HA Editorial Team

The Old Schoolhouse Says Child Molestation Allegations “Are False,” Insinuates Possibility of Legal Retaliation

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

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Last week we reported that Paul and Gena Suarez, owners of the “global homeschooling company” The Old Schoolhouse, have been accused by a former key employee of (1) allegedly protecting several known child predators and (2) shaming and silencing members of their community who tried to stand up and do the right thing. Yesterday Hännah Ettinger covered the story on Patheos as well: “Publishers of Christian Homeschooling Magazine Exposed for Protecting Child Abuser.” It has also been claimed that David Gibbs III — who is involved in the mediation process between the abuser’s family and the victim’s family — allegedly told the victim’s mother to “keep silent” about her son being molested. (Note that David Gibbs III also happens to be a columnist for the Old Schoolhouse and a part-owner and sponsor of the Great Homeschool Conventions.)

When people began asking about the allegations last week (on June 24) on The Old Schoolhouse’s (TOS) Facebook page, TOS responded simply by deleting their comments and ignoring and blocking their questions. It was not until three days later, on June 27, that TOS actually engaged their customers’ concerns, seen in this solitary thread on TOS’s Facebook page. (Should the thread get deleted in the future, it is archived as a PDF here.) An individual asked TOS the following:

Can we expect some response from TOS addressing the serious accusations that have been leveled at its owners this week? I have long endorsed this magazine to the more than 100 families in my homeschool group and as the group leader, I feel some responsibility to retract that endorsement if TOS isn’t going to deal with this issue honestly and publicly.

TOS did not answer the question publicly. Rather, their customer service representative said, “Please email me at customerservice@theoldschoolhouse.com.” Another individual asked for an answer as well; that individual was also asked to email TOS privately.

To date the Old Schoolhouse has yet to make any public statement about the serious allegations of abuse and misconduct by owners Paul and Gena Suarez and their son.

However, Homeschoolers Anonymous has obtained a copy of the Old Schoolhouse’s official, but not public, response that is being sent privately to those inquiring about the allegations. Below is both a screenshot of the email they are sending people as well as the text:

Screenshot:

Text:

Thank you for emailing us privately with your question. A more public response is not possible due to the agreement with the other party and ethics which state that when minors are involved broad publicity is not encouraged.

TOS and the Suarez family are aware of the allegations circulating online. They are false. Please be patient as we are in the midst of proceedings with legal and other advisors concerning false accusations, defamation, libel, and slander. We trust that the Lord will expose it all in His time, and we feel hopeful that people who love Him will believe the best before assuming that something spread around the Internet is automatically true.

That’s all we can share at this time. Thank you for checking with us in the spirit of Proverbs 18:17and Proverbs 18:13.

This, then, is the Old Schoolhouse’s official company position on the allegations: that “they are false” and nothing more than “something spread around the Internet.” TOS also seems to insinuate the possibility of legal action by speaking of “legal and other advisors concerning false accusations, defamation, libel, and slander.”

One thing is true: truth shall be exposed in due time. And I do not advise placing any bets on the side of the Old Schoolhouse.

This is What Child Abusers Look Like in Homeschooling Communities

July 1, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team11 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

We like to think that we know what child abusers look like. That we can pick them out of the crowd based on their creepy mustaches, darkly-tinted cargo vans, or their giant, thick-rimmed glasses.

But those stereotypes are just that: stereotypes.

And like all stereotypes, they fall tragically short. The fact is, child abusers are not Others. They do not walk around with signs that say, “Monster.” They are able to violate our trust — and children’s lives and bodies and minds — because we trust them. Which means they have our trust, because they are a part of our community. They are friends and family and teachers and loved ones. Boz Tchividjian from G.R.A.C.E. (Godly Response to Abuse in Christian Environments) is spot-on when he says,

“Those who pose the greatest risk to our children are within our families, churches, and circle of friends.”

A month ago, news broke that demonstrates just how true this is. A homeschooling family — the Jackson family from North Carolina — was revealed to have hidden child sexual abuse for over a decade. Homeschooling’s Invisible Children reports,

A 16-year-old girl was repeatedly raped and sexually abused by the six Jackson brothers (Eric, 27; Jon, 25; Matthew, 23; Nathaniel, 21; Benjamin, 19; and Aaron, 18) from the time she was 4 until she was 14. Though the girl was not identified, it appears that she was the brothers’ younger sister. The boys’ parents, John and Nita Jackson, knew about the abuse and did nothing to prevent it.

You can read the original news report from WTKR here, which notes that “the Jackson brothers’ parents were charged in this case because they witnessed the abuse.” Furthermore, as Julie Anne Smith at Spiritual Sounding Board has pointed out, “At the time of the alleged abuse, they were living in North Carolina and two of the brothers were reportedly members of Scott Brown’s church, Hope Baptist Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina.” This would be the same Scott Brown who has “very close ties with the now defunct Vision Forum Ministries and recently fallen Christian Patriarchal leader, Doug Phillips. Brown also heads up National Centers for Family-Integrated Churches.”

I was intrigued to find out that the Jackson brothers still had their Facebook pages active. So I decided to go look at their pages and see what their public lives had looked like. I was interested — but not surprised — to find out that the Jackson brothers had mutual Facebook friends with me. Several brothers actually had quite a few. So these kids (some now adults) clearly had somewhat social lives. They weren’t growing up in a stereotypical compound in the middle of nowhere. They existed within groups — like homeschool speech and debate — that I used to exist in. And yet no one seemed to have any idea what was going on. No one, including some people I myself know.

But here’s the thing: their Facebook pages look normal. They look like the Facebook pages of conservative Christian homeschool students and graduates. And that is exactly the point here. If this case wasn’t being criminally prosecuted, how many people do you think would be defending these people as “godly” and “upstanding” men who would “never do something like that” because they “love Jesus”?

To make this point more salient, let’s look at what the average Facebook posts by the Jackson brothers look like. Because this will tell you what child abusers look like in homeschooling communities.

What Child Abusers “Like” on Facebook:

Eric Jackson

Matthew Jackson

What Books Child Abusers Read

Matthew Jackson

Eric Jackson

What Movies Child Abusers Watch

Aaron Jackson

Nathanael Jackson

What Child Abusers Post About on Facebook:

Nathanael Jackson

Eric Jackson

Aaron Jackson

Matthew Jackson

Obviously one can “like” any of the above sites, people, books, or movies and not be a child abuser. One can post pictures of sunsets and attach Bible verses to them and not be a child abuser. But it’s the opposite mindset we need to focus on, isn’t it?

— The mindset that assumes people who love the Bible and share its wisdom and love respected homeschool leaders are somehow safe, or safer to “ungodly” people.

