The Invention of Authoritarian Parenting

How the Fourth Commandment Puts Children at a Disadvantage

“Laugh not at such marriages! What child hath not had reason to weep over its parents?”—Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra¹

Newborn babies love their parents unconditionally, but they don’t always naturally receive back the love they give. Under normal conditions, that wouldn’t be much of a problem if society fulfilled its corrective function to call parents who maltreat their children to order. Reality, however, proves otherwise.

For example, many great religions emphasize one-sided authority of parents over their child. They cemented this inequality in divine laws such as the Catholic Fourth Commandment, honor thy father and thy mother, also known among other religions. It’s time to counterbalance this form of religious traditionalism that demands uncritical loyalty of the child to its parents.