HA Editorial Team

5 Simple Ways Homeschool Parents Can Better Respect Alumni

July 10, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team1 Comment

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

I read an article the other day entitled, “5 Simple Ways Men Can Better Respect Women.” You should go check it out.

The article inspired me to think of a parallel list for homeschool parents who are interested in how they can better respect us alumni speaking up about our homeschooling experiences. (And while we’re at it, Heather Doney made a great list a while ago called “20 Ways Not to Respond to Homeschool Horror Stories.” You should check her list out, too.)

So without further ado, here are 5 simple ways homeschool parents can better respect alumni:

1. Don’t Parentsplain; Validate.

Parentsplaining is simple: in the same way that “mansplaining” is the act of a man speaking to a woman with the assumption that she knows less than he does about the topic being discussed on the basis of her gender, “parentsplaining” is the act of a parent speaking to a homeschool student or alumni with the assumption that they know less than the parent does about the topic being discussed on the basis of their not-being-parents.

For example, when someone shares an article on Facebook about the damage Christian Patriarchy does to homeschool students’ perceptions of healthy sexuality, and some homeschool parent you haven’t talked to in years randomly pops up and says, “I’ve been homeschooling for decades and I’ve never encountered this so you should stop obsessing with fringe cultures.”

Cue eye rolls from all of us alumni.

Parents, we know you’ve been homeschooling for decades. You know why? Because we’ve been homeschooled for decades. You are welcome to explain to us about all the behind-the-curtains drama among parents, about why you chose this or that curriculum, and if you’d do things differently if you could. But you don’t get to dictate to us whether our experiences were true or valid. We are the ones who have to do that. They are our experiences, not yours. And as the people in the conversation who actually experienced homeschooling — You didn’t experience it, remember? You created the experience — we get to explain the experience, not you.

So stop telling us that we experienced what you created differently than how you intended us to experience it. That’s on you, not us. Maybe you should have thought about that before you created the experiences for us in the first place.

2. Talk to Us Like We’re Adults.

The use of diminutives by homeschool parents starts early. When homeschool alumni are kids and disagree with their parents, parents tell them they will “understand” x or y “when you grow up.” Then alumni do grow up and still disagree. So the parents tell them they will “understand” x or y “when you have kids.” Then alumni do have kids and still disagree. So the parents tell them they will “understand” x or y “when your kids start going to school.” Then alumni’s kids do go to school and still disagree and —

— and you get the point. Sometimes it seems like alumni will only be fully human and only capable of having their own opinions when they are grandparents. Though even then it probably won’t be enough.

So let’s just clear this up: Whatever argument you’re setting forward is either valid or invalid. If it’s valid, its validity cannot rest on whether or not my genitals made a baby with another set of genitals. So explain your argument’s validity and don’t talk down to us. If you cannot actually explain why your position is valid, then realize you haven’t thought it through. Go back to the drawing board and re-engage when you have a better argument than, “But you haven’t done some baby-making yet!”

3. Educate Yourself.

Education isn’t bad. In fact, groups like Homeschoolers Anonymous (and Recovering Grace, and Rethinking Vision Forum, and so forth) exist specifically to educate you. Many of us are constantly educating others, explaining what this or that acronym means (“HSLDA? VF? ATI? IBLP? YMCA?”) or what this or that individual did (“Jonathan Lindvall is to Reb Bradley as Doug Phillips is to Michael Farris?”).

But.

But don’t be lazy. You don’t need to be a walking encyclopedia of homeschool trivia like some of us are. But you can at least take it upon yourself and do your own research once in a while. Instead of demanding we justify why we think Michael and Debi Pearl are child abuse advocates, go read To Train Up A Child. Or read it again, if you haven’t in 20 years. Or go read Libby Anne’s extensive and detailed analysis of every single paragraph in the book. And if you didn’t know such an analysis existed, ask. If you actually do care about making homeschooling better, then we expect you to be a little more motivated than you seem to come across as.

Otherwise you seem more motivated to disprove us than to actually find out the truth for yourself.

Stop asking us for education. Get educated yourself.

4. Speak Up.

Seriously. Do you care about anything we’re talking about? Then speak up already!

Since groups like HA and Recovering Grace have launched, there have been a few parents and homeschool-convention speakers who have extended an olive branch. These are quick attempts at support and then they go back to their lives, rarely to speak of the interaction ever again. Homeschool celebrities will write a single, solitary blog post and pay lip service to the idea of taking abuse seriously — only to fall silent once again and continue their lives as if the whole deck is not being daily stacked against those of us refusing to be silent.

You can’t be neutral here, parents. You can’t write one blog post and then pretend like you actually did something. You can’t share one post from one alumni group and then act like you contributed to making the homeschooling world a safer place.

If you want to be an advocate for abuse victims and survivors, you need to start raising a ruckus. You need to throw caution to the wind and come along side us and fight for our voices to be heard. You need to start calling out fellow speakers and celebrities — including even your friends — when they advocate legalism, patriarchy, mishandling of child abuse, warped teachings on sex and sexuality, marginalizing attitudes towards LGBT* individuals, and so forth.

Speak up already.

5. Show, Not Tell.

There’s always that one parent who just has to interject and derail a conversation with the phrase, “Not all homeschoolers are like that.” They show up like the Kool-Aid Man:

Dear parents who aren’t “like that”: We know. If you’re not the problem, then you’re not problem. You don’t need to point it out just like a million other parents have pointed out. You don’t need to defend yourself or anyone else who isn’t a terrible human being. You don’t need to apologize “on behalf” of the terrible parents; you don’t need to show us how “with it” you are in terms of Millennial jargon; you don’t have to feel bad if you can’t relate to our memes and jokes.

Here’s what you can do instead: act.

Because actions speak louder than words.

Don’t tell us you listen. Listen. Listen, learn, support, and then go out and help us make the world a better place. We’d love for you to join us.

Q: What Do Doug Phillips and Bill Clinton Have in Common? (Besides the Whole Preying-on-Women Thing.)

July 9, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team5 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

A: They both supported Michael Farris’s efforts to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the law at the heart of the recent Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme Court.

You’ve probably heard about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). It’s at the core of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. Supreme Court case, which (on a 5-4 decision) held that,

As applied to closely held corporations, the regulations promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services requiring employers to provide their female employees with no-cost access to contraception violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

If you’ve been following the Hobby Lobby case, you probably have a strong opinion one way or another about whether the case was appropriately decided. You’ve also probably heard your “liberal” friends on Facebook mourning the fact that RFRA exists or your “conservative” friends trying to rub RFRA’s existence in their liberal friends’ faces by saying something like, “Bill Clinton signed it! Chuck Schumer signed it! Ha!”

But whatever side you take, and however liberal or conservative you might be, one salient fact stands out: a Democrat president might have signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law, but it was master-minded by none other than Michael Farris, president of HSLDA. My source for that claim? Michael Farris himself.

The day the Hobby Lobby decision came out, Farris wasted no time in claiming credit for it on his public Facebook page:

Relevant text is:

Hobby Lobby wins 5 to 4.!!This victory was based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. I was the person who named the Act and was the Chairman of the group of lawyers who drafted RFRA.

Really, Farris is being modest in just saying he named the RFRA and supervised the drafting of his text. The fact is, he also “organized a broad coalition of groups to support it” and worked to assuage “pro-life groups” who “feared that the RFRA would extend women’s legal rights to get abortions.” Farris’s work immediately payed off, as HSLDA was able to capitalize on the RFRA in homeschool legal cases and then-HSLDA attorney (now former) Jordan Lorence used it to champion explicit housing discrimination against an unmarried couple.

Historically speaking, it is ironic that the RFRA is now being championed by “conservatives” as a “conservative” piece of legislation. Almost 2 decades ago, libertarian groups were criticizing the RFRA, contending it was unconstitutional because it “exceeded Congress’ power to regulate state and local government” and was merely “Congress’s attempts to redefine constitutional rights via the enforcement clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” (In fact, the Supreme Court partially agreed, striking down parts of the RFRA, with Justice John Paul Stevens declaring it was a “law respecting an establishment of religion’ that violates the First Amendment to the Constitution.”) Legal scholars similarly argued it “establishes an across-the-board scheme that deliberately singles out religious practices, en masse, as a congressionally favored class of activity.”

(Of course, if you are familiar with Michael Farris’s actual legal theories and not just his rhetoric, none of this should surprise you. Farris is a far cry from actual conservatism and a far cry from federalism. He is more of an opportunistic expansionist. This is evidenced no more humorously in the fact mentioned above: that the Supreme Court struck down part of a law Farris oversaw the drafting of because it was an unconstitutional expansion of the federal government’s powers over and against states’ rights. Nonetheless, HSLDA continues to praise the RFRA.)

