To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.

And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello, world. Hello again. For the seventy first time.

Is it the '70 first?

It is, in fact. Oh, a good year.

The seventy first year?

Mhmm. Would that be BC or AD? BC. Cool. Yep.

We developed fire and wheels then.

Yeah. I I heard that's how it went. Mhmm.

Directly from the people that were there. Yep. I've seen the Croods. That was a pretty good movie. Didn't you cry at that movie?

I probably did. I think we went and saw that in theaters, and I I can't remember if it was the first one or the second one, but you I'm pretty positive you cried. The first one. Because he throws his family across, and he's just like, I'm gonna be here by myself forever. And he throws his family to safety.

And of course, I cried. I cry at everything. Yeah. But isn't it voiced by, what's his face? Nicholas Cage.

That is unfortunate. Yeah. So I feel like I have zero sympathy just strictly because of that. Because of national treasure. We no longer care.

Okay. Well, I I had a good story to start off our episode with, but we've gone off the rails on a topic I couldn't have begun to imagine we'd get to. The Croods. But I wanted to talk about I still wanna do this story. So all of you little evangelical children I have to say that again.

That was a tongue twister. Say it again. All of you little evangelical children, I just wanna take a survey of how many of you have heard this story. Okay? So this was told to me, like, when we were little and we would wanna watch a TV show, let's say.

We wanted to watch Cartoon Network so bad. Dexter's Laboratory, any of the things. Brandon wanted to watch Fairly Oddparents. We did watch Fairly Oddparents. I didn't.

I was that was after my time.

Oh, that's sad for you.

But we would be told like, okay. Because we tell our mom, well, there's so many good things about it. Like this is good. This is good. This is good.

And she's like, okay, well, let's assume that I made you a brownie. And I used all the best ingredients. I went to the fanciest stores. I got the fancy cocoa and the No. Whatever sugar, all the things.

You gotta get the Ghirardelli, the big big kahuna box from Costco.

I don't think that's what she was referencing. Sure. It's the best. So what if I made, like, the perfect brownies, the best brownies that money could buy? We bought the stuff at Whole Foods.

Okay? But then I put just a little bit of poop in it. Would you still eat the brownie? And the point of it was to say like, if if this TV show has all the good things, every possible amazing wonderful thing, but it has one bad thing in it that impacts everything else and means you should throw it all in the

garbage. Mhmm.

And this was a story that I I probably got told a billion different times.

It's almost like family lore Yeah. Now. We just say, you want a

little bit of poop in it? Little bit of poop. You don't even have to tell the story. It's just it's just that little bit. Or you could say like what is it?

Movie is a good brownie. Mom, this movie is really good. There's just a little bit of poop in it. Or a lot of poop. Sometimes.

Sometimes.

It depends on the movie.

But I tell the story to lead us into today's topic. Now if you listened at the end last week, we said we were gonna do a couple of episodes on what is sin and what is love. Baby, don't hurt me. Yes. Yes.

If that falls on your chest, reward. This is good. It's not. I'm hands free, but I am having to stay very still.

I don't know if you've noticed that, but I'm not like moving. Good. That's good for you. You never move. No.

I'm very still.

Anyway. But instead, we decided to take a little bit of a break. We'll be back to that those two topics next week. But we thought that it was important to talk this week about something that happened. Yes.

I turned 31. She did. She did do that. And on the very same day that she turned 31, something else happened.

You let you gotta cut up the ladder. God gave me a gift.

You can't do it. Okay.

I turned 31, August 21. I think you can figure out what year I was born if I tell my real age. So I turned 99 on August 21. Something else happened on August 21. 2025.

Mhmm. Doctor James Dobson passed away.

Now if you don't know who doctor James Dobson is or was, I guess, in this case I mean, his legacy lives on. Unfortunately. I'm gonna keep it as is. Yeah. I'm I'm not.

I'm gonna say unfortunately. But doctor Dobson was someone who's extremely influential in like the American evangelical scene for a long long time.

Mhmm.

If you grew up anywhere in a church in The United States over the last, I don't know, forty years. Mhmm. You either heard this man's name or at least felt his influence.

Not even if you were a Christian because his reach was just across The US Mhmm. In general. Because he advised, I think it was five US presidents throughout his time, starting with Ronald Reagan

Mhmm.

And ending with Donald Trump. So

So let's talk a little bit about who he is, and then we'll talk about you might be wondering why at his death, we're like, gee, let's talk about this and why I told the brownie story. But I feel that it will become clear in just a minute. So I wanna talk about a little bit about his background first of all. Like we said, he was a very influential pastor. He was very influential political figure even though he wasn't like an elected political official.

He was very influential in homeschool circles, in child raising

Mhmm.

Topics. I don't really know how to say that easily. So his background, he's born in 1936. A good year. He was 89, I believe, when he Mhmm.

Mhmm. And he had a bachelor of arts in psychology from Pasadena College and then a master's and PhD in psychology and child Early childhood development. Yep. From USC. He did not, however, have a religious education.

So remember what we've said about him. He had huge influence in evangelical circles, huge influence in the church. He was a pastor, and yet no formal religious education. Yep. Which is the same issue that we talked about last week with Doug.

Mhmm. If you listened to last week's episode. No formal religious education. He did grow up in

the faith. His great grandfather, his grandfather, and his father were all ministers in the church of Nazarene Mhmm. Church of the Nazarene. And he claims to have become a Christian or ask God into his life when he was the age of three.

Mhmm. Which, I mean, is lightly concerning considering that I have a three year old, and he doesn't understand any of this. But that's kind of where he pulls his religious education from. Mhmm. And I'm not saying that I mean, we grew up in church.

