By The Book Based On Ideas From The Bible And Grounded In A Strict Sense Of Order, The Ezzo Parenting Program Draws Praise From Grateful Parents And Criticism From Many Child-Care Experts
Betsy Hege mailed off a 25-page rebuttal when she heard her friend Teri Story was going through her church’s “Preparation for Parenting” program. Story eventually tossed the rebuttal into the trash. After following “Preparation for Parenting,” Story says her 7-month-old son James eats every four hours during the day, takes two daily naps, and best of all, sleeps a solid 12 hours every single night.
“So far,” says Story, “it seems to be working wonderfully.”
“Preparation for Parenting,” the first segment of a parenting curriculum written by evangelical Christians Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo, draws equal parts ardor and criticism from parents, doctors and theologians around the country. So far, at least 300,000 parents have gone through the program, including 75 in Spokane, and it’s growing internationally, with translations in French, Spanish, Korean, Afrikaans and Chinese. In Spokane, it’s offered through Faith Bible Church at W411 Indiana.
“It’s all word of mouth and it’s all exponential growth,” says Gary Ezzo, executive director of Growing Families International, a Chatsworth, Calif., firm that publishes his books and tapes. He is a former associate pastor at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, Calif.
The Ezzos’ program features a parent-controlled alternative to contemporary mainstream advice on infant care. It opposes demand-feeding and the findings of infant attachment research. It teaches parents to establish an orderly feeding and sleeping schedule in the baby’s earliest weeks. The program is known for producing babies who sleep through the night at 6 to 8 weeks.
“God is a god of order, so why would you want to have disorder in your home?” Ezzo asks.
“Preparation for Parenting” is followed by two additional classes called “Preparation for the Toddler Years” and “Growing Kids God’s Way” for 15-month-olds through pre-teens.
The entire package is designed to instill biblical principles early and rear children who will be capable of making moral change in the society as adults.
“Probably our parenting is patterned after the Puritans: the high view of God and getting that into the children’s hearts,” Ezzo said.
Betsy Hege of The Dalles, Ore., and Teri Story, of Spokane, are both fundamentalist Christians. But the contrast between their parenting styles illustrates the program’s philosophy.
Hege, a La Leche League leader, carries her babies in a sling, breast-feeds until her children are 3, and believes in the value of the family bed.
Story, however, prefers a structured routine, tucking James into his crib each night at 8, waking him at 8 a.m. and breast-feeding him the same time every day.
James clearly adores her. On a recent morning, he stood on Story’s lap, grabbed fistfuls of her hair, popped her nose into his mouth and chortled with glee.
Story’s approach closely follows the Ezzo philosophy, which is firmly anti-demand feeding and anti-family bed. It also endorses the use of playpens and warns against slings.
“You are not a marsupial and should not treat your baby like a kangaroo joey,” they write.
The Ezzos stress the importance of maintaining a close relationship between husband and wife.
“From the very beginning,” they write, “children are to be welcome members of the family, but not the center of it.”
Following the Ezzos’ routine allows Story to spend evenings with her husband, Don.
“James is the most precious thing that ever happened to me,” she says. “But his daddy comes first.”
The Ezzos base their program on ideas culled from biblical passages. It is among conservative Christians that the program has its greatest appeal, and earns its most vehement criticism.
Critics say the program forces babies to “cry it out” at nap time, teaches small psyches to comply rather than to trust, and, most worrisome, can lead to slow weight gain or even failure to thrive among babies who aren’t allowed to eat on demand.
Dr. William Sears, a San Clemente, Calif., pediatrician and author of “The Baby Book” (Little, Brown) and 20 other parenting books deems the Ezzos’ approach “dangerous.”
Medically, psychologically and even theologically, Sears says, the program is simply wrong. He believes it disseminates faulty advice on breast-feeding, sets up an unhealthy distance between the parents and the baby, and interferes with parents’ ability to discern and respond to their babies’ emotional needs.
“It surprises all of us,” says Sears. “The people in the medical community can’t believe it’s gotten so popular.”
Sears said the Ezzos lack credentials and distribute selfpublished books that don’t receive editorial scrutiny.
“There’s no peer review,” says Sears. “Before Little, Brown will publish any of my books, they have to go through a very critical review.”
Last year, Christianity Today magazine published an article examining the criticisms of the Ezzo program.
Since then, the Ezzos have published a fourth edition of the “Preparation for Parenting” manual, which includes stronger warnings about slow weight gain and failure to thrive.
Their regimen calls for 30-minute breast-feedings every 2 to 3 hours in the early weeks. By 8 weeks, babies often move to six or seven feedings per day and eliminate a middle-ofthe-night feeding.
Dr. Robert Bucknam, a Boulder, Colo., pediatrician, helped the Ezzos write the latest edition of “Preparation for Parenting.” He defends its breast-feeding schedule.
