Reaction to Dobson on Larry King Live…thoughts

Ok. I’ve somewhat collected my thoughts on the transcript below. What I find upsetting is that that James Dobson pigeonholes homosexuals and he encourages mothers to initiate emotional detachment with their young sons.

He leaves no other explaination for homosexuality open whatsoever. (And for those who chose to try to break out of the lifestyle, the prospects look bleak according to his theory.) Nevermind that each person has a lifetime of factors that influence his/her choices, including free will. Instead of taking it on a case by case basis, he throws out a blanket reverse-Oedipus statement that encourages mothers to begin withdrawing their affection from their toddlers. (Because that’s gonna fix everything…)

My heart hurts especially for homosexuals who experienced sexual/social abuse as children…

Many studies have shown that one of the large contributing factors to a tenancy towards male homosexuality is sexual molestation by a male at a young age. A very large percentage of homosexual men admit to being molested as a child, with the average age difference between the same sex victim and molester being 11 years. The earliest sexual memories a person has can leave a big imprint on how they psychologically and emotionally process their sexuality! (Take, for instance, p*rn and m*sturbation. Part of the reason these behaviors are addictive is that brain strongly associates the specific behavior with the body’s sexual arousal. The body learns to associate being aroused with a paper picture of a woman, rather than a real woman. Which is why some men are unable to be intimate with their spouses without p*rn present. The same is true for fetishes.) Autopsies of homosexual men have shown that there is an actual difference between the hypothalamus of a homosexual man and heterosexual man. This could be explained by the fact that repeated experience can actually restructure the brain and the way it processes events and attractions.

(Besides this, homosexuality does not necessarily equal gender confusion, nor or all gay men effeminate. Same sex attraction doesn’t equal a man thinking he *is* a woman. Not at all. That whole idea is flawed. )

Another thing that disturbs me about this whole “early detachment from mother” premise, is the fact that it seems to assume that children are only attached to one parent or another at a time. You’re either a “momma’s boy” or “daddy’s little man”. I’d hate to be in a family like that, personally. While children definitely gravitate off and on between both parents according to need, it’s not an exclusive relationship. It’s not about ushering your young son into a “man’s world”. It’s developing the whole child in a male and female world. A child can receive nurturing from mom and dad at the same time, for crying out loud. A child can develop a healthy sexuality without detaching from the parent of the opposite sex.

My husband is nearly as gentle nurturing as me. I’m pretty darn adventurous and tomboyish by Dobson’s book. You have to swallow his idea of gender roles before you can accept his homosexuality theory. And it isn’t as black and white as he paints it. I believe that certain qualities that God would have in all of us have been “genderized”, sadly.

If I grow up with only a father, I might learn to relate better to males, and might even identify more closely with male characteristics, but it’s a long leap from that to actually being attracted to females.

I believe males and females naturally posses unique characteristics. I believe these reflect different aspects of God’s image. I totally agree that the father plays a huge role in a boys life, and the mother plays a huge role in the girl’s. But the reverse is also true. I find his theory unfortunate, damaging, and overly simplistic.

Besides being incomplete, exaggerated, and wrong…

How does his exclusive theory help homosexuals? It doesn’t. (Especially not lesbians, who aren’t even figured into the equation.) It scares the heck out of single moms, and causes married mothers to withdraw from their little guys who really need them.

What really saddens me is some mamas will now go to lengths to detach themselves from their little boys are working to destroy what God intended for parents and their small children to have: the intuitive connection that flashes red when some thing’s just isn’t right with their little guy. (Or girl, for heaven’s sake!) This is the connection that picks up on things like sexual abuse. When you purposefully detach yourself emotionally at all from a child that young, you’re opening them up wide for that kind of abuse…because they aren’t close enough to talk openly with you about it, and you aren’t connected enough to pick up on the little warning signals.

Besides the fact that a child benefits socially and emotionally period from a close relationship with both their father and their mother.

*sigh*

KING: We discussed this before in the past, but not recently: Do you still believe that being gay is a choice rather than a given?

DOBSON: I never did believe that.

KING: Oh, you don’t believe it.

DOBSON: I don’t believe that. Neither do I believe it’s genetic. I said that…

KING: Then what is it?

DOBSON: I said that on your program one time and both of us got a lot of mail for it. I don’t blame homosexuals for being angry when people say they’ve made a choice to be gay because they don’t.

It usually comes out of very, very early childhood, and this is very controversial, but this is what I believe and many other people believe, that is has to do with an identity crisis that occurs to early to remember it, where a boy is born with an attachment to his mother and she is everything to him for about 18 months, and between 18 months and five years, he needs to detach from her and to reattach to his father.

It’s a very important developmental task and if his dad is gone or abusive or disinterested or maybe there’s just not a good fit there. What’s he going to do? He remains bonded to his mother and…

KING: Is that clinically true or is that theory?

DOBSON: No, it’s clinically true, but it’s controversial. What homosexual activists, especially, would like everybody to believe is that it is genetic, that they don’t have any choice. If it were genetic, Larry — and before we went on this show, you and I were talking about twin studies — if it were genetic, identical twins would all have it. Identical twins, if you have a homosexuality in one twin, it would be there in the other.