— The mindset that “good Christian boys” would never abuse anyone.

— The mindset that homeschooling will make better, more holy, children.

We will not be able to fight child abuse in homeschooling communities until we realize that the child abusers among us effortlessly blend right in. They might be our respected leaders (in fact, sometimes they have been our respected leaders, like Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips); they might be a homeschool celebrity that HSLDA publicly calls a “hero” (like Michael Gravelle); they might be the owners of our beloved companies or those owners’ children (like the son of Paul and Gena Suarez, owners of The Old Schoolhouse); they might even be some of the people claiming to be allies of abuse survivors. There is no magic formula.

This means we must constantly be on our guard. It means we must know the warning signs and know how to report abuse to law enforcement and we must actually report the abuse. We cannot sweep it under the rug or turn a blind eye. We cannot shame those trying to bring it to light. We must start taking a stand, we must start raising a ruckus, and we must demand that our leaders and communities do so as well.

We must demand that our leaders and communities do more than write blog posts about not looking away and actually do the hard work of not looking away.

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

July 1, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team7 Comments

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

< Part One

Part Two

My mother probably has both undiagnosed bipolar and borderline, but her symptoms then were not as bad as they have gotten to be. She also is extremely intelligent and manipulative. Unless you know her, it’s very hard to see.

Appearance was huge in the church. They harped on gluttony as a major sin. Almost all of the girls in my family growing up were rail thin. My sister, who we later found out had a food allergy and intolerances, was not overweight by any means but just slightly heavier than all of us. My mother, who had been slightly overweight growing up, saw this as one of her greatest disappointments — a visible sin for all the church to see. She would get my sister up early in the morning to run on the treadmill, watch and restrict her diet, and spank her if she didn’t lose weight. My best friend, who also went through the loss of one of her closest friends and was big-boned but not overweight, would also be harped on her by her family for what they saw as sin.

The year before puberty — when fluctuating hormones cause bloating — was the worse for all of the girls at church. We would be sat down by parents and told that they were afraid we were gaining weight and that we needed to exercise more and watch our diet so that we weren’t sinning.

Almost all the girls in my family or in my best friend’s family have struggled with anorexia or bulimia at some point in time.

My mother would tell my sister that no one would want to be around her if she was fat and that people wouldn’t find her attractive. My sister became very reclusive — hiding in her rooms behind books or playing with animals, not people. When in public she would almost look down on others before they had a chance to tell her anything my mother said they would. My sister also hated all the ditzy little girls her age who played stupid to get attention, she hated attention and could not understand why they would want to attract it.

When I was 16, my best friend’s older sister (who I was close with) invited me to a birthday party she was having and didn’t invite my little sister. My mom believed in almost complete inclusivity and anytime our friends came over, we had to allow anyone who wanted to be with us in the room all the way down to the babies.

My mom took this exclusion personally and took all her anger at the other family out on me. She would get mad at me if I saw my best friend without taking my sister, even though my sister didn’t really want to go. She would tell me how I was in sin for not confronting my friend and her family for excluding my sister and then tell me I couldn’t tell anyone in the church about it because it might “embarrass” my sister. I was told that if I had a problem with her I could get “help” from my great-aunt who got offended and hurt for my mother if I said anything assertive or had any problem with my mother. After two or three years of this, I finally caved and told my best friend’s mom who ended up becoming a second mother to me. My mother left the church at this time and I kept going alone because my best friend went to this church. I didn’t have any other friends (as children we were told to tell people about 1 Cor 14 church and, if they didn’t immediately convert, it was sin to be spending time with them).

During this period of time, I started struggling with depression.

To deal with my father I had to turn off all emotion and feelings or he would sense it and use it against me. I couldn’t ever talk to him in any way unless I was challenging his actions toward my mom or my mom would become hurt and guilt us. My mother would become offended if I had any personal feelings and preferred me as her emotional caretaker than as her daughter. The church taught us that any negative feelings were a sin and it was our job to “take them captive.” Depression was viewed as a sin and medication the epitome of not trusting God – that it stemmed from some unknown root of bitterness that we were supposed to work out.

My mother’s swings became worse and worse and I started seeking an escape from that house. I was taught in church that we are under our family’s authority and if there wasn’t a bible verse contradicting what they were telling us to do, than we were supposed to do it. My mother didn’t want me to leave, so I felt chained down.

One thing that I am glad about is that all the fighting led my mother to both hate men and fantasize about them. She believed all of her girls needed to have a stable career as soon as possible so that they didn’t have to rely on men. She also believed that the school system repeated the last 2 years of high-school in college. So, when I was 15, I CLEP 5 college classes and, when I was 16 began prerequisites for nursing school. I finished at the age of 21 with a BSN in nursing and to this day, at the age of 26, I have had 8 years of hospital experience, 6 as an ER/ICU nurse. I am a hard worker and I can have a steady, self-supporting job anywhere I want at any time.

I met a boy through one of the extracurricular activities and we became close. He was a good, homeschooled, Christian boy who was very outspoken. He didn’t live in the area and, therefore, didn’t go to my church he just went to a regular church. He was very opinionated on what sin was and what it wasn’t and, after church, his whole family would stand around and talk about how the other members in the church were hypocrites and in sin. I had saved all of myself, first kiss and everything. We began “courting” or hanging out with each other’s family. But one thing led to another and he leaned in and kissed me one night despite my trying to wiggle free. I was 21 at the time and felt so guilty for kissing him, for tempting him and not staying strong enough, for being alone with him.

I didn’t tell anyone because I knew it would be my fault and I wouldn’t be allowed with him again.

Part Three >

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

June 30, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team1 Comment

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

Part One

I grew up the oldest of nine children just barely inside the perimeter of Atlanta, GA. My earliest memory is my father coming in and telling my mother that Clinton had just won the presidency. My mother had been a teacher by profession before deciding to homeschool us. She had grown up in the middle of downtown Atlanta and had been bullied in school. She told us stories of spending most of her lunch break hiding in a bathroom stall and didn’t want us to have the same experience.

I remember sitting next to her and her teaching me to read and doing math with me. We didn’t have much money then, and she would get what school books she could second hand. For this reason, she helped me complete a 5th grade math book in the first grade and I was so proud of being able to tell my friends I was in 5th grade in math. Because there were so many children, she would give us assignments – 30 math problems at the end of the chapter, write this a paper on this subject, finish the assignment at the end of the grammar book, bible, and memorize this verse. Then we would go read the chapter, teach ourselves, and come back to her if we couldn’t figure something out on our own. We were supposed to finish by 12:30 if we wanted dessert after dinner, but if we finished before then, we were free to play. After we ate lunch, we would do an art or craft and music (everyone in my family plays at least one instrument). Once we completed a school book, we would go to the next grade.

