Jesus beat his kids.

Ugh.  I think I might actually write about something going on in the NFL.  I’m sick about it, but it sort of matched a passage in Ecclesiasticus so I thought if I didn't at least address the topical story that I would be considered tone deaf.  The point of this blog is that world needs more wisdom and so I hope this will be my deposit into the world's shallow conversation about child discipline.

Have you heard that Adrian Peterson hit his son with a switch?  Not only did he switch him but the man opened up the behind and caused bloody whelps.  Peterson has admitted to losing his temper and going too far.  Society wants to universally denounce the behavior as reprehensible.  The much less hurtful spanking with an open hand and pants on is being equated with Roman treatment of Jesus on national news.  The 40 lashes minus 1 is now the new finger rapping.  This leads me to the simple conclusion:

Society is very bad at seeing shades of gray.

Every time I watch a news report about militant Islam I always have to hear the phrase, “Not all Muslims,” as if that message hadn't been heard a million times.  The idea that you have to keep saying that, in order to not be accused of making overly broad statements is proof that the world wants to see things in black and white and news people are cognizant of it and act accordingly.  Jesus never hedged when he spoke, is that weird?  Paul, too.  Not on just the stuff that was universal.  Of course all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; but Christ doesn't say Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees, SOME of you are open tombs. 

Society is very bad at thinking it's right.

Christ Carter harangued his mother on the news Sunday because she used corporal punishment on him and his six siblings.  He hasn't hit or spanked his kids and his mother was wrong.  That strikes me as arrogant.  I’m not saying that we can’t make assumptions about other peoples’ styles of parenting.  I think Female Genital Mutilation is wrong and that’s happening a lot all over the world.  I’m saying that there is a difference between saying what you think is wrong and saying something is wrong.  I know to be careful when making moral equivalents and Chris Carter doesn't seem to be.  Is Chris Carter such a terrible paragon of how not to raise children?  Well maybe other than the fact that he’s on TV and a millionaire.  It strikes me as so arrogant to say that your parents did a bad job and to also assert that you are doing a good job or are a good person.  The proof, after all, is in the pudding. 

Society cannot fathom disagreement.

Charles Barkley says that this issue is a north-south divide.  But it’s not.  Society spanks.  Some of society I think lies about it.  Media centers are living in a vacuum if they think only some parts of the old south are spankers.  People are spankers.  Rural, urban, suburban:  Large swaths of society are discipline-centric whether or not you are.  All of your black and white statements on the subject alienate your viewers who’d rather you not make simplistic assumptions about how to raise kids when you have none. 

The truth is, in education, in single parent households, in overpopulated prisons; there isn't ENOUGH discipline.  Jesus, the writer of Ecclesiasticus and not our personal Lord and savior, thinks so too.

¹ Whoever loves his son will beat him frequently so that in after years the son may be his comfort.  ² Whoever is strict with his son will reap the benefit, and be able to boast of him to his acquaintances.  ³ Whoever educates his son will be the envy of his enemy, and will be proud of him among his friends.  ⁴ Even when the father dies, he might well not be dead, since he leaves his likeness behind him.  ⁵ In life he has had the joy of his company, dying, he has no anxieties.  ⁶ He leaves an avenger against his enemies and a rewarder of favours for his friends.  ⁷ Whoever coddles his son will bandage his wounds; his heart will turn over at every cry.  ⁸ A badly broken-in horse turns out stubborn; a son left to himself turns out headstrong.  ⁹ Pamper your child and he will terrorize you, play along with him and he will bring you sorrow.  ¹⁰ Do not laugh with him, or one day you will weep with him and end up gnashing your teeth.  ¹¹ While he is young, do not allow him his freedom and do not wink at his mistakes.  ¹² Bend his neck in youth, bruise his ribs while he is a child, or else he will grow stubborn and disobedient, and hurt you very deeply.  ¹³ Be strict with your son, and persevere with him, or you will rue his insolence.