But here’s the best part, for all you homeschool trivia buffs out there: After Farris got to name the RFRA and chair the group of lawyers who drafted it, and after it passed the House and Senate and was sent to then-President Bill Clinton to sign, Farris was unable to make the signing ceremony. So who did Michael Farris send in his stead, to be there on this momentous occasion and celebrate one of his crowning political victories?

Doug Phillips.

Yeah, that Doug Phillips.

I’ll let HSLDA tell its own story, since they already did in the 1993 November/December Court Report:

Religious freedom regained significant protection on November 16, as President Clinton signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA). Home School Legal Defense Association president Michael Farris was one of the original drafters of the bill. HSLDA had worked diligently over a three year period for RRFA’s passage.

Among those in attendance at the ceremony for the signing of the RFRA in the White House Rose Garden, was Doug Phillips, Director for Government Affairs for the National Center for Home Education. Phillips attended in the place of Farris, who was out of town and unable to attend. After the signing, President Clinton spoke with Phillips and extended his gratitude for the role Farris played in the RFRA drafting and coalition-building process. “Tell Mike, I really appreciate the work he did drafting [the RFRA],” President Clinton told Phillips.

It’s interesting how all these so-called “fringe” individuals — individuals like IBLP’s Bill Gothard and Vision Forum’s Doug Phillips — keep popping up in cases of immense national import. Gothard directly influenced the ideology of the Hobby Lobby owners, the ideology that inspired Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. And Farris, Phillips, and HSLDA ensured the success of the RFRA, the law that ensured Hobby Lobby’s legal success. So fringe, you know?

“Fringe.”

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

I Fight These Demons So I Can Explain The Scars: Shiphrah’s Story, Part One

July 9, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

HA Editorial note: The author’s name had originally been changed to ensure anonymity. “Shiphrah” was a pseudonym. I am editing this today because I am ready to say that Shiphrah is me. I wrote this and asked that it was posted anonymously because I had only begun to explore the depths of my memories and my pain at that time and I needed an outlet to work through it. I no longer feel the need for anonymity, no longer am I afraid to claim the darkest parts of my story. I am Darcy, and this is my story and my pain and my healing. ~Darcy Anne, HA Editorial Team

Part One

I was never good enough.

From as far back as I can remember, I was never good enough. I was told I was selfish, lazy, prideful, rebellious, and argumentative. I was told I needed to ask God to forgive me and make me a good person through Him (because we could never be good on our own, only with Jesus’ help and then it was never to our credit, only to His).

When my little sister picked fights with me and I lashed out at her, I was the one scolded, grounded, spanked, had things taken from me, forced to spend time with her to “help us get along”, told to get along and be nice and stop being so selfish and be a better example because I was the oldest. She often got away scott-free, even when she started it. I was told numerous times that if I couldn’t learn to get along with my sister then I couldn’t have friends. Family is more important than friends and how you treat your family tells you how you will treat friends. And if you treat friends better than family, you’re a special kind of hypocrite. I tried to explain why it was easier to treat my friends better. Because they were nice to me.

I was then told that Jesus said “what good is it if you love those who love you?” but loving people who aren’t nice to you is much better in God’s eyes.

Everything I did was criticized. It was never good enough. There was always something to be fixed, some way to do things better. I remember being about 12 years old and telling my mom in exasperation, “All you ever do is criticise me. You never tell me what I do right, only ever what I do wrong.” She first acted surprised and denied it, then promised to try to notice the good before telling me the bad. That didn’t last very long and felt very fake even when she tried. Like she was straining to find something good to say to get it out of the way so she could go on to grasp “this teachable moment”. Of course, when I resisted the “teachable moment”, I was the one at fault for being “unteachable”.

To this day when someone says “teachable moment” I recoil.

I was always “unteachable” because I often argued with my mom’s criticism. Because her words stung and fighting them off was my only defense, as little as it was. I was good with words and knew how to wield them as weapons of defense. I often had Proverbs quoted at me that said that people that were unteachable were fools and only those willing to listen to constructive criticism were people of good character whom God loved. So I guess that was just another thing that God hated about me too.

I was told constantly that I was selfish, and it didn’t take long for my sister to take up that anthem against me. Of course, sister had “a servant’s heart” and was selfless and kind and I should be more like her. She was generous and I was stingy. I only thought of myself and my needs and God was not pleased with that. I should ask God to give me a servant’s heart. I spent many hours as a child crying to God to give me this elusive servant’s heart that I apparently lacked and needed before my mom would accept me and my actions. Then maybe my sister wouldn’t hate me either. We were given roles very early in life and we played them well. She learned early how to manipulate our parents against me and she was always believed over me.

I was a child of many emotions. Sensitive, thinking, opinionated, deeply feeling.

But I quickly learned that some emotions were not acceptable, maybe even a sin, and I was not allowed to express them.

I learned that if I was angry, it was “godly” to forgive and forget that anger and definitely don’t express it. “Be angry but do not sin” meant “be angry but never tell anyone or show it”. There were times I wanted to scream because of the pent-up feelings of anger at my parents, anger at my sister, and anger at myself for being angry with them. I must be the terrible person they said I was because I couldn’t stop being angry and sad all the time. I begged God to make me nice and happy and sweet. “Why can’t you be sweet like your sister?” was something I heard often. I often escaped with a book into my favorite tree, away from everyone I could possibly sin against, away from the constant criticism of my actions and “bad attitudes” and the reminders that I was rebellious against God and my parents.

When I was an early teen, things only got worse. Thanks to a cult leader called Bill Gothard and his seminars and his followers, my family finally found answers to all our problems and embraced the promises to have the perfect godly life if we followed the Basic Principles. I was 14 and I thought, yes! This is the answer! The rule list that will finally make me a good person whom my family will love, who will be worthy of their love and acceptance. I poured my heart and soul into the materials, spending hours praying to God to forgive me for all the ground I gave to Satan. For not accepting my parents as the hammer and chisel that were molding me into the diamond I was meant to be. My resistance of their umbrella of authority must be the reason I’m a bad, selfish person. I was determined to finally fix my broken soul. I befriended many “godly girls” who were homeschoolers and whose families understood and followed the secrets of a godly life, hoping their goodness would rub off on me. Eventually, those girls popped into arguments between me and my mom….”why can’t you be more like them? They would never treat their parents and sister the way you do.” I wanted nothing more than to be “more like them” and tried even harder.

I had many teary confessions to my parents for being rebellious. They piled on the modesty books and the courtship books and all the books that told me I was a naturally bad person and needed my parents as my authority because I couldn’t trust my heart to know what was best for me. I ate them up, thinking i would find the answer to all my problems. When my sister would lie about me, get me into trouble, pick fights with me until I snapped at her, I would take a breath, search my own heart for any evil thoughts, and beg her to forgive me for being selfish. She always did, of course. It was very magnanimous of her as a good, generous person to forgive my selfish actions.

There were some dark times in there. For a while I was convinced that since I was such a terrible person and my family hated me so much, that maybe God hated me too and what was the point of me living? I began to fantasize about ways I could kill myself and relieve my family of the burden of me. I never went through with anything.

I was afraid of death, that God really did hate me and would send me to hell and I couldn’t die until I turned into a better person.

Part Two >

Minnesota’s Celebrated “Homeschool Pioneers” Founded a High-Control Cult

July 8, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

4 months ago, Given Hoffman and Eileen Hoffman — writers for the Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators (MACHE) — wrote a book entitled, “The Voices of the Pioneers: Homeschooling in Minnesota.” Given Hoffman is a “20 year old homeschool graduate” and “alumni of Worldview Academy”; Eileen Hoffman is Given’s mother and a MACHE Board member. The Hoffmans and MACHE describe their book as follows:

The Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators (MÂCHÉ) brings you this collection of first-hand stories of more than a dozen homeschool pioneers. Sit down with a hot beverage and enjoy this conversational-style history of those who ventured to do what was considered less than legal and more than a little bit crazy. Learn why parents removed their children from public schools to educate them at home and how these pioneers fought for that right before local courts, district courts, the Minnesota Supreme Court, and in hearings before both the Minnesota House and Senate. Witness the birth of MÂCHÉ and its thirty years of growth and influence. Be informed, encouraged, and inspired by these mostly ordinary yet courageous people.

