Wow, Deer and Marla, you poor kids. Whew!! Thank God you survived such horrific childhoods.

Gosh, I cannot relate to such mothers at all. It's just so antithetical to the whole idea of mothering. I am far, far from being a perfect mother, but my first instinct is always to protect my kids, not "sacrifice" them. I have two teenage boys, and the older one keeps saying that he wants to enlist in a few years so he can go to Iraq. This freaks me out, and I try to dissuade him. I probably err in the direction of over-protectiveness. My own mother was the same way. She had her own issues (over-controlling-ness, for one), but she was definitely nurturing and protective. Isn't that the maternal instinct--that whole tigress-protecting-her-cubs thing?

If the Pente system does that to mothers, then God help us.

I have to say that my Pente next-door neighbor, thankfully, is not like that. She is very motherly towared her kids, from what I can see.

Whew. Words fail. Deer and Marla, y'all are heroines.

Diane

P.S. Re Abraham and Isaac: I do think part of the point of that incident is that God would not want His people to practice child sacrifice, as the surrounding peoples did. That's why the angel stayed Abraham's hand, and that's why God supplied the ram. My 2 cents' worth, fwiw.