Author: HA Editorial Team

Parenting Positively Means Much More Than Not Hitting

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Din Jimenez.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on May 11, 2015.

Yesterday as Sally climbed into the car, she knocked over a can with flowers in it, something she’d brought home from school, and in the process spilled water on the seat. Sally began to fret about the water, but I didn’t have a towel or other rag in the car. Since we were about to head home home, I suggested that she sit on the wet spot, soaking up some of the water with her dress, and that she could change when we get home. Sally responded that the water was in a corner of the seat, so she couldn’t.

By this time I’d been out with the kids to the park and elsewhere an hour and a half, and we’d already had to go back to the park because Sally left her backpack there, and I was feeling overwhelmed and annoyed. So when Sally followed her fretting about the water up by saying she couldn’t soak it up with her dress, I was just done.

“Fine,” I said. “But if the car rots—”

And there I stopped myself. I’d been about to say “if the car rots, it’s your fault!” But then the entire point of such a statement would be to make Sally feel bad—to use guilt and blame to manipulate her feelings. This is the kind of thing I’m trying very hard not to do! Sally already felt bad that she had spilled the water and was already worried about the car. Why make her feel worse? Why wield her own emotions and feelings as a weapon against her? That’s really not okay.

So when I actually finished the sentence, it looked like this:

“Fine. But if the car rots—we’ll deal with it.”

Sally looked relieved as she buckled her seatbelt. “That’s right mom,” she said cheerfully. “We’ll deal with it!” And somehow, just like that, the mood shifted from antagonistic to cooperative.

Giving up corporal punishment was easy. It’s giving up the rest—the myriad ways parents can be punitive and negative in their parenting—that is difficult. Not physically abusing a child is so much easier than not emotionally abusing them.

While I was at the park, before Sally left her backpack and then spilled the water, I observed an interaction between a father and son. My own son Bobby was swinging, as I gave him pushes, when a little boy of about two came up and wanted to use the swing. His father tried to call him away, telling him he should come play on the playground equipment until the swing was open. The boy stepped back and stood by the swings. His father called to him again, from about fifteen feet away, but the boy didn’t move.

“I’m waiting!” the boy explained.

I could hear the boy’s words because he was standing only a few feet away, but his father could not. Instead, all he saw was a boy who wasn’t doing what he said. The father was growing increasingly upset and agitated, and began raise his voice.

“Get over here and play like I told you to!” he yelled at his son.

I winced. Who would want to go play when told to do so in such a tone?

The boy’s father did not take the time to come over to his son, get down on his level, and have a conversation with him. If he had, he would have known that the boy understood he would have to wait his turn for the swing, and simply wanted to stand by the swings and wait patiently. If the father, for whatever reason, had still wanted the boy to go play on the playground equipment, he could have explained that to him, and they could have talked about it, and the boy probably would have listened. But he didn’t do any of this. Instead, he yelled at his son in the middle of a park outing.

The thing is, on some level I understood. The father was there alone, without the backup of a parenting partner, and he had a baby under his arm. I used to go to the park on my own with Sally and Bobby when Bobby was a baby too, and it could be very trying. The boy may have spent the drive to the park fretting about something or nagging his father for something, or the father may have had short nerves for other reasons—he may have had a hard day at work, or perhaps things were tight financially.

I know how easy it is to snap, to become frustrated and angry. Raising little people is hard work, and just being an adult in and of itself can be stressful. I’ve raised my voice on occasion too. But just because something is understandable does not make it justified. As parents, we need to call ourselves to extremely high standards, because we hold our children’s hearts in our hands.

We often talk about parenting as though there are abusive parents and good parents—a dichotomy of sorts—but real life isn’t this simple. It’s a continuum. Some abusive parents are more abusive than others, and plenty of parents we wouldn’t term abusive are sometimes unkind to their children or parent in suboptimal ways. For some, this dichotomy may make it easier for bad parenting to go unchecked, because being self-critical of our own parenting can be difficult when the only parenting categories out there are “good” and “abusive.”

In our society today there’s also much more recognition of the problem of physical abuse than there is of the problem of emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can be horrific. I know people whose parents never laid a hand to them who were nevertheless horribly abused. In fact, in my experience, the effects of emotional abuse can last longer and be more severe than the effects of physical abuse. Even parents who are not emotionally abusive overall may do things on the emotional abuse checklist at some point without even realizing it. We are in serious need of awareness raising regarding emotional abuse and children.

I find it helpful to think in terms of practicing healthy relationship skills with my children. Would I have snapped at a friend if she spilled some water in my car, angrily telling her that if the car rots, it’s her fault? No. Would that father in the park have yelled at a friend of his for not coming when called, rather than walking over to him to clarify the plan? No. Sure, adults and children are at different developmental levels and different developmental needs, I get that, but I think remembering that a friend could walk away but your child can’t is incredibly important. We need to get serious about how we treat our children.

