I think the most damning thing about Dobson's relationship to eugenics is that he's quietly disappeard any links, rather than openly apologizing. If he truly didn't believe in eugenics anymore there would be an easy to find, "Oh hey, I've realized this is wrong and we don't promote people who believe it anymore." His silence on the whole thing is deafening.
Side note: for my entire childhood my dad longed to have a copy of "Kittles" a very well known comentary. Our pastor had the volumes on his bookshelf and Dad was envious of them. This spring I discovered that Kittle was a Nazi and known anti-semite - and yet his commentaries are considered foundational. My dad was appalled to learn this news and I had to admit that we didn't have Google 30 years ago so how was he to know? BUT, somewhere, sometime, someone in a position of power in a seminary or Bible school DID know and didn't tell anyone and generations later pastors all over the country are taking notes from a Nazi and preaching his words from the pulpit.
Sometime in the 90's there was a new family in our church. They were home-schooling folks with a largish family. They invited us (my husband, myself, our two young children) to their home for a visit one day. I still remember her saying to me -- "you have great kids -- people like you should have more." I can't remember whether it was said out loud that "the wrong people are having big families." But somehow this idea is also part of my memory. This was a long time ago, and an awkward conversation. I don't remember how I actually responded.
Our children (now fully grownup) ARE pretty terrific people, but this was a weird conversation. Your article (and some other things I've read in the past) make it feel worse to me. My thought at the time wasn't really about eugenics, it was more about barely having the energy to be a good parent to the two children I had. And that it absolutely wasn't her business how many children were in our family. All this to say, this was a thing - it really was.
The Dobson/Focus On The Family connection to the eugenics movement is new info for me and I almost feel silly for being shocked by it at this point. I think I’m more surprised now, by how overt some of this stuff has been, and is, in the white Christian nationalist movement.
It reminds me of learning about Bob Jones vs. the United States etc. that took place in the 70s and 80s. Many of my homeschool text books I was educated with were created by Bob Jones University and the racist policy (also seeped in eugenics) was shocking for me to learn about. It’s hard to sit with the fact that my parents either turned a blind eye to the character of who was writing our history books or approved of their perspective :/.
Wow. This is enlightening. Fascinating to realize how you can replace his phrasing of "Nature's plan" with "God's plan" and end up with the same philosophies. I did hear explicitly racist and eugenicist language from my grandparents, but from my parents it was just the religious language, as you said in the last paragraph.
About that foreword...it is kind of funny to see Dobson's writing described as sound, straightforward, plainly written, and interesting. It is absolutely not those things.
This is terrifying {but not surprising}. I remember being taught in my 10th grade Understanding the Times class how the full title of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" was racist, but we never examined ANYTHING else about race or our own worldview, except how ours was the best.
It was also very common in my cult to have several children, no matter if you wanted to be a parent or not. I can think of only a handful of families that had fewer than 3 children in my 600-person cult. And I think there were even fewer families of color... shocking.
This is yet another branch off of a horrible group of people. I recently learned about the “fathers of autism” (Eugen Bleuler, Leo Kanner, and Hans Asperger, whose mentor was Franz Hamburger) and their ties to eugenics during this same time period, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that it’s showing up here, too.
Thank you for doing the research on this. I had faithfully read his books and bought in to that. This only helped propel me to an even more repressive cult-like “Christian” religious group. Purity culture, holiness, legalism were the underpinnings even though freedom, non-tradition, spirit-led was taught. I had friends in the Bill Gothard movement which emphasized having as many children as possible, home birth etc. thankfully I didn’t go down that path very far! I hate how all of these things draw in sincere people just trying to be good parents.
I think the most damning thing about Dobson's relationship to eugenics is that he's quietly disappeard any links, rather than openly apologizing. If he truly didn't believe in eugenics anymore there would be an easy to find, "Oh hey, I've realized this is wrong and we don't promote people who believe it anymore." His silence on the whole thing is deafening.
