I’m a nerd, a geek, though I suppose not enough of one to get caught up in the arguments over which of those terms is positive and which one is the insult. I was a female computer geek back before there were enough of us for people to even start whining about “fake girl geeks” showing up at cons. When being a woman interested in tech meant you and a roomful of guys who didn’t quite know what to do with you.
I’ve read the studies, I know the statistics, and the reality is that even now in 2013, the majority of girls don’t make it out of junior high still feeling good about their abilities in math and the hard sciences. By the time they get to college, not many girls are still in the pipeline of women in technology. While the problem is multifaceted, we know that the combination of peer pressure and negative gender stereotypes makes it an uphill battle. No matter a person’s actual skill level, when the prevailing message is that people like them aren’t good at a particular subject area and there aren’t many role models, they start to internalize that message.
I missed that message.
Or rather, I should say that by the time I became aware of the idea that girls aren’t supposed to be good at math, I was sufficiently confident in my abilities that I concluded that something must be wrong with a society that says that girls can’t do math.
Being homeschooled by a former math teacher meant that it was expected that I learn enough math that the door was open to any path I might decide to pursue in college, and my sister and I were held to the same expectations as my brothers were.
I never got the message that my gender was in some way supposed to be correlated with lower math ability, or that it meant I should limit my dreams and goals for the future.
At its best, homeschooling can create a learning environment that helps to minimize the influence of societal pressures to conform to rigid gender roles and to live up (or down) to the expectations of society. That’s what homeschooling did for me. The prevailing message of my childhood was that I could be or do whatever I wanted and that no one could stop me. I didn’t internalize most of the negative gender stereotypes about women because the negative messages were drowned out by the positive. I’m convinced that one of the reasons why I was able to hold my own in the extremely male-dominated computer science major I ended up choosing in college was because I hadn’t internalized the message that I wasn’t supposed to be able to do it because I’m a girl.
It would be dishonest of me, though, to write about my positive personal experiences without also acknowledging the tension between the message I got in my own family and the messages I got from the broader homeschool world. When I was a teenager, I became acutely aware that the expectations that others had for my older brother were vastly different than what was expected for me. I was the one who wanted to go to law school, but I felt like everyone was busy encouraging my brother—who had no interest in law—to become a lawyer while not taking my interests seriously. When I changed my major to computer science in college, I got the distinct impression that it wasn’t taken seriously unless I gave the justification that programming was a career that could allow me to work from home while being a good wife and mother.
At its best, homeschooling can open up a broad range of options and free a child from the pressures of stereotypes, at its worst, it can reinforce those negative stereotypes and close off options.
For me, my homeschool experience meant that I was able to go off to college confident in my abilities and with my options open. It meant that while I was convinced that I was going to go major in history and then head directly to law school, when I discovered my freshman year that computer science interested me, I had the foundation to succeed. In the end, I discovered that studying computer science was far more interesting to me than actually doing it, and ended up with the original law school plan, but having that tech background gives me opportunities that a liberal arts major wouldn’t.
I’m not yet sure where my story ends, but it’s been an interesting ride and one that homeschooling helped make possible.
Like a gardening hoe, when used correctly it can help bring life and vitality to living things. Homeschooling is not an end in and of itself; rather, the end is for parents to raise healthy, well-rounded human beings. But used incorrectly, a tool can harm the very things or people it’s meant to help thrive.
My parents were two individuals that I believe used the tool of homeschooling well.
Thanks to their efforts, I was given a solid education that enabled me to get into a well-known university on a full-tuition scholarship and graduate from that same university four years later with honors. I had a wide variety of experiences while homeschooled that I believe contributed to the well-rounded person I am today. And I grew up learning to be comfortable with being the “odd one out” when there were no other homeschoolers around, which I think at least partially contributes to my willingness to risk how others may view me in order to do the right thing.
I also have many memories of things I may not have been able to do had I not been homeschooled: volunteer projects I did during school hours, exploring subjects not typically offered in school, getting to set my own pace.
Would I have received these same benefits had I gone to public or private school, instead of being homeschooled? I’m not sure. I think I probably would have, because I believe that my parents would have taught me many of the exact same things regardless of where I went to school. Even those things I wouldn’t have been able to pursue in school probably would have been pursued in a different way outside of school.
But that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. I don’t feel any need to prove that it was “homeschooling” specifically that contributed to the many positives in my childhood that made me who I am today. The point is that, in the hands of my parents, homeschooling was a tool that they used well (even if they did occasionally make a mistake here or there). Homeschooling wasn’t the only positive experience I could have had. But, it is the positive experience I did have.
And my positive experience with homeschooling is exactly why I chose to become a founding member of Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out (HARO).
I know that many people see my decision as a sort of betrayal against homeschooling. They assume I must think homeschooling is deeply flawed and dangerous.
But that’s not it at all. It’s precisely because of my positive experience with homeschooling that I believe every child has a right to an equally positive experience. And just like any educational method, homeschooling is a tool that can be used for good or for bad. In the hands of abusive parents, homeschooling can be downright torture. In the hands of good-hearted, well-equipped, healthy parents, homeschooling can provide a child with an excellent education, and potentially open doors that wouldn’t be opened otherwise.
I think it will show that neither Homeschoolers Anonymous nor HARO are anti-homeschooling. Rather, we are a group of individuals who have a wide range of experiences with homeschooling, but strongly believe that all children have the right to a positive educational experience.
HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s guest series on her blog, Becoming Worldly. “Mary” is a pseudonym. If you have a Quiverfull “sister-Mom” story you would like to share, email Heather at becomingworldly (at) gmail (dot) com.
So I’ve been reading the articles this last week about the sister-moms and they have been hitting home.