While I understood the frustration the father in the park felt—as perhaps will anyone who has been to the park with an infant and toddler—I felt strongly for his son, who was trying to communicate and in response being ignored and yelled at. In the car with Sally, I was only able to stop myself and turn the conversation around because I paused for a moment to step out of my frustration and put myself in my daughter’s shoes. As parents, we need to do that more often.

Parental frustration should be a prompt to be careful about our actions toward our children, not an excuse for bad behavior. A boss taking out his frustration at his impending divorce and the collapse of his home life on his employees may be understandable, but no one would see it as justified. I think we as a society make more allowances for bad parenting than we realize. Because of their dependence—and because they cannot simply walk away—children are incredibly vulnerable, a sort of captive audience. We should see that as a reason to be only more careful about how we treat them.

If you’re a parent, there are probably times you’ve snapped at your children when you shouldn’t have, or times you vented your own frustrations onto your children. I know I have! Some mothers, especially those raised in abusive or dysfunctional families, beat themselves up over their mistakes and wonder whether they are “bad” mothers (there’s that dichotomy again!) or worry that they are becoming their parents. Other mothers glibly point out that “no parent is perfect” and then go on their merry way without a further thought or any intent to do better in the future.

I would call for a different response, one where past mistakes lead not to dwelling on guilt but rather to resolve to do better in the future, and where mistakes aren’t glibly justified as acceptable rather than merely understandable. We may not be able to control actions we took in the past, but we can control our actions in the present. We can also apologize when needed. Our children don’t need to think we’re perfect. There’s no facade we need to uphold—they can see right through it. Being honest and real with our children is important.

Parenting in a healthy and positive way means so much more than just not hitting your child. It’s not something I could achieve immediately or automatically by giving up spanking, though I had once hoped it would be. Instead it’s something I have to keep doing, over and over, every day. It takes intent and commitment, and it sometimes means stopping myself in mid-sentence or pausing to take a step back from a situation and reset my approach. But when my daughter throws her arms around my neck and declares “I love you, mommy,” when she is unafraid to be open with me, when she is comfortable in who she is and in her relationship with me, I know that it is so, so worth it.

Statement Concerning Our Rachel Dolezal Coverage

HA Editorial Team

On June 16 and 17, we published two articles highlighting the alleged history of abuse and control within Rachel Dolezal’s family. Since Rachel was a homeschool alumna raised in a conservative Christian home similar to many individuals in HA’s regular audience, we intended these articles to draw attention to elements of the Dolezal story that the mainstream media had missed — in particular, that Rachel’s parents, Larry and Ruthanne Dolezal, should not be paraded around as innocent whistleblowers.

When we published these articles, we did not see that doing so acted as apologies and/or excuses for Rachel’s behavior. Our decision to publish them has thus resulted in excusing and diminishing her behavior as well as detracting from the fact that Rachel has deeply hurt many members of the black community. We apologize for this and we are grateful to the people who have contacted us to point out this blind spot.

As HA Community Coordinator, I take full responsibility for these failures. I am sorry for the pain I have caused to those affected by Rachel’s actions.

As we were in the wrong, we are retracting the articles. However, we do not want to erase or hide our mistake, so we have saved the article I wrote and its comments as a PDF here: Here’s What Joshua Dolezal Wrote About His and Rachel Dolezal’s Christian Fundamentalist Upbringing. HA no longer has permission to publish the other article or host its PDF version.

 

Ryan Stollar

HA Community Coordinator

HARO Executive Director

 

Co-signed by the HARO Board:

Nicholas Ducote

Lauren Dueck

Shaney Lee

Andrew Roblyer

David Barton Ruined Conservative Christianity For Me: A Call for Stories

HA Editorial Team27 Comments

By Shaney Lee, HARO Board Member

Recently, a group of homeschool alumni were sharing stories of their “lightbulb moment”: a moment when we realized that we had been taught an agenda, rather than how to think for ourselves, and when we realized that the strains of conservative Christianity we had been raised with were grossly flawed. Some of us are still Christians and some are not, but we all had that “moment” where we realized we wanted to go a different direction with our lives.

As a result of that conversation, Homeschoolers Anonymous has decided to open up a call for stories from homeschool alumni about their “lightbulb moments.” The purpose of this series is twofold: One, to shed light on the individuals and ideas that need to be weeded out from the homeschooling community; two, to allow homeschooled individuals to tell their stories. Those who don’t continue in conservative Christianity as adults are often referred to as “apostates” or assumed to be “backslidden.” We want to give alumni a chance to share their side of the story.

To start off the call for stories, I wanted to share my story. This is the story of when I realized I needed to find a different path.

*****

In October 2012 I was invited to the annual banquet for Texas Alliance for Life (TAL). Being a pro-life individual and lover of fancy events, I decided to go, despite not being thrilled with their keynote speaker: David Barton. At that point, Barton had recently been in WORLD News because his most recent book, The Jefferson Lies, had been rejected as full of inaccuracies by conservative Christian historians, and Thomas Nelson eventually decided to pull the book entirely.

Barton’s speech had three points. To this day I wish I had taken notes on what exactly Barton said and what sources he used, but to the best of my memory I will take you through just how bad the speech was.

