#to train up a child

[imsorryimlate]

the terror, 1x04 "punished, as a boy", 1x06 "a mercy" // to train up a child – michael and debi pearl

[mothofmany]

tw ramcoa

To Train Up a Child is TBMC

To Train Up a Child is TBMC

To Train Up a Child is TBMC

To Train Up a Child is TBMC

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

every time I'm reminded that to train up a child is a book that exists I want to give every kid who was traumatized because of it a million dollars and a big hug and I kind of also want to skin Michael and Debi Pearl alive

[andersunmenschlich]

Memories

They ambush me sometimes.

I remember the stripes. Deep purple at the centers, brighter towards the edges, and at last a glowing red. I remember how they hurt, how they burned like fire when touched.

Sometimes the center of a stripe would be red, too. That happens when there's no more skin there.

I remember the terror.

You had to relax.

You'd hear the whistling sound, and then the blow would fall, and you can't help but tense up then, you can't, it's automatic—just something the body does on its own—but you have to relax quick, because there's the whistle again, as fast as a hand can rise and fall, and the pain's coming back. If you don't relax, it'll hurt worse. If your muscles are tense, they'll be shredded a little bit. Pieces of them can get in your bloodstream, make it to your heart, kill you. Kids have died that way.

You have to relax.

I got real good at it. It's a skill, being able to let go of the tension a split second after pain like someone's pressed a hot brand to your backside, but I could do it.

They used to use paint mixing sticks.

You know those cheap wooden ones you used to be able to get for free at Home Depot?

But they broke them on me too many times, and those got splintery when they busted—might leave scars. You never want to leave permanent marks on a kid. Never know what trouble that could cause you, in this sinful, secular world.

I was five, I think, when they switched to those thin little black rods. Some kind of plastic, I think, about the width of a pencil.

Mom sharpened the ends of them in a pencil sharpener.

Nasty, whippy little things. They bit deep, but ate skin away real slow. No permanent marks. The impermanent ones were real colorful, though.

"Take off your pants," they'd say, and you'd do it, shaking and trying not to cry, but it's hard when you're only five and you're so, so scared. "Bend over," they'd say, and you would. No point in running. They'd only catch you and beat you more, harder.

They'd count it out. Each stroke.

You couldn't scream. If you did, they'd add more. Screaming is defiance. It's bad. You're bad—even worse than you already are—if you scream.

At first you can't help it. You're so scared, and it hurts so much. But you learn.

I can be real quiet when I'm hurting.

I learned early.

You gasp, and you shake, and you feel like you're being cut and burned at the same time, and you feel your body tense up like every muscle in you wants to pull in where it can't be got at, but there's nothing you can do and you can't get away, and there's water in your eyes so you can't see, everything's blurry, and you can't stop shaking but you have to relax! relax! and you can hear the rod coming back down and all the noise you're allowed to make is a terrified whimper, and they're counting, they're counting, it has to stop soon, just don't cry out and it has to stop soon.

Every day, as far back as I can remember.

And then they stop, and they turn you around all tender but stern and ask if you know what you did wrong—and you'd better get this question right! Usually they'll have told you at the beginning, but not always... and you can't always remember after all that.

I'm good at noticing what's made someone mad, now, and remembering it.

And you say you're sorry, and that you were wrong, you were bad, and you won't do it again. You promise. You mean it. You'd do (or not do) anything.

The pain isn't over.

It'll hurt for days after, even if they don't whip you again.

You say thank you.

It's what they want, what they demand. "Thank you for disciplining me, thank you for loving me enough to hurt me so badly I'll be scared of you forever, thank you for teaching me to be a better person, for beating me into being something your god likes, someone he won't burn forever."

And you hug them. You kiss them. You tell them you love them.

You make them believe it.

Lies are a sin.

If they know you've lied, they'll beat you again.

So you hug them, and you kiss them, and you say thank you and I love you, and they smile and hug you back and tell you they love you too, and having to do this hurts them more than it does you.

You can't sit down for a while after.

It hurts too much.

[delcat177]

There's an interesting hinge on the last bit, which is they're fine examples for restriction, but are also critical titles to be aware of, read, and understood, so that you can be aware of and understand fanatics.