I'm fully aware of how much of the bible we were exposed to. How much of all of the biblical rhetoric and all this stuff. Like, I mean, I'm sure most of you know too. There is some level of religious education there. Mhmm.

In Sunday school, in Awana, in Sparky's, in all of the things that we did in VBS. But I would never look at you and say, I, because I've been in church for the last many, many, many years, have the education level to teach a whole church?

Well, you think like teachers.

Mhmm.

Let's say science teachers.

Mhmm. They don't just go to school and learn science. Mhmm.

They learn how to teach. Right. And they spend student teaching hours learning and perfecting their ability to actually teach. Mhmm. Knowing the information is one thing.

Fantastic. But being able to communicate that to someone else and help them learn is a completely different skill.

Right. And that's assuming that you do have the biblical knowledge.

Mhmm.

And it's just like with Doug, and we'll talk a little bit more about why this why he was so problematic and the issues with him. But just like with Doug last week, when you are your own education, you're in an echo chamber. And everything that you say sounds amazing.

And I think especially in the evangelical world, I mean, not I'm not trying to be racist. He's a white man. Mhmm.

So the world is at his fingertips. Mhmm. So everything that he has ever thought is truth. Well, he's extremely privileged at the end of the day. He is in a position of privilege that he doesn't recognize.

And we'll see that through many of his quotes, many of his racist, sexist, homophobic quotes that he was the center of his own universe.

And I think what's dangerous about him too is he he did pursue a different kind of education than his father, his grandfather, his great grandfather. He went to school for psychology. Mhmm. He became a doctor. So when you slap that name doctor Mhmm.

Onto your title, whoever you are, doctor James Dobson. Mhmm. Now all of a sudden, everything that you say Mhmm. Is truth. And that's where we're gonna get into kind of focus on the family and all of that, what he founded.

But because he had that title, he was able to manipulate the Christian people into believing that literally everything that came out of his mouth was the gospel.

Straight from He

blended the Bible and psychology to what worked for him. Mhmm. Yeah. And

I had a point. Like a pencil? Yeah. I've seen a lot of comments. There are a lot of people covering this topic right now because obviously, like, he just passed away.

And I've seen a lot of comments of people saying like, well, you shouldn't be talking bad about someone right after they've passed. Like Mhmm. That's disrespectful, etcetera, etcetera. But I do think it's important that we talk about this right now, especially in the climate that we're in in The US, but also globally. Mhmm.

And the way the Christian church looks today.

Mhmm.

Because if we can't look at this man and say, I'm sorry, but yeah, he was the brownie with poop in it. And acknowledge that, like, okay. I because I've seen a lot of comments online of, well, I had a great experience with his teachings and they were so influential to me and blah blah blah blah blah. Okay. Let's assume that you utilize some of his teachings from his many child rearing books and whatever, and they didn't cause your children to be abused, which would be surprising.

But let's assume that's true. Let's assume that you really did actually have a great experience with his teachings. That doesn't negate the amount of abuse that came from his teachings. Mhmm. The amount of abuse in God's name that came from James Dobson.

And we're not just talking a few people. Mm-mm. We're talking millions of people. His radio broadcast wow. His radio broadcast ing?

Radio broadcasting? Broadcasts. His radio broadcasts focused on the family, etcetera, reached, like, a 100 plus different countries.

Mhmm.

It reached millions of Americans. And now we're watching, like, as you're scrolling through TikTok, at least our algorithms, are all these people around our age celebrating. Mhmm. Or at least, if not celebrating, at least

They're celebrating.

Let's be real. They're celebrating the death of this man because he caused so much abuse and so much trauma in their childhood and in their life. And now that this person is gone, they feel like they can breathe again.

Right. So let's talk about just some of his general stances, and then we'll go into some of the quotes. Some of the truly, truly horrific quotes from this man. So doctor Dobson founded Focus on the Family in 1977. So this was a good bit before we were born Mhmm.

Thankfully.

He did leave Focus on the Family. Did you know?

I didn't know that, actually. 2,009 due to philosophical differences. I have many philosophical differences with him. Mhmm. He, during that time, wrote many, many, many books.

Mainly focused on oh, the family. If you go back and watch any of his interviews, his idea was like, the family is the end all be all.

Mhmm. It started in Genesis. One man, one wife, they come together, they make a baby. Like, if you don't get the family right, you don't get anything right. And he is quoted as being like, if you want a strong country, you need a strong family.

Mhmm. Which okay. Strong families are great. Don't get me wrong. Like, I think it's very important to have good relationships with the people in your household.

However, what does that say to the single mom?

Oh, he has stuff to say to say.

I know. But that's what I'm saying is what does it say to the widow? What does it say to, you know, countless people who don't have a standard nuclear family?

And he's very, like, traditional family values. That's what he thinks. But what tradition do you wanna follow? Mhmm. Because lots of other countries have different traditional family values.

Yeah. Some of his core ministry themes included, like you said, traditional gender roles, which meant very specifically the husband as the head of the household Mhmm. And the kingdom, the general world. He also focused on corporal punishment for children. So lots of spanking and spanking with a belt, spanking with a switch, like, way further than anything that most of us would be familiar with.

His theory was because Christians believe that you can get saved at a very young age. So he got saved at three. You if you're able to understand that there's what? I wrote it down. If you're capable of making like profound spiritual commitments, you're capable of being punished and understanding right from

wrong. Mhmm.

And so as parents, you have to discipline.

