Yesterday, the news was announced that James Dobson has died. If you aren’t familiar with him, he was the founder & spokesman of Focus On The Family, a right wing organization that used (& still uses) the guise of Christianity to espouse racism, sexism, anti-immigrant sentiment, homophobia, & even out right abuse (among other things). I grew up hearing Dobson’s voice on the family radio almost every day of my childhood & adolescence. I was well versed in the theories of his infamous book The Strong Willed Child. Even as a child I was disturbed by some of these ideas but of course I was not in a climate in which I could express that. This was the evangelical world of the rural South. The Bible was (& is) the law of the land. It was (& is) taken literally & declared to be 100% divinely inspired. To question Dobson was to question God himself.

Before I go further, I want to clarify that I love my parents. I truly believe they did what they thought was best & I am very grateful for many things they taught me. I am also grateful they didn’t follow ALL of Dobson’s teachings, or at least not to the most extreme measure. Today’s post is not about them. It’s about Dobson & the greater culture he promulgated.

It’s ironic that Dobson has died now because just in the past few weeks I’ve been realizing how much his teachings shaped my childhood, not just because of my own family but because of the cultural landscape he created in which my family existed. Furthermore, I’ve come to see just how incredibly evil this man truly was. He laid the groundwork for the modern Christian Nationalist movement. He paved the way for Trump’s presidency & the Religious Right not just accepting but actually revering someone who as a child I would have sworn they’d crucify. Furthermore, I’ve done a deep dive & realized he was strongly influenced by & tied to a eugenicist named Paul Popenoe. Yeah, Dobson managed to bury that one for a while but it’s coming to light now!

If you want to read more on this, I highly recommend Stephanie Jo Warren’s Instagram/Substack which is so aptly named A Crack in the Stained Glass/The Strong Willed Child (https://substack.com/@thestrongwilledchild). When I read her pieces, her words resonate with me in ways that anyone not raised in this kind of Christianity will probably never understand. She says everything I want to say & more, & in a far more eloquent way than I’m capable of at this point in time. For YEARS I’ve been trying to figure out how people who preach compassion & the love of Jesus so frequently support a man who is the very antithesis of that. See the quote from Warren below that so eloquently explains this baffling phenomenon. Interestingly, she posted this just two days ago, the day before Dobson died….

• “We often wonder when we see the latest headlines, “How can those who say they love Jesus dehumanize & mistreat others?’ The answer is straightforward. James Dobson educated a generation of parents on how to systematically dehumanize their own children. If you can dehumanize your own child, it becomes easier to dehumanize anyone else.” ~ Stephanie Jo Warren

Because Warren, John Pavlovitz (https://johnpavlovitz.com/), & I’m sure many others have done such a great job of calling out Dobson & his ilk, I’m not going to try to replicate their work. What I am going to do is reclaim the term strong willed child for myself. You see, I was a strong willed child. At least for a time. I’ll admit I caved for a while & chose the path of least resistance. But as an adult, & by that I mean from the time I went to college at 18 till now (18 yrs later), that strong will that was supposed to be evil, that was supposed to be suppressed until I caved to Dobson’s version of what I should be, has persisted. And it is the very reason I am who I am today. So here’s a brief list of all the things I have accomplished or done because I am the proverbial strong willed child.

• Because of my strong will, I donated blood for the first time at 18 (while still in high school). Most kids were too scared but I was so excited to finally be able to follow in my aunt’s footsteps as a blood donor. I have kept it up my entire adult life. By the end of this year (or very early next year) I should hit my 40th life time donation. I have always donated alone. I have never needed a friend or family member for support. My strong will has helped me face the needles without fear.
• Because of my strong will, I had the strength, starting around 17-18, to question everything I’d ever believed or been taught. And, over the next few years, to decide which parts to keep & which parts to discard. In reality this is a lifelong process (as it should be), but it’s only recently that I’ve realized how brave it was for me to start it so young.
• Because of my strong will, I graduated nursing school with a 4.0 GPA. Believe me, that wasn’t easy, & honestly that alone hasn’t made me a better nurse. But I was bull-headed enough to strive for it & to achieve it, if for no other reason than to say I set out to do it & I did it. Now, did I feel the need to get all As, even in college, in order to love myself because I saw academic achievement as the main tenet of my own self-worth? Yes. Was this healthy? ABSOLUTELY NOT. But that’s a post for another day…
• Because of my strong will, I moved to a new city/state with my husband at the ripe old age of 23 &, while I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t initially a major cultural adjustment, over time I have come to feel truly at home here- in a city of half a million people, in a county of over a million people, in one of the most culturally diverse cities in the entire country! Somewhere that is in many ways the antithesis of where I grew up. All the time I hear people from my hometown say they enjoy visiting other places but they always leave ready to go back home. I cannot relate to that at all.
• Because of my strong will, when I was in college I had the confidence to stand up to a restaurant manager who was harassing me & sexualizing me (verbally) without my consent. I was 20 yrs old & terrified- but it didn’t stop me. Incidentally, after I called him out on his behavior, we actually got along & I was sorry when he left a few months later for another restaurant.
• Because of my strong will, I have become friends with people from groups I was told were going to hell simply for existing. (Ok, to be fair, evangelicals think we’re all going to hell simply for existing but they harp on certain “sins” a lot more than others). I have become an ally when I “should” have been the opposite.
• Because of my strong will, I have used Duo Lingo almost daily for about 8 years now in an effort to learn Spanish & better serve my Spanish-speaking patients. It has been very effective. No one asked me to do this. I do it because I want to & because I care.
• Because of my strong will, I have advocated for my patients, even when it means questioning doctors or hospital systems. Furthermore I advocate for myself & my coworkers, especially those who are more reticent & unwilling or unable to advocate for themselves.
• Because of my strong will, I have never tried drugs, smoked, drank heavily (I actually don’t drink at all anymore), or been addicted to anything stronger than Diet Pepsi.
• Because of my strong will (& his), my husband I have learned how to apologize to each other as well as to our daughter when we inevitably make mistakes. She has quickly learned how to apologize to us too. We are raising a child who knows she can ask us or tell us anything.
• Because of my strong will, I know how to love those who think, believe, & act very differently than I do. I don’t see the existence of those different than I am as a threat. I know how to forgive. I know how to put myself in someone else’s shoes, to have compassion for those who aren’t the “perfect victim,” to realize the world is so much more than just my experiences or the experiences of those who look/feel like I do.
• Because of my strong will, I have learned to love myself. It’s a daily battle, believe me, but I no longer seek the approval of others. Is there a wounded child inside of me who would still love to have approval from certain people? Absolutely. We all have that wounded child inside of us, no matter how wonderful our parents were/are. It’s just part of life. But I am not longer waiting around for things I can’t control. I am aware that there are people who will read this & think my parents should be ashamed of how I turned out. I am no longer concerned about that. If anyone thinks the list above makes me a bad person, then I will happily wear that label.

Honestly the worst “sin” on this list might be the last one. Those who are still following Dobson’s teachings are never happy when they realize they no longer hold any sway over you. After all, the scariest thing to the conservative world (whether evangelical, Mormon, Islamic, etc) is a woman who thinks for herself & isn’t afraid to speak up. Well, that is exactly what this strong willed child has grown up to be. I will never apologize for who I’ve become because Dobson may no longer be on this Earth but his legacy is sadly still alive & well, & I for one will continue to fight the good fight to heal the damage he has caused. So yes, I am a strong willed child. And no, I am not sorry.