It Began in a Cafeteria

Reflecting on the Legacy of James Dobson

The recent announcement of James Dobson’s death led me to reflect on how his life and teachings had intertwined with my own. There is ample evidence of the harm his teachings and politically motivated words and actions caused, but many from conservative backgrounds only see him through glitter-tinted glasses because they found his teachings on child-rearing and marriage to be beneficial and align with their theology. I have chosen to reflect on how his life and mine intersected over the years, and it has kept me searching for answers concerning children’s behavior because I disagreed with his conclusions. Those conclusions were counter to my foundational understanding of child development. The story begins in a cafeteria, with a detour to a stairway.

It Began in a Cafeteria

The only time I ever spoke to James Dobson was on a stairway at the church we both attended. It was around 2003, and I was on faculty at Nazarene Bible College. Dobson and I were both third-generation Nazarenes and children of pastors. We attended the same college—though many years apart from each other—and ate in the same cafeteria in Pasadena, CA.

It was in Beadle’s Cafeteria that I first heard the name James Dobson. I was a teenager and had reluctantly tagged along with my parents on their errands so I could eat at Beadle’s Cafeteria. The food was that good!

We were almost done with our meal when my father said, “Over there, the family at the large table. That is James Dobson.” That was all he said. Or at least all I remember. But I sensed whoever James Dobson was, my father respected him. I generally respected who my father respected—he was a good judge of character—so I logged the name of James Dobson in my category of good people.

Not long after that, I arrived at Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego). It was two years after Dobson published his first book, Dare to Discipline. I graduated seven years after that publication, heard Dobson’s name mentioned occasionally as an alumnus and a prominent psychiatrist, but was never introduced to his book. This surprises me, because I was a child development major.

My understanding of child development was devoid of the kind of theological authoritarian behaviorism that underlies Dobson’s work. I didn’t realize this for many years. When our daughter was born, I depended on my understanding of child development and bought the book by Dr. Spock. I sense that my father recommended it. I did not yet know that Dobson was becoming the expert on parenting for wide swaths of the church.

We moved from California to the Bible Belt when my daughter was 6 months old. Without a support group, Dr. Spock became my source of wisdom. The book was always on my nightstand along with my child development textbook. Slowly, I begin to understand that the book needed a plain brown cover. Why?

It took me some time to recognize that my foundational beliefs about children and child-rearing were different from the parenting advice my faith community offered. This was due to Dobson’s influence. ChatGPT summarizes the differences quite well:

My research-based understanding of child development was at odds with what Dobson was quickly convincing Christian parents was the godly way to parent. I did not see parenting that assumed rebellion in children as a path to treasuring the image of God in them. Still, I trusted my father’s assessment of Dobson. I couldn’t imagine that our common educational and theological backgrounds could lead to such different views of children—surely it wasn’t that bad, I thought. I was wrong.

By this time, Dobson had published The Strong-Willed Child, and the book was being heralded as the answer for parenting difficult children. I taught courses in a program that listed this book as required reading. I never read it until I took over teaching the class in which it was recommended. When I read Dobson’s story of beating his dog to illustrate how children must be controlled, it shook me to the core. While corporal punishment was taught in the department as a viable and even preferred option, it was not this. I quietly removed the book from the list as quickly as I could.

For Dobson’s defense of spanking—in his own words—read Is Spanking Healthy Discipline? I realize now that my uneasiness about this practice is because it embeds the idea that those who love you will hurt you, for your good. The admonition for relational care of the child after the spanking blurs the boundaries between loving and harming. It also lacks any understanding of the impact on a child’s nervous system, and what it views as submission is actually a fear response in which the body learns to protect itself by freezing or collapsing. Children prone to a fight response require more physical punishment to reach this psychological collapse. Is it possible to provide enough relational care to mitigate the harm? Many would say spanking never caused harm, but the preponderance of research doesn’t support it. I regret the influence of these teachings that led me to choose spanking even when my gut said it was harmful to my children’s emotional and physical well-being.

Then I moved to Colorado Springs, which had become the home of Focus on the Family (founded in Pasadena, CA). James Dobson seemed to be ever-present in my life. I had avoided promoting him and had not introduced any of the children’s programs to my children. And now I was increasingly concerned about his involvement in politics. I was appalled when he said that what happened at Sandy Hook was because God had been removed from public schools. The final straw was his support of Trump and lack of compassion upon visiting the immigration centers where children were being held in cages. I simply couldn’t understand how he had strayed so far from the social justice embedded in our Wesleyan roots.