Mhmm. I saw a post on the naked pastor's page this week about his about his stances on punishment. And he's he was quoted as saying that you can start spanking your children at 18 old. And so then the naked pastor's post said that he had heard parents saying that they couldn't wait until their child was 18 old so that they could start spanking them. Mhmm.

And that's just that's the tip of the iceberg. We'll get into it some more as well. He also has no great shock, was very anti feminist, very anti LGBTQ. He was extremely political, as we said, really involved in Christian nationalism, in the Christian right wing circles, pretty much always. Which I find interesting because one of his quotes, I

was watching an interview, he said that the Republican Party cannot save us. The Democratic Party cannot save us. There's only one that can save you, and it's Jesus Christ.

Mhmm.

So why can you justify that? But now all of a sudden, you're you are Mhmm. Part of the Republican party. You are advising only Republican presidents. Mhmm.

It just it confuses me.

Well, I think it's really easy for people to say to say the right thing. Like, that that's correct. Mhmm. He's absolutely correct in that. But what gives him more influence at the end of the day?

Mhmm. If he were to advise a democratic president, all of his followers because they are his followers.

Mhmm.

All of his followers would say, woah woah woah woah. Back it up.

Hold up. Wait a minute.

And he may lose some of them. So what gives him greater influence and control in his world? Mhmm. Even though at the end of the day, he could intellectually say the right thing. Just and, you know, sometimes you stumble upon the right

thing even when you don't really try. Sometimes there's good ingredients in your brownies, and sometimes there's poop.

Let's I'll pull up some quotes. Okay. So one of the books that he wrote is called Dare to Discipline. Yeah. I think anybody who's that obsessed with punishment Mhmm.

Specifically of children

Mhmm.

We should all be wary of.

Yeah. Well, I mean, so many of his books focus on this. And one of the important aspects here is that he didn't actually do a lot of research for his books. He did a lot of anecdotal evidence, a lot of well I had these people in my practice or these people were in my office one time and he would draw conclusions from that. But there weren't like broad surveys going on.

He wasn't pulling research from different studies. This was James Dobson's thoughts and opinions.

And because he was a psychologist, because he was a doctor, and he blended psychology with the bible, he kinda manipulated all these parents Mhmm. Into believing that, like, oh, here's what the bible says, and here's science to back it up. And because I'm a doctor, I'm gonna tell you the correct way to raise your children. And so people looked at these books as literal guidebooks Mhmm. On the correct way to raise your children.

If you just followed these steps exactly, you would have these perfect, complicit, obedient, moral children. But really, it was just abuse.

Right. Which results in and I'll read a quote in a second, but it results in, like, today when my husband and I had our kids and we took a stance and said, like, we're not gonna spank our kids. And in Christian circles, that's like blasphemy. You're not gonna spank your kids, but the bible says if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. And somehow, because of very directly James Dobson Mhmm.

Spanking became biblical. Yep. And not just spanking because in Dare to Discipline he says this, pain is a marvelous purifier. It is not necessary to beat the child into submission. A little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child.

However, the smaking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely. Just sit in that for a second. Mhmm.

Now there are some people out there who would be able to read some of his books and pull the good bits out Mhmm. Or understand that they love their children and they don't wanna hurt them. But there are a lot of people, like you said, who can't wait until their kid's 18 so they can start hitting

them. And these people believe that this is what God wants. He's sitting there saying, this is what God wants you to do. If you don't do this, you as the parent are sinful.

Well, he also says, essentially, love is pain. Mhmm. And if you're not physically, at the end of the day, abusing your children

Mhmm.

You don't love them.

Right.

So you wanna make sure that your kids feel loved. So let me

go get the belt named Bertha. Mhmm. Actually, Sheila Ray Gregoire, who we talk about quite often, has a post up on her page. And she talks about how conflating love and abuse like this, love and spanking like this has led to a lot of like sexual issues for people. Mhmm.

And I would recommend going and reading it. I'm not gonna go into it a whole lot because she's talking about things that would take me a long time to, like, explain and dive into. But when you say love is pain, that's gonna mess somebody up.

Mhmm. Well, even if it's not, you know, sexual. Mhmm. What about just getting into a relationship with someone? You're, like, however more 10 times more likely to get yourself into an abusive situation.

Because not only are the women thinking that love is pain Mhmm. But also the men too are thinking, oh, this is how I show love.

Right. Exactly. And that's it it follows you. This teaching follows you everywhere you go. Mhmm.

And then you have parents like me that say like, no we're not gonna do this. And the expectation is that I'm gonna have children that are just wild, that are running naked through the streets. Okay? Hey. They might.

But the simple reality, as a parent who has had children, who and who has raised them this way, is that kids are relatively reasonable people. Shocker. They're humans. And they have the ability to listen to you if you respect them. But also, let's remember that every kid is different.

Mhmm.

There's not one right way to raise a child because literally every single person in this world is unique and different.

I mean, abuse is universally wrong.

Well, yes. But what works for you might not work

for whoever. So I don't know. These guidebooks that he has, it's not one right way. Any of the guidebooks I think are are weird. I'm not a big parenting book kind of person.

I know some people really like them, but I think anytime you say this is the way. Mhmm. This is it. You're automatically doing something wrong. But when you say this is it because God said this is it Mhmm.

And God didn't actually say that, now we have a problem. He also said in Dare to Discipline, some strong willed children absolutely demand to be spanked, and their wishes should be granted. Two or three stinging strokes on the legs or buttocks with a switch with a switch are usually sufficient to emphasize the point you must obey me. I don't know. I I just I don't even know how to process that as a parent Because that's abuse.

Mhmm.