Don’t we know that this is more true than false?  Children need correction.  I know I did.  I have very good anecdotal evidence that corporal punishment works.  You do too; I’m assuming.  The world is filled with such anecdotal evidence.  Strippers with daddy issues, inmates with daddy issues, politicians with daddy issues, serial philanderers with daddy issues are all proof we have huge problems with discipline emaciation.  We are discipline deficient; discipline as a Moral Form in the Platonic vein.    

Now is it the same for hitting your grown wife?  No.  There’s that pesky word, ‘grown,’ along with wife.  Ray Rice is a jerk.  I don’t think he needs to get kicked out of the league, though.  But children are still malleable.  I've heard some say that this is no different from Michael Vick's dog fighting but that was for enjoyment, not discipline.  Dogs can receive discipline too.  In the form of noises, smell, or pain; they learn from it.  So, you may ask, is it appropriate to hit my kid with a belt or an iron because I sincerely want to discipline them?  First, check out the word, ‘sincerely.’  One thing that my parents did when I was going to be spanked was to explain to me why.  It made me crazy when I was young but its power was to make sure they weren't angry and that I understood.  This might calm you down or take away your inclination to use a weapon.  Or it might not.  There are, after all, crazy people.  But crazy people aren't a reason for society to say that corporal punishment doesn't work.  Is Peterson crazy?  I won’t say yes or no.  Courts will assess his history of violence and decide whether the child is in danger.  Maybe someone who loves Peterson needs to explain that when you cut a switch and whittle/prune its branches you might want to use that time to cool down a bit.  Peterson might want to have a conversation with the kid at that time about why he’s getting a whipping.  Heck, part of me is stoked that Peterson lives with his kids.

Some of you are getting better results by sitting your child down and having conversations with her.  Some of your kids would rather get 40 lashes than endure a day without phone or internet.  That’s fine.  I’m not making judgments about your discipline.  Can we all stop making statements about how hitting kids is wrong?  You are using loaded language to exacerbate what could be a valuable conversation.  Or else, you are guilty of religion bashing, cultural ethnocentrism, painting with too broad a brush, arrogance; you name it; you got it.  

And you know what?  I agree that hitting or spanking isn't the best way to discipline.  The best way to discipline is having a child that knows you will punish bad behavior so you don’t have to.  My brother John and his wife Nola, whom I disagree with them on a lot, but they've got two great kids:  JDOC and Toks.  Mom and dad are doing a great job of training them up in the way they should go.  John and or Nola count to three if the boys are doing wrong.   Actually, I've seen them count to two a ton and the boys quit what they’re doing.  The boys have learned what comes from disobedience and there is less need for discipline.  Fear of discipline is the best discipline.  Does that mean I agree with Adrian Peterson?  No.  He doesn't agree with himself.  He admits he did wrong/went too far.

Finally, some of this stuff in Ecclesiasticus 30:1-13 I don’t agree with.  That’s fine, right?  It didn't make it into the Bible cannon, after all.  For example, if I had a son I would want to share his laughter and his tears.  I want my heart to overturn at the sorrows of any little girl I may have.  The passage ends up sounding like a path to sensibility, parenting at arm’s length.  Maybe the aim wasn't a perfect bull’s-eye, but notice that the frequent beatings are about the child’s adulthood not yours.  I happen to read this as a thinly-veiled altruism.

We Need More Wise in our Old

Ecclesiasticus 25

³ If you have gathered nothing in your youth, how can you discover anything in your old age?

⁴ How fine a thing: sound judgment with grey hairs, and for greybeards to know how to advise!

⁵ How fine a thing:  Wisdom in the aged and considered advice coming from people of distinction!

⁶ The crown of the aged is ripe experience, their glory, the fear of the Lord.

When I decided to write a blog it was with some trepidation.  The world seems filled with blogs and I wasn't sure that they were often all that valuable.  They sometimes devolve into vapidity and error.  So I wanted to use someone else’s voice.  Someone that I knew wouldn't devolve.  Someone that I knew has a voice that was needed today.

 

I picked well, I think, with Jesus

(not THE Jesus), the writer of Ecclesiasticus.  I may not be doing it justice, but we need wisdom.  We need old age in a way we haven’t ever needed it. 

