Righteous ordering: Why children call the shots in the family home

Many parents think that they call the shots in parenting. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents order their children around. However, the Bible and its context teaches that children call the shots in the family home. 

Righteous ordering 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. This word ultimately refers to a secure attachment between parent and child in the family home. This secure attachment comes from parent submission, where parents are to submit to their children as they would to God, 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. 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 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 not have gotten along with the women of the church, but he sure loved children, and even took in a few orphaned children in his time. Indeed, Greco-Roman fathers got out the scourge of cords in order to punish their children, but NOT the Christians among them - the Early Christians were persecuted largely for being "too soft" on their children.

Children called the shots in biblical times, when in their place of rest in relation to parents. Children issued lawful orders on parents, and parents - in most cases - were required to obey their children. Parents were required to obey their children in almost all cases, except when children's orders were unworkable and/or immoral. When parents had to say "no", they did so with utmost tact, reassuring and validating the cries of the child through mammary closeness. 

During the first 6 years of a child's life, mothers treated the cries of their child as lawful orders and summonses. Mothers obeyed the summonses by responding to the every cry of their child with skin-on-skin warmth and sustenance. Children who were milk-dependent often gave the orders to be breastfed. Older children ordered parents more directly, giving their parents the morning breath treatment.

Righteous ordering can be understood as like going to a restaurant. You can have it your way, but only as long as it is on the menu. If it isn't on the menu, the waitress is nice about it, even if you aren't nice to her about it. That is how parents operated in biblical times. Their children could use them like a sponge, or when they were very little, like a milking-cow. But, some requests were out of line, and parents had to say "no". Striking parents was a place where parents commonly put their foot down, by way of crying out loud when stuck. 

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke their children to anger through punitive parenting will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be cast forever 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!