Odious Comparisons – What I’m Reading

“One of the more grievous sins committed by parents against their children is the sin of comparing them to one another. ‘Why can’t you be more like your sister?’ ‘Your older brother would never have done that.’ Children who are being disciplined do need to be compared but not to one of their siblings. The standard is always to be Scripture. If, for example, a child is disciplined for lying, and they are corrected because Scripture applies this standard to all of us, there is no partiality. But if a child is told his sister never told lies, then the parent is creating a number of awful temptations. First, the parent is sowing discord among the brethren, a sin God hates. Second, the parent is creating a temptation for the disciplined child to dismiss their parental judgment as biased and partial, a dismissal that has some factual basis. And third, when the parent is setting aside God’s way of dispensing justice like this, it’s not surprising when other, grosser forms of injustice are manifested in the family.” (My Life for Yours, p. 120-121)