Growing up homeschooled means you get a lot more time with your siblings than other kids. As an older sibling, it also means you have much more responsibility for them.
This set the pattern for some unhealthy dynamics. My first counselor after moving out said my dad’s insisting our only friends being immediate family members was incredibly codependent. Libby Anne writes about being an older child instructed to spank her younger siblings.
Parents expecting more of older siblings is typical in secular culture, but not usually with the same connotations like in fundamentalist homeschooling. As the oldest in my family, I heard things like:
A good older sibling sets the example for their younger brothers and sisters. Even if you don’t think they look up to you, they do. They watch your every move, and often, they’ll try to walk in your footsteps. So it’s important that you behave in ways that set a good example for them. Just like we look to Jesus to be our example, that we look to live how he lived and behave like he behaved, our younger siblings often look to us that way, too. —Taken from Christian Teen About
Statements like this put an excessive amount of pressure on older children.
We’re not just expected to protect younger siblings from danger, we’re responsible for their eternal salvation. And fundamentalist parents often manipulate this idea to check rebellion. To squash any behavior they didn’t like.
I couldn’t get angry if Dad was controlling and demanding, because that wasn’t having a meek and quiet spirit. Suffering without complaint was more like Christ, I was told, and a better example.
If I wore a fitted sweater, I was not being an example of modesty to my sister.
When I asked to have a curfew of midnight instead of 7:30 p.m. in college, I was not demonstrating submission to authority for my siblings.
My mom often said: “What will your little brother and sister think? They are always watching you. You know what Jesus said about those who lead little children astray. It would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck.”
So when Dad said things that hurt, when the house felt like a cage, when I thought of running away in the middle of the night, I didn’t. Because of my siblings. I was responsible for them.
When I thought my parents punished my brother and sister unfairly, I’d try to anger them into spanking me instead.
Junior year of college, I moved out because my parents said the alternative would be transferring to Bob Jones University. I went back and forth, uncertain what my decision would mean for my brother and sister. I’d be the first to leave home.
I told my professors that I wanted to be a good example for my siblings, that I didn’t want to run away or rebel if it would hurt them, that I’d go to Bob Jones if I had to, even if it killed me.
They told me that I could be a good example by moving out, that I could show my siblings that freedom was possible.
But I worried. I knew I couldn’t live at home anymore, but I still wanted to be a good big sister. That fall, I struggled to set limits as my parents barraged me with visits and phone calls, begging me to reconsider.
A couple of classmates, both named Cynthia, asked me what was wrong after one of our Saturday writers’ group meetings.
I gave my fears a voice. I didn’t understand taking care of yourself before helping other people. Fundamentalism taught me the reverse: don’t be selfish, sacrifice everything for others. Shouldn’t I just put up with my parents’ behavior for the sake of my siblings?
One of the Cynthias looked at me and the other Cynthia. She said, “Are you familiar with New Life’s teaching about confronting lies that you’ve believed? You identify the lie, you replace it with truth, and you pray against the power of the lie. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for your siblings. You’re free to make your own choices.”
They each laid hands on me, praying with me that I’d heal and live in freedom.
I can’t save my siblings. All I can do is be a good human.
My little sister is going to BJU, and my little brother is a serious, quiet teenage boy. I lost contact with them for two years after leaving, so I can’t just speak my truth to them openly.
HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on September 8, 2015.
I posted yesterday about Steven Sitler, a convicted serial child molester who attends Doug Wilson’s Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and is back in court over concerns about the safety of his infant son. My post was long, and quoted at length from a number of sources. When readers pointed out that the court’s finding that “(Sitler) has had contact with his child that resulted in actual sexual stimulation” likely referred to Sitler being sexually aroused by his son rather than to him molesting his son, I edited my post to reflect this language. I’ve now had some time to mull over the situation, read the comments on my post, and peruse the responses of Wilson’s defenders.
In this post, I want to boil things down to what I see as the root of the issue.
In 2005, Sitler was caught molesting a child in a Christ Church home where he was boarding. Wilson encouraged the victim’s parents to report the situation to the police, and when Sitler subsequently confessed to him he conveyed this information to the appropriate authorities. Nevertheless, Wilson made two mistakes that summer.
— Wilson wrote to the judge to ask that Sitler’s sentence be “measured and limited,” arguing that Sitler was “genuinely repentant” and that he was capable of being a productive member of society. Wilson does not have any training or background in psychology and should have trusted others expertise in this area.
— Wilson failed to tell his congregation about what had happened for a full eight months. While Sitler was no longer living in Moscow, Idaho, at this time, Wilson’s congregation should have been told that they had had a child molester living in their midst because there might have been additional victims yet unidentified.
After Sitler was convicted and served his time in jail, he returned to Moscow, Idaho, and once again attended Christ Church. Wilson has written that Sitler always had a chaperone with him, as a stipulation of his probation. And you know what? I don’t have a problem with this. While I question the short length of Sitler’s prison term, I do not have a problem with a church allowing a convicted pedophile attend their congregation if careful steps are taken to ensure further predation does not take place.
When Wilson defends himself by talking about the importance of thechurch ministering to the broken, etc., I think he is missing the real locus of anger here. People aren’t upset that Wilson allowed Sitler to continue attending his church when he got out on parole. People are upset that Wilson married Sitler, a convicted child molester, to a woman in his church knowing full well that they intended to have children. In fact, the Department of Corrections opposed Sitler’s decision to marry in large part because Sitler had told his probation officer that he and his fiancee, Katie Travis, intended to have children.
Wilson and his defenders have argued that Wilson did no wrong in supporting Sitler’s marriage because the judge gave it his go-ahead. However, as others have pointed out, there isn’t much precedent for allowing judges to prohibit sex offenders from marrying to begin with. Indeed, Sitler’s lawyer (a member of Christ Church) argued during the hearing that the question before the court was marriage, not children. The judge affirmed that Sitler would almost certainly be a danger to any children he might father, and noted that should the marriage produce children it might be necessary for the court to bar Sitler from living with his wife and offspring.
Wilson ought to have set both Sitler and Travis down for a long, hard talk about the realities before them. He could have discouraged Sitler from marrying given the danger he would present to any children he might father. He could have discouraged Travis from marrying Sitler given the danger he would pose to any children she might bear. He could have told the couple that should they decide to marry anyway, they should never have children. Instead, he officiated at their wedding and asked God to bless them with children.
And now here we are. Sitler’s wife gave birth to a baby boy last spring, and Sitler is now back in court over the danger he poses to his infant. It appears, from what has been released, that Sitler has become sexually aroused by his infant son and that his wife, Katie, has failed to report relevant information on the subject to the court, which suggests that she cannot be trusted to keep her infant safe.
Sitler being sexually aroused isn’t a crime and isn’t actually the problem. He’s a pedophile. He will always get aroused by children, just like people attracted to sexually mature people will get aroused by people they can never legally or morally engage in a sex act with. The problem is he is sexually aroused by his infant son with whom he lives and he has a history of actually abusing young children while other adults are at home even when he is a casual visitor. His wife cannot, even if they never have another child, succeed in her task to have eyes on him at all times. If nothing else, she has to sleep, pee, and shower. When they, inevitably, have more children and as this one grows, her task becomes even more impossible.
There is an extremely high risk that Sitler will reoffend in this situation. He already is having sexual feelings to his infant son. Even if he doesn’t want to do anything wrong, and he may not, he almost certainly will if he continues to reside in the house. A repentant offender would accept this and move out, but a repentant pedophile wouldn’t have set out to produce a family that will always have to be on guard against his predation. The court and the state child welfare authorities would be criminaly derelict in their duties if they continued to put this child at risk by letting Sitler reside in the home, even if Sitler hasn’t actuallt committed a crime or violated his probation yet.
Could Wilson have prevented this situation? Perhaps not. But he could have discouraged Sitler from marrying, or at the very least discouraged him from bearing children, and he should now be encouraging Sitler, for the good of his child, to move out and live separately from his wife and son.
Our ministry to Steven, in other words, has not been conducted at the expense of any children in our church community, or in a way that puts any of them at risk.
This is simply not true. Wilson’s ministry to Sitler has put his infant son, who is by definition one of the children in Wilson’s church community, in serious danger. Both Sitler and his lawyer are in Wilson’s congregation. Wilson could easily call them in and urge them to listen to the court’s concerns. He could urge Sitler to remove himself from temptation, to move out of the house and thereby place his son’s safety over his own wellbeing. Indeed, Wilson could place both Sitler and his lawyer under church discipline, arguing that they are failing to uphold Christ’s command to protect and value children. All of this could be done in the context of ministering to Sitler.
I’m not upset that Wilson has chosen to minister to a convicted serial pedophile. I’m upset with how Wilson has chosen to minister to a convicted serial pedophile. But rather than actually listening to these concerns, Wilson would rather throw up his hands and call those critical of the way he has handled the situation “bitter.” Meanwhile, the safety and wellbeing of Sitler’s infant son hangs in the balance.
Content warning: discussion of child sexual abuse and marital abuse and rape.
Nancy Wilson is an advocate of Christian Patriarchy, an ideology popular within the Christian Homeschool Movement as well as the broader Reformed Fundamentalist culture out of which that movement sprang. Nancy is married to Doug Wilson, one of the founders of New Saint Andrews College, Greyfriars Hall (a ministerial training program), and the Association of Classical and Christian Schools and pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. (Note: for the sake of clarity, future references to Doug Wilson will simply be Doug and future references to Nancy will be either Nancy or Wilson.) Doug’s 1991 book Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning is considered one of the seminal texts of the Classical Christian Education movement. Some would argue his book launched that movement, though that claim is historically myopic and ignores other seminal texts like Dorothy Sayers’s The Lost Tools of Learning. Both Doug and Nancy Wilson do, however, hold significant influence within the Classical Christian Education movement. Furthermore, even though the Wilsons prefer private Classical Christian schools to homeschooling, their teachings about both Classical Christian Education as well as Christian Patriarchy (and its subsequent traditional gender roles) have been popular and significant within the Christian Homeschool Movement.
