July 17, 2006
On the Cultic Mindset, Ezzoism, and Sleeping through the Night
A certain Mr. Osborne, a teacher of the Ezzo system, has challenged me on my blog. His responses to me may be read in this thread. I am glad he has participated, I believe he is a sincere parent (a distinguishing mark of all GFI people), but I think he is mistaken. I have nothing personal toward the man, but I have chosen to respond to him for the sake of my own readers, the people I pastor, and because he has made his challenge public on this site.
Osborn illustrates exactly what is the problem with GFI and its adherents. My friend, Shannon, who has posted on this site illustrates the fact that it is possible to use the Ezzo’s ideas and not be “cultic” about it and I’m thankful for his input. I’m also thankful that it has been useful to him. Therefore, let me reiterate that the crux of my complaint is the fifth point of what was mentioned here:
4. I think Ezzo’s schedule (not scheduling per se, but EZZO’s schedule) imposed on children is ridiculous. However, the main reason for bringing that up is for the last part of that sentence… PLEASE NOTE: 5. It ends up being spiritually abusive to the poor parents who buy into his obsessions.
I did not say that GFI was a cult. And, though I see Osborne is sensitive to the term, it does not change the definition of the word for the rest of us. But “cult” is not actually the word that I used. I said “nearly cultic.” Among the many proper uses of the word “cultic” is, according to the dictionary, this: “Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.” However, not only did I use the word properly, but I added the adverb “nearly” which, in the minds of most readers, tempers the noun it is modifying. Yet, in Osborne’s response, he has done me the good service of illustrating for my readers the real problem that I have with GFI. There are so many good illustrations that I will probably have to make multiple posts to address them.
Osborne illustrates a cultic mentality in that he is befuddled by the possibility that I can actually encourage people to listen to Ezzo while simultaneously strongly criticizing him. He thinks in a simplistic binary fashion all too typical of people with cultic mindsets: either I must be entirely for Ezzo or I must be entirely against him. Ever since I began this conversation I had mentioned only one dislike – his scheduling for infants. And that was merely a springboard for my real grief with the Ezzo system: a cultic commitment to an extra-biblical practice by many of its adherents even at the expense of their own peace and sometimes even to the health of their children.
Osborne takes an extra-biblical practice (the scheduling of your infant) and equates the misunderstanding and criticism that he received as a living example of John 15:19. The problem with that is that John 15:19 is not speaking about a parenting technique that any unbeliever could assume as well as a believer which is the case for “scheduling.” Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses could “suffer misunderstanding” for scheduling their infants. John 15:19 is talking about a union with Christ that distinguishes both the Christian “attachment parent” and the Christian “babywiser” as distinct from any unbeliever. Yet somehow he twists John 15:19 to convince himself that any criticism he endures for an extra-biblical practice is tantamount to being persecuted by the world. He has elevated his (Ezzo’s) parenting technique (a technique that is novel, medically dubious, and practically unheard of before Ezzos came along) as a mark of Christlikeness. Even if the technique was outstanding and unquestionably helpful as he seems to think it is, and even if I agreed with him, I would not equate that technique as a distinct behavior of godly living. He has.
This can only happen because he has become so enamored by an opinion, a principle, that his devotion to it justifies his misuse of Scripture and, if he is like many of the Ezzo parents I know, he assesses parents by how they perform per the standards of the GFI code of parenting. That, my friends, is cultic.
Mr. Osborne, it may shock you, but there is no biblical mandate that says that we have to sleep through the night. Yet, interestingly, if I were to go down my street and interview every unbelieving parent with children I suspect that I would find out that they all sleep through the night. Ok, ok, so one infant started sleeping through the night two months before the next one. Who cares?
I can’t remember when my infant daughter started sleeping through the night. I didn’t realize that it was a badge of honor how soon I could conform her to my plan. But I know that she didn’t sleep through the night for awhile. And it didn’t bother me. In fact, it was the source of great pleasure for me.