You can't there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You cannot argue with me on this. That is abuse. That is reportable abuse. And and you should love your children.

Right? Like you brought them into the world. If you don't love them, then it's it's time to find them someone who does.

Mhmm.

If you love your children and you look at these people that you've created and that you love for women that came out of your body or that you've adopted and chosen to love, how can you look at them and say, because I love you. And that's what a lot of the people who were raised under Dobson's rule Mhmm. Will say. Their parents said, because I love you, I'm doing this. Because I love you, I'm going to hit you.

Even though I told you not to hit your sister. Mhmm. How do you do that?

It doesn't make sense in my head. Because you're right. If you're telling them to not hit Mhmm. But then you hit them, how does that make sense? Mhmm.

And also, I feel like, are you doing this punishment? Are you spanking your kids while you're angry too?

Mhmm. I think more often than not, you are. And where is the line then? Mhmm. You'll hear some parents that are like, I sit in my room for a little while to make sure I'm not mad before I spank them so that that's not so that it's not done in anger.

Do you think your kid cares? Do you think that's notable to them? Well, my parent wasn't angry with me when they hit me.

Mhmm. So that makes it better. And also, I think it's just hard to gauge. Are you hitting them at the same rate every time? Or when you're angry, does it hurt a little bit more?

When you are done with a long day of work, does it hurt a little bit less? I think and now I'm not a parent, but I think it would be better to have the same, like, punishment that you can gauge. Like you do this, this goes away. You do this, you go sit in time out. Mhmm.

Something that's measurable.

Mhmm. Yeah. And and those are things and I hear all the time from, like, the older generations of parents like, oh, this this generation's soft. You're raising soft kids blah blah blah because, you know, we're not hitting our children. Kids are reasonable, guys.

Now every kid needs different things. I understand that. No kid needs this. Mhmm. No kid needs this.

Your kid may need a professional to step in and help them understand their emotions. Yeah. Your kid may need longer timeouts. Your kid may need their video game taken away for the week. You know, like, there are different things.

But when you respect anyone, eventually that respect will come back to you because they'll see that. Mhmm. Treat your kids like, oh, people. Like, that's all you have to do. Mhmm.

You'll be okay. They'll be okay. Give them that base of love and confidence. Like, radical wild confidence. My daughter tells herself she's beautiful every single day.

And she should. And you should. Mhmm. Another book and I I wonder I do wonder often why he wrote so many books that seem to just sort of be copies of one another.

I had money.

Well, yeah. But other than that, another book was The Strong Willed Child. Let's see which one I wanna read from that.

Are you strong willed?

Are you a No. But probably not as a child. Okay. My will was a little bit broken.

This is a great one. Wait.

I had to adjust. Adjust. Okay. So there's two quotes I'm gonna read from this book, and I'll read them back to back. The first one is the broad principle, healthy parenting can be boiled down to those two essential ingredients, love and control.

Any concentration on love to the exclusion of control usually breeds disrespect and contempt. Later on, he said, just as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, so will a little child. But the difference is your child is not a dog.

Mhmm. Anytime you compare someone, like how women are always compared to

Whatever object.

Yeah. Everything under the sun, cars, pieces of meat, marbles. Who knows?

Marbles. Oh,

your purity.

The marbles. Yeah. I got you.

How about we just compare people

to people because people are people?

They are? And not toaster ovens and not cars. Not a football team. Not a corporation. Mhmm.

I just really hate that word that he uses there, control. And then he says any concentration on love to the exclusion of control usually breeds disrespect and contempt. So you can't have a singular moment with your child in which there's just love.

Mhmm.

Because there always has to be an element of control.

Well, also, I think something dangerous in his teachings are based on the different TikToks and things that I've listened to, but, like, there's no room for error.

Mhmm.

These kids are raised because they fear corporal punishment Mhmm. That they have to be perfect, that they can't question authority, that they have to be morally pure.

Mhmm.

And if they misstep in any kind of way, there's gonna be hell to pay for them. And I think that's really dangerous, especially when you're kids and you're just learning

Mhmm.

Who you are. Of course, they're gonna make mistakes. Mhmm. Of course, they're gonna question authority. Because that's what they're doing is learning.

Well, and let's look at God's relationship with us. Every time you screw up, does God come in with the switch? He does for me. He comes and totals a car or something. Brie has totaled quite a few cars.

No. But for real, like, God isn't doing that to you. Mhmm. He intentionally says throughout the Bible, I'm gonna love you no matter what you do. Think about the the woman who they were gonna cast stones at.

Mhmm.

Right? Did he cast a stone? No. He said, whoever is blameless Mhmm. Throw the first stone.

Go ahead.

Mhmm.

And he could have.

He was blameless. But he didn't. And that's just shown over and over. It's all over the bible. That's the point of the bible, isn't it?

Mhmm. God loves you no matter what you do. And God's not sitting there with a little tally mark. Oh, Brie screwed up 45 times today.

Think about Jesus on the cross. He took on all of our sins.

Mine is that's quite loud. They're not

trimming trees, are they? Not on a Sunday.

No. I don't think so. Pick out the window. Pick out the window. I can't see anything on the window.

Oh, it's nothing. What is a bowl of milk? Nothing. Well, I don't know if you noticed, but that fell. But you shot away from

it like it was going to make you.

Just knew it was gonna go. Hello? I don't remember what you were saying before.

I was gonna say, think about Jesus on the cross when he took on all of our sins.

If I were him, I'd be a little mad taking on the world's sins.

But he did it in love. Mhmm. He took on the sins of the world and gave us the opportunity to be with God in heaven. Mhmm. He was our bridge.

