I have a young son*. Ever since he was a baby, I've been practicing Biblical principles in his raising, and he's turning out great!

I gave him a little cross-stitched sampler at his birth that said, "Mommy loves you." I also made sure his father told him that he can feel my love by thinking to me. I've never actually spoken to him, though, or let him see me. That might take away his free will, you see, and no loving parent removes free will from her child.

Because I love him, I make him suffer for absolutely no reason. I refuse to give him food every so often, beat him occasionally, and once gave him to a meth gang to abuse for a solid weekend. When he cried out to me and asked why he was suffering, I didn't answer. I needed him to know that my ways were higher than his ways and he just didn't understand.

I force him to beg me on his knees for food and shelter and make him think that if he refuses to beg for these things, that I might just decide to withhold them. Once when he was sick, I refused to take him to the doctor until 500 of his Facebook friends prayed for him. That 499th was a toughie--he was so near death! But I had to make him realize that his mother, who was responsible for all his basic needs, would withhold care from him unless he made those needs into a popularity contest and begged shamelessly. Don't you make your kid beg for food and medical care? Try it--it really makes the kid know you love him!

Lately I've begun beating him with a tire iron. I don't tell him what he did--I just let him make assumptions and flail around. Some people think that if you punish a kid, you need to tell them why, and how to avoid that punishment in the future, and what lesson you want them to learn. I say "PFFT" to all that and prefer mystery. Is it because he kissed that girl in his college class? Is it because he didn't give me 10% of his income for life, like I demanded? Is it because he cursed at that guy who cut him off in traffic? He doesn't know. Since punishments are always completely out of proportion to any sin he might have committed, he has no idea what he did. You must admit it makes his efforts to apologize incredibly sincere and fervent. What parent wouldn't like a kid like that?

To make him even more confused, I've concocted a mysterious world that he's totally convinced is filled with dark demons who are trying to steal him away from my loving arms. Any time something bad happens, therefore, he doesn't actually even know if the beatings are being administered by me or by one of these demons.

If he ever mouths off to me, then I plan to just kill him. I told him I used to do that all the time, and though he doesn't quite believe it (he thinks I've gotten softer in my old age--ha!), he's still going to remember it. He knows that I let his brothers and sisters die all the time through disasters--which, technically, I send to begin with--but this knowledge just makes him more attentive to me. He's convinced that he's so special and so loved that I won't let him die that way, though I certainly haven't ever told him that. I just let him assume like his dead siblings did. It's surprising how well he rationalizes these bad things.

I know eventually he's going to come live with me forever. If he's been a good boy, he gets to live in the nice house with me and the rest of the family. If I don't think he has been a good boy--and believe me, the standards are pretty rigid!--then he goes to the special shack I set aside for bad boys. It's been set on fire and it's filled with horrible people, but he knows the rules. I can't change them no matter how torturous and cruel the shack is to my beloved little son. He'll be stuck there forever, which seems excessive to some considering how small most of his sins against me are and how short my kids' lifespans tend to be, but it's all fair in my eyes. My son will wonder why I built this shack this way, or why I need one at all, but the simple truth is that this shack is more responsible for my kids' behavior than anything else about me. If he stops loving me, or offends me somehow, if he commits any sin from lust to murder, to the shack he goes!

I'm his mother, after all, and I'm a lot bigger than him.

It's a good thing I love him. I'd hate to think how his life would look if I didn't.

* This example is purely allegorical. I don't have kids. And if I did, I sure as hell wouldn't advocate this post as a real example of how to be a good parent!