How Many More Must Die?

And so it continues. Another child has died as a direct result of Michael Pearl’s teachings. How many more must die?

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. – The parents of an adopted girl who died of exposure in her own backyard after she had been starved and abused for months pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday.

Larry P. Williams and Carri D. Williams of Sedro Woolley were arrested last week and later charged with homicide by abuse and assault of a child in the first degree in Skagit County Superior Court.

Each was ordered held Thursday on $150,000 bail.

According to court documents, the couple’s adopted daughter, Hana Williams, 13, was systematically starved, beaten, forced to use an outdoor toilet and sometimes locked in a dark closet for days by the Williams.

Hana Williams was found dead in May – naked, face-down in the mud in her own backyard – after she had spent much of a cold, rainy day outside as a punishment, according to court documents.

Although she died of hypothermia, there were other contributing causes to her death, including severe malnutrition and chronic gastritis, doctors said.

The Williams had adopted Hana from Ethiopia in 2008 as a diseased little girl to begin a new life in America.

Instead, according to court records, she was beaten, starved, forced to sleep in a barn at times and deprived of love and basic necessities.

Child Protective Services said there are reports that Hana had lost a significant amount of weight before her death. And the night she died, she was out in the yard naked on a rainy evening, with temperatures in the low 40s.

Further investigation revealed that Hana had a number of injuries on the night she died, including a large lump on the head, bloody marks and injuries “consistent with disciplinary impacts with a switch,” according to court documents released Friday.

Those same documents describe the hellish life that Hana endured in the months before her death – which included systematic withholding of food, forced times outdoors in the cold or locked in a dark closet, interspersed with regular spankings or beatings with a plumbing tool.

In interviews with the parents and other children in the household, investigators determined that the Williams withheld food from Hana as a punishment for being “rebellious,” court documents say.

In addition, Hana was forced to use an outdoor portable toilet behind the barn instead of the home’s indoor bathroom, and she sometimes was made to take cold showers while naked outdoors under a garden hose, the case file says.

The Williams told investigators that they made Hana use the outdoor toilet because she had hepatitis and they didn’t want any of their other children to become infected with the disease.

Other punishments included locking Hana inside a dark closet for hours or days without food while the parents played the Bible on tape and Christian music for her while she was locked inside, according to court documents.

Hana also was forced to sleep in the barn on some nights or kept outside for hours in the cold without adequate clothing or shoes, court documents say – but she was allowed to wear shoes if there was snow on the ground.

The Williams also confirmed that they used a flexible plumbing tool as a switch to punish Hana and some of the other children in their household.

The children told investigators that Hana sometimes was beaten with a switch for standing more than 12 inches away from where she was told to stand or for speaking without permission.

The Williams’ older biological children were sometimes encouraged to join in administering the punishment by their parents.

A witness told investigators that the Williams got their ideas for the disciplinary measures from a book, “How to Train Up Your Child,” which recommends switchings with a plumbing tool, cold water baths, withholding food and putting children out in cold weather as forms of punishment.

The Williams’ other adopted child, a 10-year-old boy who also was adopted at the same time as Hana, is deaf – and also reportedly showed signs of abuse.

Prosecutors say the first-degree assault accusation against the Williams stems from allegations relating to the boy, who was also from Ethiopia but no relation to Hana.

According to court papers, the Williams also withheld food from the boy at times and switched him regularly – sometimes for not listening to them – even though he was deaf.

After Hana’s death, CPS convinced a judge to pull Hana’s eight brothers and sister – ages seven to 17 – from their Sedro-Woolley home. Those children are all now in temporary foster care. The parents have requested a hearing to fight to get their children back.

Michael Pearl and his followers will once again distances themselves, saying that they never said families are to punish their children in anger or beat their children or starve them or put them outside in the cold. Butlike I’ve said before, these defenses ring hollow. For one thing, there is no evidence that the Williams family ever punished Hana in anger. In fact, in the case of the Schatzes, there is actually a great deal of evidence that the Schatzes did not punish Lydia in anger.

You don’t have to punish in anger in order to abuse children. All you have to do is follow what Michael Pearl says in To Train Up A Child, slowly and methodically.

The core of Pearl’s teachings on child training seems to be the necessity of breaking the child’s will. Over and over again, Pearl tells parents to see parenting as a battle between the will of the parents and the will of the children, and over and over he admonishes children that unless they defeat their children’s will and force them to defeat, they and their children will be miserable. He teaches that if you love your child, you must break her will at any cost.

