The Ethics of Ezzo

Increasingly for many Christian parents, THE question is: to Ezzo or not to Ezzo. The parenting material written by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo is causing passionate discussion in many churches. What are we to make of it?

“This is an article I really didn't want to write.”

I am always suspicious when an author begins an article with that sentence. It is a plea for sympathy that usually precedes a devastating critique of something or other. “I really am a peace-loving person who finds the process of criticizing others immensely distasteful”, the author is implying. “I am embarking on the following shocking expose only because it is absolutely necessary.” It's a clever opening gambit, and indeed in some cases is quite genuine.

As it is in my case. I didn't want to write this article, but not because I'm pleading for sympathy. My reason is a little more base. I am rather worried that following the publication of this article, a large section of my few remaining friends will desert me.

What subject could be so explosive? A denial of Christ's divinity? A glowing tribute to the Pope? The answer is: how we raise our children, and in particular whether the approach advocated by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo is the right way to go.

Some of our readers may not have heard of the Ezzos, but if current growth patterns are anything to go by, you soon will. The Ezzos’ organization— Growing Families International (GFI)—now has programs running in 93 countries, 17 languages and over a million homes worldwide.¹ Interest in the material is booming.

However, concern about the material is also on the rise. A number of prominent Christian leaders and publications in the United States have made strong statements critical of the Ezzos. Many churches across America, and now also in Australia, report growing tension in their midst about the Ezzos’ training programs. Perhaps because of the very emotional nature of the subject, and perhaps also because of the very comprehensive nature of the materials, churches have begun to divide into Ezzo and non-Ezzo factions.

It is mainly for this reason that for some months Briefing readers have been urging us to write something on this topic. Most who have contacted us are very suspicious of the material, and think that its weaknesses far outweigh its strengths. Others take the opposite view, and are inclined to give the Ezzos the benefit of the doubt, citing the strengths of the material and the practical benefits that it often yields. I had good friends telling me that the Ezzos were a pair of fundamentalist fruitcakes with fascist leanings, whose material was biblically hopeless and whose advice was physically and developmentally dangerous. I had other good friends who used the course material, were enthusiastic about its benefits and regarded its shortcomings as trivial. Nearly all who have spoken to me were concerned at the tensions and divisions that are occurring.

And so, with a desk covered by submissions, letters, articles and parenting manuals, and a sense of unease about how I was raising my own kids, I began a journey into the world of the Ezzos. What follows is an account of that journey, of the people I spoke to (most of whose names I have omitted), the ideas I grappled with, and the conclusions I came to.

FIRST, some basic background.

In 1984, Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo began teaching parenting classes at John MacArthur's Grace Community Church in Los Angeles. Over the next 10 years, via the extensive network of Grace church's conferences, radio programs, and tape ministry, the Ezzos’ growing portfolio of parenting materials gained a national following. A three-part series was developed to provide a comprehensive approach to parenting from birth to the teenage years—Preparation for Parenting, Preparation for Toddler Years and Growing Kids God's Way (other material has since been written covering the teen years and sex education).

The basic thrust of all three programs is that Christians need to raise their children God's way, not the world's way. A strong critique is offered of current popular approaches to parenting (such as ‘permissive’ or ‘attachment’ parenting), and a model is developed which aims to reflect biblical laws and principles. This basic model is then applied to the many stages and circumstances of parenting, with plenty of specific practical instruction about what to do when and how.

For many Christians, just having this sort of Christian approach to child-rearing seems to be a confidence-builder. Among the many competing and often contradictory voices telling us how to raise our children, it is encouraging to find an approach that seeks to be thoroughly and consistently Christian. Even those who are generally critical of the GFI material acknowledge that this is one of its key strengths. Roger Morey, a pastor from Sydney's West, wrote to us with some serious reservations about the course, yet began by praising its benefits in the following way:

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The model's chief appeal is that it presents a thorough structure and standard for raising children from birth onward. At the birth of their first child, parents frequently experience a sense of lack of control. It is extraordinary how the physical care alone of such a tiny person can take such a large part of the day. When the infant is unsettled it can be particularly discouraging and tiring.

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Some parents therefore find it reassuring to follow a very structured approach to baby's feeding and sleeping routines, and enjoy the predictability it offers. Similarly, a daily program for toddlerhood and childhood with clear and detailed expectations of the child and instructions for discipline gives a sense of order and control to parenthood.