Over the last few days, Doug and Christ Church have received mounting attention and criticism over the cases of Steven Sitler and Jamin C. Wight. Sitler is a homeschool alumnus who attended New Saint Andrews College as a student and Christ Church as a parishioner. Wight is also a homeschool alumnus who attended Greyfriars Hall. Both are convicted child molesters who molested children in Doug’s various academic and religious communities. (You can read a comprehensive timeline of events and evidential documentation of Sitler’s case here, though be warned that the court documents contain detailed descriptions of child sexual abuse.) And during both of their trials, Doug chose to sit on their sides of the courtroom rather than on the sides of their victims and the victims’ families. Furthermore, despite Sitler’s crimes, Doug — who served as Sitler’s counselor and petitioned Sitler’s judge for “measured and limited” civil penalties — continued to welcome Sitler in his church after his sentencing. And in spite of Doug becoming aware of Sitler’s history of sexual predation in March 2005 and Wight’s history of sexual predation in August 2005, it was not until December that Doug informed the families of Christ Church in general.
In response to the mounting attention and criticism, Doug wrote an open letter on behalf of himself and his fellow elders at Christ Church. His letter, which contained 1,853 words, was focused entirely on defending and justifying his and his church’s actions as well as dismissing detractors as promoting “false allegations” that “are simply slander.” Wilson positions himself and his church as martyrs in line with Jesus because they are being criticized for extending “grace” to Sitler, saying, “To be vilified for standing for grace is itself a grace.” Not a single sentence in the open letter was dedicated to expressing concern for, anguish or compassion over, empathy towards, or protection of the victims and their families. This is telling, “for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Matthew 12:34).
In her 1997 book “The Fruit of Her Hands: Respect and the Christian Woman,” Nancy Wilson articulates her and her husband’s philosophy of marriage and sexuality as it pertains to Christian women.
In light of Doug’s open letter, it seems important and helpful to place that letter within the larger context of the Wilsons’ belief system concerning sexuality and sexual responsibilities within a Christian marriage. To that end we shall turn to Nancy Wilson’s 1997 book The Fruit of Her Hands: Respect and the Christian Woman. In this book Wilson articulates her and her husband’s philosophy of marriage and sexuality as it pertains to Christian women. Though the book is written entirely by Wilson herself, Doug wrote the book’s Foreword and in that he makes clear he fully endorses his wife’s ideas, saying, “As Christian women consider how they might stand as godly helpers to their husbands in this high calling, I can do nothing better than commend this book to them.” Furthermore, Doug admires that Nancy “has been writing on marriage and family for a number of years, and in reading her I have never had to wonder at hypocrisy. There has been none” (p. 11) Nancy Wilson practices what she preaches to others, and what she preaches to others is laid out in The Fruit of Her Hands.
Wilson begins her book with a dire proclamation. Quoting 2 Timothy 3:1, that “in the last days perilous times will come,” Wilson declares that American women have been “captivated by the lies promulgated by the modern world and have succumbed in many ways to the humanistic mindset” (13). “What are some of the lies she [American women] has been told?” Wilson asks. She then provides a list stereotypical for Christian Patriarchy adherents: couples do not want giant families, women act too much like men, and of course the belief system Christian Patriarchy most seethes against: feminism. But the two most relevant “lies” on Wilson’s list are: 1. “Marriage is partnership.” And 2. “The most important thing is to have a healthy self-image and to have your deepest needs met” (14). In other words, Wilson believes women are under captivity when they believe their marriage is a partnership rather than a dictatorship and when they believe a healthy and fulfilled sense of self is most important to having a successful marriage.
How do women become ensnared in these lies? Wilson argues that “this sort of thinking creep[s] into our households” for a number of reasons. The most notable are first, because “the media indoctrinate us daily”; and second, “by way of the latest feel-good psycho-babble,” and by this Wilson means counseling, psychology, and therapy. Wilson says that these resources are detrimental to a Christian wife for the following reasons: “Here she can talk about all of her needs and frustrations. Here she can learn how to cope with lack of fulfillment. Here she can learn how to get back on speaking terms with her husband and children” (15). In other words, when Christian wives have a separate, safe place apart from their husbands to privately process their needs and frustrations, to learn how to protect their inner selves, and to learn communication skills to heal relationships with their husbands and children — then women fall under captivity. This is because, to Wilson, having a separate, safe place apart from one’s husband to privately process matters ensnares women into thinking lies — namely, that their marriage is a partnership rather than a dictatorship and that a healthy and fulfilled sense of self is most important to having a successful marriage.
In contrast to the “humanistic mindset” that teaches women that marriage is a partnership and that a healthy and fulfilled sense of self is important, Wilson sets forth what she believes is the biblical mindset. This mindset is, of course, Christian Patriarchy, in which women are to submit to their husbands, show deference to their husbands’ decisions, and work hard to please their husbands emotionally and sexually. While the entire book is worth analyzing, this post will focus specifically on Wilson’s messages to women concerning their sexual relationship with their husbands. These messages are found in Chapter 7 of the book, “Lovemaking.”
Wilson commences with the declaration that sexuality within marriage is “a protection against sexual immorality” (87). Taking literally the Song of Solomon’s metaphor of the bride as a garden (Song of Solomon 4:12: “You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride”), Wilson then compares a wife, her body, and her sexuality to a garden (and the wife’s husband to a “gardener”). Using a metaphor of a garden, Wilson’s language and images range from abstract to explicit to troubling. “The garden is a private place for only the husband and wife,” she writes. “It has a high wall around it called the marriage covenant” (89). A wife’s husband “is the garden tender, and the wife becomes a source of great joy and delight to the husband as he spends time in the garden he faithfully tends.”
While encouraging women to think of themselves as gardens, Wilson begins to guilt them. Women need to “take a more eager interest in making it a lovely garden that her husband delights to spend time in.” She warns women that untended gardens tend to not be enjoyed by visitors, whereas lovely gardens make visitors feel welcome. Wilson says wives must be like the latter: “You want your husband to feel that way when he visits you.” Thus a wife should not “resent her husband’s sexual advances as intrusive.”
Wilson then takes a turn towards the troubling. Using the garden metaphor for a woman and her body, Wilson strips away the agency of that woman and dismisses enthusiastic consent as important to relationships. Women who find their husband’s sexual advances as intrusive are “hanging a sign out on the garden wall that reads in large letters, ‘No trespassing.'” But, and this is the troubling part, “But of course a husband is never trespassing in his garden, though he can be made to feel as though he is an intruder” (89, emphasis added). With this one sentence Wilson completely disregards as possible the concept of marital rape. A husband can never be intruding on his wife’s body, because his wife’s body is his. Wilson then shifts blame on a wife who is being coerced into sex with her husband: while the husband’s sexual coercion is not sinful, the woman’s reluctance — which makes her husband “feel as though he is an intruder” — is sinful.
Wilson next considers legitimate reasons for a wife saying “No” to sex and dismisses them as illegitimate. For example, if a wife has no sexual desire: Wilson does not suggest that the woman learn about her body and her sexuality and find out how to communicate to her husband how he can better please her or help her feel sexually open with him. Rather, Wilson dismisses women as incapable of understanding their own bodies: “Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made. Who can understand them? Certainly we cannot understand ourselves very well” (93-4). So women just need to buck up and not “consult your feelings” as to do so is selfish. “Does your husband always ‘feel’ in the mood for a heart-to-heart chat?” she manipulatively reminds women.
Another legitimate reason for a wife saying “No” to sex that Wilson dismisses as illegitimate is a past history of sexual abuse. Women who “have had bad sexual experiences” and “have suffered at the hands of others sexually” need to simply (a) realize their own sinful role in their own abuse and (b) get over the abuse already and forgive their abusers:
“We are not to drag our past around like a ball and chain. We have been delivered from our past sins… If you have suffered at the hands of others sexually, you must extend forgiveness… Forgive those people in your past who wronged you sexually and do not allow their sin to ruin your life… How many times did Jesus say we should forgive those who sin against us? Countless times” (94).
Wilson rubs the final dash of salt into the wound by saying the following to these women who suffered abuse: “Don’t make your husband suffer for wrongs others committed” (95).
One might wonder why Wilson places such a high value on a wife being always ready to satisfy her husband sexually. This is because, as Wilson first established regarding sexuality within marriage, it is “a protection against sexual immorality” (87). Wives and their sexuality are a “potent instrument in God’s hand” (97). When a woman’s husband is “an unbeliever or a disobedient believer” — for example, if one finds one’s self married to, say, child molester Steven Sitler — Wilson encourages women that their being constantly submissive to their husband’s sexual demands, their being constantly submissive to their husbands’ sexual coercion, is something God uses to bring that unbeliever to conversion or that disobedient believer to repentance. Wilson writes,
“If you are married to an unbeliever or a disobedient believer, you must determine before God that you are going to attempt as best you can to fulfill all your obligations as a wife in a godly fashion. This means you must apply all the Word’s teachings on sex whether your husband does or not. Esther won over the king and was greatly used as a result… God can use the sexual relationship as one of the means of winning him back to obedience or winning him to Christ” (97).