I am one of those sister-moms.
I am the 2nd oldest of eight and the oldest girl. Most of the time I felt like the oldest because my older brother wasn’t in the picture much for various reasons. But anyway, in the Quiverfull movement, there is a world of difference being a boy in the family versus a girl. I don’t really feel like going into my story in this document, especially as it is already posted on HA.
This is about another frustration that arises from my position in our family.
As I was growing up, I got very used to hearing remarks and jokes about how many children we ourselves would have when we grew up. Some people would sit down and start doing the “if all 8 of you have 8 children” equations. Then they would start joking about what family reunions would look like.
We didn’t go to a conservative church. In fact, for most of my younger years, we were the only home schooled family. As far as I know there was never another family as large as ours. Because of that, the jokes ran all the time.
My parents relished in the attention and would laugh right along with everyone.
For me, however, I seemed to be getting some very clear messages: First, everyone expected me to have a large family (and why wouldn’t I when I was “so good with children and would make such a good mother”?). Second, I would be a failure if I didn’t have a big family — but also a joke if I did. When anyone would ask me while I was in my teens how many kids I wanted, my answer was always what I was taught to say: “as many as God wants.”
I never let on that the jokes and even just the normal comments hurt me deeply. I never let on that I really didn’t want to have a bunch of children.
I wasn’t allowed to.
One thing I always wanted to scream at people making rude comments was that I had no choice. I had no choice that my parents wanted to be crazy and follow a cult. I was just the second one to come out.
I am now a mother and I have 2 amazing children. But I only have 2 and don’t plan on changing that anytime soon — if ever.
The problem is that it seems I will never be able to shake all those jokes and insults from my past. For example: on my Facebook page on my birthday, there is this one guy that feels the need to always say “Happy birthday” by making some joke about how many more kids I need to “catch up” with my Mom (as if I couldn’t figure that one out on my own).
When I did get pregnant with my oldest, the comments and jokes were merciless. I was working at a Christian bookstore (where I had worked for 5 years) and I knew about 80% of the customers that came in. Many others would recognize me because my family all looks alike and ask if I was a ____ (my family name), notice that I was pregnant and proceed to make a joke.
It hurt.
It hurt very deeply.
I would say the incident that hurt the most was when a lady (who I thought I respected) made a comment to my younger sister about how I was such a failure to my parents and was a rebellious child that obviously never learned a thing from my parents growing up. Why did she say that?
Because my sister told her that I wasn’t planning on having a bunch of children and that I wasn’t planning on home schooling.
Never mind that she didn’t have a bunch of children and that she had never home schooled herself. But somehow because I wasn’t doing it, I was rebellious (at 26 years old at that time and married). I have so many more examples that I can’t forget that I wish I could. As a result of all of that, I fled that church as soon as I could. I fled my hometown, too. Right now am on the other side of the country.
So I guess my point is really aimed at “normal” people. Yes, those jokes hurt. No, we (as the children) didn’t have any choice in those things our parents chose.
Sean-Allen Parfitt is a a gay software engineer, who dabbles in creative writing, music composition, and fashion design. He lives with his boyfriend Paul in Schenectady, NY. Follow Sean-Allen’s blog at Of Pen and Heart, or on Twitter: @AlDoug. The following post was originally published on Of Pen and Heart on August 9, 2013 and is reprinted with the author’s permission.
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HA note: The following is the first of a three-part series by Sean-Allen that we will be posting. This post explores the negative aspects of his homeschooling experiences; the other two posts will explore the positive aspects and will be included in next week’s positives series.
*****
Recently I wrote about how the church keeps us in, because we don’t know any better. This is a concept I call Control Through Ignorance (CTI). Today I’m going to approach it with more detail from a different perspective: homeschooling.
I am the eldest of 8 children, all who have been or are still being taught at home by my mother.
Our parents decided to teach me at home before I was in first grade, so I never went to public school. Everything I came in contact with was carefully selected for my growth and benefit. There are several areas I would like to address. These are places in my life where my access to outside influence was restricted or completely cut off.
The first area was social interaction. Just about the only friends I had were from our church, and that’s the only time I saw them. I never made any friends who had a radically different upbringing that I did. I never met Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or atheists. I never went over to my friends’ houses for sleepovers. We were often reminded why certain things my friends did were wrong. We were very much kept in the shelter of our own home and my parent’s rules.
Because of this, we actually learned to believe that almost everyone in the world was wrong about something. We were the only ones who had it all right.
Why would we spend time with people who might influence us to back-slide into some sort of sin?
Another way in which we were tightly controlled was through the prohibition of any kind of entertainment except that which my parents approved. Basically, this meant that we were allowed to read Mennonite stories.
Period.
The end.
Here is a list of story elements which were particularly banned, with examples.
Animals that talk/wear clothes
Winnie the Pooh
The Little Red Hen
Any sort of magic
Narnia
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
Any Fairy Tails
Anything violent
Oliver Twist
Anything non-Christian
The Bobbsey Twins
Sherlock Holmes
Good Night Moon
“the only reading material we had were story books published or sold by the conservative Mennonite publishing house Rod and Staff.”
There were a very few exceptions to the last rule, such as Children of the New Forest. Generally, though, the only reading material we had were story books published or sold by the conservative Mennonite publishing house Rod and Staff. I generally enjoyed them, but there was a very religious/indoctrinating theme in many of them.
In the last few years I lived at home, I saw the Mennonite teachings from these books make a serious impact on my mother and brothers.
When we lived in England,we studied British history as part of our home school curriculum. However, the books we used were all published before 1980, because our parents didn’t want us to be influenced by modern thinking and interpretation of the facts of history. Thus, we learned very little about the last few decades of history.