I used to get so confused when anyone asked me what grade I was in. (Well, 6th grade in math, 4th grade in grammar, and 5th grade in writing!)

If we finished future days school work, she would give us a coupon for a “free day” in which we could redeem at any time and meant we didn’t have to complete any school on that day. We did school through the summer so we could afford to take more days off during the school year and my mom assigned each of us a day of the week called our “helper day” in which we would cook the meal of the day (mine was bread for the week and pizza for the day), complete a chore, and do our laundry with our assigned child if applicable. The day following our helper days was our “computer day” in which we could do Oregon Trail, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, type our verse, and play Math Blasters instead of school.

My mother felt it was important for us to be well rounded and would call local public and private schools to see if we could participate in some of their activities. For this reason, we would either do some kind of sport all of us could do with either local groups she found or with schools. My mom took us to a few homeschool groups, I’m not sure why we never joined – either they charged a fee we couldn’t afford or my mom thought the women there were too cliquey and judgmental (based on the home-school program they used).

At this point in time, my father was in the marine reserves and would frequently travel for both work and the marines. I remember him and my mother arguing occasionally, but they waited until we were asleep and kept it to themselves. We ended up moving outside the perimeter, and went to several churches that my mother never felt were the right fit.

One day, through the big-family-connection (that sixth sense big, homeschooling families have that allows them to instantly know if someone else is a big, homeschooling family when they meet in public), my mom met a family that was part of a 1 Cor 14 home church and immediately fell in love with this type of church. They believed in “letting God decide how many children you have” a.k.a. no birth control. They also believed there women should have long hair “as a covering” while praying, they believed that women should submit to men and that men should love their wives. They believed in church discipline for anyone in “rebellion” to God’s will, and that women should “keep silent” in church. They also believed strongly that a woman should not teach a man anything and I remember being told time and time again, that I had to phrase anything I said to a man in such a way that he couldn’t learn anything from what I said.

Shortly after he finished the reserves and began working from home, I remember quite vividly at the age of 12 after about a year and half at this house church, being sat down in the living room with the current 6 brothers and sisters (2 weren’t yet born) and being told by my dad that mom was in rebellion and that the church was bad and wrong because he had had a disagreement with them over doctrine. My dad had been a sergeant in the marines and was every bit the stereotype.

I remember everyone in that room crying after a couple of hours of him repeating this again and again. I learned that day what the doctrine of Calvinism was. My great-aunt who had become my mother’s mother lived next door at that time and I remember going next door and seeing my mother crying. She told us she wasn’t in rebellion, that she was supposed to be under God’s authority when anything her husband told her conflicted with God. She said that the church is supposed to be run in the way 1 Cor 14 describes (no pastor, all the men talk, no women speaking) and because that little paragraph ends with “ If anyone among you think that he is a prophet, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command” (v. 37), that going anywhere with a pastor would be a sin. We were told to stand up for our mother and go tell dad the truth.

For the next 9 years, we lived in a constant state of arguing. My dad would begin by dropping some remarks to my mother who would be all-too-happy to pick anything up and start an argument, which would lead to doctrine and a shouting match about our rebellion. The sister next to me and I would draw our father’s attention to us while the other one physically pushed my mother out the door to go cool down. She would go next door and fall apart crying and asking us if what she should do and if she should divorce our father. She would make hundreds of plans that fell apart by the next day and would ask anyone she could get a hold of to “help.” Every time we met someone new, within 5 minutes she would be talking about how abused she was at home and asking them to help.

My parents loved to get children on their side, because if they had a child, they could use them to hurt the other spouse.

The girls went with my mother and the boys went with my father. For a reward, my dad would take my brothers out for ice cream and movies and give them gifts to stay on his side and then taunt us asking if we were sure we didn’t want to come with him. I remember my dad having my brothers tape some of his rants on me – another debate on Calvinism – so that he could rewind it and play it to me in case I accidentally admitted to something that meant I believed in predestination and consequently his authority.

The NSA must have taken tips from my father. Nothing in our house was private.

There were key logs on all the computers, and he could watch the screen from his computer at any time. We found hidden cameras in the living room and, god-forbid you write something on paper. My mother used to journal in French before she met my dad and I remember my dad translating all her journals to use against her. If my dad found anything you had written in secret he would use it against my mother. Any failure on my part was a weapon against her. If she found anything, she would use it to guilt us and to help keep us on her side and taking care of her. I developed a secret code — a short-hand cipher — so that I could have thoughts that everyone couldn’t spy on and I only I could read.

It drove my parents crazy, but I survived.

Part Two >

A Real Investigation into IBLP

June 25, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team1 Comment

: IBLP’s Headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.

Jeri Lofland blogs at Heresy in the Heartland. The following was originally published by Jeri on June 22, 2014, and is reprinted with permission.

Thoroughness:

Knowing what factors will diminish the effectiveness of my work or words if neglected

–Bill Gothard

Bill Gothard’s buddy David Gibbs, Jr. has now completed his “investigation” into allegations made against Gothard by former IBLP staff members. According to the IBLP board earlier this week,

“…the Board sought the facts through a confidential and thorough review process conducted by outside legal counsel. Many people were interviewed, including former Board members, current and past staff members, current and past administrators, parents, and family members.

“At this point, based upon those willing to be interviewed, no criminal activity has been discovered.”

But according to the team at Recovering Grace,

“…not one of the women who have shared their stories on our site were personally contacted by Gibbs Jr. or his investigative team, including Charlotte, who alleged molestation.“

Perhaps Gibbs Jr. needs to brush up on his Character Qualities.

It would seem that Gibbs’ investigation focused narrowly on certain allegations of sexual impropriety (some of which Gothard has admitted to, resulting in his resignation). However, this is but the sensational tip of the iceberg and ignores the broad scope of hurtful, unethical, and even illegal activities that have damaged numerous lives associated with the Institute in Basic Life Principles.

Gothard promoted his organization as “Giving the world a new approach to life” and following God’s “non-optional principles”. A ministry that prides itself on being “under authority” should have nothing to fear from the truth. And yet, the testimonies of some former students and staff members paint a disturbing picture. Some of these stories of life under the auspices of the Institute have been published on Recovering Grace. Others have been shared more privately. Some victims are willing to have their names attached to their experiences while others prefer anonymity, or pseudonyms.

Each of the incidents outlined below could likely be explained away on its own. But taken together they suggest a pattern that I believe is worthy of deeper examination. The Board of IBLP can write, “We dedicate ourselves to help build up families and individuals,” but if these situations actually took place, the Institute’s so-called “ministry” is a farce, with or without Gothard, and IBLP should be shut down to prevent further abuse of power.

