Le Sabot Post-Moderne

Yes on the way some evangelicals think! Example - Focus on the Family review of the movie Oceans 12, states, in the "Sexual Content" section, among other criticisms, "Nude statues adorn several scenes." I nearly rolled on the floor laughing at that statement.
Duh! Parts of the movie happen in Rome. Should evangelicals never visit the city? Or any museum, for that matter?
No wonder we're stereotyped as we are!

Duh! Parts of the movie happen in Rome. Should evangelicals never visit the city? Or any museum, for that matter?

I totally agree! Personally, I find the art and the mild nudity there to be a non-threatening, non-erotic atmosphere to gently talk about the differences in men and women, babies and breastfeeding, and eventually "sex ed" in a low-key and postive way. We're still very protective of our boys and I do *not* want them sexualized at a young age. But the nudity in art they've been exposed to has been less offensive and more natural that your average billboard, magazine cover or commercial.

I have to share a story from a friend who's a social worker. He had some clients who were recently married and complained about painful sex. It turned out that they had mistaken the belly button for another, more relevant body part. I didn't know then to ask if there was an Ezzo connection. (Someday we'll find it/The Ezzo Conntection/The lovers, the dreamers and me)

Another thought: maybe I need someone to explain it to *me*, but I don't get the flower analogy; I'm just not sure what corresponds to what. Perhaps I need to purchase his materials? ;)

The things I can come up with would be worse - i.e. more crude - than using "scientific" terminology or calling things and functions by their proper names.

Funny... for generations Americans had the highest academic education in the world, and not a single 'sex-ed' class was involved.

No one was sexually ignorant beyond the fourth grade, and almost no young students were ever allowed sufficient unsupervised time alone that would create a pregnancy out of wedlock. If such did occur, it was considered a failure of adult supervision.

But that was before Communists came to America and were allowed to take over the education system. Luckily I escaped from the system just as their programs were coming on line.

Foolishly, children today are given condoms, encouraged to dress provocatively, and given unlimited opportunities to have sexual encounters out of wedlock – including at far too many church functions.

Meanwhile, parents yawn, and head for the nearest 'good time' and leave their children alone at home.

Dear Disco,

Is Ezzo the originator of the idea of beating two-year-olds with foot-long glue sticks?

What a shame that someone responsible for leading believers into such actions is not behind steel bars.

Gosh, this is awkward because the last thing in the world I want to do is defend Gary Ezzo on this, so I won't. This is nutty, and I agree with everyone above.

I just remember many years ago, when I was living in the Los Angeles area and Ezzo was still kosher with John MacArthur at Grace Community. Lots of folks -- not nuts at all -- appreciated some of what Ezzo talked about. Not the crazy breast feeding stuff, but some basic principals about teaching young kids to treat their parents and others with some respect and self control. A lot of it was hard to argue with, decent common-sense parenting advice. And it was within a context of a totally disintegrating public school system in LA County and a cultural meltdown in which families were raising spoiled, out of control, immoral little brats. Ezzo was locally popular, dispensing some basic principles for Christian parenting. My wife and I went through a parenting class through a small group from Grace Church (our first child was two at the time) and got a lot of great ideas out of it. Our kids have turned out great and we feel that some of what we got out of that class really helped us as new parents.

Then he went crazy, wandered off into the dance of the space unicorns, became a taco short of the combination plate. The weirder he got, the more Grace Church and CRI and other local organizations tried to reign him in the more reactionary he got and his material got more and more strident.

Now I swear he just says stuff that's inflamatory just to throw red-meat to the few hard-core followers he still has.

..er`..well I aint never..ook you know I`m lying..shessh..but I agree sex is being taught to our kids totally the wrong way ,MTV,COMMERCIALS,Monday night football,and of all things,high profile court trials..bombards children way to early in their development..this is where the parents have ((GOT)) to step to plate and talk with their kids..(((EARLY AND OFTEN)))..And in my opinion.. boundaries..this is where people split..what I believe is appropriate you my find offensive and vice-versa..our children must know the mistakes and the consciences of such..abstinence would be best ..but pleeeze..just how long did you wait...sooo kids need to know the facts..within reason of course..but most of all LOVE has got to be the center of the discussion..IMHHO..

Well, I'll defend the nudity warning -- some folks have standards about that. Right or wrong, I think parents deserve fair warning about what's possibly objectionable things are in a movie, so they can judge for themselves.

