Righteous pampering: Why God wants parents to pamper their children

Many parents believe that children shouldn't be pampered, and instead should be disciplined. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most parents avoid even the appearance of pampering children. However, the Bible, when understood in context, supports pampering children - not just every once and a while, but throughout their childhood. You can't spoil a child with too much affection.

Righteous pampering is part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission, with children resting while being pampered by parents, getting the royal treatment. See Colossians 3:20-21 KJV: 

Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek root word translated "obey" is υπακουο (Latin: hupakouo) and refers to secure, vulnerable rest in the love and submission of parents. Children are to rest securely in the sacrifice of parents, just as parent believers rest securely in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul to lift up the customary law that commands a secure attachment between parents and children. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, where parents are to submit to their children as their enemy, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages or offenses, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by a child, stemming from entitlement. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul, and understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all forms of punitive parenting, including, but not limited to, any punishments, reprimands, or other controlling demeanor towards children. The parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" being defined under the Law as the slightest of damages or offenses stemming from hostage-taking - child punishment was seen in biblical times as holding your child hostage merely for things that they did wrong, thereby treating your child is a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up the Law in order to convict a group of Greek Christian parents who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of a child in his writings.

Righteous pampering was a righteous acronym of the Early Church, and asserted to Greco-Roman pagan parents that they did pamper their children, and they knew it, and they didn't care. Righteous pampering has a certain specific application, spelled out in the customary law of the time (see Col. 3:20 and Eph. 6:1). For the first 6 years of a child's life, children were in constant closeness to mothers, meaning that wherever the mother went, so did the child. The Early Christians practiced birth nudity, where mother and child were in the nude next to each other, in skin-on-skin closeness and intimacy. When children cried, mothers cooed while picking up the upset child, then holding the crying child close to her bosom in mammary closeness. When mothers were out and about in public, they swaddled their young children - under age 6 - next to their bosom in swaddling blankets, perhaps breastfeeding the child if milk-hungry, and holding the child closer to her bosom when the child cried. 

Come nightfall, children co-slept next to their mother, and this lasted until the child hit puberty. At the onset of puberty, the child wanted their own place to sleep. With older children, skin-on-skin warmth with mothers was a welcome break from playing outside and studying the Bible. Skin-on-skin co-sleeping was intended partially to convict the father of the child of his parent attraction to the child. The father, upon showing attraction to the mother and child, was redirected by the woman of the house to righteous masturbation.

Pampering your children comes with rewards later on. Once the child moved out of the house, and after being baptized into the church, adult children bowed down to their parents, giving thanks for all the fond memories of being pampered. The Fifth Commandment to honor parents only applies to independent children, meaning unless parents were abusive, adult children had to show reverence to their parents as thanksgiving for all the fond memories of being pampered by parents. Children could also shun their parents if the parents were abusive or entitled towards them, and also take their parents to court before the council. The council consisted of 3 elders of the parish, and that council of elders decided the fate of parents who provoked their children to anger, and when there was enough witnesses to the abuse, the parents were excommunicated and shunned collectively, with the children being taken into the providing custody of "child saviors", or anti-contact pedophiles who channeled their sexual desires for children into nurturing children whose parents abused them - without asking for sexual ransom in return.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them forever be cast into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death prepared for Satan and his accomplices! Let them descend into the abyss which is the ever-burning Hell of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath day and night forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!