By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator
Alecia Pennington is one of nine children of James and Lisa Pennington.
James and Lisa are group leaders for the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) and board members of the Hill Country Home School Association. THSC awarded James and Lisa their “2010 Leaders of the Year” award. Lisa is also a popular homeschool blogger who blogs at The Pennington Point and Hip Homeschool Moms and has spoken at homeschooling events such as the Homeschool Moms Winter Summit.
But according to recent revelations by Alecia, the 19-year-old daughter of the Pennington family, not all is as idyllic as it seems. According to a blog post by Lisa, Alecia fled her family last year on September 24, 2014, with the help of her grandparents. Alecia is now speaking up about how her parents are allegedly refusing to help her get documents necessary for operating in society. In a video posted on YouTube on February 9, 2015, Alecia claims that she was home-birthed and her parents neglected to file any birth certificate or record of any kind. They also allegedly never got her a Social Security number, have no school records for her, and have never taken her to a hospital (and thus she has no hospital records). “This leaves me with nothing to prove my identity or citizenship,” Alecia explains. “I am now 19 years old and I’m unable to get a driver’s license, get a job, go to college, get on a plane, get a bank account, or vote.”
You can watch the video below:
Alecia created a Facebook page, Help Me Prove It, as well as a Twitter account to bring attention to her plight. On February 10, 2015, Alecia posted a document explaining what steps she has already attempted to get the necessary documents and why they failed. According to that document, Alecia alleges that she tried to get the midwife that delivered her to find a birth record but the midwife “doesn’t seem supportive.” Furthermore, Alecia claims, after “requesting an affidavit to her birth facts and attesting to their citizenship,” James and Lisa Pennington “refused this request.”
Basically, according to these allegations, James and Lisa Pennington are holding Alecia’s very identity hostage.
The situation Alecia faces is what HA’s parent non-profit Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out has termed identification abuse. Identification abuse is destroying, holding hostage, or denying a child their identification documents: birth certificate, driver’s license, Social Security card, and so forth. While such abuse can happen anywhere and everywhere regardless of one’s educational environment, homeschool kids (and alumni) are particularly vulnerable to this form of abuse because of certain anti-government and pro-parental rights attitudes in totalistic homeschool subcultures. Some people see identification documents as ungodly or even a “mark of the Beast,” a reference to the number 666 associated with the Antichrist in the Christian Book of Revelations.
Sadly, Alecia is not alone in her predicament. According to HARO’s 2014 Survey of Adult Alumni of the Modern Christian Homeschool Movement, out of 3703 respondents, 3.65% (or 135 respondents) experienced some form of identification abuse. Numerous testimonies from homeschool alumni denied identification documents can be seen at the Coalition for Responsible Home Education’s website. One alumna, Sarah, said,
[My parents deprived me of a social security number and birth certificate] because they believed they would give the government ownership of me & that God wanted his people to be unaffiliated with any government. I am unable to attend any school, drive, get a job, get a background check. I have been trying for 3 years and still have not been successful in obtaining any documentation whatsoever.
This situation transcends homeschooling. According to The Independent UK, “Globally, there are an estimated 220 million children under five across the world whose birth is not recorded.” That number is increasingly rapidly, as “51 million babies – almost one in three of all babies born across the world annually – …are not registered each year.” These are called “hidden children.” And the tragedy of these increasing numbers of hidden children is reflected in what can result from not having identification:
There is growing evidence that, without a birth certificate, such youngsters are more likely to be poorer than even the most disadvantaged of their peers, struggling to access healthcare, attend school, sit exams, or even get the vaccinations they need to survive… A child without a birth certificate, and therefore unable to prove his or her age, is more at risk of being exploited by being put to work, of being arrested and treated as an adult in the justice system, of being forcibly conscripted into the armed forces or child marriage, or of being trafficked. It is also almost impossible to open a bank account, get a passport, vote, or even gain employment, without a record of your birth.
