The making of James Dobson.
By on Jul 16th, 2006 at 9:52 am
The making of James Dobson.
In the Dobson household, there were “a million rules…regulations and prohibitions for almost every imaginable situation,” and his mother “didn’t hesitate to whack her son with a shoe or belt when she felt it was required. … One day he made the mistake of mouthing off when she was only four feet away and heard a 16-pound girdle whistling through the air. ‘The intended blow caught me across the chest, followed by a multitude of straps and buckles wrapping themselves around my midsection.’”
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Good to see she was installing him with good family values.
July 16th, 2006 at 9:59 amWhen Jesus said “Suffer the children…” I don’t think this is what he had in mind.
Remember folks, PRACTICE SAFE SECTS!
Condomaniacs?
July 16th, 2006 at 10:03 amWell, he must have thought that was a marvelous way to raise a child, seeing how he continues to espouse those same good old ‘biblical’ principals to his captive audience today.
Boo Hoo.
July 16th, 2006 at 10:05 amThere was also a tale wandering around about Karl Rove as a child being beat up by a girl with a Democratic bumper sticker on her bicycle basket…. thus the root of his present condition….. anyone else heard it, or know of its veracity?
July 16th, 2006 at 10:07 amObviously his mother was resentful about being forced to wear a 16 POUND GIRDLE! She was taking it out on everyone! She wanted to make sure everyone was as miserable as she, and now we are all paying for it!
July 16th, 2006 at 10:25 amA 16 pound girdle? Geez, how fat was his mother, anyway?
July 16th, 2006 at 10:27 amEven if it was a griddle, though, that’s a pretty damn heavy piece of cast iron
ah, yes… a fine citizen of my – now disowned – home town, a place where, when i go to visit, i feel profoundly uncomfortable… it was never exactly a hotbed of liberalism but, these days, it’s positively creepy…
July 16th, 2006 at 10:47 amAnd, yes, I DO take it personally
#8 amen ;-)
July 16th, 2006 at 10:55 amDobson’s mother sounds like she was a nutcase, so no wonder he is twisted now!
July 16th, 2006 at 10:57 amWhy do these GOP freaks tell the press personal weird stories that would be best never revealed? If my mother had beat me with a girdle, then I would keep that private! Bush’s mom Barbara told the press her little boy loved to stick firecrackers up frogs asses to blow them to bits > she thought that was funny, but no wonder her son acts creepy as president!
July 16th, 2006 at 11:03 amAnd finelly may I add, thousands of us have been abused as children, either by neglect, verbal or physical abuse. Our prisons are full of people that have continued the abuse generation after generation and at some time when we reach adult hood most of us have turned away from continuing the cycle and chose to stop it. With or with out profesional help there comes a time to say to one’s self I will be better and make it with out these horrible people. To turn away from terrible parents and make a life for one’s self in spite of them is not easy but very possible. Know one hears of the thousands that have done so…….I’m sick of hearing people with bad behavior blaming it on their poor treatment as a child…..Your a grown up, act like one..Your mean spirited by your adult choice. No more excuses…..Blessings
July 16th, 2006 at 11:06 amYes, but did he have sex with barnyard animals like other Republicans have bragged about?
July 16th, 2006 at 11:06 amJay,
Unfortunately, I suspect this kind of upbringing resonates with many people in the country, and Dobson probably knows that all too well. This is one calculating SOB.