In his open letter concerning Steven Sitler, Doug objects to certain detractors, saying, “We do not believe that marriage is an automatic ‘fix’ for the temptations to molest children” (emphasis in the original). This is true, but only in a limited sense. The Wilsons have never claimed that “godly” sexuality is a cure for a sexual disorder like nepiophilia or pedophilia or a protection against criminal activity like child molestation. However, they have claimed — as we just saw — that “godly” sexuality can be a productive tool in bringing a disobedient believer back to obedience to God. Doug reiterated this in a new blog post today:
“Do I think that marriage is an ‘automatic’ cure for the temptations of pedophilia? Of course not. Marriage is not an automatic cure for anything. But the apostle Paul does teach that marriage, approached rightly, is given by God as one of His assigned helps against immorality (1 Cor. 7:2)” (emphasis added).
Thus insofar as the Wilsons believe nepiophilia, pedophilia, and child molestation to be manifestations of disobedience to God, they do believe that Sitler’s wife’s sexuality can be “one of the means of winning him back to obedience or winning him to Christ” — which, in Sitler’s case, would take the specific form of forsaking nepophilia, pedophilia, and child molestation. Doug’s objection, therefore, is so deflective and hairsplitting it is insipid.
These messages that Nancy Wilson has taught and continues to teach — messages that her husband Doug endorses and also teaches — shed an important light on the developments arising out of Christ Church, New Saint Andrews College, and Greyfriars Hall. Though we may find the messages troubling, they help us better understand why Doug, Nancy, and the other members of their academic and religious communities in Moscow, Idaho seemed to have little to no problem with marrying a young, vulnerable woman off to a serial child molester after only their second date. In the Wilsons’ minds, giving Steven Sitler an outlet for his sexuality — giving him a woman who is taught that she cannot say no to her “gardener” who has full rights to her bodily “garden” — could begin a spiritually redemptive process that could bring the serial child molester into repentance and obedience to God. Even if that involved sexual coercion (what we would all consider marital abuse and rape), to the Wilsons that is not a problem. To the Wilsons there is no such thing as sexual coercion; there is only the sexual submission of a wife to her husband. This is the broader context in which to understand Doug’s infamous statement that, “The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.”
To the Wilsons, marriage is not a partnership but a dictatorship. The husband, or patriarch, is the sexual dictator. That sexual dictatorship is divinely ordained and a woman’s body is ordained by God to serve as an instrument of redemption, her bodily rights sacrificed for a greater spiritual good.
And you know what’s even more troubling than the theology itself?
The fact that so many young women are being raised and taught in their homeschools around the U.S. to think that this is what God actually wants for them.
Changes to this story were made on 1:30 pm PT on Wednesday, September 9, 2015 and 10:15 pm PT on Thursday, September 10, 2015. See end of story for details.
Content warning: sexual abuse of children, physical and sexual abuse of an animal.
Over the last few days, Doug Wilson and Christ Church have received mounting attention and criticism over the case of Steven Sitler. Sitler, a homeschool alumnus who attended New Saint Andrews College as a student and Christ Church as a parishioner, was sentenced to life on September 26, 2005 for molesting children. Sitler had a long history of sexually abusing and preying on numerous young children, allegedly including children at R.C. Sproul Jr.’s Highlands Study Center in 2003. You can read a comprehensive timeline of events and evidential documentation here, though be warned that the court documents contain detailed descriptions of child sexual abuse.
Despite Sitler’s crimes, Doug Wilson — who served as Sitler’s counselor and petitioned Sitler’s judge for “measured and limited” civil penalties — continued to welcome Sitler in his church after his sentencing. Furthermore, in spite of Wilson becoming aware of Sitler’s history of sexual predation on March 11, 2005, it was not until eight months later in November that Wilson informed the leaders of Christ Church about Sitler’s crimes and not until nine months later in December that he informed the families of Christ Church in general.
On May 8, 2007, Sitler was released on probation. A mere one month later Sitler was arrested again for violating his parole due to using binoculars to spy through an underage girl’s bedroom window. He was again released on probation. Four years later, Doug officiated a wedding between Sitler and a young woman in their community, even though the two became engaged after only their second date. Wilson apparently considered it prudent to bless the union between a serial child molester and a young woman who barely knew a serial child predator — and against the wisdom of a court judge, who determined that it would not be wise for Sitler to “reside with his wife and child in the future if in fact they have children.” Nonetheless, a few short years later, Sitler and his new wife had a child, a young boy.
Tragically, Sitler’s situation resurfaced this last week and the concerns of that judge appear newly justified. A news report by the Moscow-Pullman Daily News revealed that Sitler cannot have unchaperoned contact with his infant child. This is because of new disclosures that, when Sitler had contact with his son, “actual sexual stimulation” occurred. From the Moscow-Pullman Daily News:
A Latah County 2nd District Court judge ordered Tuesday that a convicted sex offender, Steven Sitler, must continue to have an approved chaperone present, within his direct line of sight, at all times he is around his infant child in the wake of new disclosures of “contact resulting in actual sexual stimulation.” …The incidents in question occurred while Sitler was chaperoned. “In some extent the state’s worst fears appeared to be realized by some of the recent disclosures in the polygraphs,” Thompson said. “The actions that he has engaged in and disclosed are a compelling basis that he cannot have anything close to a normal parental relationship at this time with his child,” Thompson said. “Everybody would love for Mr. Sitler to become a normal person, but the fact is he is not. He is a serial child sexual abuser.
Like Steven Sitler, Jamin C. Wight is a homeschool alumnus.
This new information has rightly brought revived attention to the role Doug Wilson and Christ Church played in handling revelations of child molestation within their community. Everyone from GRACE’s Boz Tchividjian to Spiritual Sounding Board’s Julie Anne Smith to Love Joy Feminism’s Libby Anne has raised important points and questions concerning Wilson and Christ Church’s severe and horrific mishandling of abuse (as well as continued refusal to own up to their mistakes). However, while it is important that we revisit and bring new light to the case of Steven Sitler, it also important that we shine new light on a less-known child molester who was similarly aided and abetted by Doug Wilson, Christ Church, and New Saint Andrews College: Jamin C. Wight. This is particularly necessary because one of the Wight’s victims is now an adult and has spoken out publicly about her abuse and how cruelly Wilson and his community treated her as a victim and survivor.
Like Sitler, Jamin C. Wight was a homeschool alumnus. Wight was attending Greyfriars Hall, a ministerial training program founded by Doug Wilson that, according to the program’s website, “consists of approximately three years of study with two colloquia a year under the oversight of the board of elders of Christ Church.” Between the years of 2000 and 2003, Wight — who was 24 years old at the time — groomed and sexually abused a young girl who was only 13 years old when the abuse began. (Wight was only charged for abuse that occurred over 1 year, from 2001 to 2002, but the abuse survivor today says the abuse actually happened over a span of 3 years, from the time she was 13 until she was 16.) Like Wight, the 13 year old girl was also homeschooled. Wight was a boarder at the home where the girl lived, the home being part of Wilson’s student boarding network among Christ Church’s parishioners.
The abuse wrecked havoc on the abused girl. She began experiencing insomnia, stomach ulcers, and panic attacks; she suffered serious behavioral problems, mood swings, and painful flashbacks. In 2004, when she was 17 years old, she confided in a friend about the abuse. That friend convinced her to go to her parents and the police and press charges. This began a long and difficult process for the abuse survivor, a process which reached fruition on August 17, 2005. On that day, after receiving word of the abuse, the girl’s mother filed a criminal complaint against Wight. A warrant for Wight’s arrest was issued the next day. On August 24, 2005, a search warrant was issued the Latah County, Idaho district court for Wight’s personal possessions that provided evidence of the abuse. Court documents show that on October 28, 2005, Wight was arraigned and informed that three charges were being brought against him, one count of Sex Abuse Against a Child and two counts of Lewd Conduct With a Child Under Sixteen Years of Age. Wight pled not guilty to all three charges. Then on May 12, 2006, Wight’s charges were reduced to a Felony Offense of Injury to a Child. Wight pled guilty to that much-reduced charge and was able to made a deal such that he only had to serve 4-6 months in the North Idaho Correctional Institution.
During his court hearings, documents reveal that Wight and his legal team attempted to argue that the 13 year old girl he had groomed and abused had consented to their sexual activities. Wight also tried to publicly make a case that a conviction for his crimes would put a damper on his plans to become a Christian youth minister. The prosecuting attorney had to file motions to prohibit both of those lines of argumentation.
Joan Opry, a Moscow, Idaho-based reporter for the digital newspaper New West, attended the sentencing hearing. Opry reports that, “The judge spoke at some length about the immaturity of many of the home-schooled young men of his professional acquaintance — men in the loosest sense of the term. Men in age only.” This remark by the judge has more chilling implications, as Wight’s victim, now an adult survivor, puts the remark in a different context:
Sadly, my story did not have a just ending. My abuser, who was originally charged on 3 counts of “child sexual abuse”, “lewd and lascivious acts”, and “forced sexual contact”, was convicted of “injury to child”- the same term that would have been used had he slapped a child on Main Street. We were encouraged to go to mediation rather than to trial, and at the last minute the visiting judge decided the sentence/label of ‘sexual offender’ was too harsh. He equated what had happened to a “homeschool teenage love affair”, despite the fact that my abuser was 10 years older than me. As a result, rather than being labeled as a sex offender (which was the only outcome I desired), his charge was lowered and he was sentenced to 4 months in Cottonwood prison and a few years on probation (which he was released from early a few months ago).
Court documents show that both Doug Wilson and Peter Leithart, New Saint Andrews College’s Dean of Graduate Studies and writer for First Things, were aware of Wight’s crimes no later than August 2005. At the time of the crimes as well as the court hearings, the victim and her family were members of Wilson’s church Christ Church and Wight was a member “in good standing” at Leithart’s church, Trinity Reformed Church. (Yes, even after Wight’s crimes were made public, Wight continued to be “in good standing” at Leithart’s church.) Yet it was not until November or December (at least two months later regarding Wight and eight months later regarding Sitler) that Wilson alerted his congregation about the predators in their midst. Furthermore, court documents also reveal that Wilson and Leithart fought to keep their conversation with Wight about his crimes out of the court records. This is perfect example of what not to do, as Boz Tchividjian points out:
A church that cares will inform its members of the allegations knowing that sexual offenders often have many victims. It will also encourage them to immediately report any suspected abuse to the police. A church that cares will not limit its efforts to only current members. It will reach out to those who previously attended the church and had interactions with the perpetrator and may have been targeted for abuse. A church that cares will not sleep until each and every person victimized by the offender has been found.
