HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Pearl” is a pseudonym.
I’ve been loosely following Clare’s viral blog post about getting kicked out of her homeschool prom. The story resonated with me because it was similar to things I’ve experienced growing up in conservative homeschool/purity culture. Unfortunately, some homeschool parents gave a really ugly response to her story. They felt that, since she had used bad language, and put purity culture in a bad light, that it would be OK to publicly share unsubstantiated claims about her behavior the night of prom. They didn’t like her individual narrative, so they replaced it with another individual narrative they did like, because, well, any girl who would use curse words must also be a liar and a slut.
I thought they were supposed to be adults, but all bets are off when you step out of line in their eyes.
Fine, if they won’t believe Clare’s story I’ll share my own.
Growing up, my mom put a lot of importance in how I appeared to others. We had a lot of conflicts about her wanting me to dress in a way that would look good to her friends. For example, wearing a dress to Thanksgiving dinner at a friends house even though I knew I’d be playing outside all day. When I started wearing bras she bought me a really uncomfortable bra that she would make me wear on Sunday. I hated it because, besides being uncomfortable, it had thick seams through the cups that showed through every top and made me very self-conscious.
I still don’t understand how breasts can have a Sunday-appropriate look.
There was such fuss about bras and how they made my breasts look that I started slouching badly to try and hide my breasts entirely. At 17, she bought me a hideous dress that didn’t fit for a special occasion at church. I didn’t have a choice, I had to wear it because it made me look “nice”.
The emphasis on modesty really began around 11 or 12 when I began puberty. Whenever we went shopping my mom would examine clothes on me in the dressing room to make sure they were modest enough before purchasing. (Or have me come out and model for pre-approval in the case of hand-me-downs.) I would see clothes other girls were wearing, and naturally wanted to dress in a way that made me feel cute and like I fit in with other girls my age. Around age 13 I would try choosing clothes at the store, but when mom gave them the once over in the dressing room they rarely passed the modesty test. Shorts had to go pretty much to my knees, shirts had to be loose enough to create a straight line down my sides. If clothes I chose didn’t pass the test I had to stand in front of the mirror and look at myself while my mom pointed out all of my undesirable body parts the clothes were supposedly drawing attention to.
It was so humiliating I eventually took the easy route and started dressing like a boy.
The grunge era was only about 5 years past, so you could still buy flannel shirts and baggy jeans for girls. I stopped wearing shorts entirely around age 14.
My mom would always tell me that I just couldn’t understand because I didn’t understand how boys think. Boys, she said, think about sex all the time, and I could cause them to stumble (lust after me) by dressing immodestly. I couldn’t possibly understand, she said, because girls don’t care that much about sex, they really only want love. I became very ashamed of my body and for the most part tried to hide it. If I ever felt a burst of confidence and wanted to wear something cute and feminine I would usually have it pointed out to me that someone would see the shape of my breasts, or the curve of my waist, or that my bra was showing, or that these shorts or skirt were too short and any thing more than an inch or so above the knee was too tempting.
By the time I was 19 years old I had a job and had saved up some money and started going shopping for my own clothes for the first time. The clothes I chose were kind of tacky, because I didn’t have any practice dressing myself. But by nearly anyone’s standards they were very modest. I didn’t even wear shorts, I was still too ashamed of my legs, but I did wear skirts to church. The skirts I chose always went below my knees. I didn’t wear tank tops, most of my shirts actually had collars. The shirts were fitted, and except for one not tight.
The first fitted, collared T-shirt that I brought home made my mom cry.
She said she could see the curves of my waste and the shape of my breasts. I felt cute and feminine for the first time in my life, so I didn’t allow myself to be guilted into giving it up. I started standing up straight. I also bought bras for myself, and chose some with some amount of padding because I felt more covered in case of cold weather. My mom saw one out drying after I did laundry, and brought it to me to show me how the padding made my breasts look bigger, and that was immodest. I had a pair of shoes I’d wear to church that had one and half inch heels. My parents expressed concerns that they were too sexy.