Having said that, the fact that nude statues appear in a movie is not something that would make it a no-go for me or anyone else I know. But I think that should be up to each family to determine and FoF is right to provide the opportunity to make the determination, rather than decide for us what's acceptable. Information is a GOOD thing, right my fellow Hayekians? ;-)

Alvar-

I'm not sure he invented the idea, but his followers definitely popularized it. Hence the glue sticks in my "Ultimate Power" page. :)

The thing with the statues in Oceans 12 is that I think you have to be looking for things to complain about for them to even register on any significant level--I don't remember seeing any, and when I mentioned to my mom about the warning, her response was "what nude statues?"

Back to the Ezzos, I don't know if there's any sort of correlation, but one thing I noticed when I was babysitting for hard core Ezzoites back in highschool was that with a few exceptions almost all of them had very few books other than ones by the Ezzos on their bookshelves and precious few children's books of the sort that are actually worth reading.

Dear Disco,

Yes, I noticed the glue sticks on the page you put up, and it got me to thinking about a Church some of my kinfolk attended, whose pastor was an advocate and a practitioner of some of those practices -- to the extent that the elders and deacons intervened on it, and the pastor decided to just move away. As I recall, somebody even tried to contact child protective services, but that agency was rather clueless. Probably completely uneducated about this particular child-rearing subculture. Thanks for teaching me more about it.

I agree with pentamom that "information is a GOOD thing." Parents have the right - even duty, I'd say - to know what their children are reading/hearing/seeing/being taught. But my reaction to the nude statues was the same as kathryn's mom.

Alvar,

I don't think you will find the recommendation to use glue sticks specifically in Ezzo's writings. Esso uses the term "chastisement" for spanking, though good hermeneutics shudders if you try to replace the Biblical word chastisement with spanking.

Gary Ezzo's description of a "biblical rod" is "somewhat flexible, not stiff or unbending" instrument (GKGW, p.220). Ezzo families sometimes describe this being a wide strip of rubber tubing, a rubber shoe sole, a thin razor strap, or a large glue stick.

So, while the glue stick isn't mentioned specifically in Ezzo's writings, it is endorsed by the leaders within the Ezzo subculture, including the "Contact Moms" and teachers who have gone through the GFI Alumni/Leadership training. And, I have not seen anything Ezzo has written to advise against it.

Dear Duchess,

Thank you for educating me. I think I have it crystal clear now.

I do want to emphasize that the elders and deacons of the church were horrified by what they found out, as soon as they found out about it.

PS I enjoy your weblog also, and learned the words and tune to RAZOM NAS BAGATO from it. It was great to play the tune on a continuous loop for a couple of days.....

I don't know enough about the weirdness of Ezzo to really comment intelligently. I can only say that I read the book, "Babywise" when my daugther (1st) was born, adapted most of the principles to our parenting style, and it was a HUGE blessing in our lives and has continued to produce very positive results in our lives to this day (she's 7 now--I'm reading "Childwise" as we speak, and so far, pretty normal stuff.)

I've paid attention to some of the complaints about Ezzo (gluesticks?!? On a Two year old? Really?!?) But frankly it doesn't make a differnce to me because I don't just swallow ANYTHING hook, line, and sinker. The Bible tells us that we have the Spirit of Truth within us and that we have no need for anyone to teach us (1 John 2:27). I take what gels with that Spirit of Truth within me, and that has been the most consistent guiding force in my life--when I follow it, it never lets me down. My daughter is proof.

I was originally offended by the Ezzo-bashing going on here--especially without ANY acknowledgement that there was SOME good points about his teaching. But, really, GLUESTICKS?!?

BTW: Duchess, I applaude your commitment to keeping your young boys non-sexualized, differentiating between sex and sexuality. Good Mom.

Marty-

Hi pal!

My child was diagnosed failure-to-thrive, and ended up in hospital because of the Ezzo program. You can say we didn't use common sense, or whatever. We were 22 years old, first-time parents, and we had been consulting closely with both the GFI regional director (a member of our church) and the regional contact moms provided by the Ezzo organization. They had told us we were doing great, and to stick with what we were doing.

Ours is just one story among countless similar ones, including children with radical attachment disorder.

It's great that you don't swallow anything "hook line and sinker". A lot of other people don't either, but the medical conditions of individuals vary, and even people using "common sense" can end up with some pretty tragic results from this foolish man's theories. When the information you're given is flawed, it naturally leads to bad decisions. He has no medical training, and his teachings are refuted by every relevant medical association known to man. . .

I was mildly amused to read one of the comments a bit down the page:

"Funny... for generations Americans had the highest academic education in the world, and not a single 'sex-ed' class was involved.
No one was sexually ignorant beyond the fourth grade, and almost no young students were ever allowed sufficient unsupervised time alone that would create a pregnancy out of wedlock. If such did occur, it was considered a failure of adult supervision."