Barton’s first point was that the Founding Fathers were pro-life. Barton’s evidence for this assertion was a quote that condemned abortion after the “quickening.” Barton followed up by telling the audience that “quickening” in that day was equivalent to “conception.”

This, however, is not even close to true. John Bouvier’s Law Dictionary defines the quickening as follows: “The motion of the foetus, when felt by the mother, is called quickening, and the mother is then said to be quick with child. This happens at different periods of pregnancy in different women, and in different circumstances, but most usually about the fifteenth or sixteenth week after conception….”

So the quote Barton read that night actually said nothing about early-term abortions, and in fact allowed for them. To this day I don’t know if Barton was lying, or just ignorant of female biology. Either is a plausible explanation.

Barton’s second point was that all that needs to happen for pro-life candidates to win elections is for pro-life voters to vote consistently, rather than sitting out some elections. While that assertion may or may not actually be true, Barton’s analysis of voting numbers and percentages from several elections in a row showed a gross misunderstanding of how statistics work. To be perfectly blunt, Barton’s analysis was so far off you couldn’t even call what he did “statistics.”

This is another area where I wish I had taken detailed notes, but his analysis essentially went like this: In this particular election, pro-life candidates got an average of 59% of the vote, while pro-choice candidates got an average of 40% of the vote. Therefore, in that election, pro-life candidates had a 19% higher chance of being elected. (Barton did this X-Y=percentage method of “statistics” several more times. Actual statistics are much, MUCH more complicated.)

The last point Barton made was that candidates who vote “correctly” on pro-life issues (as defined by the organization National Right to Life) would vote correctly on other issues as well. To demonstrate this point, he put up a chart with 10 congressmen rated “100%” on pro-life issues, and a second column next to their names and pro-life voting records that was labeled “economic issues”. With a click of a button, the chart indicated that these same congressmen had voted “100% correctly” on economic issues. Barton then did the same thing with a second chart that included 10 congressmen who had 0% records on pro-life voting issues, and according to the chart also had “0% correct” records on economic issues.

I don’t know where Barton got his numbers for the “correct voting percentage” on economic issues, but I was quite surprised to hear people around me who I knew were libertarian and I knew thought the only person who ever consistently voted correctly on economic issues was Ron Paul, gasp in delight at seeing these charts.

All of this–the out-of-context quote with a false definition for “quickening,” the numbers that may as well have been pulled out of a hat and called “statistics,” and the charts that gave no context for what “voting correctly on economic issues” meant, were enough to convince me that Barton was indeed a fraud and made me very disappointed that Texas Alliance for Life had invited him to be their keynote speaker. But it still didn’t prepare me for what happened at the end of his speech.

The entire room (excluding me) gave him a standing ovation.

In this room were NCFCA coaches, parents, and adult alumni. People who had taught me debate, logic, and rhetoric. Yet here they were, applauding a man who had just fed them lies, logical fallacies, and more fluff than a cotton field.

Something inside of me broke that night. I realized that I couldn’t trust these people to have given me a solid foundation of any sort. When given false assurance that their beliefs were correct and would prevail, they ate it up.

So I started questioning everything. If this man, Barton, was their shining example of a historian, how could I trust what they had taught me about science, economics, religion–even right and wrong? The thing about an experience like this is it’s not even about the specifics of what you’ve been taught. It’s about realizing that the people who taught you were too quick to accept what somebody had told them and ready to pass it on to future generations without subjecting those beliefs to scrutiny. As I examined other beliefs, I found many of the same patterns: arguments against evolution that were incredibly weak, disdain for trans* people that had no basis in Scripture, and more issues that didn’t stand up to scrutiny became clear as I asked questions and applied more scrutiny to the things I was taught.

I’ve left behind many things I used to believe as a result of that night. While I’m still a Christian, I am no longer conservative. I would later realize that conservative Christianity has many leaders who are liars, manipulators, and abusers; that most of the arguments I heard for conservative positions had very shaky foundations; and (the final blow to my conservatism), that when I wanted to confront real-world issues like racism, rape culture, and poverty, conservatives either turned a blind eye or offered “solutions” that weren’t really solutions at all.

I tell my story today not to belittle conservative Christians. I still know many who are good, honest people. I tell my story as a wake-up call to conservatives, especially to the conservative Christian homeschool community. If you continue to teach your children based on David Barton’s “history” or Ken Ham’s “science,” continue to follow leaders who then get exposed as sexual abusers, and don’t teach your children true logic and critical thinking, I predict the homeschool movement will eventually collapse under its own weight.

*****

To contribute your story or thoughts:

 

As always, you can contribute anonymously or publicly.

If you interested in participating , please email us at ha.edteam@gmail.com.

The deadline for submission is July 3, 2015.

 

Want to Help Fight Child Abuse? Pay Attention

HA Editorial Team1 Comment

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Edmund Garman.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Caleigh Royer’s blog, Profligate Truth. It was originally published on April 14, 2015.

Being the survivor of childhood/adulthood abuse is not an easy place to be.

