Ep. 355 Kelsey McGinnis & Marissa Burt - The Myth of Good Christian Parenting - Shifting Culture

Episode Transcript
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Marissa Burt (00:00):
When someone like Gothard is like, this is
biblical, and then there'senough Christian language around
it to make it sound religious orappealing, then it becomes kind
of this bedrock that remainsunchallenged and continues to
circulate, and I think, formspeople's spiritual imaginations.
Oh, John,

Joshua Johnson (00:32):
hello and welcome to the shift in culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, in this
conversation with KelseyMcGinnis and Marissa Burt, co
authors of the myth of goodChristian parenting, we trace
the roots of evangelicalparenting culture from James

(00:52):
Dobson and Bill Gothard totoday's influencer driven moral
certainty. We talk about howthese teachings formed a
generation's spiritualimagination, why biblical became
more of a marketing term than ameasure of faithfulness, and how
recovering the way of Jesusmeans reclaiming curiosity,
compassion and mutuality in ourhomes. It's about rediscovering

(01:13):
Grace after years of formulascontrol and fear. It's about
learning to see our children notas projects to manage, but
people to love. If we take Jesusseriously, his gentleness, his
playfulness, his way of liftingup children as examples of the
kingdom, then maybe the work ofparenting isn't about getting it

(01:33):
all right, but about beingpresent, about being humble and
about being human together. Sojoin us as we uncover the myth
of good Christian parenting.
Here is my conversation withKelsey McGinnis and Marissa
Burt. Marissa Kelsey, welcome toshifting culture. So grateful

(01:54):
you are on so thanks for joiningme. Thank you for having us.
This is so fun. Yeah, it's goingto be a good conversation. We're
going to talk about the myth ofgood Christian parenting. Your
new book you co wrote together.
Let's go back to the start,where these Christian parenting
empires really took off.
Describe the types of Christianparenting you're talking about,

(02:16):
where it came from, and what arethese Christian empire?

Kelsey McGinnis (02:21):
Yeah, so we start in our book. We start that
our history. In 1970 there wasChristian parenting advice out
there before this, but 1970really brought a new era. It's
the year James Dobson publisheddare to discipline was his first
book, and James Dobson, ofcourse, went on to found Focus
on the Family and became thishugely influential voice in

(02:42):
American evangelicalism. And sowe put 1970 as sort of a bookend
as as a beginning of a new a newseason for Christian parenting
books. And in some ways, it wasa new era for parenting books
broadly, because you're dealingwith the baby boom and the
aftermath of the baby boom, soparenting books in general,
we're picking up steam, but thisis happening as there's a ton of

(03:05):
cultural panic and politicalupheaval, and you have a
contingent of conservativeparents that James Dobson kind
of finds and says, Oh, thesethese parents are really
receptive to messages aboutdiscipline. They're looking
around at the world, and they'rereally panicked about the
direction of culture. They'rereally panicked about what the
kids are up to these days. Andhe was able to distill a message

(03:27):
about discipline and how theupheaval around him and around
them had to do with the failureof parents to instill respect
for authority and discipline.
That really gets the ballrolling for evangelical
parenting books of the post 1970moment, and really sets the
tone, too, in terms of likelaying out the land and staking

(03:48):
certain positions on things likeparental authority and
discipline. Marissa, what wouldyou add?

Yeah, well, and some other things come along
with this. Right around the sametime you have the discussions
around inerrancy of Scripture,you have the rise of
complementarianism, this ideathat there is a biblical
hierarchy for the home and thatit's important that everyone
stay in this chain of command.
Almost you also have thenewthetic counseling movement,
biblical counseling started byJay Adams. That is saying, Look,

(04:18):
we need to view outsized sourcesof expertise like psychologists
and social scientists withskepticism. The Bible alone is
the instruction manual for life.
So all of these thingscontribute to what's becoming a
increasingly lucrative market ofexplicitly Christian parenting
advice and gives experts aplatform to say I'm here not

(04:41):
just to give you my opinion onparenting. I am here to tell you
the biblical way to parent thatwe can know and we should apply,
which, of course, is veryappealing to devout people who
have a high regard forscripture. Of course, if there's
a biblical way to parent, theywant to know it, and then the
teaching itself kind of. Pullson two levers. It really pulls

(05:02):
on parental fears. There's a lotof vivid descriptions of worst
case scenarios in these books,so it kind of lays out to
parents, here's what you canprevent happening if you parent
the biblical way. And it alsoappeals to understandable
longings and aspirations andsays, here's what you could have
if you parent the biblical way,you can have this godly legacy.

(05:22):
You can ensure your child's wellbeing, in fact, their eternal
well being perhaps agenerational legacy. So all of
these things combine to makethis a really appealing
framework. And Dobson paved away for many to follow, who who
followed this pattern. And infact, entire ministries
developed around Christianparenting resources and drew

(05:46):
people into two ministries. Andwe see that with Focus on the
Family and a number of others tothe present day. I

think when something gets really popular,
people take that that learningand that teaching, and then they
propagate it. They go, Okay,I've learned that. Now I'm going
to write something about it now.
I'm going to do it and continue.
I want to know who, who PaulPopenoe is that he wrote the
foreword to dare to disciplineDobson's first book. It seems
like he got some of his histhinking from Paul Popenoe. So

(06:16):
who is he? Why is he writing theforward to Dobson's book,

which was removed from later editions.