In the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)’s October 19, 2006 Intelligence Reporton Doug Wilson and Steve Sitler, entitled “Idaho Pastor a Hard-Liner, With an Exception or Two,” Wight’s case makes a brief appearance. In that article, after describing Wilson’s mishandling of Sitler’s case, SPLC mentions an anonymous father and daughter and the abuse they experienced and how Wilson also mishandled their case:
Five months after Sitler’s confession, another man who had been boarded by a Christ Church family while he studied to become a minister there was arrested and ultimately pleaded guilty to lewd conduct with an underage girl. When details of the matter came up on a local blog run by a disgruntled Wilson follower, part of the pastor’s response was to liken the blogger to “a sucking chest wound.”
The father of the girl in the second incident told the Intelligence Report that church officials tried to keep that quiet as well. At one point, he said, they threatened to bring him under church discipline for failing to protect his daughter. “It would be like me getting robbed and the police coming over and arresting me because I didn’t have five locks on the door, only one,” he said. “It was just bizarre.”
After SPLC wrote about the Wight case, Wilson took to his blog one month later on September 19, 2006, to publicly attack the father of the abused child. Wilson claimed the father was “neglecting” his daughter because the father dared to make public Wilson’s mishandling of Wight’s abuse:
Let’s just say that I have never seen quite so striking an example of a father neglecting his daughter. But this is not one that you have to take my word for. Just look at the previous paragraph. This is a father who was willing to talk to Intelligence Report about this particular incident because he doesn’t believe his daughter has been through enough. And the ghouls at SPLC were willing to print it.
Fortunately, we can easily resolve this question — was the victim’s father or pastor more neglectful? — because the daughter has publicly spoken up about her abuse. And her account is chilling proof that Wilson, not her father, is the one who made truly horrific errors.
The young girl groomed and sexually abused by Jamin C. Wight is now an adult. Her name is Natalie Rose Greenfield (I am using her name with her permission). She began publicly blogging in 2010 about Wight’s abuse and Wilson’s mishandling of that abuse. Her first post was on July 29, 2010. Greenfield writes,
I was molested as a young teen. A man living under my parent’s roof, paying his rent by helping with the remodeling of our home, in training at Greyfriar’s Seminary to become a pastor, groomed me, sexually abused me, and molested me from the time I was 13 until I was 16 years old. He was 10 years older than me. A true monster; I was made to feel worthless, as though no one but he would ever love me… I was forced into sexual acts time and time again that no young girl should ever be subjected to.
Greenfield began to break free from Wight’s grip when she confided in a friend about the abuse. Greenfield explains that,
When I was 17 years old, a friend whom I had confided in (and who I am forever grateful to) convinced me to go to the police and press charges against my abuser. After much persuasion from her, I went to my parents and to the police.
Tragically, while Greenfield received the support of her family, she received little support from her pastor and church: Doug Wilson and Christ Church. In fact, the actions taken by Wilson and his church only added salt to the wound, as they chose to abandon Greenfield and her family and instead stand by Wight. According to Greenfield,
The process that followed was long, painful, traumatic and awful. During this time, I was offered little to no support from the church I attended, in fact, on the day of the sentencing my former pastor and my abuser’s pastor sat on *his* side of the courtroom, successfully compounding my own feelings of guilt and shame. I felt terribly alienated and many times regretted [ever] saying anything about the abuse. Sadly, my story did not have a just ending. My abuser, who was originally charged on 3 counts of “child sexual abuse”, “lewd and lascivious acts”, and “forced sexual contact”, was convicted of “injury to child”- the same term that would have been used had he slapped a child on Main Street. We were encouraged to go to mediation rather than to trial, and at the last minute the visiting judge decided the sentence/label of ‘sexual offender’ was too harsh [emphasis added].
Yes, you read that right. The child abuse survivor’s pastor, Doug Wilson, sat on her abuser’s side of the courtroom during the trial. And Wight’s pastor, Peter Leithart, similarly joined the abuser’s side. I cannot think of a better example of what GRACE’s Boz Tchividjian himself experienced as a sex abuse prosector as described in Kathryn Joyce’s American Prospect article, “The Next Christian Sex-Abuse Scandal”:
“When Tchividjian requested to take on all the district’s child sex-abuse cases, the other prosecutors happily obliged. In time, he established a sex-crimes unit that handled hundreds of cases over eight years. All too often, he says, a pastor would come to court in a supportive role, almost always sitting on the perpetrator’s side of the aisle, not the victim’s. The Wisconsin case made Tchividjian think back on those pastors. He began to realize that he had a calling of his own: to teach the Protestant church to be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem.”
But Wilson, Christ Church, Leithart, and Trinity Reformed Church didn’t just sit on Wight’s side. They also allowed him to remain in good standing at and continue to attend church. This understandably forced Greenfield (as well as her father) to feel she had to leave. Greenfield tells Homeschoolers Anonymous in a comment that, “My father left the church after everything that had happened. I also left. My mother and younger sister are still active members of the Christ Church.” Despite her mother and sister staying, Greenfield says that she enjoys “a full and loving relationship with both of them.”
Furthermore, Wilson and Christ Church believed that Greenfield was just as much at fault for the sexual relationship as Wight (they believed Greenfield, at 13 years old, consented to the relationship). They consequently placed Greenfield under church discipline. Wilson emailed Greenfield and said he would have to withhold communion from her until she meet with the church elders to discuss why she left the church. However, as Greenfield tells Homeschoolers Anonymous in a comment, “I wouldn’t do so. I was so traumatized and averse to the idea of interacting with the leaders of the church I don’t even think I responded to any of his emails.”
Meanwhile, since Wight “repented,” he was welcome with open arms. Greenfield writes,
Rather than being labeled as a sex offender (which was the only outcome I desired), his charge was lowered and he was sentenced to 4 months in Cottonwood prison and a few years on probation (which he was released from early a few months ago). After serving his sentence he was free to go. Free to live and roam wherever he pleased, which just so happened to be right back to Moscow, back to his lovely old church, back to MY town, where he now lives a normal life, owns his own construction company, and eats at his favorite downtown restaurants… Now I see him once every week or two and though I no longer attend the church in which it all took place, many of the friends I still associate are friends with he and his family. While on facebook today I received an invitation to attend the baptism celebration for his most recent child. Years ago, I received letters from the church after I left telling me I was under church discipline and could no longer take communion there, meanwhile my abuser was welcomed back into the fold with open, loving arms…And people wonder why I left.
In the decade since Wight abused Greenfield, Wight has run into trouble with both his church as well as the law numerous more times. In 2013 Greenfield wrote that,
The criminal [Wight] is now under church discipline for abusing his wife and children. I’ve also recently found out the girl to whom he was engaged when I went to the police about the abuse (2 years after the abuse ended, right before I turned 18), was also abused by him for the duration of their relationship, which ended promptly after I went to the authorities. Who knows who else he’s abused in his life. I once watched him hold a dog by the neck and smash its head repeatedly against a concrete wall because it didn’t lie down when he commanded it. Minutes later he embraced the dog and madly licked its mouth and tongue.
Doug Wilson’s denial of the realities that made such a situation possible [another Christian Patriarchy and homeschooling advocate, Doug Phillips, sexually assaulting his nanny, Lourdes Torres-Manteufel] only ensures that such things will continue to happen, perhaps even in his own community. They already have, of course. I’m thinking specifically of the case where a young teenage girl was molested, and Wilson saw fit to accept the abuser’s “repentance,” and refused the girl communion because, naturally, she wasn’t a victim either; she was a fornicator, and her refusal to admit to such a charge meant she was unrepentant. Unshockingly to probably everyone but Doug Wilson and those who think like him, the same abuser, who for a long time was a member in good standing at Wilson’s church, has now been charged with various domestic violence suits in Latah County, and his own children are being sheltered from him by the courts [emphasis added].
In light of these recent revelations, Greenfield reminds readers that these later crimes could have been prevented. If Wilson and his church had not alienated and traumatized her, if Leithart and his church had listened to her cries and warnings, these other victims could have been protected. Greenfield writes,
I think this might be the part where I say – I told you so. And not to the innocent individuals who trusted and were consequently in a position to be harmed by the criminal, but to those who I so desperately reached out to, those who I begged to protect others from the horrors I suffered, those who told me it was my fault for not saying no, or my father’s fault for not knowing better, or my mother’s fault for not teaching me to be more ladylike. To those who wrote letters to the judge presiding over the case heralding the character of the criminal and requesting leniency in the sentencing, to those who wrote letters on behalf of the criminal and in them criminalized a young girl, to those who welcomed the criminal back into society whilst shunning and scorning the victim, to those who found it more convenient to close their eyes to something they did not want to see rather than face the truth and take a stand, the sad fact of the matter is that you, each of you, perpetuated abuse.
It is sad, and it is a fact. Doug Wilson, Christ Church, Peter Leithart, and Trinity Reformed Church, by failing Greenfield and her family, perpetuated abuse — and consequently failed another woman and another family as well. While Greenfield cannot change what happened to herself or what happened to this other woman and her family, she hopes that by speaking up now, she can save others from future harm:
For speaking out about my abuse I’ve been told that I’m ‘hungry for drama’, ‘living in the past’, ‘sensation seeking’, and a ‘pot stirrer’. I’ll bear each of those labels if it means one hurting girl will read this blog and know that her value is greater than what she’s been made to believe by an abuser and that she, too, can speak out, or if it means that one man in a position of power will look closely at his own motives and make the changes necessary to, insomuch as he is able, ensure the safety and well being of those who look to him for guidance.