By denying their children documentation of their existence and citizenship, such parents set up their children for future exploitation and abuse, even trafficking. They are forcing their children into jobs that are unsafe and/or lacking basic rights and protections. For example, I have heard from a number of homeschool alumni who were forced into sex work because they had no other ways to stay afloat.
Alecia is lucky to be supported and surrounded by caring extended family and friends who have taken her into their care. Not all children or homeschool alumni have such a safety net. They enter the adult world in extremely precarious and dangerous situations and their options for surviving in that world are limited.
Sadly, even with all the love and support she has, Alecia faces an uphill battle. And what is tragic about that battle is how unnecessary it is — if only her parents were willing to help her and/or filed the necessary paperwork years ago. Instead, they appear to only value their own “parental rights” to the point of being willing to sacrifice Alecia’s own rights as a person. This is one end result of the parental rights mindset championed by groups like HSLDA and ParentalRights.org, who believe children have no rights and are nothing more than spiritual “weapons” needing to be “carefully crafted” without government interference.
Even if they are right under the law, they are wrong in the court of morality.
To follow Alecia’s story and support her, “like” her Facebook page Help Me Prove It and follow her on Twitter at @HelpMeProveIt.
** Update, 02/11, 2 pm:
James and Lisa Pennington have issued responses. Read them here.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 
What evil parents. Maybe they should “give up” their birth cert, SSN, etc too. Very hypocritical of them as well, “we can be citizens but you can’t because your our property”
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They have actually tried to communicate with her and offered help but she is not communicating with them. There is nothing evil about the parents at all. Her video is a little misleading. Be careful in assuming that everything an 18 year old says is completely accurate.
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Alecia is 19.
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Since when does being young equal being untrustworthy? Why would it be any less reasonable for me to say “be careful in assuming that everything a 43 year old says is completely accurate”?
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Right now she isn’t looking for parental “help”. She is asking for documentation. It’s very simple.
One adult cannot force their help on another adult who doesn’t want the unsolicited help.
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They need to fill out legal paperwork. That can be done without talking to her, and turned over to her by offering it to a third party, such as the grandparents. That they won’t do so or prove it has been done speaks volumes about her accuracy.
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Bull. If the grandparents are involved then something is very wrong. And the parent’s story is full of holes. Normally I would agree, but not in this case.
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I would imagine what happened is that the parents said they would sign the paperwork but only if she continued to be under their thumb and she refused, wanting the signed paperwork without any strings attached.
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Why would she communicate with abusive parents?! Look up her full story online to see what else her parents put her through.
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I’ll never understand why a country claiming to be developed, doesn’t have a identity register and issues mandatory identity cards. It solves so many problems.
Poor girl, I hope she can break free from her past and live a normal life. Hopefully she can recover from any damage her parents might have done. This case shows again, that religious extremists and fundamentalists are a problem regardless of faith.
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You fail to understand that even in a country that would issue ‘mandatory’ identity cards there would be people bucking the system. Birth Certificates are generally ‘mandatory’.. you have to report a live birth, and yet every day there are people giving birth in bathrooms, trailers, vehicles, or at home that do not report the birth of the child. Some of these children are ‘thrown away’ and their birth is estimated by the state and recorded.. but others are like this young woman whose parents have repeated this process with each of their children. Each of the older children apparently went through this process where they had to demand that their parents sign an affidavit attesting to the identity and birth facts that would then allow them to attain a delayed birth record that then allowed them to acquire the other documentation necessary to move on in life. But if the only people who ever see the child are unaware that the birth hasn’t been properly reported, or don’t know how to go about reporting that someone has not properly recorded a birth then there’s nothing to be done about it.
Several other articles have people who know the older siblings commenting that the process of getting a delayed birth certificate had to be taken by those siblings, and a couple of articles actually document that fact. Now the parents are claiming they purchased a domain in order to provide her with the necessary information she needs to complete the process, but they’ve basically parked the name without actually doing anything to provide the information they claim to have purchased the domain to provide.