But he didn't curse us in the process.

If corporal punishment was the goal, Jesus could have gone around hitting a bunch of people.

Oh, man. He'd be hitting. Girl.

But he never did. Every time he approached someone sinful, his response was always caring and love. Even when he flipped a table. Mhmm.

He flipped the table, not the person. Oh, I mean Exactly. Or when what's his face? Chopped off that guy's ear. He gave him

his ear back. He did give him his ear back. That was a great story. But I think the reality with someone like James Dobson is that he values himself and the people that look like him more than anyone else. And that means that anyone who doesn't look exactly like him is less than.

And that includes women. It includes children. It includes people of different races, people of different sexual orient orientations. Anybody that doesn't look like him is less important. So yeah, an adult man doesn't need to be punished like a child by God.

But a child does because the adult man needs to be in control.

And I think that's why he's so obsessed with this family unit. Mhmm.

Because you only wanna look inward. Mhmm.

I'm only gonna pay attention to the people to my left and my right, and that's it. Mhmm. Rather than what God actually told us to do was to go out. Mhmm. Love your neighbor.

Right. Find those other people and share God's love with them.

Mhmm. It's not just inside your bubble. There's actually very little focus in the bible on that nuclear family unit.

Because that like, our version of traditional family unit Mhmm.

Was not biblical. Well, you don't see it. I'm I'm trying to picture like any representation in the Bible of this like nuclear mom dad two and a half kids family Men

getting with 57 different women. Their women's

I wanna help you. I don't know what it was. 600. And then there was

who is that guy who they couldn't have a baby, and then he was with Abraham.

It was

Abraham. Abraham Delacey, Geo Seppi Casey. That's biblical, man. I'd tell you that for free.

Wow. I wanna look at what our sound bite looked like just there. It's it was scary.

No. It looks good.

So the other thing he was hyper focused on was the general degradation of women. Just the general hatred of the other sex, as you do. So he wrote he wrote many books about this, but my favorite title of all of his books really is this. What wives wish their husbands knew about women, written by doctor James Dobson. And he knows because he's a wife.

What in the actual crap? I just any book that's about women for women should be

written by a woman. Mhmm.

Can you imagine writing a book saying, I'm gonna give advice from this group of people that I am not a part of? That's like me saying, you know what 12 year

old boys? I have the maturity level of you. So I'm gonna talk to you and I'm gonna tell you what you need to know about yourselves.

It's just insanity to That's insane. I mean, all of all of his books are bad. Okay? There's there's no redeeming qualities. Throw all the babies out with all the bathwater.

Okay? But this one, I just I just don't know what to do with it. So I'm gonna read a few quotes. It's all bad. It's all bad.

Read it if you want to, but it it'll hurt your soul. One of them, it says, believe it or not, low self esteem was indicated as the most troubling problem by the majority of the women. Feelings of inadequacy, lack of confidence, and a certainty of worthlessness have become a way of despair for millions of American women.

Where do you think that comes from? Maybe it's from all of the men in their lives telling them they're worthless.

Mhmm. I'm actually wondering though here if he's talking about or if he's talking if he's saying that women have low self esteem or if he's saying that women think men have low self esteem.

No. I think he's saying he wants the husbands to know that women have low self esteem.

I could be wrong. Let's skip that one. Okay. Okay. So another one or one of them is men derive self esteem by being respected.

This is a major theme in a lot of his things. Mhmm. Women feel worthy because they are loved. This may be the most important personality distinction between the sexes. This is used all the time.

If you were raised in a

Christian space, you've heard this a million different ways.

Oh my gosh.

Men need to be respected. Women need to feel

needed. Can I just doesn't every and I think we've said this before, but doesn't everybody need to be respected? Doesn't everybody need to be loved? Yes. How is this a gendered expectation?

Are you really gonna sit there and tell me that men don't need love?

Men don't need love. They don't need to be cared for. They just need to be respected. Doesn't matter if they're respectable or not. Right.

What does that do to to anyone to say you don't need love? You don't need love.

I think it causes a lot of what we're seeing today.

Because it tells a man you, you shouldn't enjoy being loved. You shouldn't seek that out. You don't need that. You just need respect. So you're going to demand respect no matter what.

And for a wife, that means you don't ever get to expect respect

Mhmm.

From your partner. I expect to be respected by my partner.

And that's why I'm not married.

I absolutely recommend that all of you out there demand respect from your partner. Whoever you have chosen to allow in your life, demand respect from them and show it to them if they deserve it as well. Mhmm. If they don't deserve it, step away. But it's just I just don't know what to do with that.

Because again, most of most of his research did not come from surveys and studies. So when he says this, men need this, women need this. He's not saying this because, hey, we sat down 5,000 different people and we talked to them and this seems to be what they need. No. He's saying, I I saw some I saw four people in my office the other day.

He's saying, I'm a doctor. Mhmm. Trust me. I'm a doctor. Trust me.

Which we all know never goes wrong. He also says so there, again, there's many quotes in this book. But one of the other ones is a successful husband and wife relationship begins with the attitude of the man. He has been ordained by God as the head of the family and the responsibility for its welfare rests upon his shoulders. I think the whole concept of head of the household is super problematic.

The verses that talk about it have been mistranslated and screwed up on every possible level. And I think we've talked about that before. If not, you're welcome to do research. It's all over the Internet. But it's all, again, love and control.

Love and control. You can't have any love without control. And I think I said this a couple of episodes ago, but if your relationship with someone is based on control, that's it. That's all you've got. Mhmm.

There will never be real love there because love and control cannot coexist. God does not try to control us.

