Righteous submission: How to love your child

Many parents think that children are to submit to them. This is a common attitude amongst American parents. Most American parents want their children to submit to them. However, the fact of the matter is that parents are the ones who should submit to their children. 

God's Word reads in Matthew 22:35-40 KJV:

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a questioned, tempting him, and sayng, Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind. This the first and great commandment. And then is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The Greek root word translated "love" is αγαπαο (Latin: agapao) and refers here to submission to children. This word ultimately refers to submitting to children just as they would to God, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return. Love for your child means treating your child charitably, meaning giving to children without receiving. Parents in biblical times were seen as bondservants working for a lump sum, with parents ultimately hoping for children to be as independent as possible as a reward for their good works.

This love for children was part of the Christian doctrine of mutual submission, with the burden of proof falling squarely on parents. 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, with parents submitting to children just as they would to God, from beneath yet from above, expecting absolutely nothing in return. See also Matt. 25:31-46.

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 was 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. The 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 Christians who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing their 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 during his time as a deacon.

Submission to children calls for parents to provide for the every need of their children. For the first 6 years of childhood, children were in constant closeness to mothers, meaning that wherever mothers went, so did her child. For the first 2 years of childhood, children were constantly held by mothers, either in her loving arms, or else on mom's back in a papoose bag if her hands were full. Between ages 2-6, children ranged next to mothers, following her from room to room, not allowing mom out of their sight, morbidly fearing that mom would "go away and never come back". Whenever children cried, mothers cooed at their children before picking them up, and from there, she diagnosed the need and then met it. Maybe the child was tired. Maybe the child was hungry. Maybe the child needed mom's milk. Maybe the child needed mom, period. When mothers were out and about with children under age 6, mom wrapped up her child next to her bosom in swaddling blankets, with the swaddling blankets - and the child with them - being tucked underneath the loose-fitting, revealing dress worn by mothers that resembled an apron. Come nightfall, children co-slept next to mothers in skin-on-skin format, with this skin-on-skin co-sleeping arrangement happening every night, until the onset of puberty, which was when children wanted their own place to sleep. Children went naked wherever they went, with mothers also going naked within the confines of the family home. This birth nudity setup helped facilitate easy skin-on-skin warmth, with rays of skin-on-skin contact happening when children were merely picked up. Parents are to submit to their children, and part of parent submission is meeting the every vulnerable need of children.

Righteous submission to children can also be understood in policing terms. Parents are to give up the fight, and then give in to the commands of children. The only way that parents were allowed to say "no" in the Early Church was when the commands of children were unsafe, unworkable, and/or immoral. Even then, the word "no" had to come with an explanation and a reassurance. With that said, parents usually struck up a compromise with their children.

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 hand!