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Why in the world are the parents not helping her? What could possibly motivate them to keep her from accessing her identity and the documentation that would help her succeed and move into the adult world?? It’s bizarre.
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Simple. CONTROL.
Power over Her.
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They’ve offered help but she is refusing it. Her video, while true in many respects, is a little misleading…
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They’ve offered help that’s conditional on manipulative requirements. Of course she’s not just going to run back home and let them continue to control her. That’s not the goal here.
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Specifically what help have they offered her? They need to understand that she may not want to talk with them until she feels ready. Have they made arrangements to get her identity documents to her via a neutral third party?
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I read the mothers blog. She wants her daughter to stay home and not go out. They don’t want to help her get a birth cert, or documentation. They want to help her not do so by coming home and living as the parents decide with her assuming the parents agree. The Mom and Dad want to talk about it until the kid agrees. There’s nothing misleading about what her video says at all.
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Untrue. The parents have a conditional demand on her that she “meet with them” to get the documentation she needs/wants. Unless this has changed in the past few hours. She DOES NOT want to meet because most likely she knows they will try to manipulate & “guilt” her to get what they want(which is returning home & following all of their rules & requirements!)
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They can give her what she needs and leave her the hell alone. Most likely they want her to come home and be their puppet/slave/prisoner. They are abusive, selfish, sickos.
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Is there any way I can help this girl (other than FB which I do not do)?
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Has anyone spoken to the parents? Why are we accepting the side of an angry teenager who took this to social media? It is not required to have a SSN and it is the midwife’s responsibility in TX to file for a birth certificate. There are many details here that are missing. It would really be best if you found out both sides before coming to this conclusion. Don’t you think?
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Why should we assume her parents would tell the truth? My parents wouldn’t have told the truth about my childhood.
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She tried other methods to resolve it for five months before taking it to social media. All she’s looking for is a way to get a birth certificate. I know her personally and she never wanted to cause any harm to her family. She just wants to live her own life.
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Because the parents aren’t talking other than a few random comments here and there and a youtube video they then withdrew almost as soon as it was posted. You are correct a SSN is not required, unless your parents want to claim you as a dependent on their taxes, or when you want to work. Makes you wonder about the state of the parents’ taxes doesn’t it? And actually if the birth is not attended by a licensed or registered attendant, it is the parents’ responsibility to file for the birth certificate. They claim the use of a midwife, but one wonders now if she was not operating legally as an attendant and that is why she did not file the information for the birth certificate. In which case, it would be up to the parents to file the appropriate paperwork.
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I read on the Christian Science Monitor that the dad has not filed taxes since 1996 and is being investigated by the IRS.
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Why do you characterize her as angry? She can’t get an education, drive, get a job or vote, because she doesn’t have these identity documents. It’s hard for most of us to relate because we take these matters for granted. She has taken steps to get the documents including asking for a written statement from a midwife who was uncooperative and refused to give her what she was asking for. Anyone would be mad as hell in such a situation. She comes across as more frustrated than angry.
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Baptism records count. If she was not baptized, she she just start calling churches with her story. I’m sure she will find a pastor who will give her a letter saying she was baptized at that church when she was a baby.
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I’m no expert on religion, but my understanding of bible believing fundamentalist Christians is that they don’t believe in infant baptisms.
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First gut impression:
She’s a Blank. Straight out of Max Headroom.
As far as any public/financial/medical records go, she not only Does Not Exist, she never existed.
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Christianese Uruk-Hai for the Culture Wars. Nothing more.
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Keep in mind that this video only shows Alecia’s side of the story. Regardless of whether you think her parents should have provided these things, you don’t know the whole story. I have personally seen many of the communications regarding this matter, and I know that her parents did indeed agree to help her. There are two sides to every story.