Worth noting.
That's right, that's right, forgood reason. Yeah, Paul Popenoe
was a researcher and one ofDobson's mentors, and he was at
the time, one of the moreinfluential voices on like
family and marital counseling,but from the perspective of
wanting to preserve the whiteAmerican family. I mean, he's
now, looking back, we would callwhat he advocates for eugenics

(06:45):
for the most part. I mean, it's,it's very clear that Popenoe is
animated by wanting to preservethe white American family unit,
the nuclear family marriagesbetween white Americans, and
sees that as a way ofpreserving, you know, the health
of American culture. There's I,and I admittedly have not read a

(07:05):
lot of writing by Paul Popenoe,but we did read about him, and
he does make an appearance inour book as well. Because I
think it's important to knowthat the tone of Dobson's work,
and the tone of Dobson'swriting, especially when it
comes to the value of thenuclear family is very informed
by Paul Popenoe, and divorce issomething that comes up quite a

(07:26):
lot, no fault. Divorce wasrelatively new at that time, and
Dobson's very alarmed by this.
He sees this as this move ofeven like the US government
toward dismantling the family.
There is like this. This this islike where you start to really
see this, like attack on thefamily discourse that kind of
sows the seeds of now what wehave is a parental rights

(07:47):
movement. You can see this linehere. In some ways. You can
trace this back to someone likePaul Popenoe.

And I think when people think of Dobson, they
often think of recent yearsDobson, and it's important to
note that dare to disciplinecomes out in 1970 Dobson has
just finished his graduate work,and he's working under Popenoe,
and when you read that book inthe original edition, it does
not have much Christian verbiageat all. There's like a couple

(08:17):
pages at the very end that havesome Bible verses. That's right,
it is very much a conservativeparenting book, and I think it's
fair. I think it's a reasonableassumption to say Dobson's young
at this point. He's worked inthe schools. He's the father of
a preschooler and an infant. Alot of his ideas are
theoretical. So I think it'sreasonable to look to who his
influence was at that time andsay This formed his theories

(08:41):
about parenting in a significantway. And while he did, in later
books begin to draw on Christianvocabulary and kind of become
known for that, he also didn'treject these earlier ideas. He
more built on them. So I thinkthat's important to note,
because a lot of people maybehaven't revisited dare to
discipline. It was interestingin the wake of his death, to

(09:01):
hear how many people were kindof reflecting back positively
with reverence on his legacy,who had never read his his
parenting books. I thought thatwas kind of fascinating. How,
how many people hadn't actuallyread the words he had said.

I mean, I heard that a lot. We're we're focusing
on the family positively,because Dobson, really, when you
actually just say and put yourname out there as Focus on the
Family, that's going to have apositive connotation for a lot
of people. And somebody thatjust has a cursory look at what

(09:36):
that is and not doesn't divedeep into something, but they're
talking family is a certaincertain thing, but is also
discipline is a certain thing.
And they're talking aboutbiblical. You, Marissa, you'd
said biblical probably 10 timesand and your your answer, what
were they thinking was biblical?

(09:58):
What is biblical? For them whenthey're talking about parenting.
What does biblical mean?

Kind of, whatever they want it to be, honestly. I
mean, biblical is such aslippery term, right? And it can
get a response from people inmany ways. It's a marker of
correctness, like, if you aretaking a stand on what's
biblical that automatically sayssomething about maybe what
you're attacking as notbiblical, as incorrect, and it's

(10:27):
a little bit of an uncontestableauthority. Some of these
resources will even open withthat. They will, they will offer
the disclaimer that, look, thisisn't me. This is God's Word,
the authority of God's Word. Soit's really an authority claim.
But some of the key recurringthemes you see people point to
as biblical are this hierarchyin the home of authority. You

(10:48):
can think of if you've seen Billgothard's Umbrellas of
authority. Ted Tripp hassomething called a circle of
blessing, this idea that God'sorder for society goes God
maybe, maybe a governing figureor pastor, husband, wife, child,
and that this is God's order forthe nuclear family as a biblical
concept. Often what comesalongside that is this idea that

(11:11):
parents can and should act asagents of God who expect
instant, cheerful obediencethat's also presented as the
biblical standard and thenspanking as the primary tool for
discipline is presented asbiblical. And then there's all
sorts of like stowawaytheological ideas and proof
texted Bible verses that hold upthese frameworks. But I would,

(11:34):
if I had to pick the top three,these are the three ideas that
continue to recirculate asessential. Would you add things
to that? Kelsey, yeah,

no, that's right. But biblical, this is my,
like, cynical hot take. Biblicalat this point, is a really
useful marketing term, right? Itbecomes this. It's a, like a
virtue signal for a certain kindof Christian who considers a
very important part of theirworldview, the inerrancy of
Scripture, and a very particularkind of inerrancy, I would add
to that, and it's just a way ofsignaling. This is the kind this

(12:05):
is the kind of Christian book,than the kind of Christian
person that you can trust, andthat it allows authors to sneak
in all kinds of claims, oftenbased on personal experience and
other parts of their worldview,and kind of just slip those in
there, and they go unnoticed andunexamined. And we saw that

(12:25):
quite a lot in these books. Youcan see them across Christian
self help, across these genremarriage books are another, you
know, common offender in thisway as well. And when you go
back and you know Dobson, Idon't even we should have gone,
we should have looked, but Idon't even know if Dobson uses
the word biblical in dare todiscipline. That kind of becomes

(12:46):
this Shibboleth later, it isinteresting to see how that
becomes more and more common,though, as just like a signal
here you can trust this one forwhite evangelicals especially,

I want to talk really briefly about the
hierarchy and then the Gothardumbrella picture. When I saw
somebody post that, I waswondering why anybody else
needed an umbrella, if theumbrella that covers everybody,
yeah, I don't understand it, butthat that actually like it just

(13:20):
doesn't logically make sense.
The umbrella picture, yeah,

well, and I think it's really based on
presuppositions. You know, TedTripp, at one point he wrote
shepherding a Child's Heart,another really, still popular
parenting book in the 90s. Hetalks a little bit. It jumped
out at me when I read it whileresearching. He says something
along the lines of, he'sattacking, kind of the civil
rights and feminist movement,movements in American society.