A few months after buying my own wardrobe, my parents came to me to tell me that an elder in our church had approached my dad to tell him the way I was dressing was causing his sons to stumble.
My parents made me show them each piece of the clothing I had bought so they could decide whether it was modest enough. Very few pieces passed their test. The rest they ordered me to put up in my closet until I was married and it was my husband’s job to decide how I dressed. (Fortunately my wedding was only a few months after that.) In the meantime, I bought a few baggy T-shirts to get by on; it would’ve been too humiliating to go back to the flour sacks I had to wear before.
Modesty/purity doctrines and body shaming are an unfortunate realty of conservative Christian culture. They may or may not be directly related to homeschooling, but I have yet to find anyone who believed these things that wasn’t a homeschooling parent. There is nothing girls in these situations can do. Once someone has told you you are causing them to stumble you have to change your clothes, no matter how humiliating or unreasonable it may be. To do otherwise would be tempting someone on purpose, because now you know that you’re causing them to sin.
Growing up hearing these things made me very ashamed of my body. It took years after getting married before I was even comfortable wearing shorts. Making a girl ashamed of her body is a horribly cruel thing to do. It’s not like there isn’t enough pressure to look and dress certain ways from mainstream culture.
So that’s my story. It won’t be a viral success, but if enough girls tell their stories there is no way that homeschool parents can say they are exaggerating, or that they have some kind of malicious vendetta, or that they deserve to have their reputations damaged.
So here’s to girls who have been made ashamed of their bodies.
You are a person, body and soul, your body is you. And you don’t have to be ashamed of having a female body. It is beautiful, don’t hide it.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 
As a parent of a girl that is a curvy 12 year old, it makes me mad that you were treated like this. I do believe in modesty but I believe woman bodies are a beautiful creation of God. WE almost always buy girl cut t’s because I believe you should learn to love your body and accent it. I do think that most boys think about sex all the time. I am not sure how much dressing modestly really helps. I ask my husband once if he thought dresses or pants were more modest and which helped his thought life more. He said neither helped. He needed to renew his mind and choose not to think about women wrongly.
I am so sorry! I have met several people who are not homeschoolers who think completely like you were raised. When I was a teen the local Basptist school girls had to wear awful outfits and culots(?) for cheering. They looked awful! The elders still thought the outfits were a little risky:-) How awful.
Bodies are made to be celebrated – not in this sexy barely any clothes look – but there is a way to dress modestly and cute. I really like What Not to Wear and how they teach women to dress:-0
Thanks for sharing!
‘
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Fellow homeschool survivor here- I sympathize with this so much. I was repeatedly grounded throughout my teens because boys in church were looking at me (according to my dad.) I was wearing a loose, collared button down shirt and an ankle length skirt at the time of the crime. The immodesty was in me looking up at the boys instead of down. I always felt so powerless and frustrated- how could I help it if they looked at me? I eventually started self-injuring. No one could see it under my long skirts though.
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amen to this story! It is all too common in our “right little Christian worlds”! Too much emphasis on modesty and no enough on making a girl feeling comfortable in her own skin! It makes girls who become socially awkward towards guys. We should not shame girls into thinking they’re the cause of guys “stumbling”. If they lust over clothes that are feminine that is their fault and no place should be put on the woman. Teach girls to embrace their womanhood, in the most age appropriate way of course. I would not be dressing a 6 six year old in mini skirts. But at 16 a girl should be able to wear fingertip length skirts! At 18 she is an adult and may choose to wear anything she chooses without input from her parents.
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Pearl, everybody:
This is called “Professional Weaker Brethren”, the Christianese version of “Tyranny of the Most Easily Offended”. It ends up with the Professional Weaker Brethren getting everything their way, while everyone else has to tiptoe on eggs around them constantly lest “YOU’RE SINNING! YOU’RE MAKING ME STUMBLE!!!!!”
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This I so, so sad. Although things weren’t quite bad in my family, I hated the fact that I had to grow up. I wished I could always be flat chested and straight like my brothers. I’m happy to say that my attitude has improved now. The day that I was pleased when something made my boobs looked bigger I knew the miracle had taken place.
