Thinking about Gary Ezzo

Yesterday, Pyromaniac had a very good piece about the condition of evangelical churches. Within that article, Phil Johnson mentioned Gary Ezzo. In the comments section, there were a few individuals who questioned Phil's comment about Gary Ezzo. Actually, one of those commenters followed my blogger profile to my blog and e-mailed me to ask me why I commented as I did at Pyromaniac, i.e. I said it was a detrimental thing for our family having been exposed to Ezzo's teaching.

If anyone happens to have questions about the controversy surrounding Gary Ezzo and his parenting program, please visit Tulipgirl and read the entries she has done over the past week or so. They are very informative. I realize that many people have followed Gary Ezzo's methods for child rearing (and it is Growing Kids Ezzo's Way, not God's way, make no mistake) and have found success. We did not.

I could go on and on about what I found questionable with Ezzo's material, and this doesn't include Babywise, his most controversial element. I will say one thing, however, that should summarize what I believe his parenting methods promote. I believe that whether he designed it intentionally or not, his program seems to promote the notion that child training exists to make parenting convenient. I don't believe he sets out with that goal in mind, but that is what underlies a lot of the methods, in my opinion. We don't want babies to nurse often because it's not convenient; we want children who will stay in their playpens for thirty minutes because it is convenient; we don't want children who act out in public because it isn't convenient. The program seems to imply that parenting can be free from struggle. There are certainly times when parenting is comparatively easy from one moment to the next, but the bottom line is that parenting is not convenient. Having complete responsibility for another human life is not convenient. Children will misbehave, they will stumble, they will embarrass us, and they will demand our attention. Perhaps my husband and I simply didn't work hard enough, but at the end of our experience with Ezzo parenting material, we had a rather adversarial relationship with our children. As we have learned to be more gracious and merciful with them, things have improved.

Please don't take this post as an invitation to debate the pros and cons of Gary Ezzo. The debate is over for me, and I'm comfortable with it. If you like debate, go on over to Phil Johnson's blog and debate; it's always interesting over there.