If he wanted to control us, he definitely could. Mhmm.

And I think he definitely could if he wanted to.

I think we said this in the last episode, like, he didn't have to give us free will. No. He could have made a bunch of creatures to look up to the sky and worship him right from the jump. From morning to night, worshiping him worshiping him always.

But he didn't. He gave

us free will and he said, you get to choose me.

Mhmm. I want you to choose me.

But if you don't, I

can't make you. Mhmm. So why aren't we following the example of God then? If God had every ability to control us and instead said, in love, I'm going to give you free will. If you come to me, then that's great and I will celebrate that.

If you don't, then I will mourn that. But you get to choose Mhmm. What you're gonna do because I love you because I can't have control and love together in a relationship. They don't work. They never work.

Even with your children, think about that really. You can try and guide your children. You can try and say like, this would be a better decision than this. But at the end of the day, you cannot control what they do when they're outside of your space. Mhmm.

And if your relationship with them is based on control, not advising, not trying to show them the right way, but control, you're going to lose.

Well, isn't that what parenting is though? Again, I don't have children. But you're trying to raise up adults that are able to think for themselves who will make the right decisions. And that comes with a certain level of trust in them and of yourself. Trust that you've kind of guided them in the right direction, shown them right from wrong.

And hopefully, when they're off on their own, they're able to discern that for themselves. If you're controlling them a 100% of the time and not letting them think for themselves, what's gonna happen when they go out there? And that's what you see with a lot of very evangelical kids is they step out finally with a little bit of freedom. Their parents aren't breathing down their necks,

and they lose their minds.

That's why they say a lot of Christian schools have the craziest kids.

Mhmm.

It's not it's not public schools. It's these kids who have been so controlled all their lives. And now mom and dad aren't watching. Mhmm. Yeah.

I'm gonna do those drugs. Mhmm. Yeah. I'm gonna experiment with some other things. We could probably cut that.

But But

I think you've hit the nail directly on the head. James Dobson is not looking for independent adults. He does not want you to raise independent thinking adults. He wants you to raise adults under his umbrella. Yeah.

Because those adults in theory, and obviously this doesn't work out most of time because you can see all over TikTok. But those adults in theory would not question his teachings. Yeah. Would not question the way he tells them to vote. He doesn't want people to question him at all.

Exactly. So if you raise up your kids in this hyper controlled environment, if you keep your family unit in this hyper controlled environment and you abuse them all into submission, then maybe they don't question anything. Mhmm. Maybe they just follow along because it's what they were taught to do.

Well, mean, he goes so far as to they created this thing called Plugged In. So he has Focus on the Family, which is like this broadcasting radio show, which a lot

of us kids listen to

the evangelical kids like Adventures in Odyssey. Mhmm. And these little radio programs that were geared towards kids to show them, you know, good morals,

right from wrong, whatever.

But he also created this thing called Plugged In, which was reviews on any kind of media you could think of under the sun, like movies, TV shows, songs, video games. And it'll it'll give you a review. And it'll tell you whether you should this is okay. You should listen to it. Or no, absolutely not.

And here's a bad review of all the bad things that happen in it. But he's controlling what you watch, what you listen to, what you think about.

Mhmm. And again, was Jesus the morality police? Was he? I mean, can you think of a moment where Jesus was like, all right, you need to do this, this, this, and this. And don't ever look here, here, here, and here.

No. There were general guidelines for sure. The bible is full of kind of these guidelines of, yeah, this is better. This is not as good, you know. And there are some absolutes.

But it wasn't like, if you watch hocus pocus,

you're going straight to hell. There's no turning back.

Like, no. That's not how it was. And yet, James Dobson decides that in place of God, he's gonna tell you exactly Mhmm. Step for step who to be.

I was also this is kind of off topic. Kind of. But I was thinking about this the other day on one of my driving thoughts. There was such a focus on not being worldly Mhmm. When we were growing up in the very Christian space.

Anything secular

Mhmm.

Was bad. And you had to stay away from it at all costs. But when you

think about it, like, God created the world. Mhmm.

Right? And he said it was good. So why are we so scared of anything that's not in our Christian bubble? We're so terrified of anything that's not Christian approved and Christian stamped. But God made this world.

So

why can't we enjoy it just a little bit? I think it's because they always say like, we're supposed to be in the world but not of it. They just have the broader Christian church has misidentified what I think the issue is that God's trying to say there. When he says be in the world but not of it in the bible actually, that might be Paul. I'd have to look at that.

When the bible says be in the world but not of it, it's very specifically referencing like be different than these people who are hurting each other. Be different than these people who are hating each other. Love one another. Mhmm. Show God's love to everyone, to your communities.

Be different. Be different than the Roman law that they were living under. Be different than the existing church that had so much hypocrisy. Be different than that. Not don't watch the movies that other people are watching.

No, I'm not saying like if something makes you uncomfortable

Mhmm.

Follow that. Follow what you believe God is telling you. But don't follow someone like James Dobson just because he's decided that he's king of the Christians.

Well, he's not anymore. He's dead. Another

thing that he had big issues with you know what? We we're gonna need to move on because there's many, many things. So he was very into purity culture. That was a big thing with him. And I'm gonna have to like we're gonna have to speed through a little bit more of this because there's just so many issues with this man.

I cannot get to them all. But he was very into purity culture, very into the women's value was within their purity. And in addition to that, that it was the woman's responsibility to keep the man pure. Mhmm. That it was the wife's responsibility.

Now he talked often about let's see. About things like lust. He talked about girls dressing modestly because boys and men can't control themselves sexually. And that's seeped into so much of our culture. And I'm sure that that's not like a just him statement.