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Problem is, the “two sides to every story”/”you don’t know the whole story” is also something an abuser’s defenders/enablers would say. I’ve seen it on other case studies on other abuse watchblogs, including sock puppets for the abuser chiming in under fake IDs. With just the information you & J Barrett have given in your comments, there’s no way for a reader like me to tell. How can you establish your credibility? Contact R.L. and have him check you out?
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They bought the domain to keep Alecia from getting support & valuable information from the public, lawyers & government agencies. The BIGGER problem is that Since they did that, when people respond to (who they think is) Alecia, it actually the parents. The parents are deleting posts, & responding as if they are Alecia. Fortunately it’s all become public so that’s in Alecia’s favor. The parents have declined to give Alecia what she needs unless she “meets with them” … A conditional demand. Now this may have changed thru the day as the entire story gets out. Also they refused to get birth certificates, SocSec #s, etcetera on purpose to keep the government out of their lives. The children have never been to doctors or hospitals, no public education at all, no vaccinations, on & on & on. They claim to have filed taxes with the IRS without using SocSec #s; both the parents and the children who work or have worked. They can’t vote or drive or most ANYTHING else, unless the parents allow it &/or assist them in getting documentation. The alleged “midwife” present for Alecia’s home birth has refused to cooperate & may be unlicensed according to the research I have utilized. James Pennington got his “Law Degree” through a correspondence course in California, which is why he is only licensed in California. He just recently “graduated” & got licensed in the last 2-3 months. This explains (for all the people that are asking) why he as a “lawyer” is apparently unaware of how to secure the documents needed by Alecia – since he realistically doesn’t have the experience apparently. Also, other research states that the family arbitrarily changed the family name from Sublette to Pennington for James, his wife & SOME of the kids(but not all). And apparently NOT thru the court system, but just by “common usage”. James claims this had something to do with his father that was negative. BUT, if that’s the case, why would you not change ALL of the children’s names??? This post will probably get deleted too.
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Lisa posts frequently on her blog and on her blog FB page, and there is ample documentation that Lisa is a control freak and a narcissist. She has–or had–a post up about children into their twenties not having driver’s licenses because they were not considered “mature” enough. Apparently one or two of the oldest children have since been allowed to get DLs, but in another post Lisa mentions that the consequence for an adult child’s failure to be up and dressed by 7 AM was to lose driving privileges for a week. To anyone sane, this is so outrageous as to defy belief. And in yet another post, Lisa details her expectations for adult children living at home. In addition, public court records make it clear that James and Lisa have attempted to dodge taxes by declaring themselves a “church.” In other words, there is more than enough evidence from the parents themselves to support the conclusion that they are cult-like in their control over their *adult* children, and not completely truthful.
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Yes! All true from what I found as well.
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Grace, are you not Faith’s sister? Why did your mom post on her blog 8 months ago that she was the only driver in the family? You are 25, living at home, selling self-published books on Amazon and attending conferences with your mother. Your mother states on her blog that adult “children” adhere to a rigid schedule and must be up and dressed by 7 am or face punishment while she sleeps. Why did you grandparents not only choose Faith over their own daughter, but over you and your siblings? Something must be wrong for your mother’s parents and siblings to choose Faith.
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Yes, I am Faith’s sister. But there are a lot of assumptions being made here.
I didn’t get my drivers license until I was twenty-four. My parents had been working with me on it since I was seventeen. If anything, they were pushing me to get my drivers license. It was delayed because I had personal issues with intense fear of driving, so I didn’t want to work on it. My parents encouragement was a large part of what got me to finally overcome my fears. So the delay was for personal reasons, and had nothing to do with my parents. They were already working with Faith to get hers when she unexpectedly left.