A real investigation of IBLP might look into allegations of the following:

OSHA and other code violations at all locations: Indianapolis, Oak Brook, Elms Plantation, Oklahoma City, Eagle Mountain, Eagle Springs, Northwoods, Big Sandy, Flint, South Campus, Little Rock, Nashville, and others

For example:

Lack of permits: illegal remodeling, dredging a lake without a permit, improper electrical wiring
Poor fire safety: hiding fire extinguishers and fire pulls behind paintings or décor items; silencing a monitored fire alarm to avoid disrupting conferences, not reporting fires to fire department
Improper supervision: letting teens work on upper-story building exterior or fire escapes without safety harness
Injuries: electrical shocks from unsafe practices, minors injured while operating power tools, carbon monoxide poisoning of kitchen volunteers
Faulty elevators
Violations of residential occupancy limits

Prayer rooms (especially at 2820 N. Meridian, Indianapolis):

locking minors in solitary confinement without notifying parents
locking minors in solitary without access to a restroom
withholding food or medication
spanking minors without parental consent

Failure to protect children by reporting abuse:

failure to report sex acts with or molestation or attempted sexual molestation of minors in IBLP’s care at the ITC (Rodger Gergeni)
failure to report sexual abuse of minors in ATI families (Bill Gothard)
pressure on homeschooled victims not to report physically abusive parents
shaming victims of sexual assault and neglecting to counsel them to contact police
pressuring ATI moms not to divorce abusive husbands who posed a danger to the children

Educational neglect:

failure to educate “homeschooled” minors who were sent to IBLP centers by their parents
using A.C.E. curriculum for children sent by the courts
violation of child labor laws
children (9-10 years old) working in the kitchen or cleaning bathrooms, sometimes rising as early as 4 or 5 a.m. to work
unpaid teenagers working 12-18 hour days in the hotels (cooking, industrial laundry, cleaning hotel rooms and public restrooms)
selling teens unaccredited degrees (Telos.edu) without adequate explanation of their value

Forced fasting:

on weekends, designated prayer days, and other times when meal preparation was inconvenient
though some children were sent there by the state and other students paid for room and board, only two meals were served on Saturday and only supper on Sunday
sometimes only two meals a day were served for weeks in a row
requiring students to turn in care packages
also mandatory weight checks (Weigh Down) for staff women, involuntary diets, forced exercise
failure to recognize eating disorders such as anorexia (even when girls were passing out)

Medical neglect:

withholding or confiscating prescription medication (including antidepressants, an asthma inhaler, post-surgery pain medication)
refusal to get prompt medical treatment for severe burns, broken bones, concussions, pneumonia, collapsed lung, high fevers, torn ligaments, acute food poisoning–many former students trace chronic health problems to untreated conditions that arose at training centers
treating injuries with alternative remedies such as sugar water injections (Dr. Hemwall)
letting doctors or dentists with revoked licenses treat students at training centers

Campaign ethics:

sending youth to campaign for Indianapolis judicial and mayoral candidates
providing private services to a public official (Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin) in Oklahoma

Employer issues:

pressuring employees not to record overtime on time sheets
advising employees that submitted overtime hours would not be paid
mandatory unpaid evening work teams for employees (washing dishes, cleaning carpets, scrubbing bathrooms)
paying less than minimum wage, paying minimum wage minus “rent”
firing employees without due process or notice
refusal to pay workers’ compensation
instructing employee to lie to hospital staff to protect the “ministry”
praising employees who gave up their paycheck to become volunteers
allowing children under 16 to work more than twenty hours a week
sexual harassment of junior staff or students by adult staff

ALERT:

physical abuse, medical neglect, solitary confinement, unsafe equipment, psychological abuse
refusal to contact parents regarding medical emergencies
keeping four teens tied together by the feet for an entire day, resulting in injury
a unit of under-dressed teen boys standing outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures at night until one confessed to a minor infraction
disregard for basic safety precautions

Mistreating Russian orphans in Moscow and at Indianapolis South Campus:

foster families spanking children and even teens
children spanked for minor misdeeds
English-speaker spanking Russian child without an interpreter present
withholding meals from children for disciplinary purposes or feeding them only dry rolled oats and water
child labor (reports of children required to clean toilets at 5 a.m.)
using orphans to “encourage” financial donors

Restricted communication from training centers:

limited access to public phones, email, fax, or internet
reading students’ outgoing or incoming mail, confiscating mail or making students open mail in presence of a leader
censoring outgoing email
telling students what to tell (or not tell) their parents about situations at the training center
limiting who a student or employee was allowed to correspond with outside
restricting conversation or interaction between fellow students

Psychological abuse:

lengthy, repetitive, or middle-of-the-night “counseling” sessions (berating and brainwashing)
restricting sleep
piping loud music into bedrooms
assigning staff to night duties on consecutive nights (along with their day jobs)
requiring student to wash clothing by hand until she had earned “privilege” of using the laundry facilities; requiring staff to recite extensive Bible passages before breaking a fast
confiscating clocks
hours of forced labor intended to “break will” or “conquer rebellion”

Violations of privacy:

not permitting students to take bathroom breaks or use the restroom alone, or with the door closed
confiscating personal items such as clothing, music, photographs, medication, and cell phones

Miscellaneous:

sending unreported cash through customs on staff member’s person
exaggerating or misrepresenting facts in newsletters
promotional video about ALERT describing a pilot “rescue” omitted the fact that it was ALERT’s own plane that crashed while taking aerial photos of the property)
personal gifts of cash or clothing from Gothard to his favorites
discrimination against males who appeared “too effeminate” and females who were overweight or not “feminine” enough
photoshopping hair, clothing, and landscaping for newsletter photos
selling overpriced plant kits to ATI families under fraudulent advertising
serving old (long-expired) donated food or insect-infested grain
transferring minors across state lines between “training opportunities” without parental permission or notification
insisting that Character First was not affiliated with Gothard

With former ATI students and IBLP staff reporting incidents like these, is it any surprise that so few choose to use Gothard’s materials with their own children?

Of Homeschooling and Cohort Effect

June 24, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team8 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Darcy’s blog Darcy’s Heart-Stirrings. It was originally published on November 22, 2013.

Sometimes I feel like I’m from another country. Or maybe another era. I’m a child of the 80’s, yet I know nothing about being a child of the 80’s. I can’t relate to pop-culture references and feel awkward when people my age laugh about something I’m supposed to know about but don’t. I see funny posts entitled “You Know You Grew up in the 80’s and 90’s When….” and I get maybe 2 references in the entire article. Sometimes it’s funny and I laugh at myself. Sometimes it’s frustrating. Sometimes I sit in a group of people and wish I knew what they were talking about, wish I had that camaraderie they all seem to have, wish I didn’t feel like an oddball, like I will always be an oddball. Sometimes I like being an oddball, when it’s of my own choosing. Sometimes I wish I had a choice in the matter.

