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In Reply to: Re: hi posted by Farmer on January 29, 2008 at 01:05:06:
Farmer, I see your point about focusing on maltreatment that is unique to the Family versus that which is commonplace in society.
As others here have suggested, the Family has some very specific beliefs about bedwetting as a form of willful disobedience where the child is thought to yield to evil spirits. That's not generally the case where punishment for bedwetting among systemites is concerned. In the case of systemites, it's usually a matter of ignorance--People don't know any better than to do to their kids what was done to them. Which is pretty much where Berg was coming from in a lot of his child-rearing beliefs. He was sexually abused as a child, so why not do it to his own kids and convince others to do it to theirs?
You could say Family parents are as ignorant as systemites about how to handle bed-wetting and that they're just doing what they learned growing up, except for one thing: they've elevated Berg's ignorance about a common childhood problem to a matter of divine revelation under spell Demons and Spirit Helpers. That's not a whole lot unlike elevating the adult sexualization of children to a divine revelation under the Law of Love. It's not that they do stupid, hurtful, ignorant sh*t just like systemites do, but that they make it part of an official belief system passed from one generation to the next. At least systemites have the opportunity of going to school or a pediatrician and learning some facts about bedwetting and childrearing.