And I say ‘survivor’ not victim, because I am not the abuse I suffered, I am continually striving to rise out of the pit and to protect myself, parent myself, and heal myself. There are times when I realize just how much I’ve had to do to pick myself up and make sure I am in most ways a functioning adult and that is heavy knowledge. I wasn’t taught anything about how to be an adult. I just knew how to take care of kids, how to grocery shop for a large family, how to cook, clean, be chief book and . I didn’t know anything about money, I didn’t know anything about budgeting. I taught myself or carefully asked people I hesitantly trusted.

Child abuse is not taken seriously in this country, especially among the people where it happens the most. Child abuse is not taken seriously when it’s the adult victims/survivors of said abuse finally breaking decades of silence to speak about what they endured. Those adults, myself included, are ridiculed for making things up, for not remembering circumstances correctly, and for just being bitter, angry, depressed. Well, let me tell you something, children have the purest bullshit meter I have ever seen in any human being. A child knows when they’re being lied to, when someone is not to be trusted, but what to do we adults do? We laugh off their terror, we brush off their tears because what do children know. It makes me sick to my gut to see children dismissed especially in situations of suspected or confirmed abuse.

I learned fast to not cry when talking about the daily abuse I saw and experienced at home. Somehow my tears of absolute heartbreak were seen as a manipulative tool and were taken to mean I was trying to make my story real when it wasn’t. There’s a part of a child that simply dies when they face a constant stream of abuse. If you know what to look for, it’s visible in their empty eyes, their lack of enthusiasm for activities, it’s their acting out and bullying other children. Adults look at children who act out or who even bully and all they see are misbehaving children and they look on them with disgust. What adults and other parents don’t look for is the cause of the acting out. Yes, I’m aware that some children just act out because they can, but more often than not, there is some sort of abuse triggering their need for attention or their need to dominate other children.

I have watched my siblings be those misbehaved, acting out children that no other family wanted or wants anything to do with. I have sat by and watched as we were rejected by other kids because we were so desperate for love and attention. I have also seen people brush me off time and time again because they just saw or see rebellious kids, not the hurting, broken children I see because of the abuse they daily suffer.

My sister is one of the strongest and bravest people I know, but she is seen as a rebellious little girl who is out of control. She is seen like that by the very family who offered to help, by the parents who are friends with my parents. I understand where they are coming from with their point of view, but I see the tears, I see the brokenness she tries to hide, I see the fear and pain from years of being thrown around, emotionally and physically. The adults don’t see that, they just see what they want to see because it is too hard to face the reality of child abuse. It is too hard to dive in and try to fight something of such a strong stigma as child abuse.

I understand the fear of hardship when it comes to people who could be advocating for more awareness of what really goes on in a large percentage of homeschooling homes. Tackling such a huge problem as child abuse takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of breaking in you as you face the realities these kids, myself included, have had to face and still face on a day to day basis. I don’t know very many people, outside of the private circles I am apart of on facebook, who are willing to put in the enormous amount of effort it takes to fight those perpetuating child abuse. Reality isn’t pretty when you enter the world of child abuse, but shame on you world for not taking seriously the horrific crime of child abuse.

There is so much more I want to say, but I am running out of steam now. I am constantly amazed at the scientific studies that are starting to come out revealing the drastic effects of emotional abuse on the brains of children. I don’t understand how people can be outraged about something in the media but then completely ignore the realities of that happening in their backyard. Innocent ignorance I can tolerate, it’s the turning a blind eye upon those who are hurting I can’t.

Pay attention to what happens around you, maybe you can help a child who is broken inside.

Sexual Purity and the Pool Battle Plan

HA Editorial Team11 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Georges Marchand.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on May 30, 2015.

A recent article by Heath Lambert, executive director of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, got me thinking about the way purity culture harms men. The article was titled Pursuing Purity at the Pool and aimed at preparing men for going to the beach or pool this summer. Take a look at this paragraph, for instance:

During this time of year many show up to swim wearing very immodest swimming gear.  Such immodesty creates a struggle for many seeking sexual purity.  We may choose to decry immodest swimming apparel, but the reality is that outside of our own homes and families there is not much we can do about it.  That means that we will have to take responsibility for our own eyes and hearts as we venture out to  swim this summer.  Here are five suggestions to help us stay pure while many are wearing provocative attire near the water.

In order to understand what the author, Heath Lambert, is getting at, you have to understand that evangelicals and fundamentalists who enforce strict modesty standards and subscribe to what I call “purity culture” believe that even thinking about sex is sinful. To be more precise, thinking about sex with someone you are not married to is held to be sinful. But what this really boils down to is seeing sexual attraction as sinful.

When Heath talks about the difficulty of staying “pure” at the pool, he is not talking about how difficult it is to avoid having sex with sexually attractive women in swimming attire, he’s talking about how difficult it is to avoid having feelings of sexual attraction for attractive women in swimming attire.

Have you ever tried not thinking about something? It’s really hard, isn’t it? An ordinary guy is going to go to the pool and think “mmm, sexy” from time to time, and that’s about it. A guy who believes sexual thoughts are sinful is instead going to spend the entire time obsessing over sex in an attempt not to think about it. How sad is that?