What happened to Greenfield is a tragedy. And how Wilson, Leithart, and their churches responded is not only an atrocity; it’s also a sin. It is an atrocity because their response only caused a young woman more pain and trauma, and no justice. And it is a sin because Wilson, Leithart, and their churches refused to follow the path of Jesus by caring for a hurt and wounded sheep. Instead they welcomed a wolf back into their fold and slammed the door on the wolf’s victim. What this communicated to that victim, now a brave survivor, is clear. As Greenfield asks, “How can an army of people turn away a young girl who needs their love more than anything?”
How indeed. That is a question that Doug Wilson, Peter Leithart, and every member in their churches and communities who failed a broken young girl will have to answer before God.
To conclude, I’d like to share Greenfield’s courageous declaration of fearlessness and freedom. I hope her courage in sharing her story can inspire other survivors to bravely speak up, too:
I will say it now; I am not ashamed, I will not keep quiet, and I care not what anyone thinks of me – I have only myself to answer to… My daughter will know my story and I will equip her with the tools to protect herself.
UPDATE, Wednesday, September 9, 2015, 1:30 pm PT:
Several corrections were made this story after Greenfield, the abuse survivor bravely speaking up about Jamin Wight, pointed out inaccuracies. First, we stated that that Doug Wilson and Christ Church refused communion to Greenfield; however, they actually withheld communion until Greenfield was willing to meet with the church elders, something she refused to do as a result of the traumatizing nature of the whole ordeal. Second, we stated that Greenfield and her family left Christ Church. This is only partially true. While Greenfield and her father left the church, her mother and younger sister stayed. Our story has been changed to reflect these clarifications. You can read Greenfield’s comment in full here. Accuracy and truth in reporting is important to us at Homeschoolers Anonymous, so we are grateful to Greenfield for helping us meet these standards.
UPDATE, Thursday, September 10, 2015, 10:15 pm PT:
References to Greenfield’s name as “Natalie Rose” have been changed to “Natalie Rose Greenfield” as she preferred we use her full name.
HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on September 2, 2015.
The September 2015 cover of Boston Magazine features a smiling young woman wearing a Harvard University sweater with the caption “Homeschool got me into Harvard” in front of her. As a homeschool graduate myself, this cover caught my eye. As I looked at it, I puzzled over its intent. Homeschool graduates have been attending Harvard for decades now, so it’s not exactly news that a homeschooler was admitted. Yet homeschool graduates make up far less than 1% of the students at Harvard, despite the fact that as of 2011, 3.4% of students were homeschooled.
I read through Samburg’s article, which focuses on Harvard-bound homeschool graduate Claire Dickson and includes interviews with other homeschooling families, to determine whether it mentions just how unusual Claire’s case is. In answer, I found this paragraph:
And what about Milva McDonald’s daughter, Claire, who’s headed to Harvard? Is that a one-in-a-million shot, or have McDonald and her allies discovered a new path to the Ivy League—one that runs right through their living room? To find out what elite academic institutions think, I call Matt McGann, director of admissions at MIT. He’s entirely optimistic: “The homeschooled students in our population are a great addition to the MIT community. They are students who are more likely to have designed their own education curriculum, and they may be more independently motivated to learn,” he says. “I think as the nature of homeschooling has evolved, colleges are seeing more and more homeschooling applicants who are appropriate for this environment.”
Samburg could have contacted Harvard to ask for their admission statistics, or simply looked online for their annual class profiles, but she didn’t. As a result, her article masks the reality that homeschool graduates are severely underrepresented at Harvard and other Ivy League schools. She quotes the director of admissions at MIT saying positive things about homeschool graduates, but she does not note that only 1% of students entering MIT this fall are homeschool graduates. She also never mentions that only 0.3% of the 2014 freshman class at Harvard were homeschool graduates.
Why does this matter, you may wonder?
It matters because articles like this mask the dark underside of homeschooling and present an overly rosy picture of the practice.
Yes, it is true that children can benefit from homeschooling, and that absolutely should be talked about. In some cases, homeschooling can allow children to pursue their educational interests in innovative ways and engage in learning that would be impossible in a formal school setting. It can also offer students struggling with bullying or a school structure that does not fit them a safe space and the room they need to express themselves as individuals.
But homeschooling, by itself, does not get a child into Harvard. Samburg writes that Claire Dickson was involved in a theater group, a creative writing club, and a math group, and that she took “supplementary classes at the Harvard Extension School and Bunker Hill Community College.” In a blog post, Claire’s mother writes more about her approach: they are unschoolers who place a priority on supporting their children’s interests and finding resources to facilitate their learning. They worked hard—very hard—to get Claire where she is today, and while Claire’s mother insists on her blog that Claire got herself into college, Claire could not have done that without the resources and rich educational environment her mother provided her.
I know this because I know homeschool graduates who did not have these resources or this environment, and their stories are far, far different from Claire’s. Alumni-run organizations like Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out (HARO) and the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE) point to cases of homeschool failure and urge communities to do better by the homeschooled children in their midst. HARO focuses on child abuse awareness and prevention and on providing community and support for graduates of bad homeschool environments while CRHE focuses on providing information on homeschooling and advocating for more effective oversight.
HARO and CRHE point to the reality that homeschooling fails some children colossally. This is because homeschooling is only as good as the parents it relies on, and the resources those parents have to offer. In the hands of parents like Claire’s, homeschooling can be a powerful tool promoting children’s wellbeing. In the hands of parents who lack the resources or knowledge to provide an education, on the other hand, homeschooling can leave children with severe educational deficiencies. And in the hands of controlling or abusive parents, well, the story may be far, far worse.
If social workers are particularly interested in home-schooling families, it’s not because they assume those parents are predisposed to be abusive, said Barbara Knox, a University of Wisconsin pediatrician who specializes in child abuse. It’s because parents who do have a pattern of abuse often pull their children from school under the guise of home schooling in order to avoid scrutiny. A 2014 study conducted by Knox and five colleagues looked at 38 cases of severe child abuse and found that nearly 50 percent of parents had either removed their children from public school or never enrolled them, telling their respective states they were home schooling.
“This is a pattern all of us see over and over and over again,” Knox said. “Certainly there are wonderful home-schooling families. But the lack of regulation for this population makes it easier to disenroll children from public school to further isolate them and escalate abuse to the point of reaching torture.”
Homeschooling is not a magic bullet.
Homeschooling is an educational method that places a great deal of power in the hands of a child’s parents, nothing more, nothing less. In the hands of well educated parents with access to resources, the result can be extremely positive. In the hands of parents too overwhelmed trying to provide for a large family to pay much attention to academics, the results can be devastating. And in the hands of abusive parents? In the hands of abusive parents the results are sometimes so tragic they are difficult to read.
I am all for telling positive stories of homeschooling, and I am by no means saying that Samburg’s article should not have been written. But to write it without noting that homeschooled children are far less likely to attend a school like Harvard than students educated via other methods is misleading and, frankly, irresponsible. Any article spotlighting a homeschooled student’s admission to an Ivy League school should at least note that homeschooled students are much less likely than other students to attend places like Harvard or MIT, and, ideally, also ask why this is and whether it is a problem here that needs addressing.
Please, media, I’m asking you as a homeschool graduate—get this right.
Steven Sitler, image via public records; Doug Wilson, CC image courtesy of Flickr, speric.
HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Julie Anne Smith’s blog Spiritual Sounding Board. It was originally published on September 4, 2014 and has been slightly modified for HA.
I read a disturbing article yesterday that sent me reeling. I think we always want to hope for the best in people, but after having seen this pattern taken place so many times, those who were familiar with the story could see the inevitable train wreck before it took place. Our fears were in fact confirmed this week, and I am heartbroken.
Many times when we hear of breaking scandalous stories, the focus is on the perpetrator and those who enabled the abuse. The background to this story can be broken down into several important topics, and I hope other bloggers will cover some of the other aspects to this story. But for this initial post, the victims will be the primary focus, as they should be. They are the ones we need to protect and defend.
Background Information
In Fall of 2003, Steven Sitler moved from Moscow, Idaho to attend New Saint Andrews College (NSA). Sitler attended Christ Church, pastored by Doug Wilson. When he came to Moscow, ”No one knew at the time, however, that Steven Sitler was also a serial [child molester] who preyed upon boys and girls, ages 2–12, and who left a trail of victims in at least two other states prior to his arrival in Moscow” (Source).
In March of 2005, the parents of one victimized child notified Doug Wilson, who advised them to retain the Christ Church’s attorney to accompany them as they notified legal authorities of the crime. This marks the beginning of Sitler’s legal issues.
About this time, Doug Wilson began counseling with Steven Sitler. To make a very long story short, Sitler was convicted, served time, took a plea deal, and will have supervised parole for the rest of his life.
A note of interest is the letter that Doug Wilson sent to the judge essentially defending Sitler and asking for leniency. Yes, you read that correctly – leniency for a serial child molester! Doug Wilson told the Judge Stegner he had been providing counseling to Steven Sitler for only SIX times, gave him some books to read, and assignments to do between sessions. He stated that at the beginning of their counseling sessions, Sitler didn’t know the nature of his problem, but was later convinced that Sitler was open and honest when he confessed his thought life and behavior. The final paragraph of Wilson’s letter reads:
I am grateful Steven was caught, and am grateful he has been brought to account for these actions so early in his life. . . . At the same time, I would urge that the civil penalties applied would be measured and limited. I have good hope that Steve has genuinely repented, and that he will continue to deal with this to become a productive and contributing member of society.