I’m studying all kinds of fascinating things as I’m finishing the last half of my BA in liberal studies. The psychology and sociology-related classes are my favorite. I came across this word and concept a few weeks back: Cohort. And suddenly, things started falling into place in my head; ideas with a lot of gaps and holes and flashes of pictures started forming and making sense, like pieces of a puzzle that were missing but aren’t anymore. Cohorts…..cohort effects……and it hit me:

Homeschoolers are basically their own cohort.

No matter what part of the country we are from or how old we are, we experience a cohort effect that other people in our age group do not. Even though all people from our generation are technically in the same age cohort, homeschoolers are actually in their own cohort with their own sociocultural-graded influences that the rest of our culture did not experience. We often joke among us that we were our own sub-culture. But I think it’s deeper than that.

I was asked as an essay question for a class to write a couple paragraphs on how cohort effects have shaped my worldview on things like politics, gender, science, and religion. And I thought, where do I even start? I’m not just in the cohort that was born in middle class white America in the 80’s. Matter of fact, I have very little relatability with anyone in my birth/generational cohort because I basically grew up in a completely different cohort.

Oxford Reference describes “Cohort” as:
“A group of people who share some experience or demographic trait in common, especially that of being the same age …”

The Psychology Dictionary defines “Cohort Effects” as:
“The effects of being born and raised in a particular time or situation where all other members of your group has similar experiences that make your group unique from other groups”

This is usually used to describe a group of people born at the same time, who experienced similar history, and their similarities in development. Like Generation X. Or Millennials. Or Baby Boomers. People born in the same time and the same place. Though it can also be used to describe sub-cultures within cultures.

The cohort effect is something that must be taken into account when studying developmental psychology or lifespan development, because something could be erroneously attributed to an age group that actually describes a cohort, a group of people that shared specific happenings, demographics, or historical events. This article has a very good, simple example of this effect in studies, and why it matters.

Those of us who were part of the pioneer Christian homeschooling movement, no matter how extreme or not, no matter where on the spectrum of conservative to liberal we were, we relate to each other in ways we cannot relate to the rest of our age cohort. In reality, we experienced history differently. We had our own culture and our own leaders and our own historical events that the rest of America knew nothing about, but that were very important to us. They defined us and we were proud of that. It’s not the fact that we were all home educated that creates this dynamic. It’s the fact that we were all part of a home education movement that was not just counter-cultural, but *anti* cultural.We were raised in a movement with varying degrees of the same teachings and varying degrees of sheltering, for all the same reasons. We were, most of us, raised under the influence of the same leaders.

Find me a religious homeschooler from the 80’s and 90’s that doesn’t know who Josh Harris is. Or has never heard of courtship. Or HSLDA. If you don’t, you are the exception and your parents were probably hippies that didn’t want government interference in their families so they homeschooled you in a bus on a mountain somewhere (like my husband. Heh.) Think about these concepts for minute and the pictures and memories they conjure up: Ken Ham, Abeka, Rod and Staff, homeschool conventions, the Pearls, modesty, denim jumpers, fear of going outside before 2PM, Bill Gothard, courtship, parental rights, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, evils of rock music, submission, Saxon math, biblical manhood and womanhood, women’s roles, keeper at home, “what grade are you in?” “I have no idea”, Creationism, ATI (either you were in, or you thought that at least you weren’t as weird as the people that were), R.C. Sproul, Howard Phillips, quiverfull/huge families/ “are they all yours?!”, Mike Farris, government brainwash centers (aka public schools), evils of dating, head coverings, fear of child-snatching CPS, evils of feminism, evils of sex ed, evils of Halloween, evils of pagan Christmas, evils of kissing before the alter, evils of peer pressure, homeschool co-ops, culottes, endless questions about how you get socialization and whether you do school in your PJs, skirts-only, Biblical Worldview, Republican conventions, government conspiracy theories, 15 passenger vans, no TV, Mary Pride, family bands with matching clothes, and King James vs. NIV. To name a few.

Not included in that list are the major historical events that we *didn’t* know about or experience the way that most people in our age cohort did. The killing of John Lennon, the Challenger disaster (which I didn’t know about until I was an adult), the fall of the Berlin wall, the massacre of Tiananmen Square, the Rodney King trial, Princess Diana. Not to mention the lack of knowledge of entire segments of history such as the Civil Rights Movement or the Suffragette Movement. We knew nothing of pop culture: music, movies, art, except that they were “worldly”. These were deemed contemporary, products of a relativistic worldview, and thus worthless, while we studied the Reformation period or the Founding Fathers or the Civil War instead.

We are the products of a pioneer movement; the good, bad, and ugly. A movement many of us have grown up and left behind, some of us floundering in the world we are trying to be a part of now but were never prepared for because we were told we were not supposed to be “of this world”. We have similar memories, both positive and negative. We look back on our own lives and we relate to one another, even if we’ve never met in person. Thanks to the internet age, we who thought we were alone and weird and oddballs have found each other, found people that are as oddball in all the same ways as we are. We have found that we are not alone in a culture we don’t understand but pretend to anyway. We may be in similar or vastly different places in life right now. But no matter where we are in life, and what we believe now, we have a shared experience that no one else in our generation has.

This can be a difficult concept to share with other people. Last night I was out with some new friends and they were exchanging stories of their first kiss and getting in trouble for sneaking out or smoking or drinking or playing hooky, and when it was my turn, I said “Well, I got in trouble for wearing pants”. The silence and stares were deafening. Had I said that in a group of ex-homeschoolers, there would’ve been laughter and rolling eyes and sympathy. Because we *know*. We get it. We lived it. We can laugh about it together.

“The effects of being born and raised in a particular time or situation where all other members of your group has similar experiences that make your group unique from other groups”

Perhaps I’m using these terms all wrong and someone smarter than me can correct me. I just know that for better or for worse, the definition fits. And it really explains a lot.

Paul and Gena Suarez, Old Schoolhouse Publishers, Accused of Protecting Known Child Predators

June 24, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team26 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Paul and Gena Suarez, owners of the “global homeschooling company” The Old Schoolhouse, have been accused by a former key employee of allegedly protecting several known child predators. Furthermore, they are accused of shaming and silencing members of their community who tried to stand up and do the right thing.