We were not allowed to watch TV or movies, either. We watched a few Christian movies till about 2003, when our TV/VCR broke. If we were at a friend’s house, or at a party with the cousins, we were forbidden to stay in a room with the TV or a movie playing. We were not allowed to play video games, because they supposedly teach violence, besides wasting time. Any time on the computer was closely monitored. When I was 24 and still living at home, I had to have my computer set up on a table in the living area, so that I could not visit any site that was not appropriate for school, work, or little children.
As you can see, we were very much isolated from everything around us. I did occasionally wish I went to school, but mostly because I wanted to play video games. We thought we were right and nobody else, so we even judged other conservative families at church.
Ours was one of the most conservative and uptight families.
I am so glad that I’m out of that now, but I ache for my siblings. They are still stuck in that environment, in which they have no opportunity to learn about who I am, that I’m not an evil person! That’s the hardest thing about this. I didn’t know that I was OK. What if one of my siblings is gay or lesbian? What if one is transgender? What about my siblings who want to go to college, but can’t because Mom won’t let them?
And I can’t go back and show them these things.
Why?
Because I no longer fit into the category of acceptance. Thus I am excluded from my family.
I stumbled across a short post the other day that has had me in its grips ever since. This is an thought that has taken root deep inside my heart and it is burning brighter than anything I’ve come across recently. I’m working on putting together a project that means a lot to me called I Have a Voice, and one of the guidelines I gave is to write about what burns in you. Well, people, this is burning in me.
Frankly, it freaks me out to write about it. But I strongly believe it needs to be said.
I hate this word. I hate the hush hush nature that comes with it, and I hate going through this alone. I hate that very, very few people talk about it, talk about what it is like to be on the dark side of the room.
It is a sensitive topic and one that for me at least, makes me struggle with feeling damaged, broken, which I already feel anyway.
I hate the cynicism that comes from feeling incredibly disappointed time and time again. My mom was pregnant 14 or 15 times, during one year, she was pregnant 3 times. I thought the path to expanding our little family would be easy, quick, one thing that would actually go smoothly when it came to my body. My dad used to joke that my mom was a “fertile myrtle” and would say that all he had to do was look at her and she would be pregnant. It made sense that that would be the case for me.
But the past year and a half has been utter torture on my body. No longer can I count on actually making it through the month on a normal schedule. Add that to the massive shaking of my entire mental, emotional, and physical state of being, and it’s been another personal hell.
I don’t talk about my siblings often on my blog. Being the oldest of 9 isn’t really something I like to advertise. It’s not because I’m ashamed of them, it’s because I have a hard time explaining what life was like being their second mother, being the chief cook and bottle-washer, being the housemaid, being the one who had more responsibilities than all of the kids put together. I don’t like trying to explain what it was like being hated by my siblings because I got to do certain things. They couldn’t see the back breaking effort I had to put in to get those special things.
It is especially difficult when someone asks me how many kids Phil and I want to have.
I feel like I have to give many prerequisites as to why Phil and I don’t want a large family. Or I have to give a prerequisite for why we even want children to begin with. I will not repeat my family. I will not repeat it out of a lack of love, but because I want to be able love my children individually and give them the love and affection I never experienced. Our goal is to be able give as much love and care to each child and if that means only have a few (2-4) then we are okay with that.
Many young women who grew up in the type of environment I did are freaked out by even the idea of having children. I get that, I really do. Being the oldest of 9 (or more/less kids) is not something I’d wish on even my worst enemy.
You either come out from that specific situation never wanting to see children again, or you don’t.
Every person is affected differently by their life’s circumstances. I felt like I had to join them and stand with their banner. I then realized that I couldn’t apologize for something that burns so deep and inexhaustibly in my soul that even though I have tried to give up completely, it still burns with increasing intensity. Danielle, at from two to one, asked this question the other day, “Why have kids?” I felt an immediate answer and told my therapist when I sat in front of her on Tuesday.
I want a child so I can love that little one in the ways I never felt loved.
I want to see who God will create with part of Phil and part of me. Will our little one have Phil’s nose, but my eyes? Will our little one have the quirky personality of their dad? Will they have Phil’s and my love for music? I want to see Phil be a dad, he’s going to be an incredibly awesome dad and will love our children as my dad has never loved. Our children will be safe with him. I can’t protect my siblings, but I can start over with my children.
I want to be the mom I was meant to be, not a mom to my siblings.
I feel like Jesus has given me a glimpse of what being healed will look like for me. I want to replace the memories I have of my mom with being a loving mother to my child.
It would be like walking down a street which holds ugly memories and creating new, beautiful memories to replace the old ones. It will be another massive step towards healing. This is what burns in me and is not letting me go no matter how much I sob and try to wrench it out of my heart.
I have a purpose, I have an inextinguishable dream, but I’ve been waiting for it longer than I thought I’d have to wait. Do you know what it’s like to have a specific day coming, you just know it’s going to be good news, your hope starts rising? Your heart beats faster as the day gets closer, you pray harder and you choose to ignore the dark whispers taunting you. The day arrives and with it debilitating disappointment. The thing you eagerly hoped for, excitedly anticipated, held your breath for was held back.
Imagine this happening 5 times in a row, 10 times, 15 times, 20 times.
I thought I knew disappointment when I wasn’t able to shake the fibromyaglia. I thought I knew hope crushed when my headaches came back more intense than before. I was wrong. Pieces of me are torn from me each month my period comes. Holding that negative test in my hands, knowing the thermometer never lies, my heart dies. My therapist looked at me straight in the eyes a few months ago and asked if I felt like not being able to get pregnant was a punishment. I started crying and nodded my head because I knew she was right.