One of the “courageous” couples the book celebrates is Karl and Suzanne Solum. The Solums began homeschooling in Minnesota in 1982 (a year before HSLDA existed). In the book’s timeline of Minnesota’s homeschool “pioneers,” the Solums are the fourth family to begin homeschooling — so they are on the forefront of the pioneering. The Hoffmans write that the Solums “start homeschooling with a group before it’s legal and begin lobbying for legislation that would make homeschooling legal in Minnesota.”

The following is an excerpt from the Solums’ contribution to the book:

When we first started homeschooling in 1982, it was considered illegal to homeschool. Spring Grove Public School took one of the families of our Christian fellowship to court and charged them with truancy—we schooled as a group.

At that time, we decided as a fellowship to bring the superintendent and principal of Spring Grove to a few of the homes to show them the curriculum and prove the children were being educated and were well socialized. We also talked to them about our Christian convictions that led us to choose home education.

An attorney was hired to defend the family. On the basis of religious liberty, they won the case, which was watched by other counties because of all the people starting to homeschool.

…At that time, we joined Home School Legal Defense Association and Christian Liberty Academy, who both encouraged us and other Christians in Minnesota to lobby our state legislature for a homeschool bill that would make it legal to homeschool with the least possible restrictions.

Karl and his brother John were both at the Capitol at different times, talking personally to as many senators and representatives as they could.

The inclusion of the Solums might not be newsworthy except for one thing:

The Solums founded a high-control cult. That’s the aforementioned “Christian fellowship.” And now they’re in the news because they’re suing that cult.

Last week CBS Minnesota reported the following story: “Lawsuit Exposes Southern Minnesota Religious Group.” CBS reports that,

For 35 years, Suzanne and Karl Solum were members of a Christian ministry called Maranatha in Spring Grove, Minn. They pooled all their money with everyone else in the group but when they left six years ago, they wanted their share and sued. In a Houston County courtroom in June, they testified about decades of control, abuse, and deceit from the man known as the group’s shepherd.

Those decades of “control, abuse, and deceit” were dark and troubling. The group’s “shepherd,” a man by the name of Tom Tollefsrud, has been accused by former Maranatha members of “beatings and punishment,” creating “a hell they were afraid to escape,” and “breaking the jaw of one Maranatha member to ‘teach him a lesson.'” Claims of forced financial and medical decisions have also been made.

But the Solums were not passive participants in this high-control community — in other words, a cult. Beginning in the 1970’s, the Solums actively built the community.

According to the Post Bulletin, Tom Tollefsrud and John Solum (Karl’s aforementioned brother John, who would later lobby for homeschooling rights alongside Karl) “started the group in Spring Grove in 1972, basing it on a ministry founded in 1971 by a youth pastor in Kentucky.” Karl and Suzanne Solum got involved in 1978 (4 years before they started homeschooling.) According to CBS, after “Suzanne and Karl Solum helped start the group,” they “picked a close friend, Tom Tollefsrud, to be their pastor.” The community had shared values, which included homeschooling:

The families all lived in separate homes but by the rules Tollefsrud set, like to homeschool their children, share bank accounts, and involve him in every decision they made, from what furniture to buy to what to wear.

The group “absolutely” believed that God spoke directly to Tollefsrud.

Fast-forward several decades. After eventually becoming isolated and upset by the direction Tollefsrud was taking the group, Karl and Suzanne left the cult in 2008. And they are now suing their former pastor to “secure property that they say is rightfully theirs given certain financial contributions and other considerations over the 35 years of which they were members of Maranatha.” (According to The Post Bulletin says, their legal battles have “spanned five years, two trials, 13 lawsuits, 26 defendants and hundreds of thousands of dollars.”) All of Karl and Suzanne’s children “remain a part of Maranatha Fellowship and testified against their parents.” Karl Solum mourned this fact in court, saying that, “I taught them how to read the bible, but I failed at teaching them to be their own men.”

All this information puts the Hoffmans’ and MACHE’s “Homeschool Pioneers” book in a different light, especially considering that this information has been publicly available and known for several years. The Hoffmans and MACHE neglect to mention any of this. (And so do the Solums in their contribution to the book — which is unfortunate, because some honesty and transparency about their life’s path and mistakes would go a long way here.)

It definitely sounds much better to read

Spring Grove Public School took one of the families of our Christian fellowship to court and charged them with truancy—we schooled as a group.

than to read

Spring Grove Public School took one of the families of our cult to court and charged them with truancy—we schooled as an isolated, high-control group that absolutely believed God talked to our leader.

It also sounds better to read

[Our fellowship] won the case, which was watched by other counties because of all the people starting to homeschool.

than to read

Our abusive, high-control cult won the case, which was watched by other counties because of all the people starting to homeschool.

Finally, HSLDA would definitely prefer

We joined Home School Legal Defense Association and Christian Liberty Academy, who both encouraged us and other Christians in Minnesota to lobby our state legislature for a homeschool bill that would make it legal to homeschool with the least possible restrictions.

We joined Home School Legal Defense Association and Christian Liberty Academy, who encouraged our abusive, high-control cult in Minnesota to lobby our state legislature for a homeschool bill that would make it legal to homeschool with the least possible restrictions.

Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators probably doesn’t want it known that some of their celebrated “homeschool pioneers” founded a high-control religious sect that fostered and hid criminal abuse. Nor does HSLDA want their members to know that the Twelve Tribes isn’t the only abusive high-control group they have supported.

So whitewashing it shall be.

How the Teachings of Emotional Purity and Courtship Damage Healthy Relationships

July 8, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team122 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Randi Deuro.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Darcy’s blog Darcy’s Heart-Stirrings. It was originally published on January 18, 2011.

There are many times that I don’t realize just how much strange teaching I’ve had to “un-do” in my life until I try to explain them to someone else. This happened to me the other night. A dear friend and I were talking about our kids and how to help them transition from children to adults. The topic of dating and relationships came up and we started talking about my story. Sometimes it’s actually comforting to me to be met with blank or incredulous stares from people I consider “normal”, good Christians. It somehow validates my belief that some of the teachings I grew up with were very wrong.

I’ve also lately started facing the ways in which the teachings of “emotional purity”, (a la Josh Harris, the Ludys, and others) have damaged the part of my brain that makes healthy relationships function.

I define “emotional purity” in the same way that popular homeschool writers have: it is the idea of “guarding your heart”. Which sounds all noble and righteous and everything but in this context is really just a facade for fear. Fear of loving and losing. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of being damaged. Fear of not measuring up. In my life it meant never having a crush on a guy, never allowing myself to “fall in love”, basically training myself to shut down a normal, healthy, functioning part of my human heart.

I’m 27 years old, been married for almost 7 years. I rejected the teachings of courtship and emotional purity when I was 19. But their effects have yet to leave.

There are several ways that these teachings can damage a person’s heart.

1. They cause shame.

Shame because sometimes you can’t help but like one guy a little more than another. Shame because that’s “sinful” and “emotionally impure”. Shame because it sets a standard and proclaims that you are somehow shameful if you cannot keep it. You are considered damaged goods if you have fallen in love and had your heart broken. It was Josh Harris in I Kissed Dating Goodbye and the Ludy’s in several of their books that popularized the idea that everytime you fall in love or get “emotionally attached” to someone, you give away a piece of your heart. The more pieces you give away, the less of your heart you have to give to your spouse someday. He even went so far as to say that each of those former flames actually have some sort of hold on you. This has got to be the most bogus and the most damaging teaching of this entire movement. Love doesn’t work that way. The more you give, the more you have. My 3rd child doesn’t have less of my heart just because I’ve loved two other children before him. And, really, I haven’t given them “pieces” of my heart. I’ve given them each all of my heart. The miracle of love is that it multiplies by being given.

Each person I love has “a piece of my heart”…my best friend, my sisters, my husband, my parents, my kids. It is ridiculous to suggest that there is not enough of my heart to go around.

And what view of redemption does this teaching proclaim? Not one that I want anything to do with. It is an incompetent redemption.

2. They cause pride.

Pride because suddenly you are better than everyone else. Because you have never had a crush on a guy. You have kept your heart for your spouse. You didn’t say “I love you” til your wedding day. Pride in human accomplishment. Pride because you are so much more spiritual than that poor girl over there who is crying because her boyfriend broke up with her. Because your heart is whole and she just gave a piece of hers to a guy she isn’t married to. Pride because you did it right, she did not. You have more to give your future husband than she does. She is damaged goods, you are the real prize.