About the Suarezes and The Old Schoolhouse

Paul and Gena Suarez are the publishers of The Old Schoolhouse (TOS), a Christian homeschool magazine and self-described “global homeschooling company.” TOS has been called “one of the largest homeschooling magazines in America, and indeed, the world.” TOS’s vision is “to continue to lift up the Lord in every endeavor, every action, and every word spoken or written,” and that “as homeschooling grows, so TOS grows, and concurrently, that as TOS grows, more families will be introduced to home education through our many and varied resources.”

Paul and Gena Suarez. Source: http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com

Begun in 2001, TOS has become immensely popular in the Christian Homeschool Movement. Their Facebook page has nearly 100,000 likes. Dr. James Dobson has endorsed and partnered with TOS, being “pleased to come alongside The Old Schoolhouse, an exemplary organization and magazine, in serving families that care so deeply for the nurturing and development of their kids.” In 2006 Doug Phillips was reported to say “that he really loved reading TOS, and that he didn’t read many homeschool magazines but The Old Schoolhouse Magazine was one that he did definitely read.” NHERI/HSLDA’s Dr. Brian Ray is one of their regular columnists.

TOS also has a Speakers Bureau, which “seeks to identify and introduce to the homeschool community speakers whose knowledge, experience, Christian faith, values, personality, commitments, and central message represent and promote the homeschool movement from a Biblical worldview and family-first perspective.” Their bureau includes popular homeschool speakers such as Heidi St. John, Skeet Savage, Israel Wayne, Jay Wile, and Hal Young. (In fact, Heidi St. John — who recently wrote an article about abuse in homeschooling communities entitled “Don’t Turn Away: Trouble in the Homeschool Movement” — appears to be family friends with the Suarezes, per this Instagram photo of their families together that St. John tweeted last January.)

TOS has actively promoted the works of R.J. Rushdoony, Kevin Swanson, and Vision Forum. Most disturbingly, TOS has a long history of adoration for and promotion of Michael and Debi Pearl and the “ministry” (read: child abuse advocacy) of No Greater Joy. Proverbs 22:6 (and also the title of the Pearls’ most well-known book) — “Train up a child…” — features prominently on the TOS website. In 2005 TOS’s devotional editor Deborah Wuehler interviewed a member of the Pearl family for TOS, in which she wrote the Pearls were “the pioneers of homeschooling in the early 1970s” who “helped countless numbers of parents with their child training questions.” A year later the Suarezes “team[ed] up” with Michael and Debi Pearl in 2006 for a Christian homeschool conference in Germany. TOS even went so far as to give away free copies of the Pearls’ book To Train Up a Child in their “welcome packages” to new homeschoolers. This, as well as other acts of promotion of the Pearls, led to a boycott of TOS in 2006 by gentle parenting bloggers.

TOS is currently both a sponsor of the Great Homeschool Conventions and an HSLDA-suggested resource promoted to HSLDA members at a special discounted rate.

Enter Jenefer Igarashi

Jenefer Igarashi is a “veteran homeschooling mother of six” with 20 years of homeschooling experience. She is a former employee of TOS.

Jenefer Igarashi. Source: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/22729173092429104/ — Jenefer Igarashi. Source: Pinterest.

For 6 years Igarashi worked for TOS in a number of capacities, including (in 2002) as the Senior Editor of TOS and (in 2006) as the Vice President of Operations. She’s been in the thick of the Christian Homeschool Movement, writing enthusiastically in 2006 about her opportunities for TOS to interview both HSLDA’s Chris Klicka and Vision Forum’s Doug Phillips. She was a frequent speaker and exhibitor at homeschool conventions on the topic of Rosetta Stone curriculum, including Teaching Them Diligently conferences, Minnesota Association of Christian Home Educators (MACHE) conferences, and the Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE) conference. Igarashi is also a contributing writer for the Christian website Crosswalk.com.

In their 2006 book Homeschooling Methods: Seasoned Advice on Learning Styles, self-described as “a homeschool convention in a book,” Paul and Gena Suarez include — among essays by popular homeschool leaders such as Doug Wilson and Raymond Moore — an essay co-written by Igarashi. As 2006 they described her as “vice president of operations for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.” The Suarezes also refer to Igarashi as one of several “personal friends who have given of themselves and blessed us abundantly with encouragement, love, and undying support.”

In 2007, however, Igarashi departed from TOS. In the Summer 2007 edition of TOS, Paul and Gena Suarez wrote the following (you can view a PDF archived on HA here):

The Old Schoolhouse – Summer 2007

With a heavy heart we announce that Jenefer Igarashi has moved on from TOS. We so appreciate the six years she poured into our magazine. We want to publicly bless the Igarashi family and we pray that the Lord will continue to bless and keep them near to Him.

Child Sexual Abuse Allegations

Over the last two months, Jenefer Igarashi has revealed that the “heavy heart” of the Suarezs might actually have been much heavier — and disturbing — than the 2007 announcement suggested.

Beginning in April of this year, Igarashi began writing on her personal blog Jeneric Jeneralities about abuse, homeschooling, and the Christian church. Her first post on the matter was on April 24, entitled “When the Body Cuts Itself to Pieces.” It was a vague, but intense, piece. Igarashi wrote the following:

Being a part of a local body is crucial for Believers. There is safety. There is counsel. Also, there are witnesses.

The Christian Homeschool Community is not a church. It’s a movement. It’s not a church.

Naturally, one would hope that it is able to regulate itself, but is that even possible? How does a ‘movement’ regulate itself? Who is responsible to keep the bad apples out? The Leaders? Who are the Leaders? What if the Leaders are bad apples?

Igarashi never says what is prompting these questions. But something is clearly pressing on her mind:

In most cases Titus 3:10-11 would answer, ‘Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped.’ But what if there is a danger to others? What is the moral responsibility for those who have information? These are questions my husband and I are trying to work out right now. Likely you may soon hear about another huge and distressing ‘Homeschool Leader’ scandal.

A couple weeks later, on May 6, Igarashi writes another post, this one entitled “Mediation Attempt.” This post mentions names, but gives no indication as to the content. The entirety of the post is copied below:

May 5th, 2014 there was a mediation attempt, which involved Paul Suarez, Gena Suarez, Geoff Igarashi III, Jenefer Igarashi, Pastor Charlie Scalf, Pastor Ben Wright and Attorney David Gibbs.

The following ‘Joint Statement’ was put together then signed by all parties.

“About seven years ago we disagreed on how to handle a complex issue. Though we have not yet resolved the areas of disagreement, we have started the process of restoring our relationship. We love each other as a family and we have committed to rebuild that relationship and mutual trust in years to come. We desire to resolve any related division with other parties and to that end we ask that you contact whomever among us would be most appropriate. We pray that our work to reconcile with one another might reflect in some way the magnitude of God’s great mercy to reconcile with us through the sacrifice of His Son.”