(13:46):
And kind of says, We know thatbiblically speaking, there's not
grounds for equal treatment foreveryone. And it was, he says it
better than that. But it wasinteresting to me, because from
today, you think, excuse me, canyou repeat that again? Like,
how? How is he landing at thisconclusion? What? What a lot of

(14:06):
these researchers do is beginwith a pre presupposition, x is
biblical, therefore I mustreject y. And this is really, I
think, the fruit of biblicalcounseling. So I think when
someone like Gothard is like,this is biblical, and then
there's enough Christianlanguage around it to make it
sound religious or appealing,then it becomes kind of this

(14:30):
bedrock that remainsunchallenged and continues to
circulate, and I think, formspeople's spiritual imaginations.
So unfortunately, in many ways,these resources appeal to people
in vulnerable times, right? LikeNew parenthood is a vulnerable
moment. Like people are oftenoverwhelmed. A lot of times
they're picking up theseresources because things aren't
working out well for them, or asthey expected, they're looking

(14:53):
for help. So this kind ofcertainty, this authority, this
very like clear, this is the wayto do it. This is the way not.
To do it are very appealing, butit really hijacks critical
thinking in a lot of ways. Yeah,that would even look at an image
and say, This doesn't thisdoesn't even make sense.

If I'm overwhelmed, I'm tired, I'm
exhausted, I really don't havethe mental capacity for critical
thinking as a as a young parent,when I am sleep deprived, it
does help to say, Okay, this isthe right way to do it. I'm just
gonna, just like, put one footin front of the other, and I'm
gonna do this. Hopefully it'sgonna work. How do we then help

(15:31):
to reframe some of this, tobring in some critical thinking?
Maybe it's not like all on theparents at an early stage. Maybe
it's on the community to come inand support and be but what does
it look like then to say, bringin critical thinking instead of
just following the script thatwe've been given?

That's such a good question. One thing we're
hoping our book helps people dois start that process by just
giving people permission to say,like, this doesn't seem like
good advice, or this seems like,this seems like a bad idea,
like, because, you know, weoften get, we have a good
questions, like you're sayingthis person had nothing good to
say. There's nothing good here.
Well, no, but when a book ismarketed to you as, here's the

(16:12):
key for biblical parenting, youare kind of being told from the
jump, okay, absorb this andapply this. You know, there are
some fine ideas in some of thesebooks, right? And I know many
parents who would say they theyfelt like shepherding a child's
heart was like a game changerfor their parenting and made a
huge impact on their family. AndI don't want to take that from

(16:33):
anyone like, if they learnedsomething valuable that really
did serve their family. Well, Iwant to say that is absolutely
possible, but I think there isgreater freedom that parents can
have in engaging with some ofthese resources. It is
completely reasonable for aChristian parent to want some
advice that comes from theirworld view, but that kind of
advice tends to come with suchhigh moral stakes, and so many

(16:57):
of these resources are soldmaking promises that they can't
deliver, that I think parentswho want to go to them should go
with an open hand, an open mindand absolute freedom to take,
reject, throw away, keep allthose things and to go and seek
out resources that aren't fromthat niche. One other

(17:17):
destructive thing that theseresources do is discourage
parents from going and lookingat secular parenting advice that
could actually be helpful, likea lot of Christian parenting
books, because they are assumingthis biblical worldview will
really just forget that childdevelopment research exists, or
kind of say we don't really needthat because we have the Bible.

(17:37):
I don't think there's anygrounds to say that, and there
are a lot of resources outthere, especially for parents of
neurodivergent children, thatwill give some useful tools.
They don't come with the eternalstakes. They sort of come with a
little bit more pragmatic here'swhat here's what you can do to
de escalate behavior. Here'ssomething you can try. They're a
little bit more boring that way,but some of them are really

(18:00):
valuable. And I think that kindof freedom to hand to parents
and say, you know your childrenbetter than any author of any of
these books, so you are betterequipped to come up with, you
know, whatever this, whatever,cobbled together version of this
advice works for you and totrust your own instincts more

(18:20):
than you trust what's in thesebooks. That's the other
insidious thing is that a lot ofparents walk away from Christian
parenting books feeling likethey can't trust their own
instincts at all, like myparental instincts are going to
lead me to be a permissive,terrible parent, to ignore the
Holy Spirit's prompting, to letmy children run the roost. And I
don't think that's always trueeither. Of course, it's

(18:43):
possible, but, but I think thosemessages that parents
internalize over time leave themvulnerable to then these, these
really escalated, false,baseless promises,

yeah, I think really deflating some of these
ideas down to just like, here'ssomeone's opinion. It's kind of
like talking to another parentcan really help free parents up
to say, look, if you're lookingfor biblical, biblical parenting
principles, there aren't, thereisn't parenting methodology on
the pages of Scripture, we getstories of families and general

(19:18):
relational principles in the NewTestament. The only direct
parenting instruction given toChristian parents in the New
Testament is fathers do notembitter or provoke your
children in Ephesians six, it'sfollowed up with but bring them
up in the discipline andinstruction of the Lord, there's
tremendous freedom regardingmethodology, and certainly if
devout parents want to look forprinciples, these are the

(19:39):
general one anotheringprinciples that apply to all
relationships, be compassionate,be forbearing, love the one who
sins gently, love your neighboras yourself. These sort of
things that aren't going to beprescriptive. Again, in some
ways, it can feel like free fallto people who are looking,
whether because of biblicalframeworks that have shaped them
to look for certainty orbecause. Of our American culture

(20:01):
that likes to life hackeverything. People who are
looking for that map may findthemselves in free fall, but
there's opportunity for growththere. And as Kelsey said, to
really study and know the peoplein front of us understand our
own temperaments, our ownpersonalities. And so there's a
lot of opportunity there aswell, if parents can be freed up

(20:21):
to grasp

that. I mean, if I look at Ephesians six in a lot
of the relationships that arethere, to me, it talks a lot
about mutuality and and care andlove and respect for each
individual and and people,whether no matter what type of
relationship it is, whether itis a husband and wife
relationship, whether there is aparent child relationship,

(20:43):
whether in that is a masterslave relationship, there's
actually respect and dignity andlove for each of them. And so
how do we get from a place whereI can see mutuality in a
parenting relationship, andactually like lifting up the

(21:03):
dignity of the child into aplace of control,
authoritarianism and wanting tojust do everything that the
parent says because of I thinkit's probably because I have
shame and fear in my own self,and I don't want to see them
actually Do the same thing I'vedone in my life. So how do we

(21:23):
move from one place to another?