This is exactly what happened to the Pharisees. They made up laws that God never condoned, then patted themselves on the back for keeping them, while looking down on those who didn’t. This has nothing to do with the righteousness and grace of God, and everything to do with the accomplishments of man. I remember watching a video where one of the biggest names in the courtship movement bragged with obvious arrogance that he didn’t tell his wife he loved her until their wedding. And I thought “how twisted can we get?” We took something as simple as saying “I love you”, built a strawman rule around it (“saying I love you is defrauding”) then hung it like a trophy on our walls. Job well done, folks.

3. They create skewed views of relationships which lead to dysfunction

This is where I still struggle. Where others see nothing wrong, I am suspicious of every look, every situation, every witty exchange. I am still uncomfortable hugging one of my best friends who is a guy. Because we were never to hug or have physical contact, even innocent, with a guy. Voices in my head scream “defrauder!” just by giving a friend a quick hug. I feel ill at ease sometimes even talking to other men. Oh, they never notice. Because I’m really good at pushing those feelings away and acting “normal”. But I am bothered by my reaction to everyday situations. We were taught never ever ever to be alone with a guy. Because it could look bad. He could be tempted. You might start thinking impure thoughts. You might even *gasp* flirt!

I was trying to explain this to my friend and it came out sounding so….crazy and embarrassing. I told her if she was to walk out of the room, leaving me and her husband in the same room, my first reaction would be one of panic. “This might look bad…. what if he talks to me…what if someone else sees us….what is he thinking…” My second reaction, close on the heels of the first, would be a coping mechanism that I learned long ago: I calmly tell myself that “this is perfectly normal and perfectly innocent…he probably doesn’t even notice me…this is a Godly man I know and trust….the only person who would ever freak out about this is me….to the rest of the world there’s nothing wrong here”. I then calm down, act normal, and hope nobody noticed my crazy internal battle. Cuz they’d probably admit me to a psych ward. Thank you, Josh Harris and Co. I hatethis about myself! I am a strong, confident person. But the idea that I can defraud just by a look, that I could become emotionally impure just by a thought, that I might become damaged goods with pieces of my heart strewn all over tarnation, and that guys “only have one thing on their mind” and we need to help them control themselves, has truly negatively affected what should be normal interactions with my friends. Honestly, I don’t get embarrassed talking about much. But this admission isn’t easy for me.

Guess what? In the real world, men and women can have innocent relationships. They can talk to each other without one of them thinking there’s ulterior motives. They can laugh and exchange wits and, yes, even drive in a car together without anybody thinking anything dubious is happening. They are not naiive but they are not afraid of their own shadows. Purity and integrity in relationships can be there without being unnaturally freaked out about it. The other night, I stuck my tongue out at a guy friend who was teasing me and his wife cracked up laughing. As I laughed, I felt myself looking down on the situation, amazed that nobody thought twice about it, then amazed that I DID…that I had to push away feelings of guilt because what if someone thought I was *gasp* flirting?! This is one dysfunction that I really wish I could be freed from. Maybe time is the only cure and I need to be more patient with myself. These teachings have deep, rotten roots and it takes time to pull them all out.

4. They teach us to make formulas to be safe

1 + 1= 2. Emotional purity + Biblical courtship = Godly marriage. But life doesn’t work that way. You can do everything “right” and your life can still suck. You can do everything “wrong” and still be blessed. Rain falls on the good and evil. Time and chance happen to them all. People who follow the courtship formula still get divorced. Or stuck in terrible marriages. Courtship is not the assurance of a good marriage. Life is too complicated for that. Love involves vulnerability. When you choose to love, you are choosing to accept risking a broken heart. No formula can protect you. Life involves risk. Following God involves risk. He is not a “safe” God. But He is good.

God doesn’t seem to like formulas. Because formula is the opposite of faith. Formula says “I will follow a God that I’ve put neatly in a box, to give me the desired results”. Faith says “I will follow You even when I can’t see where I’m going, even when the world is collapsing around me”. Formula says “I will not risk, I will be in control of my future”. Faith says “I will risk everything, I will trust Whom I cannot see, surrender what I cannot control anyway.” Formula is the assurance of things planned for, the conviction of things seen. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb. 11:1). But we are afraid. So we control instead of trust. We don’t take a step unless we can see where we’re going. We build neat little formulas and say “THIS will keep me safe!” Then we blame God when our puny formulas fail.

These teachings need to be stopped. They were new in my generation and now I, and others like me, are reaping the fruit of them. And the fruit is rotten to the core. I’m sure those who promoted such ideas had good intentions. But good intentions aren’t enough. Without Truth and Grace they can do more harm than good. Thanks to those good intentions, we are seeing an entire generation of homeschool alumni who have no idea how to have normal relationships. I have talked with literally hundreds of alumni my age, and am not exaggerating the extent of the issue. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my dysfunction but discouraging as well. What is encouraging is that most of us have determined to stop the insanity. We will not be passing these things to the next generation. Instead we will teach our children to love God with all that they have, all that they are; and to love and respect others as they love themselves.

I leave you with the words of a very wise man:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

~C. S. Lewis

Emotional Purity and Courtship: A Few Years Later

I Am Learning To Love Myself: Mara’s Story, Part Five

July 7, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Mara” is a pseudonym.

< Part Four

Part Five

A week later he started taking narcotics again.

In the following months I lost both my grandmother and the great aunt that had lived next door to us. One the day after the other’s funeral. My mother’s swings were escalating. She had a hard time keeping down jobs and holding onto money. She blamed all her problems on my father.

Shortly after the deaths, she divorced my father and gained full custody. (They had been threatening this every other day for the last 14 years.). Two days after, she kicked out my sisters who were 20 and 18 at the time. The 20 year old had travelled a lot with work-stay and had just been home a quarter to finish college. The 18 year old was working and in school and gave a majority of her paycheck to my mother. They weren’t given any notice. My sister and I had gotten an apartment together after I had separated from my husband and we invited them to move in with us until they could get on their feet.

Shortly after, my husband started spiraling down with his drug use. The men in our community group talked with him – but they did it from where they had come from and with love. They told him that they were scared he was going to kill himself or others driving as high as he was. They told him that they would pick him up and drive him home. They knew that he wasn’t ready to change and didn’t ask him too. They just told him they were here when he was ready and that he wasn’t alone. I felt at complete peace to give him up, my pastor told me something that has stuck in mind. He said “Know this isn’t yours to carry alone.” They weren’t pitying me, they weren’t trying to help me, they weren’t taking over my problem. Instead they were standing beside me and loving me.

My husband recently told me he was going to start selling. I know the road this will take. I have decided for the sake of my unborn daughter and me, that divorce is going to be the best choice and a way to protect ourselves. He has already stolen money from me and I have accepted that he still has a long way to go before he decides he wants to change. I’ve stopped trying to control and manipulate him. It’s pointless.

I can only change myself and what I allow in my life and I have accepted that.

For many years, I never knew who I was… just who I was supposed to be, who everyone around me needed me to be. My boundaries had been so trampled growing up – I had no idea I was allowed boundaries and limitations. I had become – still am- bitter and resentful. I still can’t forgive everyone.

I was told that forgiveness is closely related to acceptance and for me to forgive I have to accept what was done to me. For me to fully accept that, I have to accept that I wasn’t as powerless as I wanted to be. I couldn’t separate love from pity and didn’t even know what love was. I was supposed to love my mother but all I could do was pity her.

I couldn’t love God because I didn’t know what to pity in him. I couldn’t imagine God loving me because I just felt He did everything for me out of pity or condemnation.

Now I truly am learning who I am.

I am learning my limitations and boundaries. I am learning how to love without pity. I am learning how to trust people that love me. I am learning how to love God and that He loves me – not who I want me to be – but plain old me. I am learning to love myself.

The sinner’s prayer has long confused me – how can saying those magical words make you a Christian – who decided those words were the one they were going to use? But I think I’m starting to understand true Christianity and some of that prayer. I think when it says confess your sins –

He doesn’t really want you to confess your sins, he wants you to stop hiding and simply confess yourself.

I wrote this poem recently. It’s my confession of self…

*****

Confession of Self 4/29

When she stops using,

The bitter bite of withdrawal sinks in.

Blood dripping from the gaping wounds

Her habit has left on her.

She tries to smile politely and courteously

So that no one discovers the secret she holds inside.

Another day hidden behind the mask of a perfect little girl

The fear of survival looms in threat of stopping

How will she be able to make it through the day without her addiction?

Her drug of choice gives her a dose of denial

So that she doesn’t have to feel reality.

So that she can ignore the fears, anxiety and horrors that await her in reality.

So that she doesn’t have to face the eyes staring back in the mirror in reality.

She fears letting the world down again if she stops using.

She’s never had enough strength to stop before.