I often got up in the night to give a bottle to my adopted little girl (when my wife needed the sleep). They were precious moments. They were moments of total silence except for the rhythmic squeaking of the rocking chair and the sweet little coos of a suckling baby for whom I had prayed for years. In the darkness of the night I would pray out loud over her, thank God for her, talk to her about God, and the wonders of Christ, and celebrate the middle-of-the-night appointments I had with God by the beck of my hungry child. Often when she fell asleep and the nipple of the bottle would slip out of her perfect lips she would move her tiny little mouth and sigh as if she were savoring warm milk in the mystery of her infant dreams. I would just keep on rocking.
Was I tired the next day? Duh. Of course! Is there a command against that?
I am glad that I defied the notion that there is something intrinsically ungodly about parents who actually want to feed their infants on demand. The way you interpret Scripture, I could use Psalm 119:148 to suggest that parents should look forward to getting up with their children: “My eyes anticipate the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word.” You may feel wonderful about yourself as a parent that you have the discipline to allow your infant to cry. Like you’re pleasing God somehow. And maybe you are. That’s between you and God. But for us, however, every time we heard the tiny cries of our child it was like God was saying, “Come here and thank me some more. I like it.”
That’s my experience and my opinion. But I won’t claim John 15:19 if you misunderstand it or don’t agree.
Amazingly, my daughter is a well-mannered, very happy five year old that – gulp! – sleeps through the night! I’m not exactly sure what we did to accomplish this phenomenal achievement. We must have unwittingly done what parents did before the Ezzos showed up twenty years ago. Oh, I must confess that occasionally my daughter will wake up in the early morning and sneak into our bed to cuddle up with us for the rest of the night. She loves to sleep with her face pressed to ours. (That’ll scandalize the Ezzo-ites. But I say, be scandalized.) Sometimes we say no, often we say yes. When we say no she goes back to bed with out the slightest argument and promptly falls back asleep.
I do not have the scientific data in front of me, but I have heard that most people end up sleeping through the night before they are twenty. In fact, there is a huge percentage of people that actually start sleeping through the entire night without maliciously and willfully waking up their parents before they are one year old in spite of the fact that they are depraved little rebels! But, then again, the mysterious powers of being able to discern the exact intentions of tiny infants elude me and I have a worldly notion that making baby happy is not only a legitimate goal, but – heresy!- might be essential to the future security of that child.
Forgive my sarcasm. But I have little patience with men and systems that rob people of joy and blind them to grace.
For the sake of illustration, may I suggest in all seriousness that since the Ezzos are willing to fling out extra-biblical ideas about scheduling that I might be able to propose another extra-biblical idea?
My idea is also based on observation. I have no verse. And, I shall humbly refrain from calling it “God’s Way.”
I think that children have an internal psychological memory that is not recorded in words. I know adopted children who, though they were adopted before they could talk, horde food in little stashes as teens because when they were babies – babies! – they were horribly malnourished. Now, here’s the kicker: I have also observed a strange coolness from growing children toward their “babywise” mothers or mothers who were not responsive to them when they were babies. Often times the one they go to first for tender affection is someone else, or dad. And it makes sense to me. The pattern was set a long time ago. The psychological memory of that child intuitively remembers not being attended to when it cried.
It’s purely subjective. I grant that. But I have seen it too many times to ignore. So, as a Christian parent, I yield my soul to God’s authority, not man’s, and then follow my God-given instincts.
Mr. Osborne challenged me to come up with an alternative system as if I have not right to criticize the Ezzos unless I have a marketable plan.
How about grace?
It is grace that teaches us to live soberly in this ungodly world (Titus 2:11). Christian parents not only have the duty to watch over their own souls, but also the souls of their children to bring them up in the nuture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Ephesians 6:4 could never be a possibility were it not for Ephesians 1:3 that declares us to be blessed with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Peter says the same thing in another way: seeing then by his divine power he has granted to us “everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of [Christ] who called us” (2 Peter 1:3).
In other words, true Christian parenting does not need to have consciences bound to an extra-biblical principle in order to be effectively Christian. In fact, insomuch as their consciences are bound to any principle that is extra-biblical they are non-Christian in their parenting no matter how well the children turn out. Instead, it is God’s plan that the Christian parents flesh out Christ, depend on His grace, freely live dependent up Him ALONE to know how to best minister to the absolutely unique souls that are in their charge. This of course does not preclude good, biblical counseling, not even much of what the Ezzos say. It is living freely in Christ.