Ed Iverson and Doug Wilson Encourage Courtship and Marriage of Steven Sitler
Fast forward a few years and time served, and now a young lady is on the scene. Let me introduce you to Katie Travis. Katie had posted her personal story online, but it has since been taken down. But it is possible to piece together her story from others who have quoted the words from her online journal.
Katie moved to Idaho to attend New Saint Andrews College from Fallon, Nevada. She lived with the family of Ed Iverson whom she had known several years before arriving at NSA. Mr. Iverson was NSA’s librarian and also an elder at Doug Wilson’s church, Christ Church. Reports are conflicting as to their relationship, whether he was her grandfather by blood or acted as a father figure, but it is clear that she looked to him as a respected father figure, and he readily assumed that trusted role in her personal life.
At the age of 23, Katie was at the prime of life, single, and ready to find a husband and start a family like all young ladies who are brought up in Patriarchy. In Christian Patriarchy circles, women are encouraged to marry young, so 23 years was pushing it. Several reports indicated that Katie felt the pressure to find a husband in short order because most of her friends were courting or married. She asked Mr. Iverson to assist her in finding a spouse, and he eagerly agreed.
Are you picking up on this culture? Katie asked a family friend to find someone to court. He was to choose for her, not the other way around. And this was normal and what Katie wanted.
On August 18, 2010, Mr. and Mrs. Iverson invited Steven Sitler to come to their home for dinner. This dinner was set up for the express purpose of introducing Steven and Katie for the possibility of a future courtship. “Ed Iverson’s description of Katie was that, though NSA was tough for her, she persevered through and she was, “pretty good looking, too” (Source).
While Doug Wilson and Ed Iverson were obviously fine with this possible courtship and marriage, it’s important to note that the Department of Corrections did not support the idea of marriage for Steven Sitler at all.
Steven posted his account of their joyous meeting on the internet:
“We met on August 18th, 2010 at the insistence of Mr. and Mrs. Iverson. One week later we were writing emails like it was going out of style. On Katie’s first visit back to Moscow in October, we had our first date, after which I asked her father if I could start courting her. I got the pleasure of spending Christmas break with Katie’s awesome family and decided on a whim to ask her to “merry” (misspelling intentional, more on that later) me on our second date. Of course it wasn’t really a whim, I had been meticulously planning it for months. She was shocked… and speechless, but finally she said yes, and the rest, as they say, is history. I love you., Katie” (The Real Doug Wilson Encouraged & Presided Over the Marriage of a Serial Pedophile).
Katie and Steven wed on June 11, 2011.
The website http://sitler.moscowid.net originally hosted a video of Wilson officiating Sitler’s wedding before the video’s owner requested it removed.
“A Latah County 2nd District Court judge ordered Tuesday that a convicted sex offender, Steven Sitler, must continue to have an approved chaperone present, within his direct line of sight, at all times he is around his infant child in the wake of new disclosures of “contact resulting in actual sexual stimulation.”
This was the train wreck we feared. The article stated that Katie was now disqualified as a chaperone “for failure to report disclosures related directly to the couple’s son and Sitler was required to move out of their home” (Source).
Ok, this is just sad for all involved. I have a lot to say about Doug Wilson but I’m biting my tongue for the moment. What I’d like to discuss is Katie.
Katie’s World as Wife and Mom
Katie and her infant son are victims of her husband’s criminal behavior. Imagine Katie being in a town away from parents and her own pastor and trusted father figure selected a serial child molester for a husband. They had to convince her that Steven had repented. Who was she to second guess Mr. Iverson and Pastor Wilson? They wouldn’t do anything to harm her, right?
In these circles, Katie would be expected to serve and submit to her husband and bear his children. But how does that work when the State says he can’t be around children? Doug Wilson knew this before he married them. Professionals warned that marriage was not a wise idea, but the State had no laws to prevent it from happening.
The article states that “the Idaho Department of Corrections would try to remove his wife and parents as chaperones.” This suggests to me that Katie and parents were not responsible in guarding the baby. Do you see this never-ending conflict? Katie of course wants her husband to have a relationship with his son, but yet she also has to police him? How does this work in a home where she is to obey her husband as head of the home? What an awkward position to put grandparents in, watching Steven like a hawk. There is no relaxing in this home, there is always a threat if Steven is in the premises.Life Sentence
When Ed Iverson and Katie’s parents agreed to the courtship of Katie and Steven, and then Doug Wilson agreed to officiate in this fiasco of a wedding, they pronounced a life sentence on Katie and her child, and extended family. She will never be able to live as a normal wife and mother. This infant has already been sexually violated. Imagine the emotional stress in the home, always looking, trying to be vigilant, yet also trying to find a sense normal. There is no good thing in this situation, and Doug Wilson as pastor failed this young woman and her child. This is shameful behavior for a pastor who is supposed to be shepherding and protecting. What kind of shepherd intentionally puts sheep in harm’s way? One who is arrogant to think he can determine whether a serial child molester is repentant or not.
The actions by Doug Wilson, I believe, also constitute as spiritual abuse. Katie put her trust in her spiritual leader to guide her and protect her. He asked for leniency for Steven – that is not protecting her. Wilson married them. That was also not protecting her. How might this affect how she trusts spiritual authority? If her pastor told her this, will she be upset at God for allowing it to happen? There are so ways this could lead to a real crisis of faith. I pray it doesn’t.
I sure hope Doug Wilson apologizes to this family for the harm he has caused them. What a disgrace not only to this family, but to the world as they once again see how Christian leaders mess up so badly.
Alecia Pennington has existed her entire life — but until today she wasn’t able to prove it.
Last September, Alecia Pennington fled her Texas family with the help of her grandparents. She began speaking up about her parents’ alleged identification abuse — how they were refusing to help her get identifying documents (such as her birth certificate) necessary for functioning in society. Alecia’s parents, James and Lisa Pennington, are group leaders for the Texas Home School Coalition (THSC) and board members of the Hill Country Home School Association. In 2010, THSC awarded James and Lisa their “Leaders of the Year” award. Lisa is a popular homeschool blogger and speaker who writes for Hip Homeschool Moms and has presented at the Homeschool Moms Winter Summit.
Alecia created a video about the alleged abuse and it quickly went viral on YouTube. As of today, the video has almost one and a half million views and prompted Alecia to create the now-internationally-reported Help Me Prove It campaign, whose Facebook page has over 7,000 likes.
Her campaign solicited the legal help of attorney Bill Morris as well as legislative assistance from Texas State Representative Marsha Farney, who proposed a bill, HB 2794, to help people like Alecia who are American citizens yet lacking necessary documentation. The bill, which “allow[s] individuals to petition for a delayed birth certificate in the county where they live, rather than in the county in which they were born,” and “make[s] it a misdemeanor for a parent to refuse to sign an affidavit to help their child obtain a delayed birth certificate,” was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbot on June 19, 2015, and went into effect several days ago on September 1.
Alecia’s grandmother, Lee Southworth, who helped Alecia break free from her family, says they have put in “thousands of hours” of work thus far attempting to obtain Alecia’s birth certificate. And today, after the enactment of HB 2794, their work has finally reached a joyous ending. This morning Alecia went to Williamson County Court House and received the birth certificate she has fought so long to obtain. “So happy and excited this morning!” she exclaimed on Facebook. “Finally able to prove legal identity!” Alecia extended her sincere thanks to her lawyer William Morris and and Representative Marsha Farney: “You guys are rockstars,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough.”
While Alecia’s story ends on a well-deserved happy note, it is important to remember that there are many homeschool alumni around the United States that are in the exact same situation Alecia was in. But tragically, unlike Alecia, their stories will never go viral and their state representatives will never know their names.
While not common, identification abuse happens far more frequently than many might imagine. Identification abuse is destroying, holding hostage, or denying a child their identification documents: birth certificate, driver’s license, Social Security card, and so forth. Homeschool kids (and alumni) like Alecia are particularly vulnerable to this form of abuse because of certain anti-government and pro-parental rights attitudes in totalistic homeschool subcultures.
Content Warning: Depictions of emotional and physical abuse
I’ll now turn to the authoritarian parenting. I should prefix it by saying my mother was subsequently diagnosed with major depression. For a fair proportion of my teenage years she ceased any real parenting or homeschooling. I believe her unstable, neurotic personality portended the impending collapse and joined in a perfect storm with the disciplinarian approach to parenting she had internalized.
I was accustomed to a certain pattern in familial life. Every few months, mum would blow up, ostensibly raging against the accumulating liberties I had taken since the last eruption.
Anything could set her off. One memorable occasion I omitted to say ‘goodbye granny’ upon taking leave of my grandmother earlier that day (I spent ions of time being dragged around doctors waiting rooms, hospitals, and at my grandmother’s house as mum sorted out her endless problems). Mum was obsessed we signed off respectfully, lest granny kicked the bucket and the last thing we said to her wasn’t optimal. To be frank, I grew largely indifferent to my grandmother, including when she died. You can probably detect a somewhat shocking harshness in my tone, but her unintentional, primary effect on my life was negative. That night after dad arrived home from work, she did her war dance and required me role playing saying ‘goodbye granny’. Dad regarded mum, probably out of necessity given her forceful personality, the expert. So he would make a show of playing second fiddle. What most annoyed him wasn’t so much what I’d done, but the fact it had triggered another maelstrom of ‘carry on’ he had to ‘put up with’ after a long day at work.