But I saw on Facebook the other day in my daughter's school's parent group. Somebody had posted that their daughter had been dress coded several times this week. Now I don't know anything about the situation, but their daughter having been dress coded. And she was saying like, this is insane. Why are we policing girls bodies?

And another parent came on there and she said, well, I have a son and he's about whatever age. And at that age, they're looking at the girls and they're sexualizing these girls if they're in certain clothes. So these girls need to be dressing a different way so that they're not treated as sexual objects. This is not a direct quote, but that was the very absolute message. This is a modern day parent.

This was not a Christian group. This was like a public school group. And I'm like, now she got beaten into the ground by the rest of the comments. Dory. It is not the girls' and I

will say this until I'm dead in the grave. It is not the girl's responsibility. Not ever. It is our responsibility as parents to teach our boys that women are not just sexual objects.

We need to treat each other with respect. And what a great age to start training them in that. Exactly. As they are starting to understand different sexual urges and things like that to say, as you're having all these talks with them Mhmm. Hey, we treat everyone with respect.

We never approach someone with sex being the object. And also telling boys right from the jump, you can control yourself. You

don't only think about sex. There are other things under the sun that you can focus on. Because, of course, they're becoming that way. If you tell boys they're sexual beings Yep. And you can only control yourself so much.

Mhmm. And really, it's on her to make sure that she's covered up so that you don't, you know Mhmm. Sin. It's on her.

And so if she doesn't, it's her fault, not yours. Of course, they're gonna become that way. But remember that we teach girls that they are not sexual beings. Mhmm. We tell girls over and over, especially in the Christian circles, sex is is fine, but it's really for the boy.

You don't really you don't really have sexual urges, etcetera, etcetera. And yet, we've talked about this in the past. Back in the medieval times, women were considered more sexually aggressive, more sexually inclined. Mhmm. And therefore, they were.

And they were more sinful. It was a self fulfilling prophecy. Mhmm. You tell someone that they're more sexual as a society, they're probably gonna believe you. Yeah.

This isn't scientifically proven. It's just we're raising people Mhmm. In the way that we expect them to be. Raise all of your children to respect everyone else's body Mhmm. To respect everyone else as a human and see what that does instead of telling girls that they need to police themselves because you're never gonna get every girl to police themselves.

No. But you can get all of your children to respect themselves and others Mhmm. As long as you're good parents. That was a little rant. We never do that.

No. We never do that. He also there's there's many things within purity culture that were big, big issues. One of the of the things that he says in relation to that in his book Preparing for Adolescence, he says boys are sexually aggressive by nature, and girls must recognize this fact and be cautious in their relationships. Yeah.

In straight talk to men and their wives, he says

Not gay talk.

Not gay talk. He was very very against the gay talk. He says a girl who dresses provocatively is placing a stumbling block in the path of a boy who is struggling to be morally pure. And then in an interview, he says the most or he said, the most valuable thing a bride can give her husband on her wedding night is her virginity. Note, he didn't say it on the flip side.

Yeah. None of these none

of these are directed at, like, men, you also need to do this same thing. And even if he did, I find that problematic also. But, like, none of it was in the reverse. And growing up in that space too, that

was never put on men. Mm-mm. That was never told to women either to expect. Like, as a woman, you should expect that your husband comes in into the marriage a virgin pure and clean because that's the greatest gift that he can give you. Mhmm.

You would not hear that.

Not ever. You would hear men are sexual beings. They

can't control themselves. Therefore, you need to control yourself.

Yep. He was also very anti feminism, which, I mean, should be shocking at this point to you all. Right? None of you expected that?

Woah. I thought he was a feminist.

Yeah. I know. I'm I'm surprised, actually.

I thought he burned his bra and everything.

He he may have burned some bras, but only of the feminists and while they were wearing them. And the witches. He positioned feminism as anti family. He said feminists were dismantling the traditional family structure. Obviously.

Obviously, it's all our faults. The world's burning to the ground. It's the feminists. Most things are. He positioned career women as neglectful, implying that anyone who pursued careers outside the homes were harming their children.

And actually, one of his quotes see if I can pull it.

But why isn't it put on the flip side too? Okay. Let's say what you're saying is true. Right? Fem any women who are working outside the home are putting the family unit in danger.

Mhmm. Why don't you then say, men, if you're not providing enough so that your wife does not have to work, that is a problem.

Which again is not something that we think, but at the same time, yeah. Where's the responsibility on the men in this scenario?

I need both sides of that story. I don't need you just to put all of these rules on women. Like, you have to be pure. You have to be clean. You have to be beautiful.

You have stay young. You have to keep your husband from cheating on you. Mhmm. But also don't work. Mhmm.

One of the things I may have mentioned this in the past, but that I've heard in these types of circles. Now I don't know if this came from doctor Dobson or not, but is the seventy two hour rule. Now this was not something that I heard in churches, but it is something that I've seen a lot of very conservative Christian women say. Now the seventy two hour rule is that every seventy two hours, you have to either have sex or have some sort of sexual Encounter. Encounter with your husband.

A little reach around. And if you don't Thank you. Dad's gonna die. Sorry, dad. Don't listen to this episode.

And if you don't, you are not only causing the ability for him to stumble, but you're essentially causing him to cheat. You have caused that scenario.

Putting it on women.

Again, not on men. No. And there was no like, for most of these women, there were no exceptions for, hey, I'm on my period. Mhmm. There were also no exceptions for, hey, I just had a baby.