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With a few exceptions, the Biblical principles offered by the Ezzos are true to God's word and helpful correctives to some current childcentred ideas regarding parenting. Some of these principles include the orderliness of God's creation and its consequent influence on daily life; the priority of the husband/wife relationship over the parent/child relationship; the important role of the father; respect for authority; respect for property and nature; the preciousness of others and the importance of not exasperating children. All these are helpfully explored and some insightful observations and suggestions are made.

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The Ezzos' use of an ethic of otherperson-centred love was a particular strength noted by another pastor I spoke to. “This is basically what I was taught at Moore College. It's not supported in the same way (i.e. not as well) and it's much looser round the edges, but the shape is the same—that the Christian life is fundamentally other-person-oriented, and that we should be teaching and encouraging each other to live this way, including our children.” This emphasis, he believes, and its outworking in the rest of the materials, is enough to outweigh the questionable parts of the course, which can in any case be ignored.

This became a common theme in my conversation with numerous people who had used and appreciated the GFI courses. Almost all confessed to ignoring certain aspects of the course that seemed extreme, culturally determined, biblically tenuous or just plain unworkable.

One couple, for example, whose baby is now eight months old, spoke quite glowingly about the benefits of the scheduled approach to feeding and sleeping advocated in Preparation for Parenting (PFP). “We had great success implementing the basic advice of PFP. The practical suggestions were very good. The biblical stuff was more spurious, but the overall viewpoint was good: that parents are the head of the home, countering the idea of overly democratic or child-centred parenting that is so prominent these days. The message I found helpful was, ‘You can establish some order in the home’. And comparing it with other mothers at the clinic, almost all of whom had the attitude of being entirely responsive or reactive to the child, I would say that things are working out much better for us.”

I received a similar testimony from a mother who had implemented the Ezzo system of training, discipline and chastisement (spanking) with her two-year-old:

“He was becoming very rebellious, but he was a passive rebeller. He would just ignore me when I asked him to do something. It was becoming quite difficult to deal with him, because I would ask and ask, louder and louder, and then threaten and warn, and end up blowing my stack—and this would be happening repeatedly throughout the day. It was getting pretty ugly. What I liked about the [Ezzo's] principles of discipline was that they pointed out how inconsistent it was to insist on obedience after the third or fifth request, and how much better both for you and the child it was to make it the norm that obedience happened first time. It was hard during the first two weeks or so as we set the new ground rules, and he got a lot of smacks in that time, but after that the need for chastisement diminished rapidly, and is now rare. He knows the boundaries of life in which he enjoys himself, and he does. He's a much happier little boy, and I'm a much happier mum!”

This person also freely admitted to finding other aspects of the material more objectionable and/or not appropriate to her situation. But this didn't seem to bother her. She simply ignored those sections and sifted what wheat she could from the chaff. Moreover, she found in the materials an acknowledgement of the need for flexibility in applying the principles.

I was beginning to wonder why so many people were getting so hot under the collar about the Ezzos. Surely it was permissible to take some good advice, and just to ignore what didn't seem to work?

One of our correspondents, Penny Maher, begged to differ:

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Many people say that they can selectively take what is good from the Ezzos and reject the rest (acknowledging that they make some outrageous claims and suggestions). However, that is neither the way the material has been written nor how it is intended to be used. Herein lies the danger—discerning Christians will see the problematic theology and simply ignore its implications, but others (perhaps out of peer pressure or admiration of their friends, families or a deep uncertainty about how to parent) take on the whole system warts and all. This kind of usage of the Ezzos’ material has far-reaching implications; it can easily lead people to think there is only one way to parent Christianly (and here is the definitive guide) when in fact the Bible is largely silent on the specifics of parenting, and it is an issue of freedom and wisdom.

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This last point seems to be the most common cause for criticism—that the Ezzos have blurred the line between biblical principle and wise application. Roger Morey listed this as his chief criticism:

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One of the main problems with the model is that it puts forward practices of child rearing which the authors themselves admit in the introduction are “theoretical and personal” and then refers to them as “the higher moral standard” or as “God's way” of parenting. For example: schedule feeding is presented as the higher moral standard over demand feeding ...