Sometimes breaking a child’s will can be difficult. Sometimes it involves multiple (dispassionate) spankings with plumbing supply line, sometimes it involves withholding food until the child submits (and the Pearls say not to worry, for a child will never starve himself rather than submit – which in my experience has proved to be false). And while I have never heard of the Pearls recommending that children be forced to spend the night outside as a punishment, it is in some sense a natural outgrowth of the idea that a rebellious child must be separated from the others until he or she submits.

If Hana had submitted, she would not have been beaten with the plumbing supply line. If Hana had submitted, she would not have been starved. If Hana had submitted, she would not have been forced to spend the night away from the family. Since Hana did not submit, Pearl would say, she was clearly in rebellion against her parents, striving to exert her will over theirs. Her will needed breaking. And sometimes, as in the case of Lydia and the case of Hana, breaking the will may result in breaking the body.

This child was also adopted, and also from Africa. I cannot think that this is a coincidence. Children who are adopted may have attachment issues, and parents of adopted children may relate to them differently than to their biological children. Furthermore, children who are adopted as children rather than born into a Pearl family must have their wills broken much later than those raised on the Pearls from birth. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns into a pattern.

Update: Michael Pearl has issued an official statement on Hana’s death,which you can read here. I think they realize the problem they have. They are not “laughing” in this statement, but instead point out passages from TTUAC that supposedly warn against how Hana’s parents treated her. Except, of course, that they actually don’t.

“Train up-not beat up. Train up-not discipline up.” “A child needs more than ‘obedience training’, but without first training him, discipline is insufficient” page 4

“Disciplinary actions can easily become excessive and oppressive if you set aside the tool of training and depend on discipline alone to do the training.” Page 9

“Parent, have you trained yourself not to discipline immediately but to wait until your irritation builds into anger? If so, then you have allowed anger to become your inducement to discipline.” Page 25

“Parent, if you are having problems with your children, you can be assured that you are not alone. Your children are also having problems with you. You are going to have to make adjustments in your own life if you are going to help them with their problems.” “… the responsibility for making a significant change is completely yours.” Page 32

“There are always some who act in the extreme. These individuals are capable of using what has been said about the legitimate use of the rod to justify ongoing brutality to their children.” page 50

“The rod should never be a vent for parents’ anger. Where the supreme motivation is anything other than the child’s good, it is inevitable that such behavior by the parent will assuredly create problems.” page 51

None of these quotes argue against what Hana’s parents did, because there is no evidence that her parents disciplined her in anger, and there is no evidence that they did not also try to build a relationship in order to curb Hana’s “rebellion.” There is no evidence that the parents were merely using Pearls’ methods to justify brutality, rather than actually believing Pearl’s methods and using them in love to train up their children. The problem was not anger or the rod, but rather the belief that children must have their wills broken at whatever cost necessary. Allow me to quote some other passages from TTUAC:

“Know that if he is accustomed to getting his unrestricted way, you can expect just such a response. He will just continue to do what he has always done to get his way. It is his purpose to intimidate you and make you fell like a crud pile. Don’t be bullied. Give him more of the same. On the bare legs or bottom, switch him eight or ten licks; then, while waiting for the pain to subside, speak calm words of rebuke. If the crying turns to a true, wounded, submissive, whimper, you have conquered; he has submitted his will. If the crying is still defiant, protesting and other than a response to pain, spank him again. If this is the first time he has come up against someone tougher than he, it may take a while. He must be convinced that you have truly altered your expectations. There is no justification for this to be done in anger. If you are the least angry, wait until another time. Most parents are so guilt laden and paranoid that they are unable to carry this through to the end. If you stop before he is voluntarily submissive, you have confirmed to him the value and effectiveness of a screaming protest. The next time, it will take twice as long to convince him of your commitment to his obedience, because he has learned the ultimate triumph of endurance in this episode in which he has prevailed.” (80)

“If you have to sit on him to spank him, then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Hold the resisting child in a helpless position for several minutes, or until he is totally surrendered.” The child is to “bend over on the bed or couch… Slowly begin to spank. If you go too fast, you may not allow time enough for the inner transformation to occur.” In the same section, the author says, “I have found five to ten licks are usually sufficient. As the child gets older, the licks must become more forceful if the experience is going to be effective in purging his rebellion. A general rule is to continue the disciplinary action until the child has surrendered.” (p. 49, 50)

And finally, there is this gem:

“If you are just beginning to institute training on an already rebellious child, who runs from discipline and is too incoherent to listen, then use whatever force is necessary to bring him to bay. If you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise. You are to rule over him as a benevolent sovereign. Your word is final.”

I rest my case.