You have to understand that as adults living at home, we are expected to contribute to the family economy. We have certain hours that we work to help my parents pay for our room and board. If we were not living at home, we would have jobs with certain hours and would get fired if we arrived late. It’s not unreasonable. We work hours and on chores that have been agreed upon by us all, but at any time we could go to our parents and request different hours, different jobs, or no hours and an alternate form of payment, or to leave the home entirely. We decide these things together. And I’d correct that my mom didn’t cite lack of “driving privileges” but lack of use of their car. Since we haven’t yet bought our own cars, our parents are paying for our auto expenses and our gasoline. They are under no obligation to do that for us, so there’s nothing wrong with them saying we can’t use their car. It’s certainly less harsh than getting fired, which is what would happen at a “real” job.
This situation has been agreed upon by us all, and those of us at home are all satisfied with it. So please — don’t make assumptions. I’m truly sorry for those of you who have been lied about and mistreated by family, but remember that every situation is different. Please don’t read your story into ours. 🙂
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Grace, as a fellow 24-year old, also raised to be a stay-at-home daughter and stay-at-home adult, who has been there……. I want to take you kindly be the shoulders and shake you until your bobby pins fly out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are worth so much more than a “family economy.” I own my own car, insurance, gas and drive whenever I want. I am in college and more than halfway to a Bachelors. In 10 years I will be making more money than both your parents and I will have the freedom to do with that money as I please.
FREEDOM is ALWAYS WORTH IT. My older sister left home at 24 and paved the way for me to find my way out also. I have been forever grateful for her influence on me and her teaching me the value of life and freedom. I come home every day to MY apartment, warmed by my cat, the electricity I pay for, and a boyfriend who makes life worth smiling about.
You are shackled to a life of poverty and depression, I know because I was there and I saw my old self in everything you wrote. There is hope and there is GOOD outside of those prison walls.
If you ever need help, I am here for you, and I know your sister would be there for you as well. You are strong enough to leave, you are strong enough to be your own person, you are strong enough to have your own life.
Dont fade into the walls and dont fade into some petty little man. You are more.
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Grace, regarding your statement that losing driving privileges for a week because you weren’t up and dressed by 7 AM was fair because if you were late to a job, you’d be fired…this is yet one more illustration of how far from reality your world is. That’s not how things work. Most jobs are like mine: 1st tardiness you get spoken to. 2nd infraction you get a letter. 3rd infraction your pay is docked a small amount. Getting fired is very far down the road, and the only person I know of who was fired for disciplinary reasons was habitually late because he was habitually drunk. Think about it. Businesses have to invest time and money in training new hires; they are not going to capriciously fire someone over one minor infraction and incur all the additional costs of a search and a new hire. It’s ridiculous.
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Grace I read on your mothers blog(almost a year ago). That she doesn’t allow movies with swearing for her 17 and older children. Isn’t that a little overbearing monitoring the movies her adult children watch? I assume if you and your older brother took the car to see Harry Potter it would have been a problem.
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Grace–your latest comment is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read. You truly have no idea how limiting and abnormal your home is. When I was 24, I had two bachelors’ and a master’s degree to my name, had lived in a foreign country for six months earning a good salary and learning the language, and was back in this country supporting myself in a good job for which I was qualified by my education. I lived in a different state from my parents and was financially independent, but I talked to them every week and visited on holidays. This is what is normal for a 24-year-old. Not a “household economy” in which 24 year olds are treated as children and not allowed to make their own decisions by themselves. And incidentally, I was raised in a Christian home and have been a practicing Christian all my life….you are being sadly limited in the name of a particular twisted version of Christianity.
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We want nothing but the best for Faith. We’ve told her we will sign any affidavit that will help her in the process, and that once she sends it, we’ll get it right back to her. I’ve also offered to meet with her and walk her through the process as we have with our other children.
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We want nothing but the best for Faith. We’ve told her we will sign any affidavit that will help her in the process, and that once she sends it, we’ll get it right back to her. I’ve also offered to meet with her and walk her through the process as we have with our other children.