There are whole other worlds out there, yet so many of these girls never get to know them. I now enjoy shopping, whereas before it was a nightmare.
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Your story had me mentally yelling at your parents, and at the pervy church elder! Fortunately, I never got the slut-shaming from my own parents; mostly just my creepy uncle. I remember when I was twelve, wearing my step-mom’s borrowed clothes(along with a cape) to play in, and my uncle glared at me and told me, “Girls shouldn’t go around dressed like that.” I remember thinking, “Like what? In a cape?” It wasn’t until I was older that I realized he was referring to the cutoff shorts and midriff-baring shirt, and I felt disgusted and angry.
Your post gave me an idea though: Whenever someone mentions how you’re causing them or their sons “to stumble,” what would happen if you responded, “What do you mean?” Make them clarify what they mean by “stumble”, and exactly how? Then you can have a turn looking shocked and horrified when they try to explain that they’re getting boners by staring at 12-year-old girls’ chests.
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this was me and I have my eating disorder to prove it. I also resorted to the tom boy look, but I was then called a lesbian..
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This so resonates with me! Every skirt, shirt, dress and pair of pants I ever owned had to pass the spin test. First in the store by my mother. Then another one at home under the even more critical eye of my father. The pieces they like best were the ones that created a veritable tube from shoulders to ankles. I also was given my mother’s hand-me-down bras because they were ok to wear. No underwire or padding to worry about there. As a busty young girl I was told constantly to stop sticking my chest out. Followed closely by being told off for slouching. I still have the hardest time picking clothes, even though I’ve been “an independent adult” for decades. I stand at the mirror trying to decide if I look ok, but all I hear are my parent’s voices in my heads telling me everyone will be staring at my ass or my thighs and can’t you do something to hide your breasts dear.
Makeup was another ordeal. Once they finally relented enough to let me wear the stuff, I had to pass their approval. Nevermind that my face was a warzone of teenage hormones, and perhaps I might’ve wanted to cover that up. Nope! “Go wash your face, you look like a painted whore” was a familiar phrase during adolescence from both my parents.
I read Clare’s story nodding sadly and grimacing in almost flash-back like pain. It’s been years since I had to live in such a toxic environment, but it never really ever leaves you.
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A related to this post tremendously. You are not alone. I was glad a homeschool modesty story went viral – they need to be told. At the same time it was scary that it went viral because it means that it’s not just homeschoolers who are relating to these stories. This modesty culture is widespread. The stories need to be told.
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BRAVO!!! I”m the mom of a teen girl, and also the mom of 8 sons(and 3 grown daughters). The clothing issue is so difficult to tread, even outside of homeschool circles(my kids homeschooled K-8, then attend public high school). MY daughter went through a period of dressing “grunge” as she entered puberty, and I was so sad to see it!
I can’t help it that my daughter(and I) are fairly well endowed. The boobs are there. All I care about is that she wears clothes that fit and if she wants to look like a girl, that it’s ok.
As for my sons, if they are “stumbled” by something a girl is wearing(and I do understand that men think about sex a lot…it’s how they’re created…) that they learn to control THEMSELVES. It is not a woman’s responsibility to control a man’s thoughts. That’s impossible.
My 18 yo son’s response to Clare’s story was, ” Really? That’s so stupid! If a girl just has a pleasant face and is nice to people, there WILL be guys who will be attracted to her, even if she wears a burlap sack.”
So, don’t be ashamed of who you are. Cling to Jesus. He loves you.
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Amen! Thank you for raising your sons that way! There’s nothing wrong with the way God created them, but to teach them to be responsible for their own thoughts and actions rather than just blame the women around them is so refreshing! God bless!
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I was made to feel this way. I was made to feel so ashamed of my body that I deliberately stopped trying to look good at all. I gained a massive amount of weight in college because I was severely depressed. I had no friends due in part to my isolationist homeschooling, my overly controlling parents, and unsightly wardrobe. (People on campus would say “Yeah, you dress like a homeschooler” to me daily.) A decade later I now genuinely hate my body so much that I never look at myself in a mirror and very rarely buy new clothes. I still feel disgusting. Every. single. day. I feel disgusted by my body, and ashamed if I so much as reveal a collarbone or knee.