There is no indication of what provoked this mediation process. However, note the involvement of “Attorney David Gibbs,” which is either the man known for defending accused child abusers (most notably, and recently, Bill Gothard!) or that same man’s son, know most recently for defending abuse victim Lourdes Torres-Manteufel against Vision Forum’s Doug Phillips. (Based on the above meditation statement, I would guess the former.) Either way, the fact that either one of these Gibbs would be involved in this mediation process is quite telling of the significance of this event.

Several weeks after this “Joint Statement,” Igarashi writes another post on May 18, this time entitled “Don’t Eat Plastic Apples.” Igarashi calls out people who would silence abuse survivors through words like “gossip” and “slander,” saying:

One of the classic tactics abusers use after they victimize a person is to further oppress them by condemning them as ‘gossips’ or ‘slanderers’ if they don’t cover up the abusers actions.

Abusers will create smoke and clamor to divert attention away from their abuse by pretending the ‘sin of gossip’ is the Sin of all Sins and is therefore sufficient grounds to discount any charge of real sin against them.

It is in this point that Igarashi first mentions the safety of children. She writes,

I’ll just speak plainly here. If there are men who have sexually abused children (or are being investigated as child predators) and you are told to keep your mouth shut about it, then it’s time to do something. Leaving with your children is a good first step.

If you feel children may be in danger and speak out about it, you are not a gossip. If somebody gives you a long biblical treatise about how their view on how to handle child predators within the church is the only biblical one (and their view protects offenders and demands that other parents are not to be made aware) know they are flat wrong. If you’re told that you’re ‘possibly unsaved’ if you disagree with their views, you need to know that is a lie.

The Shoe Drops

Something went down on May 24, 2014, when Igarashi wrote a post entitled “An Apology.” Igarashi wrote a post, then retracted it into private status so that no one could read it. (An excerpt from the post, however, is visible here.) 3 days later, on May 27, Igarashi explains the retraction in the post “Pending”:

I have been asked to take the two posts down. I was asked to do this because we had signed an agreement to work through a different channel with the Suarez issue (part of that being we agreed not to go ‘public’ with the information) Whether or not that was a wise or proper thing for us to do is currently being debated. But as it stands, since we did sign an agreement that outlined certain steps, we will honor it and stay silent regarding exposing things publicly for now.

However, I will say this. Geoff and I 100% stand behind those who have been hurt and/or victimized. Our eyes have been even more opened to the necessity of speaking out and the huge problem that currently exists in the church (at large) that hides divisiveness and the danger of silencing victims who speak up. We’ve gotten such a huge response from people who have been suffering in the same, or similar, situation. Our hearts grieve over that.

We now find out that whatever provoked the mediation process guided by one of the David Gibbs’s, and whatever has inspired these thoughts about child abuse, homeschooling, and the Christian church — it has something to do with the “Suarez issue.” The Suarezes, remember, are the publishers of the “global homeschooling company” The Old Schoolhouse.

Finally, the entire shoe drops a month later, on June 19, 2014, in the post “It Just Needs to Stop.” Here Igarashi explains a truly disturbing story about the Suarezes and their alleged defense of know child predators — including one of their own sons — and how they gaslit, attacked, and silenced the families of the victims — one of those victims being Jenefer Igarashi’s son.

Igarashi explains that, when her son was only 6 years old, he was “repeatedly molested.” (The boy is now a week shy of 14, so this molestation happened approximately 7 years ago — the exact same time period in which Igarashi “moved on from TOS,” according to the Suarezes.) The person who molested him was “his older cousin,” who “had forced him to live with such disgusting memories.” Igarashi re-emphasizes this, saying the molester is her nephew:

We take issue with the practice of protecting a child molester (repentant or otherwise) at the expense of the victim and their family. I’ve been accused of ‘making my nephew out to be a monster’.

Then Igarashi reveals that the relative who molested her son is the “(then) teenage son” of Paul and Gena Suarez. (Gena and Jenefer are sisters, it turns out.) Yes, one of the sons of the Suarezes allegedly molested a 6-year-old child (and later two other children) and the Suarezes defended that son at the expense of their son’s victims.

More than One Predator

But then it gets worse.

According to Igarashi, the Suarez son is not the only known child predator that Paul and Gena Suarez have defended at the expense of victims. Igarashi writes,

There have been two other child predators (that we know of) who the Suarez’s actively protected. They demanded silence from those who knew and insisted on letting those predators have unfiltered access to family gatherings / child focused events. They insisted that families accept (what amounts to) a ‘zero accountability’ stance in regard to those men because they said the men had ‘repented’. And families who voiced concerned, or alerted other families to a potential danger, or who chose not to include the predators in their groups, were told they were in sin and were then condemned by the Suarez’s. One man, Roy Ballard, was later imprisoned for sexual assault against children. The other man they protected, Mike Marcum, was also imprisoned (for possession of child pornography).

Paul and Gena Suarez defended Roy Ballard, a convicted child abuser. Source: http://www.homefacts.com/offender-detail/ILE06B4985/Roy-W-Ballard.html

You can view Roy Ballard’s record here, where he is listed as a registered sex offender for “aggravated criminal sexual abuse.” Steve and Julie Hauser, who attended the same home church as Paul and Gena Suarez, give a detailed account of how the Suarezes refused to believe a young child claiming inappropriate touch by Ballard and instead belittled and shamed that young child, her family, and those trying to stand up to abuse.

This account alleges, therefore, that Paul and Gena Suarez — publishers of The Old Schoolhouse Magazines and owners of a global homeschooling empire and Speakers Bureau — have tried to hide and protect (1) a teenage child molester, (2) a convicted, known, and repeat child abuser, and (3) an adult in possession of child pornography. This account has also been corroborated by numerous members of the Suarezes’ company and community.

And this? All while the Suarezes make money off their public image, an image that they are experts in “raising godly children” and experts in avoiding the evil “sexual encounters” children experience in public schools — all while their own teenager allegedly abuses his 6-year-old nephew and they turn a blind eye. There is nothing but irony, therefore, in the fact that Paul and Gena Suarez were the 2009 recipients of the “Dr. Robert Dreyfus Courageous Christian Leadership Award” from Frontline Ministries and the Exodus Mandate Project. So much for “courageous Christian leadership.”

And again, I’ll repeat: TOS is currently both a sponsor of the Great Homeschool Conventions and an HSLDA-suggested resource promoted to HSLDA members at a special discounted rate.

To conclude, I’ll quote from Igarashi’s latest post:

I’ve been accused of trying to ‘vindictively take down The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’. I reject that accusation. Paul and Gena made the choice to habitually divide with believers over secondary issues. They have also made the choice to condemn (multiple) families who spoke out against child predators. They made the choice to continue pursuing the spotlight as national leaders after knowing their highschooler repeatedly molested more than one child.

