James Dobson

James Clayton Dobson Jr.

(born April 21, 1936) is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder of Focus on the Family (FotF), which he led from 1977 until 2010.

James Dobson was born to Myrtle Georgia (née Dillingham) and James C. Dobson Sr. on April 21, 1936, in Shreveport, Louisiana.

From his earliest childhood, religion played a central part in his life.

He once told a reporter that he learned to pray before he learned to talk, and says he gave his life to Jesus at the age of three, in response to an altar call by his father.

He is the son, grandson, and great-grandson of Church of the Nazarene ministers.

Dobson's mother was intolerant of "sassiness" and would strike her child with whatever object came to hand, including a shoe or belt; she once gave Dobson a "massive blow" with a girdle outfitted with straps and buckles.

The parents took their young son along to watch his father preach.

Like most Nazarenes, they forbade dancing and going to movies.

Young "Jimmie Lee" (as he was called) concentrated on his studies.

Dobson studied academic psychology and came to believe that he was being called to become a Christian counselor or perhaps a Christian psychologist.

He attended Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University) as an undergraduate and served as captain of the school's tennis team.

At USC he was exposed to troubled youth and the counterculture of the 1960s.

He found it "a distressing time to be so young" because society offered him no moral absolutes he felt he could rely upon.

Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War was blossoming into a widespread rejection of authority, which Dobson viewed as "a sudden disintegration of moral and ethical principles" among Americans his age and the younger people he saw in clinical practice.

This convinced him that "the institution of the family was disintegrating."

He spent 17 years on the staff of the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles in the Division of Child Development and Medical Genetics.

For a time, Dobson worked as an assistant to Paul Popenoe at the Institute of Family Relations, a marriage-counseling center, in Los Angeles.

Popenoe counseled couples on the importance of same-race marriage and adherence to gender norms for the purpose of eugenics.

Under Popenoe, Dobson published about male-female differences and the dangers of feminism.

Though the book was not overtly political, Dobson considered his parenting techniques to be the solution to the social unrest of the 1960s.

By returning to the authoritarian parenting style popular in prior eras, Dobson hoped to preserve order, obedience, and social hierarchy.

The book quickly sold over two million copies, establishing Dobson as a trusted authority among parents bewildered by the rapid changes of the era.

In 1967, Dobson received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Southern California.

In 1967, he became an Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for 14 years.

After Dobson's rise to prominence through promoting Corporal Punishment of disobedient children in the 1970s, he became a founder of purity culture in the 1990s.

Dobson became well known because of Dare to Discipline, his 1970 book about Corporal Punishment.

In it, he encourages parents to strike children with switches or belts, which are to be kept on the child's dresser as a reminder of authority.

Popenoe wrote the book's introduction.

Dobson's book was a rebuttal to Benjamin Spock, whose parenting ideas were more permissive.

In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesmen for conservative social positions in American public life.

Although never an ordained minister, he was called "the nation's most influential evangelical leader" by The New York Times while Slate portrayed him as a successor to evangelical leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

As part of his former role in the organization he produced the daily radio program Focus on the Family, which the organization has said was broadcast in more than a dozen languages and on over 7,000 stations worldwide, and reportedly heard daily by more than 220 million people in 164 countries.

Focus on the Family was also carried by about sixty U.S. television stations daily.

He has promoted his ideas via his various Focus on the Family affiliated organizations, the Family Research Council which he founded in 1981, Family Policy Alliance which he founded in 2004, the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute which he founded in 2010, and a network of US state-based lobbying organizations called Family Policy Councils.

In 2010 he launched the radio broadcast Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson.

Dobson advocates for "family values" — the instruction of children in heterosexuality and traditional gender roles, which he believes are mandated by the Christian Bible.

The goal of this is to promote heterosexual marriage, which he views as a cornerstone of civilization that must be protected from the dangers of feminism and the LGBT rights movement.

Dobson seeks to equip his audience to fight in the American culture war, which he calls the "Civil War of Values".

His writing career started as an assistant to Paul Popenoe.