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It may be clear in the authors’ minds that there is a difference between principle and practice, but this is not clearly spelled out throughout the program. Too often the methods of parenting suggested by the Ezzos which arise from their experience take on the importance and authority of a moral imperative, which they say in the introduction only rightly belongs to the Scriptures.

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Another correspondent put it even more strongly:

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Applications are trivial but justified as being necessary vehicles to deliver the principles. In reality they trivialize the meaning; they restrict the freedom of parents to find better ways that are more culturally sensitive and suitable to context, child and stage of development.

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The methods are too prescriptive and legalistic (even by their own definition!), and lack context, and encouragement to develop one's own applications.

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I was beginning to see why such strong passions were being aroused in congregations where the Ezzos’ material was being used. Some were feeling very positive because their babies and children were reaping the benefits of some good advice; others felt that their freedom was being eroded by a very detailed and comprehensive approach to parenting being presented as “God's way”.

In this sense, I began to gain the distinct impression that the Ezzos were their own worst enemies. They didn't seem content merely to lay down the biblical principles and then offer practical advice from their experience and observation. They continually tried to find a toe-hold, however tenuous, by which to prove that their suggested practical outworking was in fact in line with the Bible—and in so doing left themselves open to obvious criticism. It may be perfectly valid, for example, to argue that the modern fad for having baby sleep with mum and dad has some serious disadvantages, and even to point out that the idea may be grounded in philosophies of bonding and physical touch that may or may not be true. However, it is quite another thing to argue that sleeping the baby in his or her own little crib is the more biblical way on the basis that this is what Mary did when she laid Jesus in the manger, and because it lead to the death of the prostitute's baby in 1 Kings 3 (PFP p. 188)!

As I delved further into the training material itself, I found this poor use of the Bible to be a distressingly common occurrence. Where there is no specific biblical principle or command to justify a practice, the Ezzos have an unfortunate tendency to analogize. Feeding your baby on a very orderly schedule is said to line up with biblical revelation because God is an orderly God, and has created a world with orderly patterns of day and night, the seasons, and so on (PFP p. 57). Against the idea that a compassionate parent would never leave a baby to cry, the instance of Jesus being left to cry in dereliction on the cross by his Father is cited (PFP p. 144). The idea of a ‘maternal instinct’ is criticized as being contrary to the biblical principle of sober-mindedness (PFP p. 151). And so on and so forth. Using the Bible in this way, one can only be grateful that the Ezzos did not pursue the principles of biblical chastisement that could be gained from Psalm 137:9 (“blessed is he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks”).

I was beginning to form another equally strong impression—that the GFI material shares a characteristic failing with many other books and courses from our American brothers; namely, that it is great on how, but not so good on why. The Ezzos have all sorts of good intuitions and practical insights into parenting, and many of them stem from a deeply Christian worldview. But when they come to anchor their insights in the Bible and in theology, the result is disappointing. The quality of the theological, biblical and ethical material that is presented as the foundation or basis for the practical methods is really quite poor.

This is clearest in Growing Kids God's Way, where some trouble is taken to outline the foundational biblical principles. Quite correct biblical statements and principles are mixed in with personal opinions, categories brought in from outside (without argument or justification), confusing and contradictory statements, and patently inadequate treatment of the biblical material. The chapter on ‘conscience’, for example, is simply embarrassing in its amateurish treatment of the subject, both in failing to grapple with the way the category of ‘conscience’ is actually used in the New Testament, and in being apparently ignorant of the work done by evangelical scholars on the topic during the last 50 years. Equally disappointing is the chapter on “Law, principle and freedom” where the very question of what it means for something to be ‘biblical’ is addressed. In this section, a divine-command theory of ethics seemed to be in operation, in which actions are mandated as good or not-good, acceptable or not-acceptable, simply and only in terms of their relation to divine revelation. This leads to an all-or-nothing approach to ethics, in which all actions that are to be commended as ‘good’ must be related to the Bible. And thus, even when discussing areas of ‘freedom’, the Ezzos keep insisting that our actions must be ‘biblically acceptable’ or at the worst ‘biblically tolerable’.