It was never about modesty. It was only ever about control.
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I will never understand why these men are never accountable. Why is it someone else’s fault that they’re a bunch of creepers? You’re stumbling? How about you watch where you’re going instead of watching some girl’s ass? There is both a literal and spiritually figurative meaning there that’s easy to figure out. If you’re texting and driving and cause an accident it’s you they arrest, not your phone.
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Wow. As a mother of a growing daughter I needed to read this article to warn me to keep perspective! I think modesty is so, SO important in today’s often perverted culture, and I do intend to do my best to help my daughter to understand and practice principles of modesty, as I’m thankful that my mother did for me. However, I don’t want to make my precious girl ashamed of her feminine body. Too often parents forget or misunderstand the emotional weight that kids can carry as a result of careless words. I’m praying right now that God helps me to give my daughter the valuable gift of instruction in modesty with sensitivity and love.
I wish we could also get an honest perspective from some men on this subject. Guys ARE wired differently than most girls are… and they don’t need to be ashamed of that, either!
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Thank you so much for sharing your story. Your story and encouragement to speak out is what helps us to find the courage to respect ourselves and embrace our beautiful individuality.
I, too, was homeschooled in a religious environment. In my case, it was a toxic combination for my self esteem and development. Everything from clothes, to hair, mannerisms, and posture were controlled. I had no contact with other girls my age outside my family and was put under the impression that anything any other girl did was probably wrong and sinful.
To be modest was to be Christian. Modesty was not used so much as an outright shaming stick, but more a tool of fear. If you were immodest, men might mislead you, hurt you, or worse. Having already been sexually abused at a young age (my family didn’t know this), that’s the last thing I needed to think. Confidence and respect for myself is what I yearned for, not fear.
I was also forced to wear unflattering and uninspiring clothes that didn’t let me express myself. From the age of 11, I had to wear long skirts full time in public. At home, things were more lax. I could wear shorts to play in and usually sported the tomboy look out of concern for my fashion-sucking soul.
Going out was another matter. I remember the day it was decreed that I would have to wear skirts in public from then on. Of course, I didn’t, at that time, have an arsenal of sacks to swaddle myself in. So, I quietly and defiantly put on the ugliest skirt I could imagine, hoping to make a point with silent protest. That backfired.
I was told not to have a split in my hair (like girls I saw on TV) because it was godlier and more natural to comb it back. Sit with legs clenched or else send the wrong “message”. Going to the dentist at 11, I was told to take my hairband out and change clothes (long skirt and white sweater with matching hairband!) because I looked 13 not 11 and would be close to the male dentist. The list of idiotic reasoning goes on.
For the following years, especially as an extra-sinful curvy girl, I couldn’t go out without crouching to disguise my body and hiding beneath the layers of shame. Of course, the skirts were no barrier to abuse. I encountered more harassment in the years that I wore long skirts than I ever did in jeans. It’s difficult to describe how demoralizing it is for a middle aged man in a supermarket to whisper he wants to “get up in there” when you’re 13 years old. I didn’t think I could tell anyone. It seemed like I would have failed the modesty test. It seemed unchristian to garner that attention.
Some of the churches were even worse. No lip balm with color, no short sleeved tops, never cut your hair, makeup and nail polish forbidden. The most ridiculous thing I remember was being told to wear swimming trunks underneath a full length skirt when swimming. I didn’t take the plunge.
I am sure that these experiences, like others have commented here, lead to confidence problems and enhanced others during my fragile years of puberty. I developed and religiously fed my body hatred and eating disorders. It didn’t matter, so long as I could cover up.
The skirts didn’t last forever, thankfully, and my individuality, confidence as a woman, and fashion sense continues to grow. I am not defined or defeated by these times in my life. No one has to be! Be strong, be you.
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Thank you for sharing your story. This resonated with me so strongly. It’s encouraging to know it’s not just me or just in my head. Thank you.