KING: Right.

DOBSON: So, it can’t be simply genetic. I do believe that there are temperaments that individuals are born with that make them more vulnerable and maybe more likely to move in that direction, but it usually is related to a sexual identity crisis.

Punishment vs. Discipline

To discipline a child is not the same thing as punishing. Much confusion arises in this area of child rearing, because in Christian culture in the past 30 years, these two ideas have been equated.

Punishing a child focuses on the negative behavior and requires some kind of physical or emotional pain from the child. Examples of punishment would be spanking or some removal of emotional availability.

Parental discipline does not equal punishment. It means teaching the child and gently leading them towards the example of Jesus. No beating required.

Is parental authority God-given? You betcha! But it’s not the kind of authority that demands to be recognized. It’s the authority Christ modeled for us-gently correcting, appropriately rebuking, leading, illustrating, sheltering, and giving fully of ourselves. And patiently, consistently repeating that as many times as need be. We’re given authority not to control our children’s behavior, but to gradually teach them how to handle their own sinful nature and internalize godly morals. And that takes time.

The problem with punishment is that it addresses behavior instead of the heart. While spanking your child may produce faster results, those results are out of fear of punishment. The motivator for “good” behavior isn’t love or kindness, or even respect for others. It’s fear of pain.

Children aren’t born with morals. In order for a child to internalize the positive reason why she should act a certain way (out of kindness, compassion, principle), she must be given the opportunity to fail and try again and again, all the while being gently and firmly prodded and guided towards right action. If physical violence is used to discourage a “misbehavior”, then avoiding a punishment will be the child’s main motivator for acting right. The imprint of pain caused by trusted adult is indelible. The child’s moral development is somewhat arrested, because they carry the fear of shame/punishment into adulthood with them as their primary motivator for good behavior.

Related to this is the fear of losing love because of bad behavior. (Also a terrible reason to “act good”.) No matter how many times a parent says, “This is for your own good” or “I’m doing this because I love you”, what the child carries away with them is, I never want to do that again because I hate being hurt by my parent, and I hate disappointing them so.

The punished child responds with obedience stemming from the fear of displeasing his/her parents. They learn that acting “good” means being loved, and acting bad means withdrawal of love. As sons and daughters of God, are we not to extend God’s unconditional forgiveness and love to each other? (And who are we, by the way, to play God and demand painful payment for sin when Christ has already taken the blame?)

From an immature child’s perspective, what is punishment teaching them? What lesson do they really walk away with?

Teaching a child that a moment of weakness warrants corporal punishment sets them up for abuse and an unhealthy understanding of God and others later on in life. Thinking patterns established early on in life die hard, or not at all.

Here’s what I mean. As a child grows to adulthood, in order for him to function in a healthy way within relationships, it is paramount for him to establish healthy boundaries for his own person and to respect the boundaries of others. Spanking completely undermines the idea of respecting his own boundaries from his earliest memory.

Spanking a child when he fails teaches him that his failing deserves a punishment.
It also teaches him that it’s OK to punish others when they fail you.
How will that look when it plays out in his marriage? Friendships?

Spanking a child teaches him that when you get caught, you get hurt. Lesson? Don’t get caught.

Spanking a child communicates that love and physical safety are conditional. If you mess up in a relationship, it stops being loving and safe. How will this effect his ability to be open and honest?

Spanking teaches a child that if she displeases someone else, her physical boundaries don’t have to be respected. How will this look when she’s dating an abusive guy? Married to an abuser?

Spanking tells the child that in order to be “cleared” from an offense, it must be punished. How does that effect his understanding of God’s grace?

“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you” communicates to the child, “You’re making me hurt you. I wish I didn’t have to, but you’ve forced me.” I shiver while thinking of how many woman have used the idea that they’re responsible for their own abuse as an excuse to stay in a destrictive relationship.

Please, dear ones, understand that I would never accuse any well-meaning parent of purposefully harming their child. Unfortunately, intentionally or not, spanking is damaging. The good news is that Christ is the inventor of new beginnings. The past is the past, and we can only be responsible for the present. God’s grace is sufficiant for us, and for our children!

So, is it possible to maintain godly authority within the home without corperal punishment? Yes, it is!

I love this quote from Corrie ten Boom (the christian woman who survived the Ravensbruck prison for hiding Jews in her family’s home..her family is an amazing testimont to grace and forgiveness):

“…we were disciplined without spanking. I cannot remember being paddled as a child, but there was no doubt in our family that we were to obey Father…We never spoke of “line of authority in our home-it was simply understood. Father didn’t have to stand up and say, “I’m the head of this home!” He just was. We never felt any desire to have it any other way, because love and security of all our relationships were built upon the established fact that God was always with us, and He had appointed Casper ten Boom in charge of the home called Beje.”
-Corrie ten Boom, In my Father’s House

More later on punishment vs. natural consequnces/prevention…