The result is that the biblical category of wisdom—in which humanity is given the ability by God to make some sense of our world, and to perceive and participate in its good order—virtually disappears. And this in turn is what leads to the confusion that bedevils so much of the material. Is there any area (in practice) in the Ezzos’ material which is not tied in some way to the mandate or authorization or sanction of Scripture? Is there any of their advice which does not come with a moral imperative of some kind? It seemed to me that while they acknowledged the possibility of such areas of freedom and flexibility, the weaknesses in their ethical and biblical framework continually drove them to make stronger statements of moral demand than were warranted. To quote one further small example: “We believe it is morally correct for children to use titles of respect when addressing adults” (GKGW p. 142). If the words in italics were replaced by the word show I would have no problem with the statement. Yet by making the use of ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ a matter of moral demand (which the material following the quote does), a very culturally specific application of the principle is given the same moral weight as the principle itself.

Perhaps it is harsh to indict the Ezzos for not being better theologians and ethicists, when they are after all just writing a parenting manual. Yet I don't think the Ezzos themselves would accept such a distinction. They rightly see that the Bible will have ethical implications for parenting, and that the place to start in a parenting manual must be the Bible, and the relevant theological and ethical material. It's just that they are not terribly good at it. There are whole continents of the theological and ethical landscape that they do not venture into.² And the result is that having been built on somewhat weak foundations, the course material keeps falling down at different points.

In coming to these sorts of conclusions about the Ezzos, I realised that the same criticism could be levelled at evangelical thought generally. Ethics is not something we are very good at, and by ethics I mean not only working out how to live as Christians, but knowing why we ought to live that way. Traditionally ethics has been the domain of the liberals, and we have left rigorous thinking on the matter to them. However, when trying to assess material like the Ezzos, and in working out how it might be improved, our shortcomings in the area are exposed.

This came out in an email chatgroup discussion that I followed. What was most striking about this group of evangelicals was their inability to come up even with an agreed starting point for building a Christian ethic of parenting. Some of the Ezzo critics, who objected to having every aspect of parenting covered by a biblically mandated piece of advice, went very close to antinomianism in their reaction—that we teach our children the gospel, but that's about it. Any further ethical obligations or training would only be legalism, and indeed any further ethical thought about our obligations and motives and duties as parents would also risk legalism.

However, the sound doctrine of the gospel will have implications for how we order and run our families and households. This is the very point of Titus 2, is it not? Among those who are strongly critical of the Ezzos, I did detect some unwillingness to challenge existing child-rearing practices with a biblical ethic.

All journeys must come to an end, and the end of mine was approaching, as defined by the deadline for this article. What conclusions could I draw?

Firstly, I remained impressed by the desire of the Ezzos to develop an ethic of child-raising that was deeply informed by the Bible. Their biblical intuitions yield some valuable fruit, with plenty of helpful advice, and a refreshing willingness to challenge some currently trendy orthodoxies of parenting.

However, because of the muddled biblical and theological material that is interspersed throughout, I couldn't imagine running the course completely as it stands, unaltered and unqualified. It would not only teach some bad Bible-reading habits to the undiscerning, but potentially be very divisive in the congregation. Indeed, for this very reason, a number of people I spoke to who used and recommended the course were doing so on a ‘plunder the Egyptians’ basis. In the absence of anything better, take what is good, even if you leave the rest behind. One clergy couple even suggested that it might be more helpful to use the ‘de-biblicised’ version of the material that GFI has produced for the general non-Christian public (called On Becoming Babywise), to be accompanied by a supplementary biblical guide of some kind.

And there precisely is the challenge. Who is going to write that biblical guide to parenting for us? Where might we find a biblical theology of fatherhood, motherhood and childhood? Who has thought through a more accurate biblical ethic of parenting?

With that challenge I close, hoping that the article I didn't want to write might not leave too many of my friends thinking that I am a person they didn't want to know.

Endnotes

¹ According to the Christian Research Journal, Vol 20, No. 4.

² For example, there is no discussion or apparent awareness of what ‘freedom’ is, and how it relates to obligation. In a good world created by God, freedom and obligation will not be opposites or incompatible, because both will be related in some way to the ‘good’; to the way in which things are created to be and to operate. Is freedom only possible when we act in line with God's created purposes? How does our inclination to do something relate to whether the performance of the action is ‘free’? How indeed do inclination and duty relate together in Christian ethics?

Needless to say, there is also little or no awareness of ‘biblical theology’ in the material—that is, having regard for how the whole biblical story unfolds and points to Christ and the gospel, as the key for expounding biblical themes.