The worst (and I believe first) of these rages occurred when I was 8. Mum had arranged for a professional photographer to come out and take milestone photos of my brother and me. At the time, I had adopted a silly objection to having my photo taken. I derived considerable satisfaction from thwarting the photographer’s efforts to get a good shot. Mum didn’t say or do anything at the time, but after she left I realized a delayed reaction set in which followed the classic development of a plot. The photography session was the exposition. Later, came rising action. She was distant and somewhat unresponsive. She went for a nature walk with us. On the phone to dad, I heard her saying I had be uncooperative. That was a warning sign. Ringing dad up instead of waiting for him to come home indicated she considered by antics are higher echelon of misdeeds. She then started reading to my brother without calling me, which was unusual – we typically were read to together. Entering the room where that was happening, I was told to leave. I was definitely getting ‘extreme weather’ warning signals. The climax came soon. She had cornered me in the lounge, and proceeded to lash herself into a rage. I can’t remember what was said, but I do remember, indelibly inked in my brain, the climax. ‘YOU CAN GO TO SCHOOL!’ she yelled, beside herself, ‘and sit in a class room all day getting told by a teaching what to do, to draw pictures of ugly Maori tongues poking out! Is that what you want? I think you do want that, because you won’t obey me!’
Bear in mind making this threat played directly on the deep seated fear she had instilled about schools through her attitude and pronouncements.
If you went to school, your life was a failure. Only a lucky few escaped the fate, and that lucky few had better be grateful for it. Manifestly, I was not. I grabbed the phone to call dad. He seemed like the last life line. ‘What do you think you’re doing? You think he’s going to help you?’ She snatched the phone back off me, pushed me out the front door, and instructed me to check myself into the local primary school a few hundred yards down the road. Instead, I hid in the bush outside my front gate. She came out in a few minutes and dragged me back inside. Things are a bit fuzzy after that. I stayed outside and tried to play in the sand pit. Mum came out to tell me how she’d talk to dad, and I would be getting a good whacking when he got home. I was somewhat relieved. The whackings were the ‘falling action’. They signalled the end of the yelling was not so far away. So, dad gets home and does the dance for mum. He’s very disappointed, I’ve rebelled against her, bend over etc. Mum was still running white hot, however and had gained a new lease of life from a new audience. She served up tea, shouting, yelling, berating. Finally, the resolution. For once in his life, dad managed to pry himself out of his lethargic resignation to her tantrums and tell her ‘that’s enough’. The whole incident is one of my most vivid memories from childhood.
Mum wielded the threat of school pretty consistently every time she went from standard mad to full orbital rotation. She often harped on about how I could never survive in school – getting to classes on time, sorting out my books and lunch and so forth. So fond of this line was she it continued on about university.
I can cast my mind back to other major blow ups. At the splinter group church I mentioned earlier, I liked to run around with my friend. It was, after all, the only time I got to play with someone my own age. Mum objected to us running around on a Sunday after church, and so was royally incensed upon discovering mud had found its way onto her home-made ‘good church pants’. She came roaring into my room, absolutely spitting mad. I was reading, propped upon the bed. She started off the discussion by smacking the pants across my face like a whip.
Another one happened after mum visited a Catholic lady whose daughter could read time on an analogue clock.
Mum just assumed I, a homeschooler, at 10 or so years of age would know that.
She twigged I could not read time that afternoon after I asked her to tell it for me. Her awe inspiring crescendo was ‘a three year old, Roman Catholic girl can tell the time, yet you can’t.’ Dad said mum got mad because if I didn’t know something like that, it reflected badly on her. ‘Well, maybe she didn’t do such a bang up job, in this case,’ I thought. Similarly, at an event where a group of children had to write down the contact details, she became angry it took me longest (I’d never had to do it before and didn’t know them).
There was the shower incident too, in which suddenly enraged about something, she came in to the bathroom while I was taking a shower, wooden kitchen spoon at the ready. She opened the door and used it against my bear thighs and calves. ‘I will have respect for your father, I will have respect for me, I will have respect for your brother, and I will have respect for the cat’ was the takeaway message this time, each phrase interspersed with a crack on the leg for my greater edification.
On the day we went into town for our music lessons and mums round, we were supposed to have completed a number of jobs before getting in the car. I didn’t, on one occasion. Mum hauls me inside for six of the best, then sends me back out to the car. What turned this rather run of the mill spanking into a particularly egregious one for me was that she decided the initial six had been insufficient. I was required to submit myself again to the same punishment.
I was 13 when the boy next door and I planned a trip into my Aunt’s horticulture farm. He was bit of an arse really, but when you were short on friends, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Under his influence, I got caught nicking some chocolate coins from the on farm shop. It was an End of the World scenario for my parents. It wasn’t that I had clearly made an error of judgment.
It was simply unthinkable I could be that unrighteous; Mum moped for days and frequently noted how lucky I was I had been allowed to stay in the house.
‘We will not hesitate to kick you out in future’, she said. At 13, she may have been on some shaky legal ground, though. There were more whackings involved here too; I think the last one (for an unrelated offence) was at 15.
My nature diary, where I was supposed to make entries and drawings every month was a constant source of conflict. I hated drawing and the long laborious neat writing. It generated more threats to send me to school than anything else, a place that would make me paint ‘ugly Maori drawings’ instead of beautiful flowers (it was one of her favourite comparison between the ‘righteous’ homeschoolers and ‘evil’ schools).
There are loads of other, lesser instances, but they still serve to illustrate a staggering ability to disregard nearly all facts of a case and solely rely on her initial reaction. I had to be perfect in front of her family in order to demonstrate what a grand success our family was in contrast to them. My aunt was having some ‘do’, and I had been eating cheese and crackers from the sideboard. I’d only had a few pieces, but they were the last ones. My dad strolled up, and my aunt flippantly remarked ‘the kids have eaten all the cheese and left none for their dad’. Mum immediately went Defcon 1, giving me the come hither finger to follow her into the deserted passage. ‘Do you see that?’ she hissed. ‘You’re being observed. And people noticed what you just did.’
The appearance of Godliness – being nicely turned out in what she considered decent, being well behaved while we waited for her and granny in doctor’s, wearing smarter clothes than my friend’s family at church – exercised her mind constantly.
I was said to be guilty of many things I thought unreasonable. I kicked a ball through a window just once in my childhood, quite by accident. Mum insisted dad whack me for it. ‘Do you want them terrified of me when I walk in the room?’ he protested. The whacking went ahead as scheduled. It was discovered I had fallen arches. Without hesitation, mum berated me because it would not have happened if I had worn runners everywhere (the cause is completely genetic). And in one of her most confounding leaps of logic, she proposed dad reading me Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books about ‘adventure’ had somehow influenced my chocolate coin robbery.
For the first few of my teenage years, I used to keep a few hundred dollars stashed in an envelope ‘just in case’.
What really highlighted to me her conduct was abnormal was dad taking my brother and I away for a weekend together. Dad’s natural parenting method, if mum wasn’t goading him, lay at the relaxed end of the spectrum. ‘Now look boys,’ he’d say, ‘I just want a nice, relaxed weekend way, so let’s not have any trouble.’ And we would have precisely that. Drama, conflict, and mistrust between authority and the objects of authority evaporated if mum was removed from the picture.
To be fair, mum has changed her ways a lot and admitted she made many mistakes, and often interacted poorly with her family. She now is attempting to embrace grace in practice as well as theory. Moreover, she did a lot of good things while we grew up. She would put on birthdays for us, bake and decorate fantastic birthday cakes, and do her very best to ensure we had the best possible educational resources. Both parents read to us extensively, and so I came to read extensively, a factor to which I credit my tertiary successes. They paid for us to have private music, and speech and drama lessons. And there were times as a family we all got on well.
The problem is, the bad can cancel out the good easier than the good the bad.
By way of analogy, a stock market can make consistent gains for a decade, then have it wiped out in a single day. Nevertheless, I don’t blame my parents. I realize the real perpetrator was close minded thinking, a system we spontaneously adopt. Our minds are attracted to certainty, however chimerical. For me, it’s enough they recognize the wrong.
In any situation, my mum excelled in introducing some socially disruptive element. For example, I participated from ages circa 12 – 14 in speech and drama competitions. All the other competitors were dressed in mufti, but she insisted I wear formal black pants and white shirt.
They were ‘sloppy’, and ‘we are not going to be dragged down to their standards’.
Conforming to a dress code which mum arbitrarily deemed ‘decent’ was far more important than my feeling like a fish out of water. Mum was totally oblivious to that anyway, as, you see, I was not ‘peer dependent’. And because I was not peer dependent, I could only frame my opposition to the clothes in terms of stylistic preference (to no avail, of course). For a competitive class known as ‘reading at sight’, in which each participant expressively read a passage from a book they had not seen before, all involved had to be taken together out of ear shot so no one heard the passage before their turn. For some reason, the demographics favoured girls in speech and drama at a ratio of 5:1. You can imagine my predicament. Firstly, it took me a while even in homeschool situation to leave behind self-consciousness. Second, I related very poorly to socialized school children. They knew how to strike up interactions between each other, so the child with poor social skills is always in an out group among his more gregarious peers. Third, being all dressed up impressed itself as another me vs. them barrier. Lastly, I had no idea at all how to even platonically talk to girls. It turned out I and a rather competitively prominent girl were penultimate and last in the competitor order, in the particular instance I’m channelling. We spent an awkward few minutes alone together. I didn’t know what to say, and given my anti-social body language, nor did she probably. Later, my mum had the nerve to ask what happened. That really pissed me off inside. Why the hell would you ask that, when you should know I have no concept of how to navigate that sort of social terrain? Some voyeuristic desire to know every detail of my inadequacy? Describing my internal state like this seems rather solipsistic. Sometimes I wonder if I have the right to single out events like these after reading through what some of you in America went through.
Naturally, mum found fault with the other families who attended.
Their children performed unbiblical pieces (about witches or wizards, or worse, dictatorial parents). The girls wore ‘disgusting’ clothing. I recall in crystal clear quality after one competitions ended, we went to Subway. Across from where I was sitting, in my line of site, sat the same girl I mentioned earlier. Leaning forward to eat her subway, her top rode up, exposing her lower back. Mum then insisted I swap places with her so my back was to this 14 year old hussy.
