Set Up for Failure / Authoritarian Parenting (Part 1)
Fundamentalist families set children up for failure by teaching blind obedience to authority figures, equating parental authority with divine authority. This stifles critical thinking.
Lately I've been mulling over the thought or concept of how fundie families set their children up for failure. I can't speak to a wider or societal understanding of the concept, but I can speak to my own experiences.
Much of my criticism comes from how children in fundamentalism are instructed to deal with authority figures. More specifically, how children are taught blind obedience to authority figures; often that person was a pastor, parent, or political figure. I've covered some child discipline books (like Gary Ezzo's books) and this mentality is quite evident there. Often Gary would equate parental or pastoral authority with god's divine authority in your life (Ironically searching direct quotes from Ezzo pulls up pages speaking about appeal to authority fallacies). According to Ezzo a child first learns to rigidly obey parental authority to learn eventual obedience to god's law and authority.
“Developmentally, young children prior to the development of a self regulating moral conscience cannot handle the power associated with decision making.”
Growing Kids God’s Way 5th Edition p223
I know I've covered this quote in the past. But I think it illustrates just how far authority is supposed to go in a child's life. Parents MUST make these choices for a child because their children can't be trust with this power.
These ideas are also repeated within conservative churches as well. Within the IFB blind obedience to the man of god (pastor) or MOG is a very familiar theme. God has given this man authority in your life and therefor you must listen to his judgement and authority. While the IFB may take this to an extreme, other denominations often treat their leadership in similar ways. And sermons about submitting to authority abound in fundie churches (link and text below is for a John Macarthur sermon as to not jump scare anyone). 1
Challenging authority is something that is seen as sinful or wicked. It is seen as an act of rebellion against god and your "god given" authority figures. And god hates rebellion (just take it from this "Word of Life" book aimed at 1st and 2nd graders).
Obedience above all
Children are molded into obedient servants for their family and church. Who are led to believe that even voicing their concerns around their "god given" leadership is an act of rebellion against god. These children are not taught critical thinking, but instead blind obedience to authority.
I'm trying to keep my posts smaller and less long winded. So, I will break this up into a miniseries. Once I add the second post I will come back and add in a link to the next post. In in the next post, I plan to discuss how these ideas and beliefs around obedience and authority affected me in college and shortly after that.
I need to interject here that this is the same man (John Macarthur) that has helped abusers and used his power to enable abuse of the women and children in his church