After this past month, I looked at my therapist on Tuesday and told her I’ve given up. The deepest level of my heart has truly given up. I don’t feel like I can trust God with this. I feel alone, but I know I am not alone, but no one talks about it. That part of me that holds this dream and fuels the fire will not let me give up, but a part of me already has.
I feel like God has let me down.
Praying for him to answer someone else’s prayer is easy, but praying for myself, trusting that I will actually get pregnant is another matter altogether. There have been months that have gone by where I have one day full of tears, questions, doubts, disappointed sobs, and I can’t find God. I can’t find anything good. I believe, even if it is just for an instance, that it is my fault. I am broken. I am messed up. I am being punished. I didn’t pray enough. I didn’t ask God early enough during that cycle. I have even gone through cycles telling myself I wasn’t going to pray because maybe, just maybe that would change something.
God has become less real to me over the past 18 months of trying.
18 fricking times I have crawled back into bed, trying hard not to cry, but tears always come. The feeling of being incompetent always come. The feelings of being incapable of doing the one thing me, as a woman, is supposed to be able to do. The one thing God specifically created me to do; carry a child in my body. The feeling of having done something wrong and not knowing what I did creeps up on me. The dark despair of feeling like my body is utterly broken beyond repair haunts me for days on end at times.
There are days when these feelings are very present, but for most of the month I stuff it all down and try to not think about it.
I have no idea what the next year is going to bring. Medical science has only advanced to a certain point and there a lot of things it can’t yet explain. I had so many doctors tell me that they couldn’t find anything wrong with me when I was physically fading away with the fibromyalgia. Do you know what it’s like for a doctor cheerily looking you in the face to tell you everything looks great when you can barely sit still on the table because of stifling pain? I do. I am already starting to experience that feeling again of not being believed with infertility. That feeling when you walk out of the doctor’s office, they just told you everything looks great, but you know deep inside that something isn’t right.
Can I tell you guys something? Telling me that I’m so young I have nothing to worry about, or that when I stop thinking or worrying I will get pregnant are some of the worst things to tell me. Yes, I am young, but that doesn’t make my choice any less important.
Please don’t tell me that I have to live my life more before having a baby.
Hearing that makes me question the things that I know for sure. There are so few things right now that are solid and sure for me. Questioning those things I am confident in only makes it worse.
Can we please stop whispering in the dark about this issue and instead come alongside each other and lift one another up? Can we simply say “I’m sorry,” and give comfort and love to someone dealing with chronic illnesses or situations?
HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s guest series on her blog, Becoming Worldly. Part Five was originally published on July 11, 2013. Samantha Field blogs at Defeating the Dragons about her experiences with and life after Christian patriarchy and fundamentalism. If you have a Quiverfull “sister-Mom” story you would like to share, email Heather at becomingworldly (at) gmail (dot) com.
My mother was in labor with me for almost three days, and by the time she finally delivered, she was nearly dead.
If it hadn’t been for my father, she probably would have died. But, in 1987, no one was familiar enough with my mother’s medical condition to tell her what her safe options were. When my sister was born, my mother’s uterus prolapsed. Doctors warned her against getting pregnant again. Within a year, she ended up needing a complete hysterectomy.
My mother used to refer to herself as barren.
However, I never remember hearing her use that word to describe herself until we had been attending an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church Cult (IFB) for a few years. When we first began attending, the Quiverfull teachings weren’t readily apparent. Quiverfull ran underneath the surface of almost anything having to do with women, but not obviously. However, when I was thirteen years old, my cult-leader’s wife became pregnant with twins when she was already past 50 years old.
At that point, Quiverfull ideas jumped to the forefront.
Other members joined, many with large families, and I remember families coming through our church (usually to perform music) that the cult-leader held up and praised. These honored families usually had at least a dozen children, and one family in particular had 20. Women in our church were first encouraged, then compelled, and then ordered by the “word of God” to have as many children as possible, from whence comes their salvation.
One day, when I was fourteen years old, I remember asking my mother if she had ever wanted more children than just me and my sister. Her response was an automatic “of course.” And she cried for the rest of the afternoon.
That was the first time I heard the word barren.
When I was fifteen years old, I sat in a cold doctor’s office, shocked and trying to constrain myself from breaking down in front of my doctor. She was telling me that I had poly cystic ovary syndrome, possibly endometriosis, and it was bad enough that I would probably struggle with having children and I would likely need a hysterectomy before I was 30. She offered what I’m sure she thought were assurances– that women who have hysterectomies today have plenty of options to delay menopause and that there wasn’t anything to be concerned about.
Barren.
I might be barren.
When I was attending a fundamentalist college, I formed a friendship with another young man in my major. At the end of our sophomore year together, when my PCOS was causing me severe enough problems that even the faculty in my department was aware of it, I confessed that I might not be able to have children.
“Oh, Samantha. You’re never going to be able to get married. That’s so sad.”
The sliver of me that had always known this wilted inside. “Wait… what… what do you mean I’ll never be able to get married?”
“No Christian man will want to marry a woman who can’t have children.”
I went back to my dorm room and sobbed.
*****
Growing up in the intensely fundamentalist environment not only taught me that my value — not as a person, but as a woman — was largely based on my ability to bear children. The fact that my anatomy threatened that ability terrified me because becoming a wife and mother had been what I had been trained to do. The only thing that I was allowed to do.
Because the leaders at my church-cult knew that I would not have younger siblings, many of the women took me under their wing. While I was not permitted to baby sit for money — only the cult leader’s daughters had that privilege — I was assigned to work in the nursery during services far more often than any other “young lady” at my church-cult. I was frequently tasked with managing the children in a variety of capacities and at different functions when others were given the freedom to play and roam.