Now, if you think it is Christlike to train your infant as soon as possible to sleep through the night so that the world will know that you serve a God of order, fine. Suit yourself. I tend to think that it is kind of nice to get up in the night (since I really can’t infallibly discern why the baby is crying anyway) and pour without reservation all my love and care on the child while simultaneously gratifying what comes natural to parental instincts. And I sort of think that’s fine too. God is love. It is His name. And though God is certainly a God of order, nowhere does the Scripture say, “God is order.”
Thank God.
Posted by Bob Bixby at July 17, 2006 09:04 PM | eMail this entry! | 2009 WordsThis entry was posted in the following categories: Parenting
Bob,
[sarcasm]
See, you’re missing the whole point here. God obviously doesn’t want the dads to get up in the middle of the night and feed the baby- that’s why he gave the mother the natural equipment…
[/sarcasm]
(sorry- just drawing on some of the unsolicited commentary we got when some people found out we didn’t breast feed our children…)
Anyway, well said. Brought back some pleasant memories of late nights of my own… some of my favorite dad recollections, actually. I’m looking forward to some more such nights in just a few months.
(Just don’t tell Jennifer I wrote this…)
Posted by: Greg Linscott at July 17, 2006 09:39 PMYou have taken my comments out of context and you are certainly stretching your use of the word cultic.
I searched for the word cultic on dictionary.com it returned results for the word “cult”. I find it odd that your definition of cultic matches verbatim what is found as definition 5a out of all the choices listed for the word cult on dictionary.com. I would recommend that you clarify which definition you are going to use a little sooner next time when referring to “nearly cultic” activites. Here is the first definition listed for the word cult that I used in the context of your post:
“A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.”
I apologize for using the first definition in the list. I should have asked you what you meant by cultic.
You have done a very creative job of twisting the rest of what I said to a point that I am not even going to humor you with a response.
You are by far more versed in the Bible than me and I will not attempt to argue with you on theology. While I am not a pastor I am not foreign to limited perspective of the Baptist theology. I know a good bit more about Baptist than any other religion. I am the son of a Baptist preacher and I frequently visit Baptist churches when I travel. I remained a member of a Baptist church until I was 36 years of age. I even spent my afternoon today in a Baptist church for the memorial service on a 20 month old child.
As I said, I will not engage you any further on this subject. You are obviously not interested in hearing the other side. You have been very creative in responding to me directly and I do appreciate the attention although I was not expecting it. I must say that I did get a little sick to my stomach when thinking that a man of God could go to this much trouble to one-up someone he has never met over something that he obviously does not understand without even trying to clarify.
I will pray for you and your church. I am sure you will pray for me too.
Related to this, I recommend this article:
http://www.equip.org/free/DG233.htm
Small print, but worth reading and meticulously documented.
Thank you so much for your intelligent and thoughtful comments on the Ezzo’s parenting programs. You are saying succinctly, practically, and with humor what so many critics have attempted to point out in detail for years.
As indicated in the Christian Research Journal article Tulipgirl suggests, the Ezzo program is not a cult, but the behavior of many associated with it is cult-like. In fact, many of the program’s teachings encourage this even while it claims to support flexibility and openness.
Over more than a decade, I’ve talked with hundreds of people who have seen the myriad problems in action, sometimes in very divisive and hurtful ways. I’ve also been a victim of it, having been named to the Ezzos’ enemies list and falsely characterized publicly by them.
I do hope you know what you’ve bitten off. They can respond quite viciously. Something tells me, though, that that will only confirm the conclusions you’ve already reached. Good for you.
Thank you for adding your insights to the debate.
Kathy Nesper
President
Apple Tree Family Ministries
Man, my memories are of my little daughter with the cholic, walking with her for hours, just to try to help her get to sleep, and let my poor wife sleep too!! You guys and your rocking chairs! You can’t imagine!
Although my daughter was as sweet as anything once I got her to sleep in my arms and ever so gingerly put her in her crib. Heaven help me if our floor creeked as I left the room or it was back to pacing with her once again.
She is now a lovely 20 year old and sleeps through the night. And it only took… about 7 or 8 months, after the cholic passed and her body matured a little.
Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
An older dad in our church gave us the most helpful baby advice we received . . . “When your baby comes home from the hospital, run the vacuum cleaner, and don’t start wispering. If the kid thinks noise and conversation are normal, you won’t have to spend years tiptoeing and wispering in your own home. The baby will learn to sleep right through it all.”
We did also read the Ezzo’s baby scheduling book and took from it (a) that we didn’t need to freak out if our baby cried out briefly, and (b) our baby probably didn’t need to feed incessantly. These general principles were helpful to us. Of course, if our baby cried more than briefly we did something. If his hunger didn’t match up exactly with the schedule, we fed him anyway. We loved and enjoyed him too much to treat him like nothing more than a schedule item.
When we were asked to join an Ezzo group that met every week for something like twelve weeks, we declined (even though we were invited by very good friends). It seemed nearly cultic to have to meet formally to ensure that our every parenting move was aligned with some oracle’s program. We figured people had been raising children (we don’t even like the word “parenting”) for millenia without formal programs and support groups.
Posted by: Keith at July 18, 2006 09:52 AMMany thanks to Pastor Bob for such insightful sharing. I would like to comment on one portion of his post, wherein he speculates about psychological memory.
As one who studies and teaches child development at a university, I can tell you that this is more than one man’s thoughts/opinions. Thanks to brain scans and other new technology, the field of child development has gone from subjective interpretation to concrete, proven science.
We know now that the emotional center of the brain (limibc system) is fairly well developed at birth, while the thinking center (cognitive system) is not. Therefore, the baby’s emotional experiences are recorded in memory (referred to as implicit memory), without the ability to verbally process. In other words, the mental template *for life* for a baby who has life imposed upon him through schedules, rather than a life of being lovingly responded to, is one of mistrust, pain, fear, and whatever other emotional horrors a baby consistently experiences while screaming alone in his crib. Science has validated Pastor Bob’s observations.
We also know *for a fact* that leaving a baby to cry alone for as little as 10 minutes lowers oxygentation in the blood, raises blood pressure, floods that little brain with toxic stress chemicals and can even cause tiny brain bleeds. Babies who consistently have such experiences are likely to grow up to be anxious, have mood disorders, and all manner of relational difficulties.
Why would we then be surprised when they cannot trust God, despite the best Sunday School teaching in the world? Parents are God’s early representatives in the child’s life. When they behave in a consistently *responsive* manner to the baby’s signal of distress (what other signals are there but crying?), the child will later have warm implicit memories and a memory template that help him to know that he can trust others and, ultimately trust in a responsive God who will never leave or forsake him.
Nancy Williams, MA
Marriage and Family Therapist
International Board Certified Lactation Consultant
I have just read the link from CRI that Tulipgirl reccommended (http://www.equip.org/free/DG233.htm). It is very good. They accurately state my view of how “cultic” the Ezzo way is. Thanks, Tulipgirl for the link. I wish I had read that before.
Posted by: bob bixby at July 18, 2006 11:27 AMbob, I have appreciated your posts about the “God’s Way” parenting techniques. I fondly remember the times when I woke up with the sunrise to find that I had fallen asleep in the recliner with one of my daughters during the 3 am feeding. I also found it to be a great time for prayer, and a closeness with my child that I would never give back. Helping my wife out for the first couple weeks, I decided I really didn’t mind that time, and kept on taking care of it. Also, My firstborn was sleeping 8 hours at a time at about 4 weeks old, without us feeling guilty about how long we should allow her to eat during the night. There are parents to allow their kids to take over the world, but a balanced approach to responding to your child works as well as the Ezzo bootcamp, and every kid is different in their needs. I also don’t consider the emotional needs of an infant as insignificant, sometimes it is appropriate to comfort your child when they don’t have any obvious physical needs. Its not as cut and dried as Ezzo’s system would like parents to believe.
My wife and I spent about 2 weeks in a class at our church that was going through the material, and decided the innapropriate guilt being ladeled out over clearly extra-biblical teaching was not really helpful, and moved on to another class for a while. The practical stuff wasn’t that out there, but the excessive spiritualization of stuff, and rather sketchy biblical support for it, along with some poor exegesis thrown in for good measure caused us to lose respect for the system, no matter how good some of the material may be.
