifts?

The teen who’s compelled to differentiate?

The adult who carries all these experiences (and more) inside?

Did the God-who-became-human not experience those very stages Himself?

“God isn’t listening. He doesn’t care. He isn’t here.”

What heart-breaking myths, because the Christian Story is the exact opposite.

The God who loves the world didn’t abandon it to cry alone. In the incarnation, He entered the human story.

He drew nearer and lived and laughed and hungered and grew weary and wept with us.

He loves us.

He hears our cries.

He comes to be with us.

He *is* with us.