Side note: for my entire childhood my dad longed to have a copy of "Kittles" a very well known comentary. Our pastor had the volumes on his bookshelf and Dad was envious of them. This spring I discovered that Kittle was a Nazi and known anti-semite - and yet his commentaries are considered foundational. My dad was appalled to learn this news and I had to admit that we didn't have Google 30 years ago so how was he to know? BUT, somewhere, sometime, someone in a position of power in a seminary or Bible school DID know and didn't tell anyone and generations later pastors all over the country are taking notes from a Nazi and preaching his words from the pulpit.
Yes the silence and erasure is very telling . . . which is why I enjoy sharing this research!!!
Wow, not surprising about the Kittles, but also just further confirmation of the influences on white evangelicalism!
Sometime in the 90's there was a new family in our church. They were home-schooling folks with a largish family. They invited us (my husband, myself, our two young children) to their home for a visit one day. I still remember her saying to me -- "you have great kids -- people like you should have more." I can't remember whether it was said out loud that "the wrong people are having big families." But somehow this idea is also part of my memory. This was a long time ago, and an awkward conversation. I don't remember how I actually responded.
Our children (now fully grownup) ARE pretty terrific people, but this was a weird conversation. Your article (and some other things I've read in the past) make it feel worse to me. My thought at the time wasn't really about eugenics, it was more about barely having the energy to be a good parent to the two children I had. And that it absolutely wasn't her business how many children were in our family. All this to say, this was a thing - it really was.
yeah, that comment could have so many racist, classist.... well, eugenicist implications.
That comment is alive and well today. It’s taken very seriously and shared as a huge compliment. Thanks for calling it out.
Thank you for doing this work and research.
The Dobson/Focus On The Family connection to the eugenics movement is new info for me and I almost feel silly for being shocked by it at this point. I think I’m more surprised now, by how overt some of this stuff has been, and is, in the white Christian nationalist movement.
It reminds me of learning about Bob Jones vs. the United States etc. that took place in the 70s and 80s. Many of my homeschool text books I was educated with were created by Bob Jones University and the racist policy (also seeped in eugenics) was shocking for me to learn about. It’s hard to sit with the fact that my parents either turned a blind eye to the character of who was writing our history books or approved of their perspective :/.
yeah, it's really depressing to see how everything just keeps coming back to white supremacy :(
Wow. This is enlightening. Fascinating to realize how you can replace his phrasing of "Nature's plan" with "God's plan" and end up with the same philosophies. I did hear explicitly racist and eugenicist language from my grandparents, but from my parents it was just the religious language, as you said in the last paragraph.
About that foreword...it is kind of funny to see Dobson's writing described as sound, straightforward, plainly written, and interesting. It is absolutely not those things.
it's wild to me to think about an atheist writing a forward for Dobson's book (given the world I grew up in), but it really is so interchangeable!
This is terrifying {but not surprising}. I remember being taught in my 10th grade Understanding the Times class how the full title of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" was racist, but we never examined ANYTHING else about race or our own worldview, except how ours was the best.
It was also very common in my cult to have several children, no matter if you wanted to be a parent or not. I can think of only a handful of families that had fewer than 3 children in my 600-person cult. And I think there were even fewer families of color... shocking.
This is yet another branch off of a horrible group of people. I recently learned about the “fathers of autism” (Eugen Bleuler, Leo Kanner, and Hans Asperger, whose mentor was Franz Hamburger) and their ties to eugenics during this same time period, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that it’s showing up here, too.
I wrote about Dobson's connection with the guy who popularized ABA here in the US awhile ago . . . there are just SO many connections to write about: https://dlmayfield.substack.com/publish/post/118630939?back=%2Fpublish%2Fposts%2Fdetail%2F118630939
Thank you for doing the research on this. I had faithfully read his books and bought in to that. This only helped propel me to an even more repressive cult-like “Christian” religious group. Purity culture, holiness, legalism were the underpinnings even though freedom, non-tradition, spirit-led was taught. I had friends in the Bill Gothard movement which emphasized having as many children as possible, home birth etc. thankfully I didn’t go down that path very far! I hate how all of these things draw in sincere people just trying to be good parents.
The large families just hit straight to the Mormon Church a well. It's interesting to see similar supremacy values across a spectrum of religions.