Yeah, I mean, I think a big piece of why we
start, why evangelical parentingbooks start at the other place,
is some of the things we'vetalked about, the the hierarchy
is so baked in this, this ideathat that is the way things need
to operate that I think a lot ofpeople are very uncomfortable if
you start saying a parent childrelationship is mutual in some

(21:48):
respect, like, Whew, that isgonna make people feel a certain
way. And some of it, I think, isfear of loss of control. A lot
of it is, frankly, the kind ofsnap judgments we make. These
books are full of anecdotes.
Social media is full ofanecdotes of people who see
children they perceive to be outof control, and are kind of

(22:08):
like, that's a huge problem, andit's probably that the parents
are can't get it together, youknow. So these kind of snap
judgments. So I think a lot ofparents feel a lot of pressure,
just societally and culturally,to have well behaved children
like still, we reward that andsort of say that's a win. How
did you do it? So I think thereare a lot of reasons parents

(22:29):
feel like I can and should andought to try and control and
elicit this kind of goodbehavior, even if maybe they can
get there on principle.
Theologically, there's still alot of pressure in the moment,
and certainly in communities,Christian communities that place

(22:50):
a high value on obedience, thereis an intense amount of pressure
for parents, whether that'stheir children's behavior in
church, their children's facefaith choices, because the
community has bought into thisidea that parents are agents of
God who can and should controlthese outcomes. So So I think

(23:11):
all those things make itdifficult for people to walk
away, because they will fearbeing judged. They will fear
that they've maybe done itwrong. We hear from people all
the time who are kind of saying,I don't want to spank my
children. I feel like it'swrong, but my community has such
pressure on me, and I'm also alittle bit worried, like, Can I

(23:32):
trust myself in this? What if Idon't do that and mess things
up? You know, there's a lot ofthat going on, which I think
maybe just reveals, forChristians some underlying
theological beliefs that wehave, that everyone needs to
really perform to the standardof perfection and get it right,
or else there's cosmic kind ofspankings awaiting everyone. I

(23:55):
mean, I do think it revealstheological beliefs that
whatever we say about grace andfreedom. A lot of times we we
don't really act out of that.

And I would just add, I think one way to
start moving from one end to theother is to start looking at
children as fully human, as likeobvious as that sounds, but when
you read a lot of these books,the language used for children
is very dehumanizing. It runsthe gamut. You know, you sort of
get the impression that a lot ofthese authors think of children

(24:26):
more like pets to be trainedthan like humans to be related
to. And it is true that childrenare in a different developmental
phase than adults, right? Likethat is that's real, and
relating to children isdifferent than relating to your
spouse. It doesn't mean theyaren't human, though they aren't
pre human, and there's alsopotential for them to encounter

(24:49):
God, for God to be present tothem in a real way, for them to
and their experiences are notless real because they're
children, I think especially insome of. These books that really
advocate for corporal punishmentand spanking, you kind of get
the impression that, like theseformative experiences of
childhood, the like the moralityand ethics of them almost don't

(25:11):
matter, because these are theseare children, you know, and
that's just not true. And Ithink anyone, if I pose that to
anyone, they would say, Well, ofcourse, that's not true, but I
think in practice, that's howsome parents are basically told
to think about their children,right? Like you'll you'll have
authors like Larry Christensen,author of the Christian family,
saying things like, you know,don't be bending over backwards

(25:34):
to like, be fair to yourchildren, right? Like parent,
children shouldn't feel entitledto their parents being like
that, responsive to their senseof justice, you know, sort of
like dismissing their internalsense and like, of course,
children don't always expresstheir feeling wronged in ways
that are easy to deal with. Foradults, that's absolutely the

(25:55):
case, but neither do adults, andyou're not allowed to hit an
adult. So, you know, there arejust there are ways that we can
start reframing how we talkabout children and how we think
about their experience of theworld, and saying to ourselves
as adults, their difference doesnot give us the right to treat

(26:15):
them as subhuman, to not applythe same ethical frameworks that
we do for relationships withadults. And in fact, because
they are the most vulnerable,because they are new and
vulnerable and dependent, weshould be even more
compassionate about theirposition of vulnerability in the
world, not less. And that is, Ithink, the opposite of what you

(26:36):
get from someone like Dobson issort of like, stop being so
compassionate with these littlebrats. You know, it's that kind
of tone. And, yeah, I think thatcan set parents up for real
antagonistic relationship withtheir child.

Yeah, and I would add to that too, there's,
there's really possibility tolook to the life and ministry of
Jesus. I mean, you would, youwould, maybe you wouldn't be
surprised. I was surprised athow few of these resources
mentioned Jesus or reflect otherbiblical teaching exactly right.
Like there's a list Christianyou would think, you would
think, but it's remarkable whenyou get there and you think, I

(27:16):
wonder if it's because Jesus'sway of leading was not lording
it over, and was service, andwas a way of humility and self
sacrifice. And that displaces alot of these myths immediately,
because there's no place for aparent to act in a God like way
if, if the invitation here isthis kind of service, there's,

(27:38):
there's, there's space for aparent to grow in maturity, in
patience, in the fruit of theSpirit, in dealing with the
difficulty of navigating some ofthe intense parenting seasons.
So So I think that could be away for people who still retain
faith to consider how to shift.
Would be to give more attentionto the life and pattern of Jesus
than these kind of prescriptivevoices about what is biblical

(28:01):
coming at

them? I think one of the things in your book
that was helpful for me was justto imagine Jesus as a child and
how he was raised and how heneeded to be raised, Jesus as a
child, and then Jesus actuallyencountering children and how he
interacted with them and playedwith them and gave them dignity,