Oh my gosh. There were so many stories. Because it's presented like this, because women are objects, because if you don't, he'll stray. It just breeds abuse

all over, everywhere for kids, for women. And again, we're screwing over the men too and not giving them the opportunity to be better.

There is no consent in a sexual relationship that's about control. Mm-mm. And if you're saying every seventy two hours Mhmm.

You must do something to please your husband. Otherwise, he will cheat on you, and

you will have caused him to sin. That's horrible. It's automatic sexual abuse. You can't get around it. You can't say yes.

You can't say no. Because it's manipulative. I love this man. I don't want him to cheat on me, and it'll be my fault if he cheats on me if I don't do this. Even if I'm in pain, even if I just had a surgery, even if I just had a child, whatever it is, it's gonna be my fault.

And I would love to know, like, these men. Do you know that this is being told to women? And

if

you don't, you need to know.

And don't use it against us. But you need

to know what's being told to the women surrounding you and understand that this is why we have feminism.

Mhmm.

This is why we need it. This is why we're so freaking mad, and we're having to have a podcast.

The last quote that I wanted to mention from him and, there's I would really encourage you guys to do if this is a topic that's interesting to you, there's so many people talking about this right now. There's so many like I said, Sheila has a great, several great posts on it. The beautiful kingdom warriors was also I can hear that. Try again. The beautiful kingdom warriors is another one that has really great posts.

Thriving forward is another page with great posts about this. So you can find them and check it out. And I mean, there's just scroll through TikTok for two seconds. Mhmm. Because I couldn't possibly explore everything.

Like I said, there was super problematic statements to anyone that wasn't a white man, to anyone out there at all. But one of the quotes that I wanted to end on, I hope it's a good one from him. Is a good one. Well, it's it's one from him. Wait for it.

Wait.

This is the moment when I wish that this podcast was more of a YouTube video show. Do you? Here's why. Our faces have been very expressive during this entire episode. Like, if you could see the amount of eye rolls and just the the slowly closing of the eyes, the air quotes, The shock.

The despair. I think it needs to be seen. Sure.

If you wanna see that, let us know and give us money for a camera. Isn't that I think that's in Friends. He was like, if you would like to hear recordings from me, give me money for a laptop or a computer, I guess, would have been the era. Anyway, so the quote that I wanna end on from him that I think is so poignant is my legacy doesn't matter. It isn't important that I be remembered.

It's important that when I stand before the Lord, he says, well done, good and faithful servant. I want to finish strong. If my legacy at the end of my life includes massive amounts of people crying abuse, attributing their own abuse to my name, I will not have finished strong finished strong.

I think there's gonna be a lot of judgment happening up there.

Or down there. Might have to cut that bit.

Yeah. All it takes, like you said, is just scrolling through TikTok for a couple of minutes to see all of these people crying out and saying, I was abused in this guy's name. And he claimed it was God. And so I walked away from the church because what I learned growing up was God's love was painful.

Mhmm.

And I didn't wanna be a part of it anymore. And we need to believe them. And there are so many people crying out right now that Christianity as a whole is painful, and they don't wanna be a part of it anymore. And I feel like God's up there crying. Mhmm.

Because that's not what He ever intended. He intended love. Mhmm.

He sent His son down to die for us so that we could go up to heaven and be with him. And right now, Christianity has nothing to do with love. It's only hate.

I struggle even to call myself a Christian on a lot of days because of the associations.

Mhmm.

Because of what it looks like to people. I prefer to call myself someone of faith. Or like some people will say like, I'm a Christ follower, etcetera. Because the word Christian has just been drugged through the mud Mhmm. On every possible level.

And it doesn't take a lot to find it, but then you watch the Internet community rally when someone like this passes away. And this is the second time very recently that this has happened. Mhmm. Another pastor, passed away a couple of months ago and the same exact thing happened. Listen to these people.

Hear what they're saying and do better. Live better. Be better people of faith. Be better Christ followers. Don't do this.

Because at the end of our lives, we do have to face God. As people of faith, that's what we believe. Right? That we will face God. And, yes, God is incredibly forgiving.

And yet, if at the end of your life, your teachings or your mission or your world has caused a bunch of other people to turn from god. I don't know what I don't know what happens then. I don't know what happens then, but I can't imagine that god's just gonna say, well, whatever. I think at least you're gonna get a very stern talking to.

And maybe you have to come back as a bug. Yeah.

Couple of bugs. Yeah. So, what we're saying is throw away the poop brownie and step away.

Or eat the poop brownie.

You know, don't, though. Don't do that. Live on the edge. I'm confused by this analogy now. It's getting late, guys.

We ran out of coffee, like, a really long time ago. Alright. So next week, we will head back to our regularly scheduled programming. I'm sorry if this episode's a little bit longer than normal. It may be.

We'll see how editing goes. No.

I think it'll be fine.

We just had a lot to say. We had a lot of thoughts. And frankly, I have more thoughts. I just it's hurting my soul to talk about this.

We didn't even get into the political stuff yet. Oh, boy. Crap.

Well, let's see what happens next week. Another topic for another time. Maybe we'll do that next week week. Maybe it'll be what is sin next week.

Honestly, it's our podcast, not yours. We get to talk about what we want. And just because we said an episode's gonna be on something doesn't mean

it's actually gonna be. It never has. They know. We know.

Never never trust us with certain things. With the with this episode, you can trust us.

But maybe not when we predict what's gonna happen next.

Listen. I never claim to be able to see the future.

I'm living day by day, baby. Day by day. And sometimes night by night I don't know what I'm saying. Okay. We're gonna go to bed now.

Okay. Alright. Love you. Bye. Love you.

Bye.