She used to be strong – so beautiful – so full of life

And, here she is now, just a shell drowning in tears.

Suffocating in sorrows she’s too scared to feel.

She uses her body to feed her habit.

Abuses her body to fuel her habit.

She’s scared of the person that remains if she stops – the person she’s become.

The only way to support this habit is to sell her body.

To give up every piece of her in hopes that it is worth it.

That the high last longer this time

That she never comes down this time.

She’s died so many times before – what’s one more?

I am an addict.

Addicted to deceit,

Refusing to own who I am in the place of who I want to be.

Selling my life in hopes of keeping my soul

Buying an image that doesn’t require a God.

I am addicted to hiding myself – to wearing a mask.

I am addicted to selling myself to prevent being myself.

To prevent owning my depression, my downfalls, my numbness.

— The fact that I am but human

I am addicted to pity in the place of love

I am addicted to the misconception that I don’t need more than myself.

That my independence is my castle – my everything.

I am an addict.

I need more – I am worth more

I am loved and I can accept love

Your love isn’t a favor to be repaid at the cost of my soul.

Your love is what will allow me to buy myself

What will give me a soul

What will allow the wild, crazy, passionate life within to be loved and lived.

Your love is what will save me

Your strength will shelter my weakness

This isn’t pity – this is the opposite.

I’ve gained a soul, a self, a life.

Yes, I am an addict

But I am not alone.

I am truly loved,

I have gained a soul in owning myself,

And I can finally love the girl staring back from the mirror.

End of series.

“Everyone is Forgiving”: Bill Gothard’s Bold-Faced Lies

July 7, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team1 Comment

Jeri Lofland blogs at Heresy in the Heartland. The following was originally published by Jeri on July 3, 2014 with the title “When Apologies Make It Worse,” and is reprinted with permission.

Since Bill Gothard had to resign from leading his Institute in Basic Life Principles amid allegations of inappropriate behavior toward female staffers, he has made few public statements. But in private, he has been far from silent.

An article published last week by Mother Jones stated:

These days, Gothard says, he is busy “contacting people I’ve offended and asking them to forgive me.” Asked how this process is going, he chirpily replies, “Wonderful. People are very grateful and everyone is forgiving.”

However, some former IBLP staff members take issue with Gothard’s version of the facts. Gothard has made efforts to contact them, they say, and “grateful” was not a word that came to mind.

One woman, who has had contact with Gothard since his resignation from IBLP, dismissed his attempted “apologies” as unethical and disingenuous. As this woman has requested anonymity, I will refer to her here as “Sally”. After her story was published on the website Recovering Grace, Gothard sought to engage Sally in an email correspondence. She has given me permission to share the content of those emails here. Gothard did not reply to the last message included below.

******

Sally,

I was grateful for my talk with ***** and he told me of his contact with you. It would be an answer to prayer to be able to be reconciled with you and I would appreciate any direction you would have towards this goal.

Sincerely, Bill Gothard

******

Bill,

As a starting point, I would like to know why you have resigned as president of IBLP?

Sally

******

Thank you, Sally, so much for your response. I resigned from the Institute because I have finally realized that relationships with the Lord and others are far more important than the work I do for Him. I have offended many individuals including you and it is my desire to be reconciled with as many as possible in the years to come.

Sincerely, Bill

******

Bill,

You say that you have offended many individuals including myself.

I would like you to be specific regarding the manner in which you believe you have offended me.

Sally

******

Sally,

I apologize for the delay in getting this message to you. For many years I have treasured the memories of the friendship that we had. I am praying that this can be restored. Some of my actions were inappropriate and offensive. Is it possible to hear your perspective on these wrong actions so that I can more precisely understand and acknowledge my fault and seek your forgiveness?

Sincerely, Bill

******

Bill,

I should not have to explain to you what was “inappropriate and offensive” about your actions towards me. It is very wrong of you to ask me to recount them for you, and I do not intend to do so.

If you sincerely desire my forgiveness and you wish for reconciliation, then you need to acknowledge your offensive behavior in an honorable, fearless and truthful manner. If you are not willing to do this, then please do not contact me again.

Sally

******

Readers of the accounts on Recovering Grace will recall that Gothard commonly groomed his victims of sexual and/or emotional abuse by urging them to confide to him all the sexual details of previous relationships. It would appear from this series of emails that even at nearly eighty years old, he still takes a voyeuristic interest in hearing his victims describe the shame he sought to burden them with.

“He consistently asks the girl to tell him what it is she thinks he has done. Then he apologizes for ‘her perceived’ grievances. There is no ownership of his behavior. He’s putting it all back on the the victim.”

And once again, Gothard is breaking his own fundamental rules–this time for apologies. In his Basic Seminar textbook, he wrote a whole chapter on the right way to clear one’s conscience by asking forgiveness.

For example, Gothard’s text points out:

It does little good to ask forgiveness for a small offense when in reality that offense is only a fractional part of a much greater offense.

Also:

There are several ways to ask forgiveness which are guaranteed not to work–such as, “I was wrong, but you were too”; “If I was wrong, please forgive me”; “I’m sorry”, etc. There is one genuine statement which reflects true sincerity and humility: “God has convicted me of how wrong I have been in (my attitude and actions). I know I have wronged you in this, and I’ve come to ask, will you forgive me?”

Carefully choose the right wording

Your words must identify the basic offense

Your words must reflect full repentance and sincere humility

…One of the hardest statements for any person to make is, “I was wrong.” It is a lot easier to say, “I’m sorry about .. ” It is also much easier to say, “Please forgive me” than it is to ask, “Will you forgive me?” and wait for the answer.

Gothard then gives examples of wrong wording:

“If I’ve been wrong, please forgive me.”

And right wording:

“God has convicted me of how wrong I’ve been in ______ (Basic Offense). I’ve called to ask will you forgive me?”

This request, spoken in the right attitude, is certain to be well-accepted by the one to whom it is directed. This approach must include correction of any attitudes or actions which caused the offense and also restitution for any personal loss which was suffered by the one offended.

Oh, yes, restitution. Did you see that mentioned in the emails to Sally? No, I didn’t, either.

But let us go on. The seminar manual taught that one should not go into too much detail, and emphasized the principle with a verse from the New Testament:

In Scripture we are warned that, “It is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” (Ephesians 5:12) This warning definitely applies when asking for forgiveness. It is neither important nor appropriate to review impure details of an offense. This only tends to stir up the mind of the hearer to the past.

And yet Gothard needs more details so he can “more precisely understand and acknowledge” his fault? Hmmmm.

Of course Gothard wrote the seminar text long before email, but he recommends making apologies only by phone or in person, not by correspondence. I have highlighted some relevant points in Gothard’s explanation:

Please don’t write a letter. Most people are tempted to use this method because it is so easy and the least painful to their pride. But it is not effective for many reasons. First, it documents your past offenses and your purpose is to erase them. Second, a letter can be misused by the one receiving it. This only complicates the problem. Third, it often embarrasses the one receiving it, and they may never reply to it. Fourth, a letter doesn’t allow you to gain their verbal assurance of forgiveness. That is a very important factor for you and for the one you have offended. A verbal forgiveness allows him to become free of his bitterness.

Oh, yes, bitterness! So we ask forgiveness in order to help our victim “become free of his bitterness”? No wonder these women are frustrated!

Let me give you a tip, Bill. Forgiveness alone is not enough to erase your many offenses. And the women you used for your own sexual or emotional gratification are wiser and more self-protective now. This is not about restoring a friendship, it is about your manipulative abuse of your position.

“I am not trying to reconcile – I am trying to bring to attention a problem that has been ongoing for forty years. I forgive him, but I have no wish to reconcile with him.”

–“Sally”

Perhaps most interesting of all, though Gothard’s attorney friend-turned-investigator failed to contact any of the women who spoke out on the Recovering Grace website, Gothard himself is contacting them. He is even contacting other women who have not publicly spoken about their IBLP experiences but who were indeed mistreated by him. Would he possibly be working from memory here? And if his memory is that sharp, why would he need to ask for more details?

This is, after all, a man who taught millions exactly how to ask forgiveness for the offense of “Behaving improperly on a date“:

Wrong Confession: “I realize that I was wrong in necking with you on our date. Will you forgive me?”

Right Confession: “I realize that I have been wrong in my selfish actions and attitudes toward you when we were dating. It would mean a great deal to me if you would forgive me. Would you forgive me?”

…be as brief and as clear as possible…. Talking too much will not only “sidetrack” the whole purpose of your coming, but may give the impression that you are trying to justify or explain your offenses in order to minimize them.