Posted by: dave at July 18, 2006 12:45 PMIf you have trouble with the article small print, and you surf with a Mozilla browser (as you should, those who don’t are modeling unchristian behavior!) Use the Control key and the plus sign to increase the font size.
Posted by: dave at July 18, 2006 12:58 PMHere is a sample of the response to the CRI article:
“Furthermore, using the title “God’s Way” according to Terner and Miller (CRJ pg. 18) gives the material the status of divine evelation. CRI’s decision to isolate the Ezzos in order to criticize them on this point is at least unfair and perhaps even suggests seditiousness. Many people before and since have used that phrase or something like that phrase in the title of their books.For example:
•Choices: Finding God’s Way in Dating, Sex, Singleness, and Marriage by Paula Rinehart
•Free from Bondage God’s Way, by Kay Arthur
•Raising Kids God’s Way: A Biblical Guide for Christian Parents, by Kathi Hudson
•Your Family, God’s Way: Developing and Sustaining Relationships in the Home, by Wayne Mack
•Preparing for Marriage God’s Way, by Wayne and Nathan Mack
•God’s Way to Health, Wealth, and Wisdom, by Adrian Rogers
•The Moment to Shout: God’s Way to Face Walls, by Luis PalauWhat we mean by “God’s Way” and we suspect what these other authors mean is that our book
reflects a commitment to the authority of Scripture. Thus, “God’s Way” is not meant to communicate anything other than what the Westminster Confession describes as that which is
either directly taught in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence can be deduced from
Scripture.”
The full response to the above mentioned article in PDF format can be found at Ezzotruth.com. That PDF also includes several examples where the primary sources were never contacted by CRI.
Now, let us also consider the source of the referral to the CRI article:
Tulipgirl AKA: Alexandra has even been named on Ezzotruth. A page she displayed in June 2005 was removed from here site after it was exposed as spreading false information. HERE is the Google Archive Link to the page that no longer exists on her site as stated on Ezzotruth. You can read HERE to get the facts from Ezzotruth.com about Tulipgirl’s involvement in propagating incorrect information.
Posted by: Hank Osborne at July 18, 2006 01:32 PMBob,
I said that I am not going to engage you an I will not. I am simply trying to provide you with the other side of the story on this CRI article.
Posted by: Hank Osborne at July 18, 2006 01:47 PM“Tulipgirl AKA: Alexandra has even been named on Ezzotruth.”
*L* Guess that means I’ve made the big time by being named on EzzoTruth. . .
Haven’t quite earned the distinction of being named on the sidebar with Dr. Dobson, Pastor MacArthur, Hank Hanegraaff and Frank York yet. But still, singled out by name by Tom Reed and Gary Ezzo?
Thanks for letting me know, Hank. *grin*
TulipGirl, hate to burst your bubble, but just about EVERYBODY has been singled out by name by Tom Reed. I guess I’m just so old hat, so toothless and harmless, that I didn’t merit a mention.
Tom Reed’s site is an astonishing example of exactly the point that Bob Bixby has made so well in his post.
Thanks, Tulip, for linking here. I don’t follow the Ezzo controversy as closely as I once did, but I have enjoyed your informative posts of late.
Posted by: Rebecca Prewett at July 19, 2006 08:58 AMBob,
Back in seminary, our Hebrew grammar prof had us reciting paradigms one day:
Yiktol
Tiktol
Tiktol
Tiktoli
Ektol
and so forth.
After a few moments of this activity, the dean (Robert Myrant) appeared at the door, and I swear I could see tears in his eyes. He had heard us as he was walking down the hall. He said it brought back the memory of his own seminary days when, in the wee hours of the morning, he would be pacing the living room with his infant son on his shoulder, reciting the paradigms to get the child to sleep.
Odd thing is, the paradigms had the same effect on us in class.
Posted by: Kevin T. Bauder at July 20, 2006 07:41 PMThere you go… the perfect cure for infant insomnia. You could also do luo charts to get that child up and running in koine Greek. Like we used to say,
hang luo, anthropos!
Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Ah, ha! Finally, a seminary professor weighs in with the BIBLICAL way to put our children to sleep! And it’s in the original language!
Hilarious.
Posted by: bob bixby at July 22, 2006 07:43 AM
