Oh Lord, the things people do in your name.

     These people really piss me off.

     Meet Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo.  They claim to have developed a “Christian” parenting system based on “Biblical Principles”, which they promote through their business, Growing Families International.  Their “secular” title Babywise uses the same principles as the “Christian” books…but removes all references to the Bible and God.  It is one of the top ten requested parenting titles.

     They advocate spanking with a light, flexible rod (although they call it “chastisement”), Parent Directed Feeding (feeding when on the parent’s schedule, not when the baby is hungry), “Crying it out”, and they tell parents to demand instant, first-time and unquestioning obedience “with a happy heart” from their children.  Above all, they teach women to ignore their “irrational” mothering instincts in favor of the “rational” “Biblical” techniques of the Ezzos’.

Sobermindedness vs. Maternal Instincts? Not only does GFI take Scripture out of context in an effort to lend biblical support to its own views, but also the views themselves are often controversial and potentially dangerous. For example, they teach that maternal instinct is an unbiblical concept and therefore imply mothers should ignore any intuitive alarms they may hear when following the GFI program (e.g., to pick up their crying babies when the program would tell them to let the babies cry).

It is perhaps natural to think that parenting is a talent or unlearned skill spontaneously acquired. That is true for animals, whose lives are regulated by behavioral instinct, but not so for people, who are given reason and truth....Reason and assessment, not feelings, are the basis of healthy parenting. Statements such as, "Do what your heart tells you," "Follow your natural instincts," and "Do what feels natural" sell an image of motherhood that is incompatible with Scripture. Those appealing but misleading clichés come from Darwin and Rousseau, not Jesus Christ. Scripture calls mothers to careful evaluation, not unchecked emotionalism.³¹

     Here is a site that has links to salient information that a person should have before they decide to follow the Ezzo’s parenting philosophy.

     Some of the criticisms of the techniques are that they parent-controlled feeding schedule advocated by the Ezzo’s is inappropriate for children that at underweight, who’s mothers produce small amounts of milk at a time, or infants with a small stomach capacity.  These infants must feed more frequently, and are malnourished if their parents adhere to the strict schedule demanded by the program. 

     Now, I happen to know a social worker, who has rescued a child from a home that was using these techniques.  This child is the third child born to this household.  The first two children died as infants.  This child has been diagnosed with Failure to Thrive Syndrome…a common accusation of the Ezzo’s techniques is that they put children at higher risk for this syndrome.

     The scariest part of this whole thing to me is the stories I hear of the cultish way that church-based parenting groups “support” parents in continuing to apply the techniques of the parenting philosophy.

To quote from the website in the preceding link:

While some are using the term cult to categorize GFI,²⁸ in our estimation this is clearly not warranted. Unfortunately, however, GFI’s behavior does parallel the characteristics of cults in significant ways, including the following:

1.) Scripture twisting and de facto assertion of extrabiblical revelation. Scripture is often used without regard to context to justify unbiblical or extrabiblical doctrines. Teachings not found in the Bible (on child rearing) are accorded the status of divine revelation ("God’s way"). Theological confusion and legalism follow from these abuses.

2.) Authoritarianism. The Ezzos’ word on parenting seems to close the matter irrespective of the evidence. Individual interpretation on that subject is not allowed. The Ezzos appear to be unaccountable to anyone outside their own group and to suppress any attempt to question them from within the group.

3.) Exclusivism. The Ezzos are considered virtually the only ones who are teaching biblical truth on their subject. Those who follow the Ezzo way are believed to raise morally superior children. Some esteem the Ezzo philosophy of child-rearing to be so essential that they treat it almost as though it were the gospel. It is promoted with missionary zeal, resulting in division among churches, families, and friends. In fact, Christian outsiders are sometimes viewed and treated as sub-Christian.

4.) Isolationism. Members of the GFI "community" have been shielded from teachings and opinions contrary to the Ezzo way. Full knowledge of GFI teachings has been withheld until after one becomes involved with the program.

5.) Physical and emotional endangerment. As an unintended but natural consequence of following GFI teachings, babies are sometimes left to cry for hours and some newborns are underfed and underdeveloped. Child development experts — many of them Christians — voice concern about the long-term effects of the program on children raised under it.

To keep things in proper perspective, we should reiterate that GFI has many good things to contribute to the subject of Christian parenting, such as teaching children to be responsible, obedient, and respectful of others (although, as we shall see, there are problems associated with their teachings even in these areas). The cultic tendencies in the movement, however, help actualize any potential weaknesses in the program. For example, scheduling infant feedings is practiced with apparent success by many parents, but when a scheduling program is followed religiously as "God’s order for your baby’s day," the potential for injurious neglect of the infant is maximized.

Of course, it is one thing to allege that GFI has cultic characteristics and another thing to prove it. To this task we now turn.

     Here is a link to a testimonial by a parent who followed the techniques, and their infant was diagnosed with “Failure to Thrive”.

     I’ve been sort of following the Ezzos off and on since my oldest was a baby.  The first time I encountered someone who followed this parenting philosophy, I thought it sounded a little like the “tough love” craze that swept up my parents when I was a teenager and turned them from mercurial and capricious parents who were sometimes easy-going and benignly negligent, and sometimes enraged and blindly lashing out …to being 100% harshly authoritarian and controlling.  Needless to say, I took the first crappy job I could find in order to move out….just before my 17^th birthday.

     Only the Ezzos were advocating being authoritarian and controlling of infants…and advocated withholding food and nurturing from children to shape their behavior and to prevent them from attempting to “manipulate and control” their parents.

     The Ezzo’s organization reminds me of the church I attended with friends as a young child, where the descriptors for “cultic” activity listed above were displayed in spades…where there was a charismatic leader who’s word was taken as direct from God’s mouth; people were denounced as false Christians for asking difficult questions; people were discouraged from relying on their own judgment and discernment and encouraged to rely totally on the guidance of an authority figure; where not being part of the hive mind was a sign of ungodliness, where any conflicting messages of scientific or rational thought were denounced as lies of the “secular humanists” (who, as we all know, are also atheists, and worse: commies)…ugh.