Crying: Why crying is not bad behavior (and what to do about it)

Many parents think that crying in children is bad behavior. Most parents see crying as a means of "undermining" their "authority". This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents punish their children for crying, at some point. The fact of the matter is that crying is perfectly normal, and is a means of communicating vulnerable needs. Crying is not bad behavior.

Time-in is the way to reassure your child, and 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 to parents. Parents are the enemy of children, just as mankind is the enemy of God, and is to submit as such. This surrender to parents came with strings attached on the part of parents, with children issuing righteous demands from their place of rest, usually when parents don't earn their keep in the family home.

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. 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 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 a child. Paul may not have gotten along with the women, but he sure loved children, and took in orphaned children. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers used the scourge for cords to punish their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were hated largely for being "too soft" on their children.

Crying is not intended to undermine your parenting. Instead, just like in infants, children cry in order to communicate. It is when they aren't crying that you have to worry. The setup to deal with crying is constant closeness with mothers. 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 mothers and children were in the nude next to each other in the family home, in skin-on-skin closeness and intimacy. The birth nudity setup left the mother quartered in the house, but due to her child's needs, not her husband's needs.

Whenever children cried, mothers were right there to comfort children. In most cases, Christian mothers in the Early Church comforted their children by way of cooing at the child, then picking up the child, before placing the child on the bosom of mothers in skin-on-skin mammary closeness. When mothers were out and about with their children with their children, they swaddled their young children - under age 6 - to their bosom in swaddling blanket. When young children cried in public, they were held closer to the bosom of mothers in swaddling blankets. Milk-dependent children were breastfed to sleep when they cried.

When older children cried, which was rarer, mothers picked them up and cradled them in their arms. This cradling of children usually happened in private, and didn't happen as often. Most gentle parenting advice says to kneel before them when they are crying or upset. Christian mothers in the Early Church instead picked up the crying child and cradled them in her arms, after cooing at the child to reassure and validate their needs. Cooing serves as a primal way for mothers to reassure and validate children's cries.

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!