All of this was done in the name of “preparing me for motherhood.”
Everything I did around children was sharply monitored and harshly criticized. Other “young ladies” who had the experience of looking after younger siblings at home were not watched as closely, and were trusted to perform basic tasks like bottle feeding and diaper changing while I was not allowed to do any of those things on my own for months. It was humiliating that I couldn’t be trusted to change a diaper on my own, that I had to do every single task with the utmost perfection or risk a lecture.
I was mocked because I didn’t know how to operate a diaper genie the first time I tried to use one. The first time I burped a baby, the older nursery worked literally held my hand and patted the baby’s back with it. Every experience was degrading because I wasn’t lucky enough to have had younger siblings to look after. I was given the most onerous, tedious tasks. Even when I grew older and other “young ladies” were coming up underneath me, I was still considered their inferior because these young teenage girls were considered more “domestic” than I was. I was not lady like enough. I was not as interested in the feminine arts like everyone else was. I was considered an unfortunate aberration.
The barren daughter of a barren woman.
******
Sometime after I started dating my now-husband, I was kneeling in the middle of my hallway at home, talking with him over the phone. Because of my medical conditions, my periods had steadily grown worse over the years– to the point where now they are almost unendurable.
In the environment I’d been raised in, the very idea of considering a hysterectomy (the only real long-term ‘cure’ for me, although it has its own set of problems that may or may not be better) was anathema, blasphemy.
Heresy.
It was not to be considered.
I would do everything humanly possible to preserve my fertility, and that was it. No other option was available.
It was fertility or ruination.
But, that day, on the phone, talking with the man who I was already becoming certain I would marry, I asked him the question. What would he think if I decided to have a hysterectomy. If we never had children together. If I gave all of that up, all these years of “protecting my fertility” because I couldn’t stand the pain anymore? If I wasn’t willing to do whatever it took?
“You need to do whatever is best for you, beautiful. If we never have kids, we never have kids. I love you and I want to be with you. You matter more to me than anything else. And this is your decision, not mine. It’s your body, and you get to decide what happens.”
My decision. Mine.
He’d made it clear over the course of our relationship that he was open to all the options– childlessness, adoption, fostering, or pursuing fertility treatments if that was what I wanted.
What I wanted.
Not what I was expected to do. Not what I’d been trained to do. Not what I’d been taught was my ultimate and best purpose.
What I wanted. For the first time, that mattered to me. And, for the first time, when I again decided not to pursue a hysterectomy, I made that choice not because it was what I believed was the “only right thing,” but what I decided I wanted. I looked at my husband’s twinkling eyes and mischievous grin, his mop of red hair, his cleverness, motivation, loyalty, and empathy, and decided I wanted to have children with that man. Someday.
After I’ve written a book or two, after we can buy a house . . . when I’m ready.
HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s guest series on her blog, Becoming Worldly. Part Four was originally published on July 5, 2013. “Electra” is a pseudonym chosen by the author. If you have a Quiverfull “sister-Mom” story you would like to share, email Heather at becomingworldly (at) gmail (dot) com.
(HA note: Yesterday, we shared the story of Maia, Electra’s older sister.)
My life started out just as my parents’ belief in the quiverfull/patriarchal system began.
I had two older brothers and an older sister, and my parents had just started homeschooling them when I was born. By the time I was 6, I had two younger sisters and another brother. Another younger sister and brother were born by the time I reached 8 years old.
I, being the second oldest daughter, didn’t have quite as many responsibilities as my older sister Maia.
However, I was very aware of her important servant role in our home. She was responsible for meals, taking care of the children, and all the cleaning, as well as getting us to do our endless chores. She was supposed to home school us, as my parents, both unemployed, were either out “somewhere” during the day, or in their bedroom fighting over authority.
She also was in charge of the discipline, and expected to submit to the authority of my older brothers. She would give some of this authority to us younger kids, to delegate some of the responsibility. I had some duties too, I was responsible for making my younger siblings beds, doing all the dishes, sweeping the floor, among other cleaning duties, and being full time baby sitter for my youngest brother, who had medical issues. If he got out of line, I was the one punished.
Our home school, like many others, cannot really be defined as education.
It was more a cover so that my parents could do as they pleased. When my older sister went to high school when I was 12, I was expected to take on her servant role wholeheartedly, and enjoy it. I tried for a while, but I became very ill, with pneumonia.
I have long term respiratory issues because my parents chose not to vaccinate for whooping cough.
I had it when I was five and was ill for months with little to no medical care and as a result have had pneumonia many times, only receiving medical care one time. I was sick in bed for over two months, during which time my parents’ marriage continued to fall apart.
My role as a sister-mom completely failed.
There was a lot of physical abuse in the home, and when my older sister moved out the physical abuse loosened up a bit. The emotional abuse and blame game however, was intensified. It was flavour of the week, and my parents blamed whoever they were most annoyed with for the changes happening to our family.
I rarely talked to my parents at this point, and most of our interactions were them rebuking me for not respecting my role in the house, by having friends they didn’t approve of and hanging out with them behind their backs, and me trying to reason with them. It grew to the point that by the time I got better, I was rarely speaking to my parents, simply doing my duties as a daughter and then disappearing to my room.
Luckily for me, I was enrolled into high school later that year, unknown to my father. My illness and inability to properly mother my siblings was one of the many determining factors in their eventual separation.
Soon after my parents were separatedthe power struggle at home with my mother trying to maintain control ended with me moving out to a friend’s house. Over the next four years, I worked at getting my high school diploma while moving from couch to couch, living with my mother off and on. Eventually I cut her off altogether along with my father, and am now able to live a life free of power struggles, control, and cloistering.