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And what manipulative conditions did you put on it? Does she have to come home and stay with you in order for your offer to be valid, or will you help her regardless of what she does? Your story doesn’t add up.
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” I’ve also offered to meet with her and walk her through the process as we have with our other children.”
Ummm … which is probably why she’s frightened. Abusers often try to corner the abused.
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Correct me if I am wrong, but are a lawyer. Shouldn’t you know how to write an affidavit? Why do you need to her to send it? If you have been through the process and know that is what she needs, then just do it and send it out to her.
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“as we have with our other children.”
Thank you for clearly admitting that none of your children have been registered and instead are dependent upon your cooperation and schedule to establish their citizenship as adults.
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Why don’t you stop using her, bullying her, attempting to manipulate her. You are a bad father and human being, you want a prisoner. It is sick, why don’t you go sign up to be a prisoner and see how you like it James Pennington. Let me guess, you deserve better then Alecia. Maybe James Pennington needs to ask himself if he didn’t make his daughter miserable. Maybe James Pennington needs to ask himself if there may be many things wrong with him, and nothing wrong with poor Alecia.
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I’m always suspicious of a handle like “Reasonable”. Abusers like to camouflage themselves as The Rational Reasonable One, so again there is no way to tell. When you’ve been on the receiving end of power and mind games, you assume you’re being gaslighted until proven otherwise as a survival measure.
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I live with my mother at age 39 but only becuz I want to.. I can leave at anytime but currently co own the house/land with mom. BUT…. I do set my own limits,space,privacy and rules. Disabled or not I don’t see myself as anything less then a human. My parents did not homeschool me for fear i’d use my disability as a crutch. When I turned 17 mom handed me my BC and social security card stressing how very important it is I keep them with me always. Now with us having legal custody of my niece.. we have HER identification papers on hand.. she will get these when she is old enough to work. WHY couldn’t these parents have filed the needed papers? Kind of reminds me of a cult here.
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This is bull, she graduated high school 7 months ago. Give me a break people.
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What is this supposed to mean?
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She graduated from homeschool high school. Her diploma was printed off the internet. Texas has few regulations and no oversight of homeschoolers, so there is likely no documentation beyond a homemade diploma. Who knows if she was actually taught at a high school level–my experience with fundamentalist homeschoolers is that they tend to do very well with English, writing, grammar, but have little to no actual instruction in math beyond arithmetic or algebra I, and no science.
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Considering Lisa’s schedule for homeschool is between 12-3:30 and her nap time is between 12-3:30, then I wonder who is teaching that homeschool?
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James, why did you buy http://www.helpmeproveit.com yesterday? Odd move for someone who is “helping” their daughter.
Lisa, why are you scrubbing your blog? You do realize people have screenshots, right? Again, how is this helping your daughter?
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Scrubbing the blog like Stalin scrubbed history?
Or that one mortgage lender years ago who backed up industrial shredder trucks to their loading dock and had an all-hands document-shredding party the day before the court subpoenaed their records?
(Russian bureaucratic tradition — if nothing’s written down or recorded, It Never Happened and You Can’t Prove It Ever Did.)
Problem is, to third-party oldthinkers, stuff like that just arouses suspicion.
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I can’t imagine navigating much in life without ID. In addition, I hope neither Alecia nor her family gets too quickly chewed up and spat out by internet outrage.
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The blog post was removed. I pulled it from Google archive and put it in a pdf: http://www.philipsfree.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Hardest-Post-I-Ever-Wrote-The-Pennington-Point.pdf
I totally believe her. Why? Because it’s right in line with these types of families. And it’s right in line with the parents to pretend to be martyrs.
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Jeez, I skimmed that PDF and the whole post is just about herself– her sadness, her grief, her faith in god, her ability to bounce back. Her martyr act is strong, and rather sickening.
I completely believe this girl, and hope someone can help her.
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Didn’t some study actually show that the most common characteristic of a sociopath is the ability to alter reality with themselves as the poor poor innocent victim and get everyone feeling sorry for them?
