Family Matters
By Trudy J. Morgan-Cole
The home was not notorious in the community as an abusive one. In, fact, the family-members of a conservative Christian group called the Church of God, affiliated with the Mennonites-were known to their neighbors as a happy, law-abiding family with well adjusted children.
However, on July 4, 2001, an attention-grabbing scene took place on the lawn of that home in Aylmer, Ontario. Seven children were taken by Ontario children's aid workers "dragged, kicking and screaming," as some onlookers described it. Family and Children's Services of St. Thomas and Elgin (FCS) was intervening in what it believed was a case of possible child abuse."
Family and Children's Services workers removed the children because the parents believed in using corporal punishment to discipline their children. More specifically, they believe, and their church teaches, that it is appropriate to spank children using a switch, strap, or other object. A parent's hand, they say, should be an instrument of love and caring: an impersonal object such as a stick should be used for discipline. ''A hand should be 'used for guidance and comfort:' says the Aylmer Church of God pastor, Henry Hildebrandt. "Plus, the hand is way too ready. If a person is angry, they may just slap with their hand. We don't believe in hitting children that way."
Christian parents who believe in corporal punishment cite biblical authority, based on verses such as Proverbs 23:13, 14: "Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death" (NIV) and "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him" (Proverbs 22:15, NIV).
Canadian law supports these parents. Section 43 of the federal Criminal Code states: "Every school teacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable in the circumstances." A group called Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law is launching a court challenge to have Section 43 overturned on the grounds that it violates children's rights. Their challenge is supported by z number of groups, including the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies.'
Social workers such as those at Family and Children's Services are less interested in what the book of Proverbs says about spanking than in what groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have to say about it. The AAP describes spanking as the "least effective way to discipline," noting that:
• It is harmful emotionally to both parent and child.
• It teaches children that violence is an acceptable way to discipline or express anger.
• It does not teach alternative behavior.
• It interferes with the development of trust, a sense of security, and effective communication.
Canadian pediatricians tend to agree, though less strongly. The Canadian Pediatric Society (CPS) position statement on discipline states: "The use of disciplinary spanking as a prime method of teaching acceptable behavior should be discouraged:' They also note, "By definition, disciplinary spanking refers to spanking that is physically noninjurious administered with an opened hand to the buttocks, and intended to modify behavior." This definition does not include spanking with a "rod" or other object, as the Aylmer Church of God parents do. However, the CPS does concede,” Some parental groups or cultures feel it is their right to spank their children and that the parents always know best how to discipline their children.'"
The spanking debate rages on among pediatricians, parents, social workers, and legislators. Meanwhile, for one Ontario family life will never be the same. Pastor Henry Hildebrandt described the July 4 confrontation between his church members and the authorities in harrowing terms:
"Aylmer Police were called to enforce the order that the children be removed from the home to ensure their ‘safety’. At first only one officer, the deputy-chief, showed up. A deliberation followed for approximately two hours. Another officer was called in and they attempted to enter forcefully and remove the children.
"By this time a large number of the congregation (Church of God) had arrived and were in the house with the family. As they entered the house, the Saints fell on their knees, praying mightily to God, the children clinging to the Saints. As the police tried to tear them away, they screamed agonizingly.
"The police then gave up and walked back out. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) were called in, and several marked and unmarked cruisers arrived shortly and closed the street. Around 10 police vehicles were there with about 10 to 15 officers and three case workers. . . . They reentered the home. . . . One by one the children were torn from the Saints and dragged and carried to the waiting cruisers, as the neighborhood looked on. As they were about to leave, the children requested their Bibles, which the officers then retrieved for them.'"
While we might expect Pastor Hildebrandt's account of the event to be somewhat biased, even the most objective newspaper reporters, as well as the family's neighbors, used the phrase "kicking and screaming" in describing the children's removal. Next-door neighbor Ernie Timmins (not a Church of God member) said, "It's about the most disgraceful thing I've seen in my life. . . . There was a 6~year-old girl with policemen carrying her by her arms and her legs and the fear in that kid's face was unbelievable. The screeching was so unbearable that I had to leave."
The family, whose names have not been released because of a publication ban, were reunited with their children on July 26, almost three weeks after they were removed. The seven children spent those three weeks in the care of foster parents whose religious background and practices differed sharply from what the children were used to at home. Parents were given limited visitation rights, but the children were not allowed to attend Church of God services.