You don’t say, Bill? You don’t say.

I Am Learning To Love Myself: Mara’s Story, Part Four

July 3, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team5 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Mara” is a pseudonym.

< Part Three

Part Four

I wanted that image to haunt him as long as he lived.

He called the pain clinic and told them what had happened and then left with our only car and all of my personal information. I packed a suitcase and called my best friend to pick me up. I went and hid at her friend’s house for a couple of days. My husband was furious and started saying that he wanted me back and went out driving looking for me all night. He had stopped going to church shortly after we had gotten married, but I had kept them abreast of what had been going on.

On the third day that I was gone, knowing I had to work the next day, I called them up and asked if they could go with me while I went to pick up my work ID. I told him to leave my stuff outside the door. I remember shaking, trembling walking down that pathway to pick it up, afraid he was going to come out the door. My best friend’s mom, who had come with me, went and knocked on the door. He opened it up.

I could smell the cigarettes even from a distance. She came in and we talked and he said he was sorry for doing that but that I shouldn’t have done that. He added that he was going to stop narcotics. She seemed assured and left me there with him. I remember trembling again as she left.

The church only believed in divorce upon the grounds of physical abuse and adultery.

I had a long talk with the men in the church, I know my husband had dabbled in selling a couple of his pills, but had no idea if he was doing it then. They said if I knew for sure he was selling drugs that I not only was allowed to divorce him, but for my safety should. He started using again, and, although I had suspicions, I never could find any concrete proof. He started a new contract job at that point after he decreased his narcotic use, but after a couple of months started complaining about neck pain and got doctors to increase his prescription.

He soon lost his job and his car subsequently broke down. Right after he had gotten a job, I had found a good car at a great price with the help of one of the men at the church. It had a manual transmission which I knew how to drive but that my husband didn’t. My husband’s narcotic use started to spiral downward again after he lost this job.

At the same time, my 24-year-old best friend who was part of the only remaining family in the church, was offered an opportunity for a job raise, college funding, benefits, and a link to her dream job in the corporate office of a Christian company. Her father had had a brain injury when she was 14 years old and most of the girls worked to support the family at a minimum wage job since they were old enough to be hired (her mother stayed at home with the younger kids having more kids). The brother-in-law of her store owner had recently been placed in charge of another store and after being trained by her, wanted to bring her and some of the other managers with him. The caveat — it was in a different state. This manager’s wife was close with my best friend and became her mentor, but neither one had met her family closely. They were both strong in the Christian community, but because they hadn’t met them, my best friend’s parents saw this as her being deceitful.

They told her she was in sin because she wanted to move for a job without knowing of a 1 cor 14 church.

They told her she hadn’t been communicating with them and she hadn’t been open for the past couple of years and they questioned her faith. They would talk about the rebellion in church service without mentioning names. They told her if she couldn’t find a verse that spoke — told her to go — that she must respect her parent’s wishes. If she didn’t want to do that she could bring it up with the other two men at church.

She left anyways.

Her parents cut ties with her and told her siblings she was in rebellion and in sin. They told the kids they couldn’t be with her because of her sinfulness and were not allowed to talk to her. During this time, two of the other sisters left as well. I kept in contact with both her and her parents and still attended the church. Her mother had been like a mother to me, since mine had started swinging crazier and crazier. She had become my spiritual mentor.

I was so confused: my best friend was not doing anything rebellious and she still loved her family despite the circumstances. But here her parents were, talking about her like she was in sin and wasn’t a Christian for merely moving. Any feelings that didn’t agree with her parents were sin.

Her older sister put me in contact with her best friend who I was able to ask a lot of questions to. Every time before, anyone I had told about a 1 Cor church told me that I was wrong and I was wrong because it was cultural. This friend was the first one to gently walk aside me and give me the tools about how I had been told to interpret it. She never told me I was wrong, she merely told me why she didn’t believe that interpretation. She was patient with me as I reviewed what I had learned and researched and studied it and came to the same conclusion she had. I sat down in front of all the men in the church and told them why I didn’t believe that how they interpreted 1 Cor was the only way to practice a service. I told them that I couldn’t have fellowship with them if they were going to call people sinners based on the type of church they attended because the only commandment in that verse is to have an orderly service.

That was my last conversation with the church.

As everything I had learned about faith began to crumble apart, I didn’t know where to begin. I knew God existed. I am an artist and a nurse, both of those require sensitivity to feelings and intuition and faith. I found that if I had a feeling it was usually based in fact.

I had felt God, I had no doubt in my mind that he existed, I just didn’t know who He was anymore. I remembered something my mom had always told me : “Go from what you know to what you don’t know.” I knew God existed and I knew he was love. I decided to walk forward based on those two facts alone. I would use that as my ruler, my measuring tape, my tool to assess truth.

My new friend and her husband walked alongside me patiently, and for the first time, I began to understand love.

As I met more people from their church, I decided to give the church a try, even though I had read that they believed Calvinism. I told myself just because I went to one service didn’t mean I had to attend for the rest of my life. I could always leave if I disagreed. My church had always used the verse about being “of the same mind” to mean that they had to agree as a church on every little thing. But I learned at this new church that some aspects of Christianity are primary — for example, God is love, God died for us. Some are secondary, such as doctrine, or method of worship (protestant) and that we didn’t have to all agree on those secondary things to still be Christians together. I told them that I didn’t believe in Calvinism, and immediately flinched expecting the backlash I had always faced around the Calvinists my dad brought around, but it never happened.

Instead I heard, “Yeah, a lot of us don’t.”

It surprised me that they could love each other without having to agree on every little thing.

It surprised me to see the way the really cared about the community and would go out of the way to help someone in need no matter the religion and without trying to indoctrinate them. Yes, they witnessed to others, but they did it from love and not a need to increase their numbers or be a good Christian. These people were upfront with their struggles. One service they asked anyone who had ever been in jail to stand up, half of our church stood up. There was such a transparency to everyone’s life that attracted me. These weren’t “good Christians” these were real people who chose this life because it was what they truly wanted. I took me almost a year to start going to church regularly, but I am still in awe that the first one I went to was just the one I needed.

At the end of July last year, I told my husband he could stop taking drugs or I was leaving him. He stopped and even started going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, but he never really worked the steps. He even got a job — a good job. However, he told me toward the end of November that he was mad at me, that I had taken everything that made him happy away from him. I told him I was miserable too and if we were both so miserable why it might be better to just divorce.

After that he was really nice for a while.

Around this same time, I met the wife of one of the men who struggled with addiction at church. She was so refreshingly honest it was beautiful. She talked me into going to Nar-anon (Family support groups for people who are affected by the addiction of another). That is when I truly started learning about addiction and, more importantly, codependency and enabling.

Up until this point, I had viewed birth control as a sin and was taking no measures against getting pregnant. The only reason I hadn’t gotten pregnant after three and a half years of marriage was that my husband didn’t want any and was taking precautions. In December I told him that I wanted to start birth control, he told me that he wanted a family and a baby and he didn’t want me to. Later that month, I started smelling cigarettes on his breath again and asked him if he was smoking. He denied it without blinking an eye. That lie, among 3 years of lies, was it.

I separated from him in January and found out I was pregnant on the same day.

Part Five >

Should Parents Be “Involved” in Their Children’s Love Lives?

July 3, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team1 Comment

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on June 30, 2014.

Blogger That Mom (Karen Campbell) recently began a series on courtship. I don’t know where she will take the subject as she goes on through the series, but I did want to touch on the premise she begins with—that parents need to be involved.

The Necessary Parent

When we attended Bill Gothard’s IBLP Basic Seminar back in the mid-80s, one of the topics he covered was dating. This was before he had moved into his courtship teachings and even before anyone we knew of had started discussing things like courtship and betrothal. In fact, courtship, to us, was how our grandparents and sometimes even our parents would refer to meeting, getting to know, and preparing to marry each other. In fact, they didn’t often refer to relationships with the opposite sex outside of the goal of being married one day.

Our grandparents on both sides had been in “til-death-to-us-part” marriages and each of our parents were close to celebrating golden wedding anniversaries. We made the same commitment and we knew that, as parents, we wanted to encourage our own children to do the same. But we also knew we had not always chosen wisely along the way and hoped to see our children avoid some of the bumps in the road we had encountered.

Isn’t it interesting that often parents will do this with children when it comes to making career or educational choices, involvement in extracurricular activities, and financial decisions but it is hands off when it comes to dating and marriage?

So we began listening to the many voices of instruction and took away one really important truth that, I believe, is central to the whole discussion of dating, courtship, marriage, and our children.