(28:25):
and said that you must be like achild to enter into the kingdom
of God like he's giving highpriority to children, which we
don't often do. Yesterday,during church, we were I was
facilitating conversation aroundthe prodigal son story, so the
good father, and it was reallyinteresting, as we were

(28:46):
discussing this story that Jesusshared so much, parenting came
out of that story. They werelike, Oh, I could see that my
first instinct is that my childhas done something wrong. I want
to correct them. But the theFather You know, met him with
love and compassion, and notlike this discipline, like

(29:10):
you're degenerate, which, hey,he still took his father's
money, spent it on prostitutes.
He's done he's got it all. Andthen there's love and compassion
that he was met with, andthey're like, Oh, how come I
don't always do that as a as aparent. And to move that it was,
it was just interesting how allthese parenting questions came

(29:31):
out of that one story. And itjust gave me, you know, a big
heart. I was like, Yes. Like,this is amazing to see that
we're wrestling with some ofthese things, because we see the
actual character of God, and notjust the script that people have
given us to say this is thebiblical way to parent.

Yeah, and I, I will let Marissa tackle. Marissa
told me, if I'm like, going todo a heresy here or something.
Like, I think, you know, in theprocess of working on this book
with Marissa and thinking abouthow quick parents are to step
into the role of God, and all ofthese stories, I look at that

(30:12):
narrative now, and I feelcompelled to say, I, along with
my child, am one of the twosons, right like, and in moments
where I feel like my child isthe rebellious one, it's more
likely that I'm the older sonthan God, you know, like, I
think there's this opportunitythere for us to be, you know, we

(30:33):
are. We are children of God,along with our children. I think
that that is a, maybe a morepowerful and more life giving
way of reading that story, asopposed to putting ourselves in
the position of God. Iunderstand why parents do it,
and I don't want to shame anyonewho has but I also think that
was a radically new thing for mein the process of writing this

(30:55):
book, and I hope other parentscan maybe consider that to be a
valuable thought exercise too.

Yeah, I love that.
And also I think this, you'rerecounting Joshua of the store
of the conversation around itreally spotlights the way
theological beliefs are woven upin these ideas. Because I do
think beliefs about God and whathis fatherly behavior is, like,
inform a lot of this in maybenot explicitly outlined ways.

(31:25):
There really is an underlyingstowaway belief that that God is
kind of waiting to punish us,like waiting to catch us messing
up. And I do think Jesus's storykind of shadow dispels that
myth. Nobody's punished.
Nobody's punished. You know, theinvitation is to both the sons

(31:45):
to come enter the father's joy.
And I think that can make usvery uncomfortable, kind of like
the mutuality of we are siblingstogether in Christ refers back
to what you were saying aboutthe mutual relationships that
can make us uncomfortable. Sodoes this idea that that a child
could err in such a grievous wayand not a weight punish. That
really starts to poke at one ofthe big theological

(32:07):
underpinnings of all thisteaching that shows up again and
again, is this. Ideas around theideas around penal
substitutionary atonementbolster a lot of this, and I
think that makes people veryuncomfortable to kind of poke at
that lower level of a house ofcards, is how I think of it.
Sometimes with these teachings,because they're all built on
these things that you poke atone or another, the whole thing

(32:28):
can crumble down, which is, Ithink, why a lot of times people
are so defensive when you beginto to poke, poke at these ideas.
Because it it inevitably leadsto a kind of faith
deconstruction. It inevitablydoes, because the ideas are so
woven up around ideas about Godand what he's like.

You know, one of the things I really love about
your book is that you, you know,you start in 1970 but then you,
you bring it out wide. Have likeone thing has been influenced by
another thing, and it becomesthat a whole culture, that a
whole subset of Christianity isswimming in, and they're
swimming in this culture, andthey don't realize that there's

(33:08):
anything outside of this littlepond that they're in, like this.
They believe like this is thewhole world. This is biblical.
This is everything. And I justreally, I'm fascinated by these
subcultures and these culturesof of things that they believe,
like, this is it? This is all wehave. This is the world. This is
how it works, because we're allswimming in it together. How is

(33:30):
that continued? How is thislittle pond actually even grown
with even the the influencerculture of today, where we do
see things like, I mean, we'rewe're looking at Trad wife
culture, where their kids aredoing great. They're
homeschooled. They have, youknow, they're in line. They're
doing the right things. They'vedisciplined them enough to say a

(33:53):
we have perfect little children.
How does this this culture oftaking that we see now, take
what has been before andpropagated it to a whole new
audience. The

evolution of Christian media in the US since
1970 is really, reallyfascinating, and it's amazing to
me. I write a lot aboutChristian music for Christianity
today. It's amazing to me howclosely tied together, like the
evolution of Christianpublishing, Christian parenting
literature and Christianentertainment media, these

(34:28):
things kind of evolve together.
And one thing that has become avery strong selling point for a
lot of American evangelicals isthis set apartness, right? Like
the Christian parenting adviceis set apart, it will help you
raise a family that is setapart, that is remaining clean
and pure in this world that'sgoing wrong. It's kind of the
same selling point for likecontemporary Christian music for

(34:50):
CCM, right? Here's this littleclean, safe ecosystem of media
over here, there was this momentwhen the internet started to
kind of break. The possibilityof those separate ecosystems
like the internet reallydisrupted Christian music
because it had been able to livein its little bubble of
Christian bookstores andChristian radio, and then all of
a sudden you had streaming, andall these young people had

(35:12):
access to all the music at once.
But in our algorithmic momentright now, it is, again, very
easy for these ecosystems, butsort of these individualized
ecosystems of your own makingand your own construction based
on your worldview and what youwant to interact with, and that
has allowed this sort ofseparate universe of Christian

(35:35):
parenting advice to continue toto find people and to kind of
gain new converts and lift upnew voices. What's interesting,
though is that as fewerrelatively millennial and Gen Z
parents are buying parentingbooks, they are following
Christian parenting influencers.
Some of these influencers are,in turn, writing their own