(As a side note, while Heath does say that men should take responsibility for their own eyes, he also describes women’s swimwear as “provocative,” which generally implies an intention to provoke. I for one do not evaluate my swimming attire based on whether or not it will cause the men around me to think sexual thoughts.)

Heath offers several suggestions to help men avoid feelings of sexual attraction to women at the pool or beach.

1.  Don’t Go

One suggestion is not to go to the pool, lake, or beach where others will be dressed immodestly.  For some, the temptation to lust will be too overpowering and should be avoided.  The suggestion to avoid such temptation may sound ridiculous to some.  What is summer without the water?  The beach?  But this suggestion is not mine.  Jesus thought of it long before I did.  If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire (Matt 18:9).  Jesus’ words here are very candid instruction indicating that it is better to be pure than to be by the pool.

And there it is—”the temptation to lust.” Evangelical author Josh Harris defines lust as “craving sexually what God has forbidden.” Evangelical theologian John Piper defines lust as “the realm of thought, imagination, and desire that leads to sexual misconduct,” and makes it very clear that he any sexual thought can lead to sexual misconduct and all of it is counts as lust.

2.  Pray

Many will not have to take such radical measures.  Such people will find it possible to be near the scantily-clad bodies of people near the water, but they will need to get ready before they do it.  This will at least mean that we need to pray.  Prayer should be part of our preparation of heading to the lake every bit as much as buying sunscreen.  We should pray for a heart of purity before we head out and we should be ready to depend on God in prayer while there.  The immediacy of prayer means that we can call out to God in the moment of temptation and receive his help right when we need it (Heb 4:16).

3.  Memorize and Meditate

In addition to prayer we can also prepare our hearts for the pool by memorizing and meditating on Scripture—I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you (Pss 119:11).  The passages you select might be focused on purity, For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality (1 Thess 4:3).  Or the passage may be focused on some other glorious truth of Scripture that redirects your heart towards the things of God, Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible (Col 1:15-16).  It really doesn’t matter as long as you are taking your thoughts captive to Christ (2 Cor 10:5).

Most people can get ready to head for the pool without creating a spiritual battle plan. And perhaps, to me, that is what is most sad here. Articles like this, with their conflation of sexual attraction with sin, make visits to the pool a Huge Freaking Deal and in doing so create elevated levels of sexual tension.

If Heath and other guys like him would stop trying so very hard not to think about sex, they might actually find themselves thinking about it less. Ironic, isn’t it?

4.  Stay Focused

While you’re out swimming stay focused.  For me, I never have an occasion to be swimming without my wife and children, and so staying focused means two things.  First, I keep my gaze fixed on my family.  I look at my wife or my kids.  I work to avoid looking around at other people.  Second, I stay focused on my work as a husband and father and work to serve my family.  I focus on trying to play with my kids, talk with my wife, keep everyone safe, and do what I can to help everyone enjoy their time.  I find this helps keeps my eyes and heart focused where they should be.

I’m a parent of young children myself, and I’m trying to think of the last time I had the time to think “mmm, sexy” while at the pool. Ordinarily I spend the bulk of my time trying to make sure my children don’t, you know, drown. My older child is transitioning to swimming without a floaties, which is freaking me out, and while my younger child still wears a flotation device, he doesn’t always stay as close to me as I would like. If I switch off with my husband and take a break from the kids, I usually go to the hot tub, close my eyes, and enjoy a moment of relaxation.

I guess what I’m getting at is that most people spend the bulk of their time at the pool focused on themselves or their friends or family members, not checking out sexy people. But because of Heath’s conflation of sexual attraction with sin, and because of his obsession with not thinking about sex, what is ordinarily normal becomes difficult and a challenging and part of a battle plan.

5.  Sing

When all else fails . . . sing.  So many people I know find that when they are really tempted they can break the back of sin and temptation by singing songs that redirect their attention to the Lord.  In God’s world he causes music to be one of the main ways we treasure Christ and the Word (Col 3:16).  Songs like Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, It Is Well with My Soul, and Before the Throne of God Above are all songs that I sing to help orient my heart to Jesus.  You don’t have to be live in concert in front of everyone at the beach. You can sing silently and it will still work.

If someone wants to maintain an internal soundtrack, that’s fine by me, but again I would point out that this wouldn’t be such an issue without Heath’s obsessive focus on not thinking about sex. How is it not obvious that trying not to think about something is only going to make one think about it more?

I am praying for you this summer.  My prayer is that in God’s kindness you would spend as much energy this summer fighting for purity as you do having a blast by the water.  I pray that these suggestions help you do that very thing.

So basically, going to the pool is one part fighting lust and one part having fun in the water. That does not sound so fun. I mean, there’s the whole battle plan aspect of it—you have to be always on your guard, on the alert, etc. How can you actually relax?