Parents need to be involved.

In The Joy of Relationship Homeschooling ~ when the one anothers come home, a central theme I discussed is the importance of relationship building beginning before birth so that mentoring our children through the big decisions of life will be a natural, organic process. Too often we believe that once children reach a certain age, we are supposed to sit on the sidelines and watch them makes choices, for good or for bad, without giving them any input. This is folly. Scripture commands us to practice the one anothers of Scripture with our brothers and sisters in Christ, beginning with our precious children! As they become adults, we approach them just as we do other believers, admonishing, exhorting, bearing their burdens, forgiving, etc., all aspects of the dating, courting, and marriage years.

“Parents need to be involved,” That Mom says when speaking of dating, courtship, and marriage. What exactly does it mean for parents to be “involved”?

My landlady, Linda, once told me a story about her relationship with her own daughter. It seems when her daughter was a young adult she entered a relationship that soon became abusive. Linda wanted her daughter out of the situation, but her daughter was insistent that she loved her boyfriend and that the relationship was fine. Linda knew that trying to convince her daughter to leave the relationship would likely make her daughter pull away from her, so she simply voiced her concerns in a natural way and then dropped it. Then, instead of trying to extricate her daughter, Linda focused on being there for her daughter.

Linda told me that she wanted to make sure that when her daughter eventually realized that she needed to get out she would know she could come to her mother for help. No judgement, no guilt trips, no manipulation, no constant hinting. Just love and acceptance. And sure enough, after a few years her daughter realized that the relationship was broken and came to her mother, because she knew that her mother accepted her, and loved her, and would be there for her. No “I told you so,” no pointed looks, no judgement.

Was Linda “involved”?

When I was in college I met a young man named Sean. Sean was not homeschooled, but in other ways his background was similar to my own. Sean and I quickly gravitated toward each other, and eventually our friends took us aside separately and told us we were perfect for each other and really should try making a go of it. So Sean and I approached my father about beginning a “courtship,” given that that was what I had been raised to expect. My father spoke with Sean and then gave his permission to begin a courtship.

Sean was asking some big questions at the time, but my father believed he was what he called “an honest seeker,” and that everything would work out in the end. My father had always told me that it would take a particular kind of man to make me willing to submit, and he hoped Sean might be that man. But then I concluded, after some intensive research into the issue, that God had created through evolution rather than in six days. My father took this as a sign that Sean was leading me astray, and he ordered us to break up.

I couldn’t do it. My father was a stalwart young earth creationist, and I had just realized that he was fallible. I didn’t feel that I could obey my father in this when I knew Sean so much better than he did and his only problem with Sean was that Sean, too, believed that God had created through evolution—something I no longer saw as wrong or a problem. I told my father that I would not break up with Sean, and I took my love life into my own hands.

And here I sit, happily married to Sean for over half a decade. We have two children together. Sean is a wonderful father, partner, and provider. Even my parents have warmed up to him, and enjoy him when we come visit. But even as I made good relationship choices on my own and have a solid relationship with a wonderful man, my relationship with my parents was utterly and completely destroyed.

My parents believed they had a right to vet my partners and set the pace of my relationships, and when I told them no their response ruined our relationship. I stopped coming home because they made living there an utter torture of guilt and manipulation. My family almost didn’t come to my wedding, and when my parents decided to come at the last minute, they chose to sit in the back. My siblings were not allowed to be in the ceremony. What relationship we have today was built over the rubble of shattered dreams.

Were my parents “involved”?

When Sean and I first started “courting,” we spoke to his parents as well as mine. His parents were surprised that we had come to them, but when we asked for their advice they gave it. Some of their advice we followed, and some we did not, and they never gave us any trouble for the parts we did not follow. They accepted that we were adults capable of making our own decisions.

When Sean and I got engaged, his parents thought we were marrying a bit young. They told us that we were still young and that we would face hard times if we went ahead with our plans. But they didn’t tell us this with the expectation that we would do as they advised, and they didn’t make involvement in our wedding plans contingent on their timing. They simply offered advice, take it or leave it, no guilt, no manipulation, nothing. When we decided to go ahead and marry as planned Sean’s parents immediately pitched in however they could and helped with the planning of the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and the reception.

Were Sean’s parents “involved”?

Do you see what I’m getting at here? At issue is how we define “involved.”

Parents should absolutely be there for their children, and they should absolutely offer advice, both solicited and (at times) unsolicited. But (adult) children have are not obligated to follow this advice, and their parents have no business calling the shots.

When parents think their (adult) children are under some sort of obligation to follow their advice, or that they as the parents have a right to call the shots, the results are incredibly toxic. So if by “involved” we mean Linda, or Sean’s parents, I’m all for it. But if by “involved” we mean my parents, I couldn’t be more opposed.

Even today, thinking about everything that happened before Sean and I married brings up a whole host of painful feelings that swirl around in my chest and my gut. My relationship with my parents will never be fully restored. There was too much hurt between us. I have many friends today who had the same thing happen, and watched the courtship process destroy or severely damage their relationships with their parents.

I also have a problem with the way this culture approaches “mistakes.”

You can’t keep your children from making mistakes, and frankly you probably shouldn’t. My parents embraced courtship because they believed that it would help us children avoid some of their own mistakes. Both of my parents dated before meeting each other, and neither was a virgin when they married. They felt that these things had had made things harder for them, and they wanted to spare us that. But sometimes children need to make their own mistakes. We learn from our mistakes, and sometimes things parents think are mistakes turn out to be growing experiences.

I can’t say whether Linda’s daughter wishes that her relationship with her abusive ex had never happened, but from Linda’s telling of the story it’s clear that her daughter learned and grew through the experience. More to the point, Linda could not have prevented her daughter from making her mistake, and trying to do so would only have damaged her relationship with her daughter. Sometimes we simply have to make mistakes for ourselves, as painful as it may be for our parents to watch.

As for Sean and I, marrying as young as we did did result in several years of economic hardship. I remember months when I had to decide between buying meat and buying ice cream. That may sound silly, but I agonized over decisions like that. But I wouldn’t give up those early, hard years for the world. Sean and I scraped by, and we grew together through that time. Sean’s parents were right that it wouldn’t be easy, but Sean and I were not wrong in choosing to give it a go anyway.

Yes, I parent differently from my parents. Yes, I want to give my children things I never had. But parenting that is at its heart reactionary can be dangerous—as can parenting that attempts to realize an impossible utopia. I once heard it said that we won’t repeat our parents’ mistakes, we’ll make new ones, and I see some truth to that. My parents might have been trying to save us from their mistakes, but they made a whole host of other mistakes while trying to protect us from those mistakes.

Oh and also? Parents don’t “need to be” involved in their children’s love lives.

My parents’ involvement in my relationship with Sean ended when they decided to devote all of their energies to ending our relationship, and you know what? Sean and I are happily married all on our own. Believe it or not, young adults are perfectly capable of making responsible and healthy relationship decisions on their own. Advice without strings or guilt or manipulation can be helpful (especially when solicited), but we really can make our own decisions without bringing down disaster, I promise.

I wish these parents would stop trying to butt in on their children’s love lives and instead simply focus on being there for their children. Without strings. Young adults need support and encouragement from their parents, not guilt trips and emotional manipulation. Their parents should be their children’s cheerleaders, not their referees.

I want to finish with a comment from reader MrPopularSentiment:

There’s another kind of involvement that I wanted to bring up. When my husband and I started dating, his parents treated our relationship seriously. Everyone else rolled their eyes and assumed that we’d break up within a short span of time, so there was no need to really get to know us as a couple, but his parents treated me like I was there to stay and worth getting to know.

And it was with no strings attached, too. When my sister-in-law had a stormy, abusive relationship, they treated her husband as a permanent fixture when he was there, and they just didn’t mention it when he wasn’t (the “punishment” phase of the abuse cycle). When she finally left him and found someone new, they treated the new guy as her permanent partner.

It was wonderful to feel like we were being taken seriously by adults, and it did so much to build up my relationship with my in-laws. Soon after I started dating my husband, I was going out on day trips alone with his parents and hanging out with his mother. And now, nearly 15 years later, we have a really good relationship with them.

It also meant that they were the ones we felt comfortable coming to when we needed help or advice, because we knew that it would be given without judgement. So not only is this style of involvement so much healthier for the parent-child relationship, it also meant that we were more open in talking to them, which meant that they knew more about our lives and had more opportunities to give us pointed advice that really has helped us avoid mistakes.

I couldn’t agree more.

I Am Learning To Love Myself: Mara’s Story, Part Three

July 2, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team5 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Mara” is a pseudonym.

