It begins with something like stealing cookies in the middle of the night. Children should not do this, but every parent in Western culture is expected to indulge such behavior and even feed it with a quiet resupply. "Children are our greatest treasure and we should never do anything but spoil them and provide them a life free of consequences." As a result, our children become "fat" adults, not only in calories, but in a lack of needed self-discipline. Letting a child take as many cookies as they like without REGULATION is the complete opposite of good parenting.
Parental "love" has become a license to misbehave and when parents attempt to eventually correct such misbehavior, the childish can use "love" as a bludgeon to extort: "if you really love me, you wouldn't punish me". That is the promise of "unconditional love", a life free of punishment and responsibility. It is also a lie.
When punishment and discipline are defined as "abuse" by an indulgent society, we fail to prepare our children for the sorts of behavior and attitudes that they need to face life in a mature and successful way. We need to slap hands and warm bottoms in correcting every bad and destructive behavior. Parents will be held accountable before God for their failure to teach "right" living to their children.
Few attitudes are more deceptive than painting God himself as a modernly indulgent parent. Scripture is filled with God's anger at the disobedient children of Israel and the resultant punishments they earned. Yet, many "christians" portray Deity as a "merciful" and "loving" coddler who will shield everyone from the evils of "justice", not remembering that the authentic mercy and love offered by God in this case is a delayed judgment to give us time to change ourselves for the better and repent our sins before the reality of justice must be applied. Mercy never eliminates justice, it only delays for a time.
There is no decadent God or Christ who ignores our actions. "Sin no more" is still God's attitude and no amount of attempted "loving" shielding of this fact by indulgent parents or society will stop the coming of just punishment for disobedience. We must discipline and straighten ourselves and our children today "while the sun shines", for the "night" of punishment for our sins will surely come.