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First of all, an 18 year old leaving home is completely normal and even expected. And the fact that the grandparents were helping plan her departure without the parents knowledge indicates that there is definitely something fishy going on at home.
And that blog post… wow. She sounds exactly like my mother. It’s all about how much her child has hurt her and how much pain she is in. Absolutely no reference as to why the daughter decided to leave. These things are rarely ever “out of the blue”. And if they really are then the parents clearly don’t know or care about the child at all.
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She should get the forms her father needs to sign and arrange to meet him in some neutral place. Document the meeting with a letter delivered with signed delivery. If he fails to show or sign, do the same twice more. Then go to family court, with the evidence that he refused to cooperate and with print-outs from blogs and conferences where her parents refer to her.
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Faith, I have screenshots/copies of several posts your mother removed if you need them.
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My mother hasn’t removed any posts. Her blog server was having problems due to too many hits, so a lot of ot is getting frozen. It should be fixed soon.
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Youtube doesnt have that problem. Where did the video go?
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For what it’s worth–I just now purchased two domains for the next two years:
http://www.pleasehelpmeproveit.com
http://www.helpmeproveit.net.
It’s been years since I’ve created a website, but I’d be happy to transfer these domains to Alecia or whoever handles her web presence.
(xposted on the follow-up to this post)
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: )
You are such a badass.
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Good for you! You are terrific!’
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Riiiiiiight. Only the controversial posts were disappearing. Okay, then.
Grace – Jacob —– The issue is the BIRTH CERTIFICATE. There should be one in your sister’s possession. If your parents didn’t register her at birth, she has nothing to prove her identity. Your parents should be at whatever office they need to be at rectifying that immediately. They made the decision – they should take responsibility and fix it. This whole thing would go away if they did that. You all calling your sister out on the internet as a black sheep just keeps providing evidence in favor of her needing to go the way she did. How she left is not relevant. Whether she wants an ongoing relationship isn’t relevant either. Your PARENTS are responsible for this – period.
Do you two have birth certificates? If so, then that is why getting SSN and licenses was no problem at all. If not, SURELY you could post the step by step instructions on how you got yours. You know, for sister and every other kid in this country who has to go through this bs just to prove they legally exist. That would be REAL HELP.
Families like this can screw with and control their kidsas minors, but once one, just one, leaves there is no denying what has been done.
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Rut Ro – It appears that according to the Texas Birth Registration Handbook that failing to register a live birth within 5 days is a Class C misdemeanor. There may be exceptions, but here is a link.
Click to access Birth-Registration-Handbook.pdf
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Lisa Pennington and commenters on her blog and Facebook are saying how sad it is that this family situation became public. If you don’t want your family business being public, maybe you shouldn’t have posted hundreds of your family’s quotes and photos all over your blog and Facebook and use them to promote your businesses on Etsy and selling pseudo-scientific essential oils. It’s a little late to say that you want to protect your children’s privacy when you exploit them to earn your living. It’s also probably not the smartest idea to invite scrutiny into your private life when you don’t pay your taxes and use a sketchy phony religious organization (The Anchor Foundation) to try to dodge taxes.
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Thank you for saying this! Her mom seems to be on social media from the time she wakes up in the morning until she goes to bed at night. Social media is part of my job and it can be a time suck if you let it. There is no way her mom can be an effective homeschooler if she is constantly posting to social media or her blog. She’s not just posting status updates, she’s posting photos that have cropped, made into collages, effects added, words, etc. That isn’t something that takes 10 seconds.
I wish Alecia the best of luck in getting the paperwork she needs. I also applaud her Grandparents and other family who helped her leave that crazy environment. You can do this Alecia! So many people are rooting for you!!
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“Wrong in the court of morality”???
Who is going to moderate this court? You can’t even judge a case until all the facts have been presented from both sides!
