Has the world gone completely mad??

[IrnBruTheNoo]

What's with all the shocking stories?? Bloody hell, you couldn't even make this up :(

And they're making money out of it. The dark side to freedom of speech....

www.examiner.com/article/another-couple-found-guilty-of-murder-for-parenting-by-to-train-up-a-child

[smudgedgraffiti]

Yes anyone can write a review, you'll prob have to "register" but it's completely free. I've already "reviewed" it.

[PaulMcGannsMistress]

How is what better?

[IrnBruTheNoo]

Miss that's what I wanted to say at first, but didn't want to be seen as casting judgement on a whole nation. I appreciate not all Americans follow this book, but not surprised it originated from America either....

[LadyFlumpalot]

They also wrote "Created to be his Help Meet" to tell women where they are going wrong in marriage these days.

[AnandaTimeIn]

OMG, that is so disgusting!

That poor child. How those parents ever got through the adoption process I can't imagine...

That book should be banned for advocating abuse to children.

[tootiredtothinkofanickname]

Does anyone know how we could get an official MN campaign against it?

[IrnBruTheNoo]

I've just put in a bad review to Amazon about this particular book.

[youretoastmildred]

PaulMcGannsMistress, if you don't mind me asking, where are you?
Is this absolutely mainstream near you?
What happens if you argue against it?
Would you say this is a new resurgence of ideas like this; or a hangover from the past (ideas like this never went away) where you are?

[bemybebe]

Amazon knows about this book twenty times over. The number of petitions and bad reviews and people changing the time to "-A guide to child abuse" and Amazon changing it back to the publishers' version is too large to count. This book is from the 90s.

I understand that Amazon's view is that they will sell any book that is legal to sell. This book is legal to sell, unfortunately.

I spoke to NSPCC about it and they had their lawyers looking into this. They cannot force Amazon to stop selling it. However, the conclusion was very clear that following these instructions is ILLEGAL.

I would ostracize any person keeping this book from my personal circle and I would certainly alert social services about their parenting methods.

[PaulMcGannsMistress]

In the midlands of the UK. It's fairly mainstream in our old church. We still visit occasionally and I am pretty much ostracised by those who know I don't follow the party line anymore. In Patriarchy circles, ideas like this are very popular.

[tootiredtothinkofanickname]

I genuinely don't understand. If following what the book says is illegal, how can the book itself be legal? By the same reasoning, looking at images of child abuse would be legal, but actually abusing children would be illegal? I must be missing something here.

[bemybebe]

tootired I am not a lawyer, so have no idea about the legal arguments here. I am just going by what NCPCC guys told me several months ago/a year ago, when I first became aware of this book.

:(

I am not aware of a lot of books that are actually banned and illegal to sell/read. Visual material is a different matter.

[TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy]

I remember when this story broke out, she had been locked outside to 'discipline' her about her attitude, she collapsed, and the parents didn't take direct action because of their dogmatic view for quite a while. There are some articles with their emergency call/being interviewed and it's chilling how these children are talked about. They are objects towards a goal of being seen as good disciples and nothing else.

This type of 'discipline' is heavily pushed in a lot of evangelical circles (the American right-wing style ones). Even in less physical methods, the very detached, 'they're born wicked and you have to break them to comply with your will for them' mentality is taught over and over. I was raised in this environment and it's only gotten worse in my experience. The push to use this type of things is being pushed a religious right thing to do to create soldiers of God. Even more heartbreaking, these same circles are also part of the movement pushing to adopt more kids from abroad. Adoption laws vary from state to state in America and in some abroad adoption is quite easy compared to local ones - this couple had at least two children adopted alongside some birth children if I remember correctly - and there have been a lot of reports going around about this violent method of parenting has become racialised through this (seriously, there are writings from these organizations and form groups that encourage this that discuss how children from these countries "need an even firmer hand" and have extremely abusive measures and encourage using birth children/white church children as disciplines (bullies) to get these adopted children to break.

It's disturbing, disgusting, abuse. Many people are fighting this sort of thing, but many of those in charge are also part of these evangelical movement and/or at least get a lot of their votes and funding from them. The first step many are pushing for is better regulation in the States of adoptions from abroad because those children face the worst of it, then move onto abuse laws because that will be far harder with the control the church has.

[IrnBruTheNoo]

bemy but the book originated from the USA, and from and American couple who penned it. The negative comments are not completely unreasonable, this is a very emotive subject.

[IrnBruTheNoo]

*an

[LEMisafucker]

Why why WHY would you follow a patriachal society?? ignores the fact i am a catholic Please tell me you have broken free from these nutters PaulMcGanns'

[youretoastmildred]

Interesting - so much of this is familiar to me from the recent past of my culture (Irish Catholic - big families, beatings-happy, strict gender roles, original sin) - but in that case there has been an outcry and things that commonly happened in schools and orphanages are being considered outrageous and criminal now. Sad and horrible that this is mainstream in some circles, and so much harder to get at what is happening in private homes (nowadays - back then they could pretty much do what they wanted in institutions but you can't now, thank god)

[PaulMcGannsMistress]

Yes, I'm free from it now (and indeed all religion). MN was instrumental in my escape.

[TwoThreeFourSix]

That article made me want to cry. How the hell can people want to hit babies and children?

Evil

[bemybebe]

Irn I am not going to argue that this couple are not "loons" as I totally agree with that. Calling the US "land of loons" is akin calling the UK "land of terrorists" (by the place of birth of 7/7 bombers)... so no, not at all reasonable, sorry.

[RevelsRoulette]

So basically this is a book detailing how to brutalise your child?

Vile. Vile to write it and vile to follow it. What are they thinking?

And it's a 'Christian' book?
Christian?

'turn the other cheek, suffer the little children, children are a heritage from above, story of the good samaritan, fathers do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged, be kind to one another, do unto others as you would have them do unto you' Christian? You know, that one?

Yeah.

[bemybebe]

And, this is happening in the UK also.

This attitude to children is sickening, nobody needs to engage anti-US rhetoric in their indignation.

[LEMisafucker]

Really pleased to read that PMM