With a stable job and income, heading to university while living independently I can definitely say, it was difficult to find a life for myself in the normal world after being a sister mom. I worry about my five younger siblings. They are still with my mother, and her rules and problems with neglect have gotten much better, as she is now under close supervision by CPS.
But I sincerely hope they somehow get out of there, and are able to make a life for themselves like I did.
Note from Faith: I originally wrote this article and posted it on my old blog in November 2012. I’d been meaning to revamp it for Roses & Revolutionaries, but was finally catalyzed to do so when I found that Katelyn Beaty at The Atlantic linked to my original post in the article “Toward a New Understanding of Modesty.” This is the updated version of my original blogpost.
*****
Sometimes it can be hard for men to understand why women are so upset about rape.
What’s the big deal? Rape’s not that much of a thing, right? Mostly it’s just cues being misread or hysterical prudes who just need some dick or unsatisfied women after a night of bad sex crying “rape” because they didn’t like the guy, right? And if even one person suggests rape shouldn’t happen, or that rape had happened to them, or that someone shouldn’t tell rape jokes, or so forth, they should get raped to teach them a lesson, right?
And this is what is known as “rape culture,” defined by Wikipedia as:
Some men are very upset by the claim that rape culture exists. But I promise you it does. I know it does every time I can’t walk alone at night. I know it every time I’m walking to my car at night with my key stuck between my fingers in case I need an impromptu weapon. I know it when every rape survivor has to answer a litany of questions about where she was, who she was with, whether she was drinking, what she was wearing. I know it every time a guy thinks “no” means “just convince me a little more,” which is disturbingly often. I know it every time I hear of another leader (religious, political, atheist) who faces rape allegations being unquestioningly supported by his fans, followers, fellow leaders, and mentors.
The idea, in our society, is that if you’re a woman, your body exists to be exploited by men. The burden is on me to defend myself, not on men to be respectful of my privacy, my bodily autonomy, my right to say no, my right to live a life free of sexual violence and my right to present myself however I choose without being judged, shamed, or taken advantage of for it.
Christian purity culture is in many ways a reaction against sexual permissiveness masquerading as a reaction against sexual predation.
This shirt counts as modest by most evangelical standards – note the formlessness and high neckline.
The levels of sexual predation within the church give the lie to that claim. A special niche of purity culture is deeply concerned with modesty. The idea is, a really self-respecting woman will dress herself in such a way that her body will not be the focus at all. Sermons, conferences, books, even T-shirts all advocate this notion that modesty is a prime component of sexual purity and therefore (paradoxically) desirability (to the proper sort of Christian gentleman of course). There are endless debates on what constitutes modesty. The general consensus is, however, a woman’s clothing must not be too revealing of either flesh or figure (too scanty or too tight). Quibbling about inches and guidelines takes up an amazing amount of time and energy amongst modesty advocates, but the idea is the same: Good girls are modest.
And modesty is for everyone’s protection. Men are less tempted sexually when the women around them cover up. Modest women are less likely to be taken advantage of, whether just by ogling on the street, by men pressuring them to have sex, or by rape (so goes the story, anyway). Do you feel a little judged, a little meddled with, when a stranger tells you how to dress? Don’t. They really have your best interests at heart. They want you to “respect yourself” by doing your best to control other people’s reaction to your body. And they can’t be held responsible for what happens when you don’t dress modestly enough.
You should see some of the correspondence already.
Here’s the first ugly truth: as soon as a woman falls outside the standards of what is perceived as modest, those advocating modesty culture immediately join rape culture.
They shrug and say, “Whatever happens is on her. She’s asking for it.” They’re not actually concerned about all women, only women who are willing to conform to their standards of modesty. It gets worse: When a woman is a victim of sexual violence, it matters much less to “modesty culture” than to current American “rape culture” how she dresses or acts – “modesty culture” will assume much more quicklythat it is somehow her fault, probably because their standards for how “good girls” dress and behave are so much higher.
Second, both “cultures” have a very problematic stance on men; it’s not as bad as their view of women but it’s another of the shocking similarities between the two.
Why does “modesty culture” try to get all women to cover up? Because men, according to “modesty culture,” cannot help themselves. Since actually sincere Christians want their men to be sexually pure as well as their women (or at least they say they do, but of course the onus for keeping men pure is put on the women), all temptation must be removed. For even seeing a flash of skin he ought not to have seen will make a man think all sorts of lusty and rape-y thoughts.
That’s the gist of it – I’ve read modesty books that go into great detail on how men’s chemistry works, essentially saying that if he catches just a glimpse of a woman’s body he will be sexually turned on in an instant and after that he is incapable of controlling his mental/physical reaction. (and it is only a woman’s body that will create this reaction…modesty culture is heteronormative to the point of denying that real homosexual attraction even exists). So both rape culture and modesty culture envision men as drooling hound dogs with everlasting erections. (As a side note, modesty culture is also made up of people who think men ought to be the ones running the world, and that the male gender holds all spiritual authority. No wonder women should stay in the kitchen, we can’t have the lords of creation suddenly turned into slavering animals while they’re trying to do important political and religious leadership type things.)
But how can a “culture” that ostensibly seeks to protect women from sexual exploitation be fundamentally the same in assumptions as a “culture” that accepts sexual exploitation and violence as the norm? It’s simple —
Fundamentally, they are both based on the exact same principle: Objectification.
Just showing off a sand castle…and more skin than any modesty advocate would ever condone.
