goal of child rearing

[Guest traveler.in.time]

hey, first time poster here, but I've heard good things about this place. I'm taking a psychology class, and in discussing the philosophical views of child rearing... let me quote you from my book:
"three influental philosophical views are based on the ideas of original sin, tabula rasa, and innate goodness:
* according to the Christian doctrine of original sin, children are born into the world corrupted, with an inclination toward evil. The goal of child rearing is to save the children from sin."

I'd like to ask your thoughts/opinions on this, I mean children aren't any more inclined toward evil than anyone else right? or maybe I'm just reading this expecting a bias, but I'd like to have something to show my professor if this is indeed incorrect

thanks, and God bless

[Pio Nono]

JMJ
9/1 - Twenty-second Thursday

traveler.in.time,

That's a distorted view of Christian child-rearing that dates from the 1960s; it's funny when it's on [i]Family Guy[/i], but when it's being taught in school it's hate speech, smearing and offensive (I'm not lashing out at you, but at the author of your book). It's an extremely misleading description of the doctrine of original sin. Original sin doesn't mean that we're born evil, it just means that, due to the sin of our first parents, the entire race is imperfect. Baptism cleanses one of original sin, but its effects remain. Perhaps an analogy would help.

Say you have a car and, for the fun of it, you drill a huge hole into one of the tires. Not a dinky, dime-sized hole, but we're talking baseball-sized hole. Then you realize that you have no way to get it fixed but to drive it to a mechanic, as having it towed would be too expensive. Driving your car in this condition will seriously (if not permanently) damage a number of things on your car - axels, rims, bumpers, frame, perhaps muffler, &c., will all be royally screwed up due to contact with the road. Even after the mechanic fixes it, though, you've still got that damage to deal with.

That's what original sin is like. Our first parents (let's call them Archie and Edith) punched a hole in our tire, and though we've got it fixed (salvation and baptism), we've still got to deal with damaged parts until we can enter a phase where we won't need to drive anymore (Heaven). Hope this helps.

Yours,
Pio Nono

(I think this is the longest answer I've ever given...)