Speechless And Sad

I know it's the season to be thankful, the season to rejoice, the season to ground oneself. And don't get me wrong, I am thankful, I am looking forward to this season, and I'm fully prepared to hole myself in with the family for a few days and ground myself.

But it is really, really difficult for me to be thankful, or happy, or enjoy myself and my family when I read something like that.

Joy over at I Can Say Mama has written a post about it, and I couldn't agree more with her. What the book written by Michael and Debi Pearl suggests in terms of disciplining children is simply too sick for me to wrap my head around. And I cannot fathom how parents, who should love their children, can bring themselves to listen to these people, who claim to be Christians and obviously run a very profitable charity.

Because of the "parenting" book these people have written, at least three children have died under horrible circumstances, dying from exposure and malnutrition or massive soft tissue damage from "harmless" beatings with platic tubing, which Mr. Pearl suggests in his book to be harmless but painful while not leaving marks on the child that could alarm the authorities.

This shows that they knew it was wrong. If it had been fine, why would authorities get alarmed? And why did those parents don't throw the book in the trash as soon as they read that passage. Were they so overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a parent that they grasped any straw there was or were they plain and simple sadists? How would any parent want that their children obey because they are terrified of them? I want our girls to love me, to hug me, to run over me when I come home because they're happy I'm back, not run into their rooms and hide as soon as they hear my foot steps. But exactly that is what's going to happen. Those poor children will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. They will probably not be able to trust anyone, as from earliest childhood on they learned that they couldn't. And this makes me so incredibly sad I have no words for it.

Surely, these people have not ever opened the New Testament, as it mentions how precious a gift children are. How can these people suggest to beat babies as young as 6 months? It is impossible to discipline or train babies that age. And no child of any age should be "trained". Children aren't dogs but human beings who learn by watching and imitating their parents and other people around them. I can already see so much of myself in our daughters, it is scary sometimes. They are the best mirrors in the world to how me who I am, and beaue of them, I try my best every single day to be a better person.

What I hope for during this season that people and companies wake up, raise awareness and stop these truly evil people from distributing their work of horror to any more people. In my opinion, the Pearl should be held accountable for all those children's deaths as accomplice. There is nothing to bring those poor children back to life, but it can save the lives of many others. Visit the page I linked to above, sign the petition, share the article, and raise awareness. Let's all make this world a little bit safer for the most vulnerable, but probably also most important members of our society.