July 16th, 2006 at 11:14 amThat is just a sad story. I am not being ’snarky’ here, I, unfortunately, am only too familiar with the effects of growing up in a ’single family’ brutal Dictatorship. My dad was the dictator, though, mom just ignored it all. or blocked it all out, just never tried to help any of us, ever. I don’t, or can’t, recall much of my life before the age of 12, and maybe that is for the best. I finally understood at about age 30, that if I didn’t try to get help for myself, I would be the one responsible for the continued string of crappy people, and things that I was accepting, that brought me more of what had caused me to seek counseling in the first place. And what that involved was almost more than I could bear at times, but it was the ONLY way out for me. Talk about the cure being worse than the disease! I have accepted that there are some things that, based on my past, that I just should not do, like have children. I am slow to anger, but when it happens, I do not trust myself to keep a grip on it. And I just cannot take such a risk. But I have nieces and nephews that I love very much. And I know they really ‘like’ me, and are not just being polite, to humor me, and please their parents. When they were young enough to need sitters, if they started to really bug me, I’d tell them that if they didn’t cool it, that I would NEVER ’sit’ for them again, too hard on me, sanity-wise. And it worked, too! They would promise to be cool, because they wanted me to ’sit’ with them. So I have some idea of what motivates Mr.Dobson, and he is a scary person, very volitile, and unpredictable, an ‘accident’ that will happen, over and over again, because only HE can make it stop, but the fear and pain it would involve, as well as owning your own part in your self-destructive behavior, and it’s effects on others, is just too much for him to accept. And so the cycle repeats itself. At the very least, people should not look to him for advice, for any reason, his history makes that very clear. As an aside… A 16 lb. GIRDLE??? Scared of HIS mom, and that is without seeing her! Bet she packed a wallop! Damn. And he STILL pushed her buttons, even though he knew what was likely to happen to him. Brave or stupid, I can’t say. But I can say that I NEVER would have done that. I did my best to be invisible at all times, safety first! Sorry for the long post, but as you have read, I ‘get’ this guy, way more than I ever felt I needed to, his icky way was pretty plain to me. This just showed the ‘why’ for it. And he is responsible for it, but had alot of help from mom and dad, in his formative years. BushCo is riddled with these damaged people. Karl Rove is a ‘good’ example too. Scary folks. Hard wired to hurt people.
July 16th, 2006 at 11:35 amPost 14 DrSinker > Far-right religious nuts like Dobson are an enigma to me, because they all tell stories about perversions by their parents, but then they fume about Gay guys trying to get married? Seems to me they should scream bloody murder about their phony parents!
The only thing that James Dobson has revealed is that his upbringing twisted his mind!
July 16th, 2006 at 11:35 amPost 15 Cyra > thanks for your informative post! Yes Karl Rove is very twisted from what his parents did to him and how they acted in general > his mom eventually committed suicide to get away from the pain, and abuse from his dad, who was a massive alcoholic!
July 16th, 2006 at 11:41 am# 15-Cyra. **snif,snif**
Too much information;save it for your therapist.
July 16th, 2006 at 11:48 amI see where Dobson got his ‘moral values’, but he should not force them down everyone else’s throat. His mother should have had an abortion, it would have saved us all a lot of trouble.
July 16th, 2006 at 12:00 pmFolks … Dobson is a Christian … he’s not “Christianity”.
Many, if not most, of us find his “strong willed child” theories and parenting techniques horrifying. He’s one guy with a loud and large pulpit … this pulpit has begun to show its age (similarly to the secular Psychologist or Pediatrician experts of yore (aka Dr. Spock ) who society has moved beyond). I find him a tad creepy, myself, and consider his ideas no better than Gary Ezzo’s.
July 16th, 2006 at 12:17 pmA 16lb girdle!?
Ignorant as I am on women’s fashions of yore, it seems to me a corset weighing that much is, well, a little large.
It sounds more like an instrument of torture than an undergarment… hmm…
July 16th, 2006 at 12:31 pmYou must be one of the “compassionate conservatives” we always here about.
July 16th, 2006 at 12:35 pm# 22-Spudge.
No.
July 16th, 2006 at 12:57 pmBut you,of all people,should know how personal information like that can come back to haunt someone who posts online.
And it is that kind of discipline that he advocates for society, only using his Bible instead.
July 16th, 2006 at 1:22 pmsplif
July 16th, 2006 at 1:23 pmYour #18 was totally uncalled for.
#23 Your screen-name clearly tells us you are a drug addict. Is that the kind of personal information you are talking about?
July 16th, 2006 at 1:25 pmso.. his parents were sick abusers that prodced this psycho and WE have to suffer?
A good argument for abortion
July 16th, 2006 at 2:15 pmsplif – More of that conservative “compassion”. Dontcha just love it!
