CRI article excerpt
This is an excerpt from an article in the April-June 1998 issue of the Christian Research Journal.
From "More Than A Parenting Ministry" (Christian Research Journal, April-June 1998)
Ezzo has written to people who question him, calling them "primitivistic", "marsupial", "prideful", "disgruntled", and "theologically naive", among other adjectives.[68] After reading PFP thoroughly, Joel and Kathryn Kuhlmann wrote the Ezzos with questions, quoting liberally from PFP and the Bible. Their letter was returned with Gary Ezzo's handwritten margin comments, including "silly conclusion" and "[makes] no sense to you but apparently has made plenty of sense to over half a million other parents."[69] The Kuhlmanns wrote back, explaining there must have been a mix-up in his correspondence department since they didn't get a regular letter back and his notes in the margins did not include "specific answers, as we requested." Ezzo replied with another handwritten note, saying, "There was no mistake - this is the response. Your letter although I'm sure sincere was so badly flawed in its assertions that any other type of response was rendered useless....What follow [sic] simply lacked intellectual honesty."[70]
GFI materials make it clear that the Ezzos' parenting
philosophy is superior to others. GFI's programs
are described as "God's Way" and "biblical."
Christians with different parenting philosophies
are said to be, in their thinking, "Christians
up to a point."[71] When the Kuhlmanns wrote
to Gary Ezzo about their belief that attachment
parenting (a parenting philosophy practiced by many
Christians that includes demand feeding) is "a
viable parenting option for Christians," Ezzo
responded, "It's not. It is word for word of
what came out of humanistic writing of the 1940s."[72]
In PFP he describes attachment parenting as "neoprimitivistic"
and based on "superstition."[73]
[68] Correspondence between
Gary Ezzo and various concerned parents, on file
at CRI.
[69] 18 August 1996 letter from Joel and Kathryn Kuhlmann with Gary Ezzo's handwritten notes.
[70] 22 September 1996 letter from Joel and Kathryn Kuhlmann with Gary Ezzo's handwritten note.
[71] PFP, 21.
[72] 18 August 1996 Kuhlmann letter with Ezzo's notes.