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I believe that modesty is a virtue, too. I believe that people should be modest enough to recognize how much and how little of a claim that they have on other people, so that they do not feel entitled to make excessive demands on others to modify their behavior so that the claimants aren’t tempted into sin. I believe people should be modest enough to recognize that they can’t tell what every single member of a particular group is thinking every hour of the day. I believe people should be modest enough to recognize that they can be wrong, and that therefore they should think long and hard before assuming that their own belief about how someone should dress supersedes that person’s. I believe people should be modest enough not to want to draw attention to their opinion of their own superior morality by how they dress. I believe that people should be modest enough not to want to demonstrate how much power they have over other people’s choice of dress, just because they can.
But that kind of modesty is never going to be as popular as the kind of “modesty” that demands that you police and meddle in other people’s behavior.
Side note: It is interesting to me that the people who have no trouble redefining words like “stumbling”, “defrauding”, and “modesty” are the ones who are usually found shrieking that marriage equality is “redefining marriage”.
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I cannot thank you enough for sharing that with us. I can relate as well. It was really my dad who had an obsessed with the way I dressed. Especially once I hit puberty. By 12 years old I was already a B cup with wide hips and beautiful curves. I looked so much older and my father wanted to be sure that did not exist. He put me on a strict diet of no carbs when I was 12. I was no longer allowed to wear shorts outside and any jeans I work he had to be able to grab a fistful in his hand.
Like you, I resorted to becoming a tomboy. I wore baggy t-shirts and jeans and had no sense of pride in myself ad the beautiful body type I had. No wonder why I hated myself and always thought myself ugly. No matter what I did, it did not please my father. If I wore a pair of jeans too many times, I’d have to mark on the calendar when I wore them and I couldn’t wear them again unless he said I could. If any sort shape of my breasts showed, i was immodest.
As I got older, however, that changed. He’d say, “Ooooo, you’re looking sexy today.” In a way one might tell their girlfriend. This happened once I was an adult and working. I will always be so confused about how he handled things…first he’s making me throw outfits away if he did not approve, the next he’s near howling at me as I leave for work. What do you make of that??
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I was homeschooled all 12 years (we had the option to go to public high school if we wanted to and I refused…I mean, deal with high school girl drama?! no thanks!), but thankfully, though we were encouraged to dress modestly, my two sisters and I never had to deal with the shaming. Breaks my heart to hear of girls who had to struggle with changing bodies and, on top of that, parents who made them feel ashamed of the changes.
I’d like to see these parents spend more time teaching their boys to learn how to control their urges and where their eyes are going. Why is making girls hide in unflattering clothes the only option? Shouldn’t the boys be learning how to be Godly men and training their minds to think on the things above rather than the earthly?
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Dear Pearl,
This kind of body shaming has no place in the Bible! I can’t imagine what people who believe those kinds of things or practice modesty in that way do with books like Songs of Solomons or other descriptions of the female body in the Bible. God made women beautiful, and he didn’t make women to be “invisible”, either!
As someone who believes in and believes in modesty, and having read books, articles and blogs on the subject, this is the first time I have heard of things like bras and curves being applied to modesty. I always thought that Biblical modesty involves having a humble heart and dressing decently and appropriately.
I think that this problem can come about because of the huge influence homeschooling parents (and their quirks, idiosyncrasies and dysfunctions) can have on their kids.
I also believe that any teaching that has to do with modesty really has to take into consideration all the points like the ones you have made. The Bible didn’t give us “dogma”s, so our own cultural dogmas need to be replaced with a healthy dose of common sense.
For someone like me who still believes in (but doesn’t like, you know, obsess over) modesty, I want to do what I can to promote clarity and the rethinking of what we emphasize and why we emphasize that. The general conservative emphasis and approach to modesty needs some serious, prayerful rethinking.
Thanks for giving me food for thought.
