Have you ever felt like God was more like some than others? When you're a woman, and God is always talked about as male, it can make it seem like God can understand men more than women. Like the things that women go through are a little alien to God, more so than the...
One of the most common pieces of marriage advice you’ll hear in evangelical circles is “your husband comes before the kids.” It’s constant, and we’re always reminded that one day the kids will leave home, but your husband will still be there. He needs to be the...
Many of us are starting from scratch with parenting. We were raised in James Dobson, authoritarian type households, and we know we don't want that for our children. But we also look around at so many of the parenting trends today, and it seems as if there aren't any...
It's like The Great Sex Rescue, but for parenting books! I'm so grateful that Marissa Burt and Kelsey McGinnis wrote this book, The Myth of Good Christian Parenting--so that I don't have to! I love how there's a community of people doing similar work in all aspects of...
Evangelical influencer culture appears to be very pro-spanking I want to share a story today that I think has deep implications for our work here at Bare Marriage. Earlier in July, Madison Prewett and her husband Grant Troutt shared on their podcast about their plans...
Is being a good wife in conflict with being a good mom? And what does it look like to prioritize your marriage? Episode 270 of Bare Marriage!
Has gentle parenting been given a bad rap? For good reason? We had an amazing podcast last week with Wendy Snyder from Fresh Start Families, and this Tuesday we're doing a FREE webinar with Wendy to talk about how to parent with both kindness and firmness. It's all...
We know that parenting is the biggest responsibility we will ever have. But we've been told such different things about the nature of that responsibility. If you grew up in an evangelical church, chances are you were told that a parent's job is to teach them to obey,...
We shouldn't be spanking babies. Well, spanking at all is problematic--but we especially shouldn't be spanking babies! This month I'm reposting some of the important posts I ran 4-5 years ago, and this is one I find that I point back to all the time. Rebecca wrote it...
Do good dads play with their kids, or is that a feminine trait? It's a wild question, right? But that's a large amount of an absolutely bonkers article from Jeremy Pryor where he criticized the kid's show "Bluey" because the dad, Bandit, isn't manly enough. I think...
Talking about sex to your child can be scary. It's awkward. Are you going to say something wrong? And you don't like to feel that they're growing up! Everyday I get questions like this recent one, from a reader:Hi! Your books and podcast have helped me tremendously!...
One of the hardest things to do is to break dysfunctional cycles. Whether it's in our families or in our churches, being a changemaker is hard. But it is so, so necessary. It's the most vital thing that we all need to do. You can be the top politician in the land; you...
Does spanking help kids obey? Yesterday on the Bare Marriage podcast I had an amazing conversation with David and Amanda Erickson about their new book The Flourishing Family. One thing I especially appreciated about their book is that they brought in the data about...
Christian parenting advice is full of toxic teachings we need to ditch! It's not just marriage and sex where a lot of Christian teachings have gone wrong. It's also with parenting. Instead of teaching parents to connect with their kids and discipline in a way that...
Spanking your children is not good for them. A huge meta-analysis by Elizabeth Gershoff, done in 2016 of 160,000 children, found that spanking was either a net negative or neutral, but not positive. There are other discipline techniques that work better. In other...