I also find the title Growing Kids God’s Way a little arrogant. If I post one of my recipes on line should I write “making tuna/red pepper pasta God’s way?” The better wording would be “making tuna/red pepper pasta Emilia’s way” if anything.

However… Ezzo is not the only one intolerant of other approaches than his own. I got kicked off an attachment parenting board, who used the word “gentle” to describe themselves, because I happened to say that I really didn’t have any strong feelings about spanking either way. In other words, I was not pro- or anti-spanking. I said something like I didn’t think mild spanking used by loving parents was abuse but that I respected people who decided never to spank. I also said I believed there were people who definitely should not use corporal punishment, like those with anger management problems or with a history of abusing children in the past.

To make a long story short, I was told to read the site’s code of conduct or whatever because I was defending spanking. I challenged the moderator who sent me this note (who is a self-proclaimed alcoholic, somebody I strongly believe should not spank because alcohol often lowers people’s inhibitions) to show me where I’ve actually defended spanking. She again sent me the code of conduct.

What I find really ironic is that this group looks with askance at promoting adversarial relationships between parents and children and assigning negative intent to children’s behaviour. But these same people are quick to assign negative intent to their own posters. As I said, when I merely said I wasn’t anti-spanking (but not pro-spanking either), the moderator was quick to accuse me of promoting spanking.

Interestingly, this group has a whole section devoted to Ezzo parenting (not in a good light), but sometimes it appears the people who accuse him of being rigid and dogmatic are in their own way just like him themselves.

I guess I just don’t like arrogance and intolerance, period.