Let me give some examples of where youth is elongating and why.  First, adults are playing too many video games.  Yeah, I said it.  I know I sound like an old fuddy duddy.  But it’s a strangulation of life out of those doing it.  Yes, you can argue that you only do it two hours a night which is less than some people watch Real Housewives of Orange County. You may say that you only watch two hours a week which is less than most people spend commuting to work.  You may say that you got a Wii to play with your kids and grand kids.  But this gaming culture is an infestation and any amount is a symptom of immaturity while a great deal is something more dire to the whole of a life.

Have you seen those tramp stamps?  They’re pretty sexy, huh?  There’s some vaguely tribal design on the small of the back of a model.  There’s some dolphin on an ankle.  There are full sleeves that used to never be seen outside of carnivals but now somebody is sporting one at every fast food place you visit.  Every person thinks these drawings really bring out their personality, or look good, or mean something to them.  I’m not saying that every tattoo is silly but my guess is four out of five are.  It is a misjudgment of future consequences.  These days people between the ages of 18-35 are more likely to have tattoos than not.  And as eventually happens to us all we get old and the tattoos sag and look ridiculous but our old people are seemingly less embarrassed than they've ever been. 

Girls are having children without husbands.  Boys are impregnating women before they’re ready to be fathers.  This is the most detrimental societal epidemic in our country.  Out of wedlock birth perpetuates a cycle of meager school performance, low moral behavior, and high poverty.  Poor DOES NOT create crime but with a few other key ingredients like rap culture and no moral compass, you've got a recipe for disaster.  This is also, in many people’s opinion, a failure of our maturity.  We think we don’t need two parents because some of us didn't have two parents or because we didn't like either of our parents.  We’re skipping that section in our lives when we found out our parents were wise through the accident of living.  Maturity is humility towards the knowledge of the world.  It’s a worldwide Socratic prophecy by the oracle of Delphi.  It is that knowledge of one’s own ignorance is further along the spectrum of enlightenment than assurance that one ‘knows it all.’  Knowledge of ignorance beats ignorance any day.

And why are we dying later but not getting older of character and mind?  I think it’s twofold.  One it’s a cycle of disconnection.  We move to the cities and there is less extended family interaction.  A hundred years ago did you live in the same city as all of your cousins?  Two hundred years ago did you?  We disconnect from out extended families which makes the disconnection from our nuclear families all the more inevitable.  It is our kids needing us to be adults that makes us need to be adults and the less they need that the less we need to grow up.  The less there is an outlet for knowledge of the world in our children, the less we need to doggedly input data into our worldview database.  The less often boys stay with their children, the less often they learn about life and grow up all the more through raising children.  It’s difficult to be a full-grown man without being a father.  Trust me. 

Second reason is that we need less these days.  Life is easier these days with power companies and central air.  There is no fight for survival.  This makes a person mature.  The fight against the elements of the world prepares the heart for almost any simple dealings in the world.  When a person must dig his own latrine he seems to be more even-keeled to the world’s swells.  No, I don’t think we need to go back there to a Laura Ingalls Wilder world where there isn't electricity or showers but we need to teach our children and ourselves to strive.  Video games, premium cable, foodies, and fun runs:  They all blind us to the fact that we’re still locked in a battle to survive.  These lull us to sleep but we have a storm of survival bearing down.  We need leaders who are the oldest most seasoned individuals who AREN'T individuals to tell us stories and help us become great.  We stoop at the edge of world precipice and we need the cooler heads to tell us where the cliff leads.

It used to be our politicians.  We used to elect wisdom, I think.  Wisdom used to find its way to the top pushed by those around it.  Now, it’s simpler to elect people that look certain ways and talk and vote certain ways.  But simple isn't wise.

This time I've got no homework that I think might help you get wise.  Let me remind you that anyone who seeks wisdom finds it.  No this post was a meandering rant against a generation of children with gray hair, Baby-Boomers who never left the ‘baby’ behind.  I used to think I was kind of oddly annoyed by ‘kids these days.’ How much worse that I’m disgusted by old people these days?

God, grant us grandfathers and grandmothers, patriarchs and matriarchs, advisers, and leaders.  Grant our old people ripe experience.  Teach them to fear you, is true glory.