I say that as a sometimes-librarian, in the facet of "Mein Kampf is good to have around because it's part of history, shines a light on the worst of us, and people are curious, plus it's objectively bad and undermines fascist arguments". It's a hot button and understandably so, but the going logic in libraries has been for many, many years to have it available, and I think that's a prudent choice for that case.

I also say that as an exvangelical who leans on the side of book burning for the singular title To Train Up a Child--lean, but come back, because it's horrible to read, but it helps me understand depths of religious trauma that I was able to bypass, which gives me the full picture of religious trauma, not just my own. Like Mein Kampf, it is also just. *Tremendously* evident to anyone not already entrenched in Gothardism that these people are full-blown whackadoodle and should be hung by the neck until sorry...

...or it *should* be, but can it be trusted to be understood?

I know we're talking about conservatives, but the really unifying and worrying thing we have going on right now is the death of media literacy. If honest to God *editors* are looking at Lolita and going "This is a book written to glorify pedophilia and should be burned", if the people in charge are missing the point that hard, we are in some deep shit.

I could go all the way out and say the Bible is available absolutely everywhere, to the point that you're encouraged to steal them from hotel rooms if your name or Biblical name is Gideon, and that it has supported white supremacy against its will for many, many years, but I don't want to sound pretentious, and it's not the Bible's fault. Nobody I knew in The Cults wanted to read it in context, they just used deliberate (or, in the sad cases, completely unaware and righteous) cherry-picking and "interpretation" to support hateful beliefs they already had. It's a hell of a lot of weight to put on a book so old they used to have to write it on dead sheeps.

“Authors should not be ALLOWED to write about–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot

“I only read YA fantasy books because every classic novel or work of literary fiction is problematic and features–” you are an anti-intellectual and you are robbing yourself of the full richness of the human experience.

[diabolicflame93]

Obedience / To Train Up a Child

Obedience, Emotional Control, To Train Up a Child, Gary Ezzo, Michael Pearl, and Shiny Happy People.

So many content warnings here. To Train Up a Child, child abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, IBLP, and spiritual abuse. 1 I have some thoughts after finishing “Shiny Happy People” and “Counting the Cost.” The first is that the “shocking cult” of IBLP seems eerily similar to my own childhood. Sure, we didn’t have a strict dress code like the Duggars or other IBLP families. But much of the…

[airasilver]

I know my church used the book, I swear they did, not as bad as her parents did BUT I have a question.

If people are against book burning/publishing/showing some of the books around to children/people, why do they want this book gone?

I’m sorry but this is, to me, against what people say if they burn/get rid of this book.

I do agree that this book needs to be gone. I am wondering though…

[kittykatninja321]

Defending Damian’s worst antics purely on the basis of “if you’re an experienced vigilante/combatant and you get murked by a child that’s a skill issue on your part”

[demaparbat-hp]

Izumi (steambaby) sketches.

[elodieunderglass]

Accidentally found this picture of a serious child sabering champagne and now can never know peace again

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

M'lady, doth this harlot bother thee?

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[dollarstoreartsupplies]

okay so steph is definitely a music purist?

we can all agree on that right? like she's a 'said she was born in the wrong generation in middle school' fleetwood mac, david bowie, the mamas & the papas, niche modern indie artists and also chappell roan kind of music listener. obviously. but.... i dont think we've really considered pete's music taste?

pete, who is a science, left-brained kind of kid, so he probably does not actively go out to look for music and is instead just provided music by the people around him?

pete whose older brother is theodore spankoffski and so his earliest and most fond and nostalgic music influences from his childhood would have come directly from ted's cd collection???

basically what im saying is peter spankoffski has the most trashy, early 00's ke$ha, black eyed peas my humps era, all american rejects ass music taste in the world

that boy had bowling for soup's 1985 memorized at age four, his guilty pleasure music is hollywood undead's everywhere i go, ted did his first decent person move in years when pete came out as trans as a kid and stopped listening to grow a pear by ke$ha and pete forcibly made him play it because it's a bop

and then his only friends are a weeb and a theatre kid.

steph gives him the aux cord on a date to be nice, as a sign of trust, and is blasted in the face with the most uncurated mess of j-pop, sondheim, weezer, and like... owl city's fireflies and that's just a fact

[bitter-panacea]

Tough love