A Nation of Abusers
A flashback: The first semester of our last year of seminary, my first wife and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment in married student housing next door to a fellow student and his wife. We had a toddler, they had two pre-school aged children. They were friendly Texans, and we got along well at first. One day I was visiting them when I noticed a paddle hanging on the wall. The husband saw my eyes on it, and chuckled, making a joke about how nothing else would get his kids' attention. I may have smiled weakly, nervous about sharing my real feeling about hitting a small child with a piece of wood. I know I became uncomfortable with these people from then on. As the semester progressed, both our child and their children had trouble sleeping. One night I was up with Sarah, who would not go down in her crib, when I heard screaming from next door--probably what was keeping her awake. I could just make out enough of the words to realize our neighbors were trying to get their c...