This is the kind of sexually repressive culture endemic in fundamentalism, and fundamentalist homeschooling. Teenagers can be granted no sexual agency. It’s not just they abide by the teaching of abstinence before marriage. The unwritten rules consider the idea a post-pubescent male would like to insert (consensually) his organ into the female, and that she would like to receive it, to be thoroughly improper. That would be part of the Marxist plot to destroy families by ‘teaching the kids about sex when they’re young’. The point of allowing someone to be a sexual being relates to socialization, because the repressive approach perpetuates a self-enforcing segregation. If boys and girls wanting to fuck each other silly is ‘dirty’ according to the unwritten norms, then the cognitive dissonance of the unconditioned response (sexual desire) clashing with an internalized mindset that completely gaslights the desire’s legitimacy, demands eschewing any sustained contact with a member of the opposite gender.
So during their sexually formative years, fundamentalist Christian youth subconsciously ascribe each other the role of toxic triggers.
Cultish, homeschooling conventions run by the likes of ACE (Accelerated Christian Education) confirm the behaviour by insisting on the ‘six inch rule’. All male female haptic interaction is sexually fetishized. You can never make a fundamentalist understand an argument, as their dogmatic modernism cannot really grasp post-modern deconstruction. That the statement ‘Sex is God’s gift to married couple, and we see no problem with it in that context’ does not decisively plant them in the garden of healthy sexual attitudes is an anathema to them.
Anyway, handling myself around girls was something I had to consciously learn mechanically at (a secular) university. I’m sure some female readers can attest to their version of that experience too.
Another dysfunction of isolation derives from the concomitant dynamics of habitualized isolation and the perception interactional partners are scarce. By habitualized isolation I mean the point at which the negative interactional outcomes owing to substandard social skills, overcome the desire to socialize.
You learn to do without social interaction, and thus lose any desire for it.
You become, effectively, asocial in a tightening, downward spiral. Only now do I have the objectivity and critical tool kit to see what happened; at the time I drifted aimlessly on a sea of calm, functional depression. It’s like moving in suspended animation. I couldn’t stand being on Facebook and seeing group oriented behaviour. A wall of unmotivated inability stood between me and pro-social activities. Now from time to time, for a variety of reasons, certain people will break through your bubble of isolation. Since the mind perceives them as scarce, you become emotionally fixated on them, a sure recipe to destruct a relationship. You obsess over the slightest signal of non-reciprocation. You need them more than they need you. You feel small, and constantly unwanted. And you must constantly deal with a power imbalance. He who cares least about a relationship controls it. In a way, it’s an objective scarcity too. Few people understand the unique personal histories of homeschoolers.
There’s often an outsized intellect compensating for a bereft emotional state.
Adults laud your academic achievements. Children feel jealous and push you away in spite. You condescendingly look at the ‘ignorant fools’ around you, trying to pretend you’re not envious of their social capital. To this day, I still struggle with these two dynamics. In quiet moments, I feel quite fucked up. Sometimes, a wave of intense loneliness sweeps over me, and in one of them I wrote these two poems/songs:
Lifestream
I feel the reservoir press against my spirit
A weight of water unmarked by morning light
Or cheerful souls drifting on the edge of my ken.
This mortal current sweeps my soul within it
And against the firmament I wage an unceasing fight.
I want to go beyond the 12 mile limit
Join two streams into one
But you are lost and never found
Beyond the horizon to which I tend.
Let me stretch out my hand away from the sirens in my mind
And live in hope I’ll feel your grasp before we sink in sorrowful seas.
Guides
In my sleep I found it
Found the glow that lights our path
Took the meteor to bits with my bare hands
Strew my dreams through the aftermath
[chorus]
Yeah they don’t know what I want to know
They don’t know where I wanna go
down the river in my mind, down the the river in my mind
I’ll flow, I’ll flow, through grains of time
I stretched out my heart
Touched the cheek of the girl next door
Her candle light eyes lit up my face
But I let the fire fall apart
If you want to see me
Before the man comes around
See the shooting stars in the north
Then turn the other way round
[chorus]
Embers scattered in the snow
Red white red white red white glow
Melting heat melting flakes
ceaseless fusion, silent sound
[chorus]
If there’s any good news, it’s that my mother realized her mistake when my brother, around 12 or 13, exhibited all the signs of a nervous breakdown – obsessively checking switches were turned off, checking under beds for interlopers, and general neurotic manifestations. He’s had a vastly more natural social life.
While still quite young, my maternal grandparents health went into decline, and fate decreed mum was the one who had to consistently deal with that, year after year. She cumulatively became vastly more stressed, and thus, I believe, subject to a more emotional application of the already strict ‘rules’ in place. Let me deal with how her preoccupation, super imposed on the extant regime impacted on me – first in what she failed to realize and do (socialization), and secondly in what she did do (authoritarian parenting).
Mum brought wholeheartedly into the homeschool talking point the family alone was the ideal unit of socialization.
Not a base vehicle, mind you, for a broader socialization with the world, but a self-sufficient social ecosystem.
Although Mum was forty when she had me, her first child, she had two mischarges out of three more pregnancies. Such attempts are related to the supposedly ‘Biblical’ role of a woman to have large families and to be ‘keepers at home like it says in Titus 2!’ (a rather wanting interpretation of the context). She was a gender essentialist zealot, appropriating all the ‘Godly’ hang-ups. Women should only wear skirts. Modesty is essential. Dating is wrong. Oral sex is wrong (even in marriage). Women should not be educated like men, and mum wondered out loud sometimes if they should be allowed to vote (curiously in the country that first universalized the franchise). With beliefs like that, it’s no surprise she swallowed the relatively more modest claims of family-centric socialization. I remember overhearing dad say to her at one point, ‘don’t you think the boys should be with people their own age group more?’ Mum definitively responded, ‘NO, because once that happens…[insert all the ‘evils’ of peer pressure]. So it was just my brother and I, 95% of the time. He was four years my junior, which proved the ideal gap for squabbles. We were old enough to be interested in the same things but sufficiently temporally removed to grate on each other’s differing abilities. I often behaved like a bit of a beast toward him, exploiting my greater development to torment him. But when you’re constantly around someone to the exclusion of all others similar to your own age, you view the person like a chronic annoyance. Stripped of positive associations, they become easy to treat poorly. But I was still castigated for not ‘being my brother’s keeper.’ (Fortunately, the older we both got, the better we related to each other).
Although it would be a distortion of the truth to say I saw no friends ever, for the vast majority of the time, I dealt with a rising sense of isolation.
Because I could adequately converse with adults, mum deemed I was on track socially.
The problem, of course, with this little gem of homeschool counter think, is much of our social development comes through interaction with our equals in authority and ability. A child-adult interaction will always incorporate a measure of formalism. You don’t exactly grow as a person respectfully answering Mrs Smith’s generic inquiries about your education. Indeed, it wasn’t until university I made a friend with whom I could openly discuss personal matters.
I remember I became very upset when my parents wanted to drag me up to Auckland to see some show involving aging stars like Diana Rigg read extracts of English literature. My younger brother got to stay the day with a friend who lived down the road. At ten years old, I envied his dumb luck no end. Missing the rare chance of socializing for an ‘educational opportunity’ burnished the event onto my mind. It exemplifies the narrow definition of development some homeschoolers appropriate. The strange thing is you come to defend your peer abstraction; to say otherwise would mean you had succumbed to the great evil of ‘peer dependency’.
In my reality, my social interactions suffered. I feared school children. They were ‘the other’, a horde of confident, yelling, heathens. Mum used to take us for ‘nature walks’ in the local park, which boarded a number of classrooms of the local school. I cannot describe how uncomfortable I felt walking with my mother in my home made clothes under the scrutiny of what felt like a thousand eyes.
Paranoid about being dobbed into the ERO, mum would mutter ‘you are being watched’, which only served to make my feel like the Powers that Be could be making detailed notes on why I should be removed from the family.
That, of course, would be a disaster. She let us know the storm troopers of the state were always ready to snatch away children and herd them together with all the other juvenile fuck-ups.
My parents confessional progression since the American Baptist fiasco had domiciled then within a doctrinal persuasion that stressed grace, rather than law. Unfortunately, the doctrinal fealty to grace did not translate into mum’s everyday attitude. What’s more, the adherents of the sect were few in number. The reprieve of Sunday socialization would not be available to me. A lot of ‘services’ I attended were informal Bible studies that ran for an interminable three hours. There was no youth group, and my parents didn’t believe in them either. We split off from the group after a while and started our own group in a church building near us. When I say ‘group’, I mean my family, and at most, two other families. Mum’s first concern was to inform me I would be sitting still and listening with the family, and I would NOT be allowed to sit with my friend from the other family.
Most weeks, my social life was limited to twenty to thirty minutes after church.
My friend from that time is one of only two homeschoolers I still know today. Every now and then, the other family would take themselves off to a larger homeschooling church for greater social contact. They would have to drive past where our group met in order to do so. I would get to watch my slim social life literally drive away.
I also began to notice how mum sabotaged her relationships within the homeschool network. She acted in a catty way toward the mother of my friend because her parenting style did not exactly conform to mum’s view of the ‘good.’ See, mum would become massively enthused with a particular family or group for a while. They would be held up as the Ideal, Godly Standard. Then she would get bored of deifying them, or they did something to upset her (an easy task); and she would cut ties. The constant grandparents saga also ensured her preoccupation and stress, two traits not conducive to social attractiveness. A homeschooled child is entirely dependent on the network parents foster for social connections. But thanks to the anti-peer ideology, she had no qualms about wrecking her own relationships, and thus breaking off mine.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 