Here’s how it works. Imagine that I am on a beach on a very hot day, wearing a bikini. I look at some cool algae that’s washed up on the beach and I say to the two men standing next to me, “I didn’t know algae could be purple, I wonder what causes that?” Man number one is “rape culture man” and man number two is “modesty culture man.” Neither man really registers a word I’ve said. “Rape culture man” reaches for his camera (there’s a lot of people on the beach so he’s not actually going to rape me, just take a picture to post online later; he’d also totally love it if I were to lose my top whilst swimming in the ocean). “Modesty culture man” panics, looks around and while averting his eyes grabs a nearby towel and hands it to me, saying, “Cover up!” Neither man has reacted at all to the thought I had just expressed, to the fact that I, as a human being, was trying to interact with them, as human beings. They didn’t even see another human being, they just saw body parts. Rape culture man wanted to take sexual ownership of those body parts, while modesty culture man wanted me to hide those body parts from his view so that he wasn’t tempted to take sexual ownership of them. But despite the different end result, their initial reaction was the same.
Whether the obsession is with seeing & exploiting a woman’s body or with the danger of being tempted by accidentally seeing it, it’s just two sides of the same coin. I become an object. I am considered not as me, not as a person with thoughts and feelings and ideas and a back-story, but as a simple trigger for lust.
Whether you are hoping to see a little cleavage or desperately avoiding the possibility of seeing a little cleavage, you’re still just focused on my cleavage, and you’re probably not hearing a word I’m saying.
I am still just an object, reduced to a body part, and by focusing so much on your own lust (feeding it or starving it), you’re reducing yourself to a body part too.
Though they’re based on the same view of humanity (men as lustful, women as objects), rape culture is still the worse of the two. But I dislike both. Objectification is just not okay and it’s happened for far too long. When will we see all people as people instead of just extras in the movie of our own personal life?
For the record, I’m just a little annoyed when it comes to me personally being objectified. Mostly, I’m like, whatever. How you react to me is your choice and it’s not my fault you’re making a dumb choice. (Not including sexual violence here; that’s completely different) But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to change cultural attitudes.
I’d love to see a world where victim blaming does not happen, where a woman is interacted with as a fellow human being no matter what she’s wearing, where no one assumes that anyone is “asking for” sexual violence.
I’d love to live in a world where assumptions about your ethics aren’t made based on your clothing choices or your personality. But I’m not going to let categories of “good girl” or “bad girl” change the way I act. I am not going to treat myself as an object; I am not going to listen to people’s judgments of me; my body is a part of all that makes up “me” and I’m not going to let any obsession with it take over my entire life.
And I’m also going to arm myself, because I do not yet live in a world where any woman can consider herself completely safe.
These are but a number of phrases used on HSLDA’s Facebook page in reference to Teresa Scanlan, a former homeschooler attending Patrick Henry College. These are not phrases used by HSLDA; in fact, HSLDA has championed Teresa as a homeschool success story. But these phrases are also not coming from anti-homeschoolers or liberal secularists.
They are coming from fans (or at least previous fans) of HSLDA.
Yesterday, HSLDA shared about Teresa’s life and homeschooling experience in light of her being crowned Miss America in 2011. It was obviously about marketing to some extent — “the secret behind the crown was homeschooling!,” HSLDA says. But it also was about celebrating a young woman with passion and drive.
But things got ugly.
Some of HSLDA’s fans were livid. In fact, if you were looking for evidence that the modesty and purity culture that exists within Christian homeschooling can lead to some truly dehumanizing and dangerous thoughts, look no further than what unfolded.
The comments that some people are leaving on HSLDA’s post about Teresa are frankly alarming. They are misogynistic and dripping with body-shaming. They even are scarily reminiscent of rape culture — that women are responsible for men’s lust and are “asking for it.”
Seriously.
There is direct, no-holds-barred slut-shaming going on right on HSLDA’s Facebook page.
Check it out:
Yes, you read that right. Someone is pulling their support from HSLDA because of HSLDA’s link — which was merely a link to their original radio series about Teresa. Because old men and young men might “fix their eyes” upon Teresa dressed in a rather conservative red dress (you can’t even see her shoulders!).
Now you might wonder: how is that picture immodest? Well, it isn’t. But fear not. People encouraged other people to google her in a bikini. (Does that sound a bit hypocritical? Because it is hypocritical, and also slightly creepy.)
Not everyone on HSLDA’s page, however, was attacking Teresa. Some people tried to defend her – and then got promptly slut-shamed, too.
Yes, if you participate in a pageant, you have caused men to commit adultery and you will be “held accountable of Judgement Day.”
The comments continue:
Another defender, who is attacked:
By the way, Teresa is a Christian.
Not just “a” Christian, but a conservative Christian. In fact, she points out in her radio interview with HSLDA that many of the young women that participate in pageants are actually conservative Christians:
Actually, the majority of contestants, believe it or not, are Christian conservatives, I found, in the competition. And then the judges, in my interview, they have my resume in front of them, and they saw a lot of church activities and things on there, so during my interviews, several of them actually asked me questions about my faith.
But that does not stop people from judging her relationship with God:
Also:
It really is a train wreck. They call her a “homeschool dropout,” and attack her for wanting a career:
They compare her to a “rat turd”:
They do not hesitate to link to her Facebook profile (which, as we all know, will probably lead to further online bullying, harassment, and slut-shaming):
This is not to even mention the likely hypocrisy and double standard of some people in the homeschooling community when they only think of modesty and purity in terms of women. What about men?
Were all these people up in arms when Tim Tebow went shirtless for magazines?
Or were they parading Tebow around as a homeschool superhero? Kathryn brilliantly pointed out (not on HSLDA’s page) this double standard about equally harmless actions:
Credit must be given to those people who are defending Teresa on HSLDA’s page. This goes to show that not all homeschoolers — in fact, not all Christian homeschoolers — believe in the toxic ideas behind modesty and purity culture ideology.