< Part Two

Part Three

His mother didn’t like me, I had a free-spirit locked inside a 40 year old woman. Every now and then my free spirit would come out and I would do things that are a little crazy (like jump in a pool at a new years party with some of the other girls — and yes, we were clothed). All of my family were late bloomers and didn’t hit puberty until 16-18 but, once we did, we all ended up having the body of swimsuit models.

Being tall, small-boned, with D+-cups and a nice butt and legs, is the worst thing that can happen to a homeschool girl.

No matter what you wear, if the wind hits right, or if the shirts too baggy can make you “immodest.”

We were on a thrift store budget and most shorts and dresses that look good on other girls look like daisy dukes and mini-dresses on us. Anyways, his mother hated my clothes, she felt I dressed too provocatively (I mean a t-shirt and fingertip length or longer shorts, or dresses). I had a figure and she hated it. I also was passionate and intelligent. I was starting to gain a little independence and her family was huge into the umbrella concept. She ran the house and hated that her son liked me and would look down her nose at me every time she saw me.

I had never been alone with anyone, and one night when we were alone, we started kissing and before the night was over we were pretty much naked. I felt so bad and so guilty, even though we hadn’t physically had sex. I felt as if I had sinned so much that there was no going back and I had to marry him. Not soon after, I lost my virginity to him. He proposed shortly after, largely due to how much pressure I was placing on him. I had grown up believing my body was my husband’s and that I should never deny him sex if he wanted it.

When we are told that, sex is your gift for your husband and you are only worth your virginity. Once you lose it, you place all your future on that person. You feel as if you have to marry him or no other man will want you. But, we finally broke it off after he told me that he thought a women was supposed to do exactly what her authority figure said, even if there was a bible verse that contradicted it.

I went through a very severe bout of depression after that. I ended up telling my mother what had happened and my mother ate it up. She loved having her little baby back. Anytime I tried to gain any sort of independence she would always bring up how much sin I had gotten in on my own. I had lost any ability to feel by this time. I started trying to date again, I was so numb and wary then, it made life difficult. Unbeknownst to me, my mother signed me up for a Christian dating website and reached out to a couple of the men on their without my knowledge eventually gifting me the website as a “present.” I tried to date one of them, but I could sense that something wasn’t quite right with him and ended up breaking it off before I was invested at all.

After that, I just really didn’t care anymore.

I thought ‘if the “good, Christian boy” hadn’t treasured me at all, why don’t I find someone on the opposite end of the spectrum?’ I also started to reason that if guys were just after sex, I would just give my body away and anyone who stayed after that might be worth getting to know. For me, I had already given away my precious jewel, so what did I have to lose just letting everyone else have it? At least then, I didn’t have to spend the time, energy, and trust vetting them out. I had started MMA and absolutely loved it, but met one of the guys from there who had little ambition in his life, smoked/dealt weed all day long, was not attractive, and had no job. So I went home with him one night, I was so numb. I remember, I just couldn’t take it and it began to hurt because I wasn’t into it so I made him stop and went home crying. I snuck into the house and didn’t tell a soul for the longest time.

A couple of months after, I met a guy at work, he worked insurance and we had been put together one day. I talked back and forth with him and he had a good personality — it was easy to talk to him and he could make me laugh. Later that week he made me a flower out of a post-it note and a paperclip and asked me on a date. He had been the first guy to ask me on a date ever without me having to manipulate them into asking. I decided I had had enough with courting and trying to find the man I was going to marry and decided to just have fun. When he picked me up, his car had the faint smell of smoke in it and I wondered if he was a smoker. He took me ice-skating, then to dinner which he ordered for me and bought the most expensive item (my first filet), and then to his house for a movie. We lay down together and started kissing, but I left before anything else happened.

I wasn’t physically attracted to him, I just was desperate to feel something — anything.

He was fun. He didn’t ask about me and he didn’t condemn any of my choices. I could just be with him, without having to divulge anything. He didn’t pressure me for sex either.

Our next date I ended up staying the night and I was always the one who initiated, I wanted to see what would happen if he could have it anytime, how he would treat me once he had gotten “ what he wanted.” On our third date he told me that he wanted to marry me, and my heart started racing, I had never had to go slower than the guy in the relationship. He had told me he had been into drugs and alcohol as a kid but had been clean for several years.

I had finally found the good medium between a “good, Christian boy” and a bad-boy — a reformed bad boy.

He started coming to church and loved the attention from our one elder. He stopped smoking and started reading the Bible. We were still spending many nights together, but I just kept that our secret. My mother would grow suspicious, but I would talk her out of those saying that I had had to work that night — she heard what she wanted to and it wasn’t hard to convince her.

After three months of dating, we went to the justice of the peace and got married, alone. I was afraid that after much more time, the church was going to find something wrong with him and forbid my dating him. By this time, the church had dwindled down to one family and 2 men and me. One of them was a single father, the other was a father of a big family who had separated from the church. They were particularly hard on men and felt that if they showed anyone the “truth” any truth and they didn’t immediately convert, they were in sin.

I went ahead and got married so that I could be under the authority of someone who didn’t try to control me – someone I could manipulate. I had gotten rather good at underhanded and submissive manipulation. My great aunt had a finished basement, complete with kitchen, so we moved in there. After being interrupted a couple of times, we decided we had to move out. He had told me he wanted a bunch of kids before we were married, but, after I miscarried our first, he changed his mind.

They sent me home with some narcotic pain medicine for the miscarriage, but I didn’t like it and only took a couple. A couple of months later, I had a migraine headache and went looking for the medication, only to find out it was completely empty. My husband made an excuse about his neck hurting and that he had had to take. Before we were married, he had told me that he had had an addiction to this same medication in the past and I questioned him about it, but he told me that I had misheard him and that hadn’t been the case. Pretty soon, he was going to several different doctors about his back and neck pain until they finally started prescribing him narcotics. Over the next couple of years, they escalated the dose until he could barely keep his eyes open, but all he said is that it wasn’t enough.

I had grown up very sheltered — I hadn’t been around an addict or drunk before.

Unless they had a bottle in their hand, I had to be told when someone was drunk. I didn’t know what a bong was, I didn’t know what a pipe was. Nursing school and the internet had taught me what sex was and I used urban dictionary to pick look up references my friends or patients made.

Soon after the heavy narcotic use, my husband lost his job and one of our cars broke down. He stayed home all day, and wouldn’t let me use the car for anything (one that had been bought with my pre-marriage savings) he would drive me places, but he would fall asleep at the wheel while driving me to work and I would have to wake him up while we were driving. I would tell him to text me when he got home, so that I would know that he had made it home alive and that he hadn’t crashed into someone else.

I would discuss my fears with a nurse I worked with who was a former addict and one day he made a joke that you know how addicted someone is if you flush their medicine down the toilet. This was brilliant, I had wanted to take all his medicines for a while, but didn’t know where to hide them were he couldn’t find them. I thought that if I could just get him sober he would see what he had done and want to stop. I flushed half of his pills down the toilet and hid the rest of them in a tampon wrapper.

When he woke up, he flew into a rage.

He started yelling at me, throwing my stuff on the floor, taking all of my credit cards and IDs, he picked me up and threw me on the bed. He sat on top me yelling “You stupid bitch! Why would you do that?” He raised his hand as if to hit me and I looked into his eyes and told him that if he was “going to hit/kill me to go ahead.” I really thought I was facing my death and I didn’t want to leave earth without him seeing the defiance in my eyes.

I wanted that image to haunt him as long as he lived.

Part Four >

Homeschoolers Anonymous

An Archived Blog

Author: HA Editorial Team

5 Simple Ways Homeschool Parents Can Better Respect Alumni

1. Don’t Parentsplain; Validate.

2. Talk to Us Like We’re Adults.

3. Educate Yourself.

4. Speak Up.

5. Show, Not Tell.

Q: What Do Doug Phillips and Bill Clinton Have in Common? (Besides the Whole Preying-on-Women Thing.)

I Fight These Demons So I Can Explain The Scars: Shiphrah’s Story, Part One

Minnesota’s Celebrated “Homeschool Pioneers” Founded a High-Control Cult

How the Teachings of Emotional Purity and Courtship Damage Healthy Relationships

I Am Learning To Love Myself: Mara’s Story, Part Five

“Everyone is Forgiving”: Bill Gothard’s Bold-Faced Lies

I Am Learning To Love Myself: Mara’s Story, Part Four

Should Parents Be “Involved” in Their Children’s Love Lives?

I Am Learning To Love Myself: Mara’s Story, Part Three