Purity culture doesn’t just hurt women, it hurts men, too. I honestly and truly feel sorry for Heath. He is obsessing over sex to the point that he can’t simply enjoy a trip to the pool—and yet he thinks that in doing so he is being virtuous and honorable and that it is everyone else who is obsessed with sex.

Homeschool Organization Refuses to Accommodate Deaf Parents

HA Editorial Team9 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Burt Heymans.

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

What should have been one of the happiest moments of their lives turned into a nightmare for a young homeschooled girl and her Deaf parents.

The girl, a homeschooled student from New Jersey, was graduating in a ceremony held on June 6 at Fellowship Bible Church in the city of Sewell. The ceremony was organized by Gloucester County Christian Home Schoolers Association (GCCHSA), a non-profit Christian home school support group serving families in Southern New Jersey.

According to the girl’s mother, Melissa Morgan, the Morgan family arranged for an interpreter to be at the ceremony so that Melissa and her husband Robert, who are both Deaf, could enjoy their daughter’s big day. The Morgan family was willing to make all the arrangements. They found an interpreter and had the interpreter meet with Andy Moore, the person in charge of the graduation planning. Andy referred them to his wife, Liz, and she and everyone else involved figured out where Melissa and Robert could sit for best visibility and where the interpreter should stand. The plan was for the interpreter to stand next to the presenter so that the interpreter would be visible to all who needed to see. According to the Morgan family, Liz agreed with and accepted these plans.

Later, according to Melissa, one parent from GCCHSA complained that it would be “distracting for an interpreter to stand next to the speaker and asked if an interpreter can sit on the floor away from the stage and at the bottom of the steps.” Melissa says that she “explained to her that I wouldn’t be able to see my daughter, the speaker, and the entire stage,” and adds that, “She doesn’t really understand my Deafness well.” Melissa states that the complaining parent kept interrupting her attempts to work things out with Andy Moore, the GCCHSA chair Ardra Jarvis, and the interpreter.

Eventually, Melissa and Robert were allegedly forced into a compromise: the interpreter would have to sit, not stand, on the stage, and would have to sit behind the speaker. In an email to Melissa from Andy Moore (obtained by Homeschoolers Anonymous), Moore tells her that, “It will be fine for your interpreter to sit in a chair at floor level in front of you for the remainder of the program.” Without any other options, Robert and Melissa had to accept. However, as Melissa pointed out to me, she would “not be able to view the speaker’s body language, tone, etc. And after we hand out the diplomas to the 8th graders, an interpreter will move her chair off the stage to the end of the steps on the floor in front of me and my family for the rest of the ceremony.” This meant that Robert and Melissa were unable to view the entire stage because they had to be “focused on the interpreter alone sitting on a chair on the floor for most of the time.” This meant they missed “most of the celebration.”

The day prior to the graduation, Melissa issued a public plea on her husband’s Facebook page for friends and family to petition GCCHSA to change their minds. “The more people sent [sic] to that email address and hopefully these people will open their minds and heart,” Melissa wrote. “I’m hoping that God will shed HIS light on those people to change their mind and hearts and be open.” Melissa and Robert were ultimately unsuccessful in these attempts. They were also unable to file a claim for disability discrimination under the American Disabilities Act because GCCHSA is a religious non-profit organization in New Jersey and thus exempt. Furthermore, while the graduation planner Andy Moore sent an email apology to the Morgans’ daughter for the stress the organization caused her, neither the daughter nor Robert nor Melissa received any apology from Ardra Jarvis, the chair of GCCHSA who bore ultimate responsibility. And as Melissa points out, even “after their apologizes, they didn’t change anything… It was 100% unacceptable, but we all stayed for the entire ceremony for the sake of our daughter.”

Even though what should have been a stress-free, wonderful graduation ceremony for her daughter ended up being a nightmare, Melissa is renewed in her eagerness to prevent this from happening to someone else’s child in the future. “I believe that all non-profit organizations should follow the ADA laws,” Melissa states. “What about people with disabilities, such as a person in a wheelchair who don’t have any accessibility?”

“I want to prevent this happening to anyone in the future.”

Story of a Homeschooler

HA Editorial Team10 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Tori Wright.

HA Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Laurie Works’ blog Laurie Works. It was originally published on May 25, 2015 and has been slightly modified for HA.

I grew up a homeschooler.

The news this week has made it more salient than ever, even though it’s something I’ve been slowly processing the past couple of months. I’ve been reading a ton of posts on Homeschoolers Anonymous, as well as chatting with a blogger and real life friend who was homeschooled. The resources I’ve found have resonated so deeply with me. I’ve wanted to share now for a while, but writing out what it’s like to be a homeschooler is really not easy. Especially when you have 12 school years full of it.

That’s right. I wasn’t just –a– homeschooler. I was one of –those– homeschoolers. Schooled at home the whole way through.

People ask me all the time if I like it, and I’m close to honest. I say I liked it until high school, and then I was miserable. But the truth is I had moments of misery the whole time.

Being homeschooled especially sucks when you hate being at home.

There’s no way out.

