Religious right childrearing doctrine frames infants as rebels needing force

Evidence

It is worth remembering in this context that the culture of the religious right often favors corporal punishment as a form of discipline in child-rearing. Focus on the Family, the Christian right advocacy group, offers handy tips on “Five Biblical Principles for Spanking.” Indeed, in his many books on child-rearing, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson emphasizes the message that children must be brought under a strict form of parental authority and taught to fear God. Children, Dobson insists, “are naturally inclined toward rebellion, selfishness, dishonesty, aggression, exploitation, and greed.” Even infants may be “defiant upon exit from the womb.” But “a well-deserved spanking,” he advises his followers, turns “a sullen little troublemaker into a sweet and loving angel.” If a toddler disobeys, he once told a live audience, the parent should grab hold of the child’s trapezius muscle. “You squeeze that little muscle,” he said, and “he goes down to the ground.” The audience laughed. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 642

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that infants are ‘defiant upon exit from the womb’ grotesquely inverts developmental reality and echoes ch3’s hypermasculinized Jesus point about the movement’s worldview. — connects to: Religious-right strategists target children aged four to fourteen for indoctrination — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 989; Radical religious upbringing can destroy a child’s ability to feel their own emotions — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 524; Islamic doctrine holds children born pure, contradicting original-sin pessimism — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 3521 (+3 more)
• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to the sacrifice article: training children in submission to authoritarian deity is the domestic micro-scale of sacralized authority.

Broader Connections

• Wesleyan doctrine grounded corporal punishment in the belief that self-will damns a child’s soul #expands (0.95) — , The Rod and the Child, 3195
• Religious-right strategists target children aged four to fourteen for indoctrination #expands (0.85) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 989
• Islamic doctrine holds children born pure, contradicting original-sin pessimism #contradicts (0.80) — , The Rod and the Child, 3521
• Religious traditions framed child corporal punishment as love, not violence #expands (0.80) — , The Rod and the Child, 8173
• Enforced obedience converts children’s suffering into psychosomatic illness instead of rebellion #expands (0.80) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 522
• Radical religious upbringing can destroy a child’s ability to feel their own emotions #expands (0.75) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 524