And you are free to hold your views, and I am now seeing why you hold them.:-)Thank you for sharing with me.

We have been asked by couples to mentor them in their marriage and family life, and that they see fruit in our lives that encourages them. It is my prayer that all of us on this blog will be used by the Lord Jesus to be encouragers to others and that the Lord is glorified in all our families - whether involved with GFI or not - to further His Kingdom.

Still enjoying being part of this blogsite,

Barbara:-)

* Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo’s opinions on child rearing, couched in Christian terminology. I don’t believe that the majority of what they teach is reflective of true Biblical principles.

Even recently a “Discipline Flow Chart” based on the GKGW materials was offered to class leaders by the Growing Families Australia organization. Pretty close to a “check the box” mentality.

Continually in the materials is the message “Follow these Biblical Principles* and your baby will sleep sounder, grow faster, develop smarter, be more mature, be praised by your friends and neighbors, not be prone to ADD, not have premarital sex, and overcome any spiritual inertian to be a believer at a young age.” Examples of this? For starters, look in the Prep and Toddler materials for the Ryan/Stevie (or whatever their names are now) stories.

I often tell expectant parents who take my childbirth classes that when they are looking for older parents to get advice from they should pick parents who have families they admire and parents who seem to have fun being parents, rather than the many they can find who seem to be miserable as parents.

Now initially the Ezzo’s started out teaching about parenting because of exactly that reason–people saw desirable outcomes in their family. But now after time has passed, their family doesn’t really seem to be one that many would want to emmulate. So I see Chewy asking why so many people are still following his teaching–especially since they are essentially teaching from the “this is what we did” standpoint.

Thank you for your replies. Please know that I am not trying to argue or be contentious. I am trying to determine what you mean by the comments. What I think you are saying in light of other things on your blog (and please correct me if I am wrong here) is that you feel the Ezzos teach all these various “things” to us and you work on “following” what they say, and yet from what you know at this point, their own outcome is not bearing what you would think should be happening from all the teaching. Is that correct?

Sincerely,

Barbara

Thank you for being very gracious, even as we disagree. You and I both know that I will never be able to prove my comment, because it is not a direct quote from Gary. Gary is excellent at speaking out of both sides of his mouth. For example, saying that a baby who wants to eat before time has an “uncooperative stance,” and also saying “feed a hungry baby.” Even if I am convincing that Gary implies that we are to work toward having an ideal family by means of the right input, I’m sure he also says elsewhere that this is not true.

I would ask you to examine the first page of http://www.gfi.org. Part of me is scratching my head–one, trying to understand what in the heck Gary is really saying, and two, trying to understand how he has the nerve to say what I think he is saying when his family is in the shape it is in. Isn’t he saying our families are to bear witness to Christ? I’m not sure how not speaking to your adult, Christian daughter does that….(Although I notice that he, conveniently threw in this sentence: “Enjoying wonderful relationships within our families and communities is not the ultimate purpose of character training.” I guess that is how he dances around the issue of his own family.

Barbara, the thing is, you and I both know that you are (twice) drawing two sentences out of one blog that was about much more than those two sentences. Feel free to read the rest of my blogs on GFI–there are a lot. I don’t think I will convince you (although I didn’t think anybody would convince me, either) that the Ezzos are just plain messed up. But I would ask you how you can trust someone to teach you how to be an authority to your children when he clearly does not understand submission to authority, as evidenced by his complete disregard and disrespect for the elders at two (or three) churches.

I wonder if you are not splitting hairs in challenging “Chewy’s” statements about the Ezzos promising an “ideal family” or “perfect outcome?” While perhaps they do not use those exact terms, they do give a strong statement through the bulk of their work that if you follow their techniques, certain outcomes can be expected…baby will sleep through the night, mom will be well rested, through the wonders of “spiritual inertia” a child will be brought to salvation… All of these descriptors might be consider to be leading to a conclusion of an “ideal family” or “perfect outcome.”

I also wonder if you *really* want to continue dialoging about the main point of Chewy’s blog, since you specifically refrainedfrom doing so, and spent as much space doing it as could have been devoted to a good start at discussing it.

Thank you for your reply. In my first reply, I was focusing on the 2 items of your reply that
stood out in particular to me; they were your comment that 1)”So how is it that the Ezzos
continue to be popular?? I mean, they’re teaching us how to have the ideal family, right?
How to put in the right circumstances in order to get the perfect outcome. And yet, look
at their outcome! ”

I think you brought forth some other excellent topics that I think are important as well.:-)
However, my initial thought is disagreement with your two specifics in your first post. May I
graciously say that I do not see after all our years of involvement that the Ezzos would
say they are “teaching us how to have the ideal family” or that they are saying “put in the
right circumstances in order to get the perfect outcome.” And I know that is something that
we have never taught in all our years of involvement either. In other words, no, they are
not teaching us how to have the ideal family or how to put in right circumstances in order to
get the perfect outcom, nor do they say they are. Do you see any wording of this in their
teaching and if so, would you please share with me where it is?

I understand your comments about externals and the main point of your blog. (And I would be
interested in dialoging about those things as well.)

I enjoy reading your blog:-) and would like to continue dialoging with you on the other
issues you raised, such as “the ideal of the older teaching the younger in the context of
the immediate church.” As I am 56 years old, I am one of those “olders” who is willing to
teach the youngers:-) and also learn from the youngers. As a homeschooling mom of two boys
ages 16 1/2 and 14 1/2, I am in an interesting position in that most of my friends my age
are grandparents. It has been a joy being parents to teens. I am praying to make it to the
status of “grandparent.”

Sincerely,

Barbara

Yes, those are MY words about the Ezzos. They come from an 8-year involvement with the Ezzos and their materials. There was a very clear paranoia about how children behaved in front of others. We were “confronted” by the area coordinators (who I asked to be a second pastoral reference) when I applied to be a contact mom. I spent hours/days/weeks/months with the wife of this couple, with several class leaders, and with several contact moms. I (and I was NOT alone) cringed at the thought of being interrupted without the “interrupt rule.” I dreaded my son questioning my authority. I would never admit to (or allow) an extra feeding. Because the focus was on EXTERNALS. There was no emphasis on relationship. How is it knowing our children to demand that each and every one always use the blue cup, even if red is their favorite color?

Barbara, you commented, “We encourage them to look at other parenting materials” I have never heard the Ezzos say that. In fact, I have heard them belittle and malign other parenting programs and practices–especially those of Dr. Sears.

And although you have pulled two sentences out of my blog and questioned them (which I don’t mind!), I would ask you the main point of my blog. Is it really wise to take two people who have run away from two churches, who have had all contact cut off from one of their adult children, who have had their other child involved in something illegal, and make them your role model?? Again I emphasize–the ideal is the older teaching the younger in the context of the immediate church. Not older parents who have serious issues teaching younger ones by selling them materials from which they directly profit financially. I really don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind in Titus 2.