I hated being in 2nd grade for 3 years after my youngest sister was born because my mom was “too tired” to keep us going on our schoolwork. I hated how the neighborhood kids made fun of us for it.

I hated in high school how I had no friends but my sisters. See, along with being homeschooled, our home church was 2 hours away in the small mountain town of Granby, CO. So we really had little access to friends. And then when we did, the church kids thought we were weird and tended to avoid us.

I tried my damndest to not be one of the socially awkward homeschool kids, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re restricted to an apartment all day long.

Oh yeah. We lived in a 900 sq. ft. apartment in Denver, CO. With a family of 6. 3 bedrooms. I shared a room until I was 19.

I got sick of my sisters. I got sick of us getting lumped into the same group all the time at church events. I didn’t hate them, but when you’re with someone so much, it’s hard to want to be with them more. That in itself was annoying, but I dealt. What really sucked about being at home was my dad.

What I saw growing up was not the even more extreme dysfunction I see now. I didn’t realize that his obsession with God giving us 1.7 billion dollars was actually a problem. Nope, what I was focused on in my teen years was his abuse.

My dad was verbally abusive to us from the time I was 5 years old.

I remember little of when it started, but I know it was bad enough my mom wanted to take us to her mom’s house in Nebraska. I’m not sure why she decided to stay. The abuse continued, though, and some of it echoes in my ears. My dad threatening to leave. My dad screaming “I’M THE HEAD OF THIS HOUSE!” My mom reading books on submission and slowly fading into silence.

Or the subtle abuse of his anger when we didn’t speak up during our nightly “discussions.” Though these are a typical facet of fundamentalist homeschooling (nightly “devotions”), ours were different. These discussions were reiterations of my dad’s belief that God would give us this astronomical amount of money. He would talk about the “coincidences” of the day and how they were signs pointing to God’s will for us. If we didn’t have any input or anything to share, my dad would get angry. However, if we tried to talk too much, my dad would get angry. And when I say angry, I mean yelling. Sharp remarks. Heavy sighs. Looks of annoyance. Sometimes stomping out of the room.

If we spoke, he was angry. If we were quiet, he was angry.

We couldn’t win.

It was a radically strange combination of fundamentalist teachings such as submission (my dad LOVED John Bevere and his teachings on spiritual authority) and my dad’s delusional beliefs. I have friends who say that my dad created a cult with us, his family. We were forced to buy into his belief about this money: I clearly remember my dad working very hard to convince my twin sister to “just have faith” that this money would appear. He eventually cowed her into “believing” it. If we didn’t buy in, he pleaded with us in this fashion, or got extremely angry and verbally abusive, even threatening to leave us. On top of that, we were isolated from the outside world due to the fact that we were homeschooled with a church so far away. I wasn’t allowed to go out for sports as a teenager or to get a job.

There was only 1 person that I know of outside the family that knew about this money business, and that was our trustee.

Yep, we had a trustee. And 4 empty trusts (one for each of us girls) connected to an umbrella company that my dad formed to be a funnel for “the money” when it came. You can still look it up as a Colorado business: Oversyte Investment Company, LLC. Because of the trusts my dad found us a trustee. He was the only one that heard about my dad’s ideas. I have to wonder now what he thought of the whole thing. But the trustee was young at the time, only 22-23 years old. A kid. He was probably enamored of the whole thing. My dad was good at casting a spell (read: charismatic).

What was honestly weird though was that my dad spent more time asking our trustee about his life than he ever spent asking us about ours.

My dad talked incessantly about “the family” and how important “the family” was. Yet he never really knew any of us. And “the family” really just meant that we fell into line behind him and became part of his missionary force to the rich people of the world.

I never told anyone the dollar amount of my dad’s delusions until I told my ex-husband. I was probably 19-20. After that I didn’t mention it to anyone else until I was 22, and I told my therapist. She was shocked. Her reaction woke me up. Maybe this whole thing really wasn’t normal.

The amount of secrecy I felt I had to hold really rings true to me with this crazy Josh Duggar situation.

I understand family secrets, far far too well.

I clearly remember my dad telling us, “Don’t tell anyone about this money stuff. They’ll think we are crazy.” I kept that pact for somewhere around 10-12 years. A decade.

All this amounts to one thing. I grew up in a fishbowl. A small, small fishbowl nowhere close to the ocean.

I was trapped in an environment where I was abused and ridiculed if I stepped out of line or had my own opinions.

Or, I was ignored. Either/or. I was literally stuck in a small apartment from 1997-2007 – 900 square feet for 3 teenagers and a girl under 10 years old. Mentally and emotionally stuck in a dream world of my dad’s which included weekly trips to the corporate airport, trips so frequent I can still name off dozens of types of corporate jets.

Family secrets have an incredible hold. My dad’s own sister didn’t know any of this until last year (!!) when I finally broke the silence. I’d been terrified to disclose anything to his family before; I don’t know what I was afraid of, other than finally disclosing a “secret.” But when I told her she was remorseful and regretful, saying she would have done something if she’d only known.
I’m telling this story to add it to the other voices now speaking up about homeschooling. I’m telling this story because I think it’s important.