I've got to tell you, I always find these "good old days" kind of quotes mildly amusing in their naivette. One Christian historian I know tells me that 60% of couples getting married in colonial America were pregnant on the altar. I haven't a clue where to begin to look to verify this information, but I trust her scholarship. She tells of a practice called "bundling" where young unmarried couples, fully clothed, were tightly wrapped together in bedsheets to spend a night together. This was supposed to allow them to have closeness, but not be able to do anything untoward--being fully clothed and so tightly bound and all. Apparently it didn't work very well though.

I know for myself that 2 sets of my great grandparents were 7 months pregnant when they got married. I've never asked about the other two sets--one of my grandmothers volunteered this information because she thought it interesting that they actually got married the same month and had their babies the same month--not knowing each other at the time. This grandmother that related the story to me, well I've never asked her specifically, but she was only married for 8 months when her first child was born--10 lbs. You do the math. I also know a lovely woman who is about 80 years old who related to me that she was gang-raped at the age of 9--by her uncle and some of his friends.

The "good old days" were not necessarily so good.

http://knittedinthewomb.blogspot.com/2005/01/good-old-days.html

I just read a very informative book on colonial America entitled _Albion's Seed_ by David Hackett Fisher. The thing to keep in mind about "colonial America" is that it was settled in different regions by different groups- each with a distinct culture. This book only focused on the English-speaking colonial movements, but it seems like the only ones approaching that 60% rate were the mountain Presbyterians (who were not necessarily colonial in the pre-Revolutionary War sense). The New England Puritans (who were the ones practicing bundling) had the lowest rates of pregnancy-at-nuptials, nowhere near half (though it seemed like a wacky idea to me!) Anyway, it's an interesting read.

The puritan midwives had a saying
"The first baby can come at any time and the rest take nine months"

I think that about says it all.

That doesn't seem to coincide very well with what was in the book- I'd have to get it out again to quote any figures, though certainly it HAPPENED from time to time. In any case, our culture encourages extra-marital sex in a way that is sure to have been manifested in our extra-marital birth rates. Don't tell me they haven't increased over the last 300 years unless you have evidence (I probably still won't believe it ;])

Bear in mind that ready access to contraception is likely to have a significant impact on the number of incidents of extramarital sex, and almost certain to have an even greater impact on the rate of pregnancies resulting from that sex. So looking at one "rate" may well create a vastly different impression than one would get by looking at another, or at several.

In talking about illegitimacy, don't forget to factor in population density, isolation, and access to legal/church authorities. Folks in regions where the preacher comes on a horse once a quarter, and the law is pretty much a consensus of the neighbors, tend to develop their own understandings--and, their communities being relatively closed, those are fairly binding.

Also, don't forget to account for various folk or common-law traditions. Rural England had a very well-established tradition of marriage called the "hand-fast"; a marriage was observed to have been taken place when the couple joined hands publicly. Common-law marriage may not be the marriage de jure du jour, but it has rules and folks know when they're broken.

Thanks for the ref to the book, that sounds like an interesting "one of these days" read.

Cheers,
PGE

The good old days?

I'm curious as to when this was in our history: "Funny... for generations Americans had the highest academic education in the world, and not a single 'sex-ed' class was involved.

No one was sexually ignorant beyond the fourth grade, and almost no young students were ever allowed sufficient unsupervised time alone that would create a pregnancy out of wedlock. If such did occur, it was considered a failure of adult supervision.

But that was before Communists came to America and were allowed to take over the education system. Luckily I escaped from the system just as their programs were coming on line. "

I'm trying to put a date to the communist takeover of our school system. I would assume, given the anti-communism rhetoric I was fed in elementary school, that this was either before the takeover or that our small town had so far been spared.

Trust me, however---a number of us were laughably sexually ignorant past the fourth grade. In fact, when I was doing peer counseling during my college days at a large secular university (I'm assuming this was after the communist takeover, since we actually had several communist groups on campus) a number of the students who called the helpline either had missed sex ed in school or had been asleep, because their lack of knowledge of "the facts of life" were completely shocking to me. (More than once, I had to explain that no, one cannot get pregnant from french kissing but yes, a girl can get pregnant during the first month she has intercourse and, no, boys do not have some special way of knowing whether or not a girl's "eggs are mature". Sheesh.)

And, even in small towns like mine that escaped the communist takeover, teenage girls managed to get pregnant, even back in the day when all the moms were home after school and you couldn't throw dirt clods at some boy after school without the whole town knowing about it practically before the last dirt clod was flung.