Crying: Why crying is not bad behavior

Many parents, if not most, have had to deal with this. A crying child. Most parents think that a crying child, past a certain age, is deserving of punishment. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents feel entitled to an easygoing child, when they have the child that they have. The fact of the matter is that crying is not bad behavior.

Reassuring crying children is part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission, where children rest securely in the loving arms of mothers. 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 are to rest securely in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This surrender to parents came with strings attached on the part of parents, meaning children gave orders from their place of rest, usually when parents weren't doing their fair share around the home.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages and 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. In the Old Testament, punitive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children one last time. 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 as 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 secular writings. Paul may have not gotten along with the women, but he surely loved children, and took in orphaned children. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge of cords as punishment for children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were hated largely for being "too soft" on their children.

Even in biblical times, children cried. In the Early Christian society, children crying was seen as normal. Crying was never seen as bad behavior, but instead the child petitioning for vulnerable needs. 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. 

Whenever children cried, mothers responded by cooing at the child, then picking up the child and holding the child close to her bosom, in skin-on-skin mammary closeness. From there, the mother diagnosed the need that the child was petitioning for. For example, if the child was tired, mother and child co-snuggled on the family bed. When out and about, young children under age 6 were swaddled next to the bosom of mothers in swaddling blankets, in constant skin-on-skin mammary closeness. When children cried in public, it was a silent cry, and then mothers offered the nipple in order for young children to breastfeed.

Children, come nightfall, were in co-sleeping closeness with mothers. However, children rarely slept through the night, with them waking up, usually needing to be fed with breastmilk. The idea behind co-sleeping, during the first 3 years at least, is breastfeeding the infant or toddler to sleep with mother's breastmilk. This should come with the assumption, however, that the child will need feeding sessions throughout the night. Be sure to rest your child on your chest and not aside of you, to avoid suffocating the child. Co-sleeping, however. does not end until the onset of puberty in a child.

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!