I’m telling this story so maybe someday soon the government or SOMEONE can hold homeschool parents accountable.

Why? Because in a fishbowl, isolated from the ocean, it’s far too easy to keep things secret. Things like 1.7 billion dollar delusions. Or, in the Duggar family, molesting 5 young girls. Accountability is needed.

I’m telling this, too, because it’s time. Because holding this in for so long has hurt, and I’m ready for all of you to know. And honestly, this is just the beginning.

You Can Probably Guess What the Founder of “Biblical Counseling” Said About Domestic Violence

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Jay E. Adams is the founder of the “nouthetic counseling” movement, or what has become known as “biblical counseling” (though it is unworthy of being called either “biblical” or “counseling” in my opinion). Popularized by Adams’ seminal book Competent to Counsel, nouthetic counseling is based on the assumption that counseling should be based solely upon the Bible. This movement rejects mainstream psychology and therapeutic methods as secular and atheistic and thus ungodly.

The movement also assumes that pastors and other spiritual leaders — untrained in the actual practice and science of mental health — can adequately address mental illness because mental illness in this perspective is basically another word for sin. Adams’ method is currently championed by eminent evangelical Christians such as John MacArthur, who claims “behavioral sciences…are not scientific,” psychology is an “occult religion,” and Jesus and the Bible should be “the church’s only solution” to mental illness. This is the same method and mentality that respected (and formerly respected) leaders in the Christian Homeschool Movement — most notably Voddie Baucham, Reb Bradley, Doug Phillips, and Bill Gothard — have promoted for years. They have taught thousands of families at homeschool and other religious conventions around the country — and through their books and other educational materials — that mental “illness” is fake. It’s all just “sin” and “rebellion” and can be resolved through a “right” relationship with God.

An example of Adams chalking up mental illness to sin comes from his book Helps for Counselors: A Mini-Manual for Christian Counseling, published by Baker Book House in 1980. On page 29, under his section explaining how a counselor should deal with a client’s depression, Adams says, “The counsel must recognize his responsibility for depression” (emphasis added). A client has spiritual guilt for his or her own depression because, in Adams’ worldview, “Depression results from handling a down period sinfully.” Thus “counselees may spiral up out of depression by asking God’s forgiveness” and “can stay out depression by following God’s commands” and “repenting of any sin immediately.”

If you think Adams handles depression poorly, just wait until you see how he handles domestic violence.

The following passage is also from Adams’ Helps for Counselors, pages 19-20. In these pages Adams is addressing the importance of “Listening.” He writes,

III. Listen for all of the facts (Prov. 18:17).

A. There are two or more sides to many issues:

1. This implies that all parties should be present if possible,

2. That each should hear what the other says in order to explain, modify, amplify, etc. (note “examine”),

3. And it is clear that one must not be allowed to speak negatively about another behind his back (see also James 4:11).

B. The first to speak can sound quite convincing if heard alone,

1. But the additional information that the other provides can turn the conclusion about face.

2. As, for instance, when one counselee said,

“He hit me! He slapped me in the face!”

And her husband replied:

“Sure, to bring her to her senses.”

“To bring her to her senses.” Apparently that makes it okay!

Other posts on HA about domestic violence:

Note: if you are a victim of domestic violence or know someone who is, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or visit their website here. There is help available and you are worth it.

PSA: Re: Smiling in Public

HA Editorial Team6 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Josef Stuefer.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Kierstyn King’s blog Bridging the Gap.  It was originally published on May 22, 2015.

Just because someone is smiling in public does not mean everything in their life is happy, perfect, and healthy.

I’m reminded of this, in light of the Josh Duggar situation, because both parent-like sets of people in my life see the Duggars as The Best Family Ever. And because the Duggars are good at being The Best Family Ever, it makes it hard for their fan base to see past the barrage of smiles and actually listen to what’s being said and taught and what the consequences of those are for the Duggar kids.

My family was a poorer, less popular, less business-savvy version of the Duggars. Bill Gothard aside, they believe basically the same things the Duggars do. As much as the Duggars want to tell you they just love kids and are totally not quiverfull, their line about just “doing what God wants them to do” re: breeding is quiverfull ideology, and my parents (like the Duggars) are quiverfull.

My parents spent my and my siblings childhoods training us to always smile and look/act/be happy even when that wasn’t the emotion we were having. Happiness was godly, happiness meant no one thought anything was wrong, happiness made my parents the go-to parents in our local community for child-rearing tips and advice.

So it pains me when people don’t see that the smiles are fake. They look at families like mine, like the Duggars, like countless others, and say “But look, they’re smiling! they’re happy! everything is obviously great!” as if the mouth is not a series of muscles that can be willed into an upside-down frown on demand, or out of necessity.

A smile does not indicate a healthy, happy situation. It doesn’t take much to see past the plasticity and into the tired eyes behind the upturned lips.

Just because a family is smiling on tv doesn’t mean it’s happy. Us quiverfull kids are great at smiling. Listen to our words and our silence, not our masked faces.

Use your empathy.