(35:57):
books, but others are justrecycling ideas from books that
were written in the 90s andearly 2000s we see this a lot
with content from shepherding achild's heart. It's amazing to
me how often I see the hashtagshepherding a Child's Heart, or
see Ted Tripp quoted in the postof someone often like a kind of
Trad ish presenting femaleparenting influencer. It is

(36:20):
really, I mean, it's hard totrack because, because the
internet is so algorithmic, it'shard, even as a researcher, to
get a sense of what other peopleare experiencing and how they
are finding this content. Butit's not hard once you start
engaging with any ChristianOrient, Faith oriented parenting

(36:41):
content, you get sent in thatdirection, and you're fed this
content from any number ofChristian parenting influencers,
each with their own kind oforientation and set of concerns.
There are dad fluencers, thereare mom influencers, there are
Trad wife influencers. There areparents who are super concerned
about what their kids are eatingand biblical parenting. I mean,

(37:04):
it's like the niches are sospecific, but you can find the
audience via the algorithm, andso people still have this
incentive to have somewhatextreme messages, because those
tend to draw more reaction andinteraction. Yeah, it's a real
Wild West, though.

Yeah, yeah, I tend to. I think it kind of
exacerbates what's what wasalready there. So in the same
way that a lot of the peoplewriting books in the 80s and 90s
were self platformed, were youmaking their own experience
normative for everyone? You havethat, but on a bigger scale,
with increased incentives, withmore smoke and mirrors, right?

(37:44):
Because you have cameras and youhave lighting and you can set
things up. So it does look likethese perfectly behaved children
in their neutral tones in thebeautiful kitchen, you know? So
it really amps up some of thoseappeals, the appeal to
aspirational longings. It canalso amp up the fear mongering.
So I think it it takes it toanother level. It also is

(38:08):
mutually reinforcing, becausethere's this sense that people
might follow someone becausethey like their, you know, home
decorating tips or something,but then an influencer is also
giving their parenting advice,and their children are there,
and so it becomes this kind ofway of identifying with a
lifestyle one likes and wants toparticipate in. And I think
that's a new element that maybewasn't as much there in the

(38:31):
books or in like radio programsand things like that, because
you it's participatory in adifferent way. And the comment
sections on posts areparticipatory in a different way
that that say, not just I'mdoing it biblical, we are doing
it biblical. So there's this,this social dynamic. I would say
it's also distinct, though,because there is evidence now

(38:54):
like this is not theoretical. Soyou can look back to the 70s and
80s and think, Okay, Iunderstand why parents saw the
appeal of that maybe why theywere misled, why they jumped on
board that train. However, wehave generations now of adult
children saying that train tookus to places we did not want to
go. It was, it was a negativeexperience, a net negative. You

(39:15):
have older parents saying wedeeply regret parenting this
way. We too, felt misled andbetrayed. So I would say all
this stuff is stillrecirculating. There are voices
out there, though, saying, hey,this isn't theoretical anymore.
We have data. We have peopletestifying to the fruit of this.
And I do wish hope that Gen Zparents and younger parents can

(39:38):
break out of their algorithms todiscover some of that to kind of
stop this cycle from continuing.
Because, as Kelsey said, a lotof this stuff people are
sharing, for instance, quotesfrom Ginger Hubbard, another
popular parenting influencer whowrote in the 90s and early 2000s
she's still on social mediatoday. Her books quote heavily
for. Books from the 70s. I thinkthe parents sharing ginger

(40:01):
Hubbard's quotes today do notenvision that they are relying
on out of print books from the70s to parent but that's
functionally what's happening.
So I do hope that with thepossibility on the internet for
greater conversation andexposure, people can hear from
some of the survivors of thesekind of religious communities

(40:24):
that were very high control theycan hear from adult, adult
children and parents reflectingback. And that might empower
them to to say, Wait a second,this looks very shiny and
appealing, but I don't. I'm notso sure about that. And also it
does provide parents withalternatives. Certainly there
are other other alternative waysfor it at at their fingertips

(40:46):
that maybe wasn't the case whenparents showed up at a Christian
bookstore before

I go on to x formally Twitter every once in a
while, not very often, becauseevery time I go on, people are
just mean, and most of it isjust, they're just mean. Like,
most of it's because you'rewrong I'm right. Like, it's just
the I am correct. How did thebelief there that say, Okay, we

(41:13):
now have the keys to the to thekingdom. We have the keys to the
universe. We know what is right,biblically. How does that
actually hinder relationshipswith people to actually always
say, I'm right, you're wrong.

Gosh, I was just thinking about this the
other day. Is this, you knowthat the parenting book market
is so lucrative, and there are alot of different little niches
within it, but the Christianparenting book market is kind of
the only one that comes out andsays, like, hey, we have the
right way, not like, we have thebest way. We have the way that's
like, in line with the createdorder of the universe, right?
Like, the stakes of it are sohigh, the promise is so

(41:53):
appealing, if you find theaudience that's looking for that
kind of certainty and that moralclarity, or perceived moral
clarity. So you end up withpeople reading these books who
are reaching for them for thatcertainty, if they find it, if
they buy in, they are parentingfrom a place of zealous, earnest

(42:15):
belief that they are doing itaccording to what God is telling
them to do. But then, as thoseparents get older and their kids
get older, if the kids turnaround and say, This harmed me,
I think this was wrong, thatparent is then faced with this
decision, and when we read, whenwe read responses from people

(42:37):
who responded to our survey, andwe did these interviews, we
talked with adult children forwhom it was incredibly painful
to have a parent who wasunwilling or unable to consider
that they had not done it theright way, or that they had made
mistakes, or they had listenedto bad advice. Because if you
make decisions as a parent thatyou think are you're making them
because God is telling youthrough another author to do it

(43:01):
this way, you almost feel likequestioning those decisions. Is
questioning your own faith,questioning your salvation,
questioning the questioning, amI indwelled by the Holy Spirit
if I was able to make thosekinds of mistakes with my
children? Like, what? How isthat possible? I think that's a
really painful reckoning that isdownstream of the kind of

(43:23):
certainty that these resourcesoften bring, that kind of
certainty, that kind of zeal,and in some cases, kind of
militancy even. And I think thatreally sets families up for a
lot of pain later, not everyone.
Some families come out the otherside, and they're like, that was
fine. Those, those serve uswell, but gosh, not everybody.