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I am extremely interested in this situation, because I have two granddaughters who will be in Alecia’s shoes in about 12 years. They are currently living in Michigan and are 6 and 3 years old. The oldest was born in North Carolina, at home with a mid-wife. The youngest was born at home in Michigan. These are my son’s daughters and he is no longer with the mother (never married her because she doesn’t “believe” in marriage.) There are no birth certificates, no SS#’s, no vaccines, and neither of them has ever been to a doctor. They are going to be home-schooled by the mother. There is no law in Michigan that says she must register anything, so all the “schooling” will be up to her. All of this was intentional. She wants them to be “off the grid”. She does not work or pay taxes, bur SHE has a driver’s license and a SS#. Currently, I have no contact with the children. The mother also does not “believe” in taking photographs of the children (it steals their soul) so I have very few images of them. She does not “believe” in cell phones (they cause brain tumors) so I cannot talk to them, even if she would allow it. They all live with the maternal grand parents, who also have no contact with me. I worry and wonder every day how they are, and wish I could do something to help them, but I don’t know where to begin!
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Here are some of Lisa Pennington’s deleted Internet posts. Just read “Spanking Babies” where she described repeatedly pinching babies during diaper changes, and “training” a baby by hitting him with a back scratcher because he refused to say “Hi Mommy.” So the vibe I was getting that this woman is hyper-controlling and possibly abusive was probably justified. Too bad she doesn’t know how the Internet works and still thinks that she can just delete everything that she has posted and make it go away. I hope that Alecia doesn’t buy into the guilt that her family may direct at her for the damage to their reputation. James and Lisa chose to expose huge parts of theirs and their children’s private lives on the Internet, and now they are blaming Alecia because not everyone agrees that they are parenting role models.
http://deletedpenningtonpointposts.blogspot.com
p.s. Ginger, I’m so sorry about your situation. Something similar happened in my family and eventually the parents did relent and allow their children to have a relationship with their grandparents. Don’t give up on your grandchildren even if you can’t see them right now.
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It’s the government, not your parents, who says you must have a birth certificate to drive a car, ride a plane, get a job, open a bank account, catch a fish, etc. Until 1914, you could travel anywhere in the world, staying and and working as long as you liked, without any official documentation at all.
It’s nice to know when and where you were born, but why blame your parents for a problem that government created out of thin air? In the old days, government just counted up men, land, livestock, buildings, etc., and taxed them without asking for ID.
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You really should start teaching classes in empathy. You got that down!
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Citation needed for your idea that no ID was necessary before 1914. I have seen passports older than that. Also, before 1914, there was no highway system, no air-travel, the sort of travel people do today was far from common. Obviously, a much more complicated and potentially dangerous system requires more monitoring and regulation.
It’s a radically different world, and mostly much better than 1914. Of course it’s different. Why shouldn’t it be?
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Seriously, you guys should all go look at this: http://deletedpenningtonpointposts.blogspot.com
I hadn’t been following this so I had no idea.
Basically, the mom believes that teenagers have NO right to privacy. That toddlers should show affection when she forces them to by use of physical pain. Children are not allowed to voice dissenting opinions or question the belief that their parents always know what’s best for them and always have their best interests in mind. They are not allowed to dislike chores. Seriously- it’s not enough that they do them, they have to like them. Her cure for a child who dislikes chores is to forbid all entertainment and give him so many chores he becomes completely exhausted.
When her 18 year old daughter left home, the mom wrote about how hurt, confused and upset she was, despite this actually being pretty normal. The words she uses- grief, heartbreak, etc.- make it seem like someone died. She has twenty-something children living at home that have never left and are still being disciplined and parented. She feels this is completely normal.
Not only that, her kids also have been taught to believe that living in your childhood home pretty much forever is normal. She write about how her kids were confused and upset when her 18 year old moved out because they didn’t understand it.
Before you jump to her defense or say her kid is lying, read some of the stuff she’s written.
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