Righteous reassurance: Why to reassure a crying child (instead of ignoring or punishing them)

Many parents, if not most all parents, have to deal with it from time to time. A child crying and carrying on. Most American parents, however, think it is acceptable to punish or else ignore children. However, children need a certain special treatment when crying or upset, and we call this righteous reassurance. The biblical way to deal with a crying or tantrumming child is through giving children reassurance, not ignoring or punishing their upset.

Righteous reassurance is part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission, where children rest in the loving arms of mothers, with mothers providing for children's needs from beneath yet from above. 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. Parents are the enemy of children, just as mankind is the enemy of God, and are to submit as such. This surrender to parents came with strings attached on the part of parents, with children issuing righteous demands from their restful place, with this usually happening when parents weren't pulling their weight.

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 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 for bringing 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 not have gotten along with the women of the church, but he sure loved children, and took in a few orphaned children in his time.

Righteous reassurance, as an acronym, points to the right way to reassure a child. Most gentle parenting advice says to kneel down before the child. However, this was not what was done in biblical times. Mothers cooed when children cried, and then picked up the child, holding them to their bosom in skin-on-skin mammary closeness. The context of this reassurance was a state of birth nudity in the case of the mother and child, with mother and child in the nude next to each other, and mothers treating all children under age 6 as babies. The cooing was intended as a primal way to quickly validate and reassure a child's upset, with children's cries quieting down in the face of being cooed at. 

Mothers, when out and about, reassured children by keeping them swaddled next to their bosom in swaddling blankets. When children cried while swaddled, they cried a silent cry, and then mothers usually held the child closer to her bosom in swaddling blankets. Swaddling blankets were tucked underneath the mother's dress that resembled an apron. The swaddling blankets were tied to the left breast, then across the dot to the right leg, or vice versa, or both in the case of twins.

Mammary closeness is the contextual biblical way to reassure a child righteously. Some children were milk-dependent, in which case they were breastfed to sleep when they cried. Most children were weaned by age 3, when they pushed away the nipple. However, some children were breastfed until age 6, or even older in rare cases. 

Older children sometimes cried as well. However, most children that age whined, and they got the same response from a parent. The upset child was picked up and held by mothers in a cradling position, close to their bosom in mammary closeness. Children who are crying or whining are lightweight in most all cases, so the idea is to pick them up whenever they are crying or whining. When the crying or whining happened at home, children of all ages co-snuggled next to their mother in the nude, after the mother cooed at the child, with any breastfeeding happening then. When the crying or whining happened in public, the mother simply cooed and picked up the child. Children went naked wherever they went, and so there was easy skin-on-skin comfort and sustenance with mothers.

The bosom of mothers is there for a reason, and that main reason isn't for men to sexualize women. The main reason why woman was designed that way by God is for the mother to nurture children. Most children find even hugging mothers to be nice and warm for this reason. This means that the bosom of mothers is intended to reassure and nurture children, and possibly give children nourishment. Maybe men will find the bosom of women to be attractive, but that is not the primary reason for the bosom of mothers being designed the way it is.

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!