Righteous reassurance: Why crying is not bad behavior

Many parents, if not most, have to deal with it. A child crying. Most parents believe that children crying after a certain age is bad behavior, and deserving of punishment. Most of the time, children are ignored in a time-out setting, with the occasional disciplinary spanking imposed upon a child. However, the fact of the matter is that crying at any age is a developmentally appropriate behavior. Mothers in biblical times knew this intuitively. Crying in children requires righteous reassurance.

Righteous reassurance is part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission. 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 in the sacrifice of parents, just as parent believers rest in the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This surrender to parents comes with strings attached for parents, with children being able to issue lawfully binding order from their place of rest, usually when parents weren't doing their part around the house. 

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: hupakouo) 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, 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 or punishing children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of children in his secular writings. Paul may have not gotten along with women, but he sure loved children, and took in orphaned children. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge of cords to punish their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were hated largely for being "too soft" on their children.

Righteous reassurance is when mothers reassure a crying child, like only she can. Children in biblical times were reassured and comforted when they cried Mothers never reprimanded or ignored crying children. Crying was rightly interpreted then as a summonses for the mother to provide for a vulnerable need. 

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 a child cried, mothers cooed at the child, and then picked up the child, before giving the child skin-on-skin mammary closeness. From there, mothers diagnosed and provided for needs. If the child was milk-hungry, the mother breastfed the crying child to sleep. 

Children in biblical times were breastfed when they cried, all the way up until the last day of breastfeeding, meaning after the child pushed away the nipple. In most cases, children pushed way the nipple at around age 3. In rare cases, children didn't push away the nipple until age 6, or even later in some cases. Mothers in biblical times, when summoned to, breastfed their child, perhaps to sleep, in public.

Mothers, when out and about in public, swaddled their young children - under age 6 - next to their bosom in swaddling blankets. The swaddling blankets were tied underneath the loose-fitting, revealing dress of a mother - resembling an apron. The swaddling blankets, there, were tied from the left breast, across the dot to the right leg, or vice versa, or both in the case of twins. When children cried, they were held closer to the bosom of mother in mammary closeness, with milk-dependent children being breastfed by their mothers in public.

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 forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!