Sincerely,
Rachel
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I’m just now finding this blogpost and your reply deserves an honest thumbs up! I was not homeschooled and was not even raised in a Christian home despite my parents being Free Methodist (we didn’t go to church except maybe once every few years from the time I was six onward. God found me though). I do know about legalism though from having been in a church denomination where it was practiced (after I was saved). I’ve seen several people grow up to leave the faith because of the demanding restrictions their parents put on them, especially girls and it breaks my heart. From my experience in the churches I was in before I got baptized, God showed me that there are MANY people in the pulpit who don’t understand the Gospel in their heart and are still living under the Law…they are not truly free and even deceived into thinking they are right with God because they keep all of the rules. And do these parents not take into account that God looks on the heart rather than the outward appearance? Or do these types only pick and choose the scriptures they want to apply to their lives as I suspect?
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Dear Pearl,
This might not seem relevant but it has a lot to do with it. It’s about menstruation and how wonderful it is. (pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/jarm/article/download/18049/16812) Her attitudes towards her femininity would definitely extend into the way she dressed. It’s all inter-connected, see – the femininity of biology, in more ways than you can imagine.
I want to be me – whether it is to dress like a girl or a tomboy. Yes, that’s right – me. And I fancy both.
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I was raised in an extremely Christian household; I wasn’t allowed to date until I graduated high school and everything I did and wore was compared to my female cousins. I wore hand-me-down clothes, but I never saw anyone after school anyway, and my school had a dress code, so I didn’t have to worry about that anyway.
I didn’t get the kind of shaming that most of you talk about, but I felt intensely the pressure to conform to the standards that my mother proported–Biblical standards that my many family members constantly held up as a standard of behavior, despite the fact that few of them lived up to it.
To this day, I no longer believe in modesty. I think modesty is a myth that was invented by people who are afraid–whether or themselves or other people.
I’m not afraid anymore. I don’t care if people have a reaction to my body, I wear whatever I want, no matter how much skin is showing. I remember the greatest freedom I’d ever experienced was performing onstage at Rocky Horror Picture Show in a corset and fishnet stockings and thinking nothing of it. Nothing. It was amazing. I encourage everyone here to try it.
And if something bad ever happens to me, I know that what I was wearing had nothing to do with it. There are bad people out there and they don’t care what you are wearing; bad things happen to women in burqas, but I’m not going to let them control me.
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Hi. I am 16 and ever since I hit my growth spurt, I felt ashamed and upset about my body changing. I always thought myself to be an innocent kid, and growing and becoming a women was wrong. I would wear baggy shirts and just recently started to feel comfortable in shorts. My main concern was my chest. I don’t even have a large chest and I am so self conscious, I hate every bra I try on, and I wear a compression bra over my normal bra every day. Almost like if someone sees my body shape, they might find out that I am a girl. I would be caught dead in a bikini, and I only have a little stomach fat that I hate and shouldn’t. I act as if the female body is something to be ashamed of.
But this post made me feel so much better 🙂 I have nothing to be ashamed of. I am a girl and we are supposed to have breasts and curves. I have been on a self-esteem boosting journey, and this really helped me!!! Thank You For Your Inspiring Story!!!!!!! 🙂
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I just turned fifteen. Stumbled across this post because it’s scorching outside today and my mom will not allow me to wear a tanktop because it “shows my figure”. Despite the fact that both her and my sister (14) are both wearing tanktops. Mom says its okay for her to wear a tank top because small breasts don’t cause men to stumble. And my sister has the exact same bra size as me, but her waist is bigger so my mom says she doesn’t look as sexy.
It’s not fair that I have to wear a long sleeved shirt on a day like today. I didn’t ask for curves. I can’t wear shorts but my sister who has narrow hips can wear really short ones. She can wear anything she wants. I’m not jealous of her, though. I’m just happy she has that freedom even if I don’t.
When I wear a bra I’m “making my breasts seem bigger”, but even walking around the house without one and I’m berated. I can’t wear belts or anything that shows my waist and yesterday my dress was an inch above my knee because I had a growth spurt and my parents berated me and I hate this. I just it all! I’m crying but I don’t know why because I’ve only got three years until I’m and adult and get to make my own choices. In three years I will wear a tank top when the weather is hot and I will not be ashamed.
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