“If you go into any pediatric intensive care nursery in the country, you will find babies are being fed on a schedule,” Bucknam said.
Bucknam also helped write the nonsectarian version of the program, called “Babywise,” and uses it in his practice.
“We’ve had great success with it,” he says. “There are a great number of pediatricians not only in our area, but all over the country who are using it.”
Dana Olson now regrets putting her baby, Bailey, on the “Preparation for Parenting” schedule. When she remembers Bailey’s early crying spells, she gets goose bumps.
“I see her in her little bassinet at 3 weeks and she’s turning purple and green and all kinds of colors and it just breaks my heart,” Olson said in a telephone interview from her home in Venice, Calif. “I had to turn my heart off and I never want to do that again.”
With her first two children, Olson fed on demand and watched her babies grow and thrive.
But after hearing church friends rave about the “Preparation for Parenting” program, Olson decided to take the class.
With Bailey, she followed the clock, rather than her baby’s cues, waking Bailey for feedings and putting her down to cry at nap times.
Bailey, who had experienced complications at birth, stopped gaining weight at 5 weeks. She didn’t start gaining again until 7 weeks.
A pediatrician advised Olson to supplement Bailey’s diet with formula. Olson turned to Kittie Frantz, a Santa Monica pediatric nurse practitioner with breastfeeding expertise, for help.
Frantz advised Olson to breastfeed as often and as long as Bailey wanted to nurse. Bailey, now 3 months old, is gaining well.
Frantz routinely asks parents of failure-to-thrive babies if they’re following the “Preparation for Parenting” program.
“Newborns need a minimum of eight to 12 feedings in 24 hours,” Frantz said. “If a baby sleeps six hours at night, that leaves 18 hours awake. At one feeding every three hours, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math.”
Santa Maria, Calif., lactation consultant Nancy Williams also opposes the Ezzos’ breast-feeding advice.
She said Gary Ezzo asked her to help him write the fourth edition of “Preparation for Parenting.”
Williams refused.
“They completely ignore what scientific medical research has shown for the last 15 years,” Williams says. “That is to have a stable milk supply, the baby has to have frequent stimulation on the breast.”
Williams’ first piece of advice to breast-feeding mothers is: “Nurse your baby as often as your baby will nurse.”
The Ezzos, however, argue that the exhaustion associated with breastfeeding every hour can cause a woman’s milk supply to decrease.
They also say that their advice on breast-feeding is frequently misquoted.
They warn against “hyperscheduling.”
“If you let the clock rule you, that’s as bad as letting your baby’s emotions rule you,” says Anne Marie Ezzo. She is a registered nurse with a background in pediatric nursing.
The Ezzos warn parents to watch for normal growth patterns and to call their doctors immediately if unhealthy symptoms appear.
Gary Ezzo points to a recent Wall Street Journal article which reported that “insufficient milk syndrome” may occur as much as 5 percent of the time, affecting 200,000 American mothers a year.
Based on those statistics, Ezzo believes any breast-feeding system is likely to produce an occasional slowweight-gain infant.
“It’s a cheap shot and we get it,” he says.
“It isn’t what we’re saying that is controversial. It’s the success of the program that is controversial. We say, ‘Your baby’s hungry? Feed that baby.”’
The sanctuary reverberated with hymns booming from the basement one recent evening at Faith Bible Church in Spokane. A group of parents upstairs listened raptly as Gary Ezzo proclaimed, “You can affect your whole society by the way you raise your children.”
A grandfather, Ezzo wears his dark hair cropped short. He’s graying at the temples. Even after an afternoon flight from California, he appeared energized and articulately answered parents’ questions for three hours.
He denounced tattling as “the second worst crime in childhood,” advised a mother of preschoolers to take their toys away if they don’t pick them up, and delivered a stern lecture on the Ten Commandments to a mother whose toddler mimics her at bedtime.
“The position that God gave the parent in his kingdom is such that we cannot afford to let our children mock us, not for us, but for their souls,” Ezzo said.
Despite the certainty in Ezzo’s voice this evening, not all Christians agree with his message.
Williams, the Santa Maria lactation consultant, is also a Baptist pastor’s wife. She says, “The cornerstone of Christianity is grace and forgiveness, and that is absolutely absent from this curriculum.”
The Rev. Marv Warman, former pastor of the Lake Avenue Congregational Church in Pasadena, Calif., and a licensed marriage and family therapist, says, “In neither the Old Testament or the New Testament does God proclaim himself as primarily a God of order.”
Warman points to the scripture that says “faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
Says Warman, “It doesn’t say the greatest of these is control and order.”
Warman’s conservative Congregational congregation dropped the Ezzos’ program from their church.
“It draws lines and says you’re either in or out,” says Warman. “It’s very divisive in that way. When it comes to going to heaven, people like to be in.”
MEMO: See also sidebar which appeared with this story under headline “Warning signs”