And it's such a double whammy, because the
skills needed to navigate thatkind of relational tension have
not been skills families havebeen practicing all along.
Right? What we talked aboutearlier, the seeing the child in
front of you, cultivating anability to listen or tolerate a
different perspective, right? Ifyou are accustomed if you've
trained yourself to expectinstant, cheerful compliance, it

(44:09):
can be very disorienting to havean adult reclaim their autonomy
and disagree with you, let alonemake choices you think are wrong
or unbiblical or any number ofthings. And so it's not only
what harmful advice familieswere given and practiced, but
what they were bereft of, andthat can be very difficult to

(44:29):
reclaim because it requires alot of internal work. Of that
says what drew me to theseteachings in the first place?
Why did I find them soappealing? Why did I override my
intuition, and how can I reclaimthat? And also, it is difficult
for people who have these ideasabout reward and blessing. We

(44:51):
call them prosperity gospelparenting promises to reckon
with mistakes, whatever theirintention to be like i. Made a
mistake. I I meant well, but itturned out badly, because a lot
of times those frameworks,there's no tolerance for
mistakes. The parents, too, havebeen expected to obey instantly,

(45:12):
perfectly cheerfully, and thatcan feel very frightening, like,
what? What is the punishmentawaiting me for this, and I I
want to be clear, there areoften very real relational
consequences from parenting thisway. We hear from a number of
families experiencinginauthentic connection, painful
estrangement, and so it's notlike, Oh, now here's the new

(45:33):
prosperity gospel parentingmethod to say, how do you repair
that and get it all right? Thereare very real consequences. But
I think there's an invitationfor parents there to encounter
grace in a way that can get themoff that performance behavior
treadmill. But it's not an easyprocess. Some of these things
are really deeply rooted in thatsense. The proverb that that

(45:57):
observes that you train childrenup in a certain way, and it will
be formative, is making a wiseobservation, and entire families
were trained up in theseframeworks that can be very
difficult to untangle andunravel later

on. How do we break these cycles of these
frameworks? So where do we gofrom here? What does it look
like to then receive some ofthis grace and this freedom to
move forward into a way where wesee one another and we don't
perpetuate some of these harmfulthings that we say we're certain
because the right things. Whatdoes it look like?

Well, I mentioned kind of some of the
pitfalls of Christian self helpbefore, and I think, you know,
in the same way that, like, baddating books encourage you to
sort of think of a relationshipas, like, packable thing, like a
thing you can, sort of like,plug in these, you know, I don't
know these tips and tricks tomake it work for you,

just because we're computers, right? We're
just machines, discourages

you from looking at the person in front
of you as an individual andresponding to them on their
terms and according to theirquirks and needs and
individuality, I think parentingbooks often do the same thing.
Obviously, there are parents oftoddlers who would say,
sometimes I want a tip that willhelp me maybe figure out how to
survive bedtime. Totallyunderstandable. But I think with

(47:24):
with Christian parenting books,a lot of the time, this
escalates to looking for sinstruggles, looking for you're
sort of constantly evaluatingyour child and and trying to
implement these formulas inorder to not save your child,
but program them correctly.
There are just so many ways thatthese books encourage parents
not to just respond to the childin front of them as a person

(47:47):
with individual needs. And so, Imean, I try really hard not to
give parenting advice, becausethe process of reading all this
parenting advice has made mejust say like, you know what? I
don't think, I I don't think Iknow how to tell another parent
how to parent their child,because I don't know their
child. I don't know them. But Ithink that would be my one,
like, I don't know key takeawayfor a way forward would be to to

(48:09):
say to parents like, you knowyour child and and you are free
to have a relationship withthem. That's hard. It feels hard
to have a reciprocal, mutualrelationship with a two year
old. I get that, but I do thinkthat you can think of that as a
relationship, as opposed to,like, a programming process or a

(48:31):
training process, you know,like, I think, you know, things
like blanket training, whichdoesn't show up in a lot of
these resources. But every oncein a while that really does kind
of frame a child as this thingthat you are supposed to program
parenting young children. Isthis, this programming process,
and it's not, and the decisionsyou make, it's not an input
output situation. Yeah. I mean,there are some things we can

(48:55):
look at correlation in childdevelopment and certain things
that certain patterns in a hometend to have certain outcomes,
but it's not a perfect inputoutput process. It's a
relationship. And so I think themore that parents can start
there and then add things thatare helpful and let go of things
that aren't, I think, I thinkthat's a good way forward.

Yeah, I agree with all of that. We at the appendix
in our book, we created kind ofa metric to try and help parents
evaluate resources. Because wewould love to return agency to
parents to say, you know, hereare some things to consider,
maybe some green light things,some red light things, because,
of course, you will, you'll needhelp for different seasons, but

(49:38):
I think that can kind of againdeflate some of these things
down to like, see if it serves,see if something else serves in
a different season or with adifferent child. And I do think
that shifts the entire frameworkfrom product and outcome and
behavior to connection, and thathas interesting implications for

(49:59):
the way the parent. It is in theworld as well, and relates to
God and relates to other people,because it's kind of like in
video game parlance. You knowthe difference between like a
Quest game, where you are likeon the path to achieve a quest,
and like the sandbox game, whereyou are there exploring the
world and just seeing whathappens. And I do think that,

(50:20):
especially for Americans who canbe very efficient and interested
in productivity and output, canjust be like, what if, though
the task here is to love yoursmallest and newest neighbor is
not to ensure an outcome, toprogram a desired result, which
God himself doesn't do with hischildren. And then I think the

(50:42):
grace found, there is a flip ofthat, what if God is most
interested in being with you,too, in your life and in your
moments, and not as interestedin your performance? And so I do
think that there are someinteresting implications that
freedom and Grace just theytaste so good. And we would love

(51:02):
for the people who've consumed asteady diet of this kind of get
it right. Do it right. Workharder. Get it right in your
kids lives, in your lives, tohop off that treadmill and
rediscover their freedom andgrace in Christ.