July 16th, 2006 at 2:22 pmFor more on Dobson and friends, see:
July 16th, 2006 at 2:36 pm“The American Taliban.”
#18-splif- Are you implying that I am throwing myself a ‘pity party’? Hardly. I have dealt with my issues, and taken responsibility for my part in it. What ‘personal information’ I have given has the potential to come back and ‘haunt’ me? I have nothing to fear. If I had something to ‘hide’, I would do so. I do hope you enjoyed making your comment to my post. Taking pleasure from being what you are is nothing to be embarassed about. We are only human, we can’t help it, and sometimes we don’t want to, and that’s cool too. To all of you who do have some self control, and good hearts as well, thank you. I am glad I can appreciate all of you. Therapy can really help you change your life. I am glad I “went” there.
July 16th, 2006 at 3:19 pmJames Dobson a serial killer?…
What does James Dobson have in common with Jeffery Dahmer? Could Dobson be a serial killer in disguise? Think Progress pointed out an entry on The Carpetbagger Report discussing a profile of Dobson which described aspects of his childhood. So…
July 16th, 2006 at 3:46 pmi remember when i was pregnant with my first child and the first few years later, early 80s, while at work, i listened to dobson’s 1 minute spots that aired daily on our local pop radio station… i always found them to be informative and helpful… as a new parent, any advice was welcome…
July 16th, 2006 at 6:46 pmi’d not heard about him again, until the late 90s when he was “coming out” to be the christianist wacko that we all now wonder and worry about…
The would would be much better off if his mother – whatever the weapon – had better aim.
July 16th, 2006 at 9:41 pmI had no idea that James Dobson had it so terrible coming up. It makes me wonder if something unspeakable happened to all the Reich-Wingers when they were children.
Here are some possible scenerios:
1. Ann Coulter is the way she is because someone who was a Nader activist stole her barbie doll when she was 9 years old.
2. Bush’s father got drunk and beat him when he was 10.
3. Neut Gengrich lost his grandpa as a result of something the IRS did.
4. Cheney got dumped by his hippie girlfreind when he was 15.
Maybe, all our present problems with the radical right could have been prevented or reduced if we just gave them all a big warm hug. Maybe deep down inside each Conservative, there is a little boy or girl who is just begging to come out and play.
God! Let them come out and play!
July 16th, 2006 at 11:37 pmI would like to say that for some reason I feel bad for Dobson. I almost pity him as a human being. He was harmed and he doesn’t even realise he was harmed. If he ever did come to accept that his parents were abusive, it would probobly destroy him. He latches on to this idea that his parents did what they did out of ‘love’ because this idea serves as a security blanket so that he won’t have to accept the truth. This shows that he is a truly weak individual deep down inside.
July 16th, 2006 at 11:46 pmThe abused tend to become the abuser.
July 17th, 2006 at 1:24 amA 16lb girdle? Or an iron chastity belt?
July 17th, 2006 at 7:18 amSpeaking as a gay man, who has a deep seated interest in equal rights that people like Dobson and his ilk seek to deny me at all costs, I must confess a noted lack of compassion for the man now. He had a rough childhood, maybe, but so have thousands of other people, and they didn’t grow up to be psychotic religious fanatics that seek to use the bible as an excuse to marginalize an already heavily persecuted minority.
July 17th, 2006 at 1:58 pmI’ll be the first to admit I have little love for the man, and if he ever wanted my sympathy he lost his right to it years ago given the outright lies he spreads about gay people, and the effort he puts into keeping us as second class citizens.
As far as I can tell Dobson is not a Christian Pastor, but a Child Psychologist. However, many treat him as if he is a Pastor. In many ways he has become a politician interested in just two subjects- Gay marriage and Abortion. On other subjects he wants his “constituents” to toe the “party line”. Woe to any that should think “outside the box” of Washington politics. He now chooses political “ends to justify the means”. That politics is a contact sport is correct. Guess he learned contact sports at an early age.
July 17th, 2006 at 9:28 pm