When I became involved in the religious trauma work, I began to hear the stories of those who had been harmed by the type of parenting Dobson espoused. I could see places in my years of child-rearing where I had bought into some of it. My parenting was a continual battle between what I believed about children and the predominant cultural views in the church, which were largely determined by Dobson.

When the news of Dobson’s passing came across my feed, I found myself in the cafeteria looking at James Dobson and his family. They are all much older and grieving today, and I am sad for them. My Facebook feed gave me whiplash. Both accolades and anger arrived in abundance. Some comments seemed unnecessary, but I would not deny people their voices. The harm is evident for any who wishes to be, as I said yesterday, uncomfortably informed.

I realized that James Dobson and I both began with the same concern. That concern was the understanding of the behavior of children who appeared out of control. Just like me, he was searching for answers. For years, I disagreed with his conclusions about the source of the problem, but had nothing except my gut instincts and child development background to back up my belief that behavior was a symptom of the problem, but not the root cause. Possibly, we both believed that.

Dobson’s root cause pointed to sin and rebellion. This was something that made sense to Christians who had been heavily influenced by the theology of original sin. The solution was to exercise authority and control over children’s behaviors. What he proposed was a mixture of behaviorism—the psychology of the day—and the authoritarian parenting predominant in fundamentalism.

If I were to suggest where the younger Dobson, who sat laughing with his wife and children in the cafeteria, went off track, I would say it was the insidious influence of fundamentalism that has the power to seep into the souls of good people and drag them away from the teachings of Jesus. I have often said, “He was a good man who crawled into bed with the fundamentalists.” I believe it was his undoing.

Fundamentalism creeps into souls like dust can filter through walls. The only recording I have of my father’s preaching is a sermon about the Dust Bowl. He said the dust—and sand—seeped into his childhood home and covered everything, no matter how hard his mother worked to keep it out. It hid between the pages of books, inside drawers, and in pockets of clothes. After a while, the family learned to live with it. It became a part of life. Fundamentalism is like that dust. It eventually becomes part of the fabric of life and faith.

I have watched fundamentalism creep into lives and churches in many denominations, including my own. I have observed individuals turn into someone I no longer recognize. I have seen them wage wars that Jesus never would have fought. I have stood aghast when they cozied up to power in ways that frightened me. I have watched them harm those they at one time called friends. So many, like Dobson, continued working to do the good they believed was important. They didn’t understand their foundation had been shifted by the insidious impact of fundamentalism. They just kept building the house...on sand.

I think I understood most of this when I had that chance meeting with Dobson on the church stairway. Having lived in fundamentalist circles for over twenty years helped me to recognize how he had been impacted by it. Would it have been possible to explain it? Probably not. It is nearly impossible to explain or recognize while believing you are doing the right thing.

Instead, I helped him connect me to my family, and he seemed genuinely glad to meet me. I think I mentioned Beadle’s Cafeteria. There we were, two preacher’s kids who graduated from the same college, who both began our careers with a desire to better understand children’s behavior.

My search to understand children’s behavior followed a different path. Maybe it was my childhood trauma that somehow informed me that my mother’s efforts to control me were not the answer. My father’s nurturing care was formative in what I came to believe.

When I was introduced to the Attachment & Trauma Network, I finally found the concepts and words to express what I had always believed about children. Control is not the answer. The answer is relational care.

In my memory of Dobson with his children at that cafeteria table, I believe he understood the importance of relational care. My image is of laughter and conversation. I am certain he did not set out to do so much harm while working to do good in the world. But the evidence that it was harmful can be found in hundreds of articles being written this week by individuals, pastors, and therapists.

Our good intentions are not always the final word. It is easy it is to lose the plot when fundamentalism steps through the door. This should be a sobering reminder to us all. When we make the mistake of believing that controlling others—children or adults—is the godly way to solve the issues we face in our homes, churches, or world, what we intend for good will likely result in causing great harm.

Dobson and I both stood in the same line in the cafeteria. We had all the same choices in front of us. We were both greatly impacted by fundamentalism during our adult years, but we chose very different meals.