Oh, that's beautiful, you know? Because,
yeah, shame just goes fromgeneration to generation to
generation, and it fuels so muchof our productivity and their
performance. And man, let's justget into the sandbox and play
with God, and that would beamazing. Thank you. This has
been fantastic. I have a coupleof quick questions at the end
for both of you. One, if youcould go back to your 21 year

(51:40):
old self, what advice would yougive?

Oh, bless. Give her any advice she was so she
was on that treadmill tryinghard. I would be like, Oh,
honey, I just give her a big hugand be like, it's gonna be okay.
Yeah.

I it's so funny. I similarly, was on the
like spiritual advice treadmillat 21 like I was in college and
in a campus ministry, justconsuming all the Bible studies,
all the books, all this stuff.
Similarly, I think I would just,but I think my advice to myself
would just be like you are not.
You do not see as clearly as youthink you do. That's good as a

(52:21):
21 year old who had grown up inevangelicalism and was still
very much in that world, yeah,that you don't see everything as
clearly as you as you think youdo.

Well, good. Any recommendations from you,
anything we've been reading orwatching or listening to you,
that you could recommend.

We're recording this the weekend after Taylor
Swift released her new album,and I'm like, I'm not, I just
wrote about it. I'm not gonnarecommend it. I'll just say I
have been listening to it. Sothat's like, what's on my brain.
But no, I mean, I will recommendSorry,

I'm in Kansas City. We got, oh, Taylor Swift
fever in Kansas City. So

yeah, I'm sure you are experiencing a different
level than what I'm experiencinghere in Iowa, for sure, but I
actually just revisited twobooks for a couple articles I
wrote. One is Caitlin Beatty'sbook, celebrities for Jesus. I
revisit that book a lot becauseI write a lot about Christian
entertainment, media andculture. It's a great book. I
highly recommend it for anyonewho's sort of thinking about how

(53:19):
they relate to Christian mediaand how, you know, good ways of
thinking about it and commentingon it. The other book is Claire
debtors book monsters a fan'sdilemma. It's about engaging
with media made by monstrous,problematic people. And you
know, both of these books aresort of examinations of how we

(53:41):
relate to media and art. Whatmoral engagement looks like? Is
there such a thing as moralengagement? These are questions
I spend a lot of time thinkingabout. So highly recommend both
of those books, and I'm not notrecommending Taylor Swift's new
album. I actually think thereare a couple like great tracks
on there, but as I am aChristian commentator, I do feel

(54:03):
like I have to qualify it,because you you know, even I,
who tend to take a little bitmore of a liberal approach to
content, would say it's not safefor little ears, necessarily.

So take that as you will. Yeah, I have on this
on the like reflective front, Ihave lined up to read Joe ash
Thomas' book, the justice ofJesus. I'm really excited to
read that just came out lastweek. Once we're through launch,
I really want to read that. I amcurrently dealing with all the
whirlwind of launch by readinglike cozy mysteries, because

(54:35):
that's my like escapism. So I'vereally enjoyed the Thursday
murder club books, I haveenjoyed the show Ludwig and and
the reboot of Matlock. So theseare kind of, that's my little
puzzle solving, not too, not toopsychological through I don't
like the psychological thrillersthe go. I like it when it's a
puzzle solving kind of quest. SoI recommend those to people if

(54:58):
you also like some sleep. Thing,

excellent. Well, the myth of good Christian
parenting will be out anywherebooks are sold. Is there
anywhere you'd like to pointpeople to? How could they
connect with you guys? Where canpeople go to find more of what
you're doing and get the book?

We both. We both have sub stacks that we
would, you know, love for peopleto come find us. We write kind
of on on stuff related to thebook, but also outside of that.
So you can find a lot of mywriting at Christianity Today,
music related, Christian culturerelated. We both are very active
on Instagram. That seems to bewhere a lot of our readers are,
where you can interact withcontent related to the book. We

(55:38):
have a whole backlog of videosthat we made, posts that we made
as we put the book together, andyou can go back there and kind
of get a sense of what thatresearch process was like. So if
that interests you, you'll finda lot there. And we're across
social media, so we'll send youthe links so you can put those
in the show notes, and can findus, am I forgetting anything?
What am I forgetting?

Yeah, I would agree with all that. We have
some of them on YouTube. We havethose posts kind of organized on
playlists, so that if someone'sinterested in really diving in,
but yeah, we'll send you thelinks. We also did a limited run
podcast series together calledin the church library, where we
discussed individual resourcesand also interviewed other
authors with adjacent books andtopics. And it was really fun.

(56:21):
So if you want to connect withus that way, you can find us at
in the find us in the churchlibrary. Excellent.

Well, Kelsey and Marissa, this was fantastic. It
was a great conversation. Reallyloved talking to both of you.
Thank you for illuminating usabout the this culture of good
Christian parenting and the mythof it, and actually talking
about Jesus and parenting, andwhere do we go from here, and
some curiosity and grace andfreedom in the midst of this

(56:53):
high control, authoritarian typeof controlling parenting that
has actually done some harm tosome people and kids growing up.
And so hopefully there's a newday and a better day ahead, is
what I pray and that we can dothat. And so this book has been
really helpful, and I think it'sgonna be helpful for a lot of

(57:13):
people to see where things havecome from, and then where we can
go from here. So thank you. Itwas fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Unknown (57:36):
You.

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Ep. 355 Kelsey McGinnis & Marissa Burt - The Myth of Good Christian Parenting

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 355 Kelsey McGinnis & Marissa Burt - The Myth of Good Christian Parenting