This week on Flightless Bird, David looks at Dr James Dobson and Focus on the Family, a Colorado Springs based fundamentalist Christian group formed in the 70s. Using his status as a child psychologist, Dobson wrote over 30 parenting books, creating a media empire that changed how many parents raised their kids. With a very strong focus on discipline and breaking the will of the child, Dobson’s ideas travelled far and wide, ending up in places like New Zealand. With hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, Dobson turned his focus to lobbying, extremely angry that females and gay people were getting a voice in society. David talks to people raised by adherents of Focus on the Family, before talking to DL Mayfield of the “Strongwilled” podcast about Dobson’s problematic roots and ideas. He then tracks the influence of Focus on the Family in New Zealand, talking to Michael Frost and Shane Meyer-Holt of the “In The Shift” podcast. Email us: [email protected] “In The Shift” Podcast: https://intheshift.com/ “Strongwilled” newsletter and podcast: https://strongwilled.substack.com/ 4/13 Tickets for Portland: https://bit.ly/lostkiwiPDX 4/18 Tickets for San Francisco: https://bit.ly/lostkiwiSF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is Focus on the Family?
He started so many different organizations. They all have extremely similar sounding names, all for the express purpose of impacting legislation.
Ronald Reagan appointed Dobson to an advisory committee for juvenile justice. And throughout the 80s, Dobson influenced policy in all 50 states. He was the reason so many Christians voted for George Bush, and later, Donald Trump. And while Focus on the Family's 501c3 status means it couldn't lobby, they set up an affiliate group called Focus Family Alliance, which could.
With revenue of close to $100 million a year, it spends most of its time lobbying against gay rights, trans rights, and abortion. Dobson also started another lobbying group called the Family Research Council. And that group encouraged other states to create their own lobby groups to do the same thing.
And in all that political lobbying, Dobson's main focus remained on getting his messaging to parents, and more importantly, to kids, which brings us back to Adventures in Odyssey again.
It was this radio drama that Focus on the Family put out in the 80s. And it was basically centered around this small town called Odyssey in the middle of America. And it all surrounds this patriarch named Mr. Whitaker, who's basically a stand-in for Dr. Dobson. Except Whit is single. He's a widow. He's old. All his children are grown. He owns an ice cream shop.
And he's also a genius who works for the CIA. And he has this machine in his basement called the Imagination Station where he can send kids on a virtual reality tour of American history. That's all very revisionist, white supremacist history and Bible stories. He can actually send people to hell so kids can experience hell so that they'll become Christians. He meddles in everything.
And this program has gone on for decades. It's still going strong. It was Vice President Mike Pence's favorite program that he listened to with his children constantly. Millions of kids grew up listening to this. Crispin and I, we started our podcast where we just started listening to episodes and talking about them and
It's just all the focus on the family values, but it's just another layer of indoctrination. But the end goal is this town where everybody is a Christian and the white male patriarch, Mr. Whitaker, is basically in charge of the schools and their curriculum. All the kids listen to them. He spanks kids. You know, he's not a pastor. He's a businessman. And.
The layers of indoctrination in this show I don't think can really be expressed in this little interview, but it's just something worth mentioning, one of the ways he got to people. Chick-fil-A used to give out cassettes of Adventures in Odyssey episodes, right?
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Chapter 2: How did Focus on the Family influence parenting?
But who wouldn't want a book written by a man about how men should treat their wives? You know? What else could you want? This is from a Q&A section in Dare to Discipline. This is a question from someone who wrote in, how long do you think a child should be allowed to cry after being punished or spanked? Is there a limit? Totally normal conversation.
And James Dobson answered, yeah, I believe there should be a limit. As long as the tears represent a genuine release of emotion, they should be permitted to fall. But crying quickly changes from inner sobbing to an exterior weapon. It becomes a tool to protest or to punish the enemy. Real crying usually lasts two minutes or less, but may continue for five.
At that point, the child is merely complaining. It's timestamped. It gets weird. Parents of sick or deformed children are also likely to find discipline harder to implement. A child with a withered arm or some non-fatal illness can become a little terror. simply because the usual behavioral boundaries are not established by the parents.
It must be remembered that the need to be controlled and governed is almost universal in childhood. This need is not eliminated by other problems such as a withered arm.
Totally normal stuff. Yikes.
Over two million copies sold. Over two million copies sold. You read this whole book? I flicked through. I didn't like put myself through the whole thing. If an eight-year-old boy is given an advanced understanding of mature sexual behavior, it is less likely that he will wait 10 or 12 years to apply his knowledge within the confines of marriage.
What does that mean?
It just means don't let your kids know anything about sex when they're young because that will just speed up. the age they're actually going to engage in any kind of sexual activity.
I got one for you. Hit me. What is bisexuality and why are we hearing so much about it now? I love this. What does James Sullivan have to say? A bisexual is someone who participates in both heterosexual and homosexual acts of passion. At the time of this writing, bisexuality is the fad among swingers. It is getting enormous amounts of publicity in...
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