I commend those people for standing up against those ideas and the people that would use those ideas to shame a young woman.
We need to push back like this. We need more homeschoolers to speak up against these ideas (and not just against the modesty and purity culture ideas). Teresa’s own experience has demonstrated that this shaming is (very sadly) nothing new to her:
When I first won, I thought, of course, that I would get criticism from the public in general about being a Christian, but it was kind of surprising to me that probably the most criticism I received was actually from conservative Christians that competing in the competition like Miss America did not line up with their morals and values.
No one deserves to be abused and harassed in this manner, regardless of their way of dress, their gender, their political or religious beliefs, or anything else. In fact, I commend HSLDA for being willing to champion a conservative Christian woman who is — through her actions — bravely overturning some of the deeply held assumptions in some conservative Christian circles. She is celebrating her beauty and her body, she is going to college, and she has high career aspirations — in fact, as HSLDA mentions in their bio of her, “her highest career goals are to run for president in 2028 or to be nominated to the Supreme Court.”
She also hopes to educate people about eating disorders.
She has expressed a desire to “educate children and adults alike as to the signs and risks of eating disorders, as well as how and where to get help for themselves or a loved one.”
HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on August 6, 2013.
Hana Williams died two years ago, in May 2011, of hypothermia after her mother banished her from the house as punishment for being “rebellious.” Hana was already overly-thin from starvation—her parents withheld food as punishment—and she had often been forced to sleep in the barn, use an outdoor port-a-potty, and shower outside.
Hana Williams had been adopted from Ethiopia in 2008 by a conservative Christian homeschooling couple who followed the child training methods of Michael and Debi Pearl.
Her trial is currently taking place, including testimony from some of the children’s seven biological children and Hana’s adopted Ethiopian brother.
I’m going to offer some excerpts from recent articles covering the trial. If you want to see video news reports, click through, as most of these articles include news footage. For what I’ve previously had to say about Hana Williams’ death, read this post from two years ago, written right after the news of Hana’s death surfaced.
For the first time, jurors saw what Hana Williams looked like as a healthy girl–and her shocking deterioration before her death.
Video taken in 2007 before she left Ethiopia shows Hana smiling as she looks at the camera. A photo taken closer to her death in 2011 shows her thin teen and shaved head.
Hana’s adopted brother, Immanuel, who is deaf, testified she was always told to stay outside by her adoptive parents, Larry and Carri Williams.
“They didn’t let her into the house to warm up,” said 12-year-old Immanuel, through an interpreter.
Immanuel says he and Hana were treated very differently from the Williams’ own seven children.
During the third day of witness testimony yesterday in the trial of Larry and Carri Williams, a mental health therapist from Seattle Children’s Hospital testified that Hana’s 12-year-old brother suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder because of the abuse he endured under the hands of his adoptive parents.
The mental health expert, Dr. Julia Petersen, said that the boy, who was also adopted from Ethiopia, started meeting with her last winter, when he had been in foster care for more than a year, local media reported. The couple have pleaded not guilty.
Per the Skagit Valley Herald: “Petersen said the boy fit the diagnostic criteria for PTSD based in part on his nightmares about being physically harmed and the fact he was constantly afraid of making mistakes or expressing himself lest he be “punished.” Discipline the boy experienced in the Williams home, plus seeing Hana in pain and dying, is traumatic enough to lead to PTSD, she said.”
Dr Petersen pointed out that the brother’s upbringing in Ethiopia or his stay at foster care in the U.S. do not appear to be the reason for the post-traumatic stress disorder. “Losing his parents caused the boy sadness and grief, but not the same kind of anxiety brought on by what he said happened in the Williams home,” Petersen said.
An expert on torture testified Friday in the homicide-by-abuse trial of Larry and Carri Williams who are accused of abusing their two adopted children from Ethiopia, Hana and Immanuel, and causing the death of Hana.
13-year-old Hana Alemu (Hana Williams) was found dead on May 12, 2011 in the family’s backyard in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. She died of hypothermia, which doctors say was hastened by malnutrition and a stomach condition.
“In my judgment, it’s not a close case,” said John Hutson, taking the witness stand on day-six of the trial. The law school professor and dean, who had previously testified before Congress about military prisoner abuse, added: “They both were unquestionably tortured.”
Cara, one of Larry and Carri’s seven children, says Immanuel, a brother, and Hana ate outside and slept in a closet when they broke the rules in the gated, conservative Christian home.
The parents claim they cared for the adopted pair—like shaving Hana’s hair when she had lice. But Cara says Hana’s braids were shaved as punishment.
“Because she was clipping grass around the house and she was clipping it down to an inch instead of leaving a couple of inches,” said Cara.
The Williams could face life in prison and are charged with assaulting Immanuel and abusing Hana to death.
A witness told investigators the couple followed a controversial book called “Train Up A Child”. The author tells parents to use a switch, cold baths, withhold food and force children outside in cold weather as punishment. Cara says her father, a Boeing worker, and her stay-at-home mother hit all of the kids.
“In your family you call the swats and spanking “training” correct?” asked Larry’s attorney, Cassie Trueblood.
“Yes,” said Cara.
But Cara says the adopted children were the only ones who had to shower outside with a garden hose.
“Did you ever take a shower out there?” asked prosecutor Rich Weyrich.
“No,” said Cara.
Prosecutors want jurors to hear from the couple’s oldest sons. But a judge ruled the pair will not testify without immunity—because they are also accused with abusing their adopted siblings. Prosecutors say they are willing to give immunity from any future charges which should clear the way for the boys to testify this week.
It will be interesting to see where things go from here.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 