Marijke denBak, acting executive director of Family and Children's Services of St. Thomas and Elgin, said that the decision to return the children home was "a good outcome for the children;' but she insisted that FCS stood by its original decision to remove them on July 4she did not feel a mistake had been made.7 .
Meanwhile, after a second Church of God family in Aylmer was questioned about its methods of discipline, many of the local church members decided to take action. Twenty-eight mothers and 83 children left Aylmer on July 14, crossing the border to the United States where they joined sister Church of God communities in Ohio and Indiana. "Something is wrong, badly wrong, when people from cultures from all over the world are admitted and their lifestyles accepted in Canada, while Christians must escape persecution in the night to preserve their religious liberty,” Church of God members assert in a statement on their Web site.
While many Canadian Christians join the Church of God members in seeing this as a clear violation of religious freedom, children's aid workers are left to make difficult decisions about where to draw the line when sometimes a parent's right to religious freedom-interferes with a child's right to safety and protection. During July 2001, while the Aylmer case was capturing headlines across the country, a much less publicized case in the small province of Prince Edward Island saw five children removed from a religious commune. In this case, too, corporal punishment was the issue: the commune's leader, a former nun, was accused of striking children with a wooden paddle up to 21 times for a single offense. The autocratic ex-nun, like the Church of God parents, claimed the Word of God as her authority for using corporal punishment.
Apart from that similarity, the two cases have little in common-in the Prince Edward Island case both former commune members and neighbors in the community clearly felt that the children were being abused. But that one similarity highlights the painful difficulties of this issue. While religious communities claim biblical authority for any number of practices, legislators and. government agencies must .decide how to enforce the law without violating freedom of religion.
In the Aylmer case public reaction has been largely supportive of the Church of God families-perhaps because there seems to be no real evidence that these children were abused. Rather, they appear to everyone to have been happy, healthy, much-loved children-disciplined in a way that was the norm in almost all Canadian families just a couple of generations ago. The heavy-handed approach of the FCS clearly symbolizes, in the minds of many Canadians, the government's intrusive efforts to impose its own values on its citizens.
But government's proper tool is legislation-and for now, though not everyone approves, Section 43 of the Criminal Code is still the law of Canada. Parents are legally allowed to use reasonable force to correct their children's behavior, a choice that Church of God parents, like many other Canadian Christians, feel is totally appropriate under certain circumstances.
As for the family at the center of this debate, the fall of 2001 found them united-at least for now. The parents agreed to undergo counseling to learn about alternate methods of discipline; the FCS agreed to learn more about the family's religious traditions and cultural background. A court date, originally set for September 6, 2001, was moved ahead to November 2, 2001. The outcome of that trial could determine whether the children would be allowed to remain with their parents permanently. And more than 100 mothers and children from the Aylmer Church of God remain in the United States, fleeing religious persecution in Canada-a country that has always prided itself on tolerance) freedom, and diversity.
Trudy J. Morgan-Cole writes from Saint John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
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I Patricia Chisholm, "Who Decides What's Right?" Maclean's, Sept. 10,2001, p. 20.
l Justice for Children and Youth, Corporal Punishment Online: http://www.jfcy.orglcorporalp/coq>oralp.html.
3 American Academy of Pediatrics Staff, Caring for Your School-Age Child: Ages 5 to 12 (New York: Bantam, 1995).
• Canadian Paediatric Society, "Effective Discipline for Children" Online: http://www.cps.ca/english/statements/ PP Ipp96-0 l.httb~Disciplinary spanking. ..
S Henry Hilderbrandt, "Children Forcefully Taken From Happy Home!" Online: http://childrentakencom/childrenforcefully.html. Contact: trumpet@uniserve.com.
, Michael Friscolanti, "Taking Spanked Children Away Called Barbaric;' National Post, July 7, 2001.
7 Kerry Gillespie, "Church of God Parents Get Their Children Back;' Toronto StaT, July 27, 2001, AI.
, "Christians Flee Canada: 28 Mothers and 83 Children" Online: http://childrentaken.com/christiansflee.html. Contact: trumpet@uniserve.com.
, Jim Day, "Ex-Nun Accused of Administering Beatings to Commune Members;' The Guardian (Charlottetown), Aug. 15, 2001.
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