From Civilizing the Young:
The problem for child-rearing today, if one exists, may stem less from lack of belief in God than from lack of belief in authority. If parents are unwilling or unable to restrain their children, my guess is that it is their absorption of the 1960s ethic of authenticity, rather than skepticism towards supernatural claims, that is most influencing their practices in the home. Jesus is not the source of the mandate to say please and thank you; a due respect for civilization is. Self-restraint, manners, artifice, the ideal of behaving like a gentleman or a lady, these are courtly virtues, not necessarily religious ones, and they were all trashed by the pseudo-cult of “getting back to nature” (i.e., no haircuts, bathing optional, no more suits and ties, no more waiting till marriage, and, from what I observe in some of my peers and their progeny, forks, spoons, and knives expendable). Religious zeal can in fact trump respect for authority and manners in the pursuit of holy Truth, no less than the baby-boomers’ pursuit of maximal self-expression, which latter quest I suspect is the real child-rearing culprit here (along with a hyper charged multi-billion dollar youth industry).
Nor are Jesus or other deities the source of parental authority. It comes with the genes. The only question is whether parents have the commitment and ability to use that authority wisely. You don’t need to consult the Bible to figure out whether your eight-year-old should be allowed to wallop his baby sister, nor do you need to refer to the Bible to thunder forth with a non-appealable ban, complete with dire penalties, against such walloping. People for whom religious practice was a vital and enriching part of their upbringing may have fully understandable difficulty imagining life without it
Well, personally I’m a big fan of “no haircuts … no more suits and ties, no more waiting till marriage.” In fact, it’s exactly that mindset that brought you the personal computer industry; and, of course, those freedoms are the first thing that the conservatives would try to take away from us.
Hey, they’ve already got my hair, but no way are they putting me into a suit and tie!
Also, I personally have near-zero use for authority; but that’s a case of mastering the rules before you judiciously break them. ‘Cause I grew up with enough iron-fisted paternal authority to last me ten lifetimes: There was never any danger of me walloping my little sister—regardless of how much she (budding little feminist) provoked it—simply because I would have wound up literally black and blue from that. (Hell, they once took away my TV for a month just for splashing dishwater on her.)
Wooden spoons and belts can do at least that much damage.