The question now becomes: will Christian homeschool leaders stand together against this abuse to condemn — and refuse a future spotlight to — Paul and Gena Suarez?

Patriarchy in Homeschool Culture: Samantha Field’s Thoughts

June 20, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team1 Comment

[this is what "The Patriarchy" looks like in my head] — [this is what “The Patriarchy” looks like in my head]

Samantha Field blogs at Defeating the Dragons. This piece was originally published on her own blog on May 13, 2014, and is reprinted with her permission.

I grew up in a subculture of evangelical Christianity that’s known as “Christian Patriarchy,” which is what the people who preach and teach this “lifestyle” un-ironically call it. I was also peripherally a part of the Quiverful and Stay-at-Home-Daughters movements, which are all separate things. A family can be Quiverful without preaching Christian Patriarchy or requiring daughters to remain at home until marriage, for example.

However, that’s not what I’m going to be talking about today.

One of the ex-fundamentalist Christian feminism blogs that I read is Wine & Marble, by Hännah Ettinger. She wrote one of my favorite posts on sex, and I highly recommend her as a writer. [Recently], her sister, Clare, wrote the fantastically-titled post “Fuck the Patriarchy,” about how she was kicked out of her “Homeschool Prom.” It went viral, showing up on Gawker, Fark, Cosmo, Jezebel, American Conservative, NYPost, and it should be up at the Daily mail and HuffPo pretty soon.

I was curious to see how each of these sites would handle a story about a homeschool prom, so I followed her story all over the internet, and, of course, ended up in the comment sections. Most were your standard internet outrage, but there were some people questioning the validity of her story (because of course there were). It was interesting to me that a bunch of different men thought that Clare was lying or exaggerating supposedly because men who were “ogling” her wouldn’t have asked her to leave.

It actually took me a second to figure out the rationale behind that, because it seemed so obvious that of course they would ask her to leave if they were “tempted” by the “strange woman” who was “dressed like a harlot” (not saying that she was, just that they thought she was). To me, asking Clare to leave was the entire reason why they were there. When Clare said these men were “chaperones,” that was instantly what I assumed.

However, to these (male) commenters, it seemed counter-intuitive that any man would ask a woman they thought sexually attractive to vacate the premises. If they found Clare attractive, why admit to enjoying the show– or asking the show to leave?

That’s one form of patriarchy, all on its own; implicit in many of those comments was the belief that women exist for the sexual gratification of men, and that men will compulsively ogle women they find sexually attractive, that “boys will be boys.”

However, what the chaperones did in pointing Clare out to the “Mrs. D” of the original article was another, more archaic form of patriarchy: the form of patriarchy where men are the guardians of honor– both of their own, and of “their” women. I’m not sure what the homeschooling culture is like in Richmond (not much like mine, if they have a prom), but at least some of the people in that community are probably familiar with books like Beautiful Girlhood:

One day a handsome young gentleman alighted from a train … As he paced the platform, he soon attracted the attention of a young girl. She watched him flirtatiously out of the corner of her eye, coughed a little, and laughed merrily and a bit loudly with a group of her acquaintances; but at first he paid no attention …

At last he noticed, turned, and came directly to her, while her foolish little heart was all in a flutter at her success …

“My dear girl, he said, tipping his hat, “have you a mother at home?”

“Why, yes,” the girl stammered.

“Then go to her and tell you to keep you with her until you learn how you ought to behave in a public place,” and saying this he turned and left her in confusion and shame. It was a hard rebuke; but this man had told her only what every pure-minded man and woman was thinking. Girls can hardly afford to call down upon themselves such severe criticism. (130-31)

Things like this are the subtext at events like “Homeschool Proms” that are chaperoned by conservative Christian homeschooling fathers. When those men saw Clare in a theme-appropriate dress, looking like a woman and enjoying the evening with her friends, what they saw was a “foolish girl” who deserved the “harsh rebuke” of being escorted out by security.

In this culture, it is the sacred duty of every man to police the actions of every woman. Women are not to be trusted with decision making, let alone gifted the ability to make up their own mind on what they want to wear to their Senior Prom.

If a man in this culture even notices a woman sexually, it’s a problem, and she deserves to be confronted and chastised because of it.

There’s two options available to men in these situations: either the girl is simply “silly” and telling her that her dress could cause “impure thoughts” is information she should be grateful for, and she should humbly leave in shame and humiliation– or, she is dressing provocatively on purpose, which makes her a “strange woman” who is “playing the harlot” and she definitely deserves to be confronted and removed. When Clare stood up for herself, that put her firmly into “strange woman playing the harlot” category.

It’s rape culture on steroids. It’s “she was asking for it” dressed up in Bible verses and cutesy Victorian language about knights and fair maidens.

The Psychological Cost Of Not Being Provided For

June 20, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team6 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Sarah Henderson’s blog Feminist in Spite of Them. It was originally published on her blog on October 3, 2013.

Children not getting what they want certainly does not constitute child maltreatment, and historically isn’t uncommon. The societal construct of childhood has changed several times in last few centuries, with ebbs and flows in the level of freedoms, rights, and responsibilities children have at various ages.Children have not always had childhoods. However, children have always depended on their parents to provide for them. Sometimes children who are not cared for are removed from their parents, and historically some children who were not cared for died. Children who are not provided for, know.

It is a painful realization that through choices made by parents of their own free will, a child was not given what was needed.

My siblings and I had more responsibilities and less rights than is considered typical in current society. Part of this including not really having our own possessions, and not being given new belongings except for a few
notable occasions. We were not entitled to our own space, in fact having a right to possessions and space was contraindicated because of my parents’ belief that having too many rights would make a child feel entitled and cause corruption.

It isn’t the loss of possessions ‘that could have been’ that is the problem. The loss factor in not being “provided for” lies in the reason it happened. In the case of my family, there are several reasons that we lived an essentially impoverished lifestyle. My father did not work regularly, although he did have several different jobs for short periods of times over the years. There were simply too many children in the home to properly care for on the child tax credit. The choices my parents made, including various business attempts, meant that even when there was money, it was not spent in a way that contributed to the well-being of the individuals in the family, or the family as a whole.

My father believed that he should not have a job in an organization where a woman was in a position over him in the company hierarchy in any way, even if he never interacted with them. This belief came into play over time, as he further and further restricted his job options by becoming more strict over the years about what his interaction with women could be in the workplace. It had originally started with not being able to be a peer with a women or have an immediate supervisor who a women, and then expanded to include most organizations by default. Not having a job most of the time naturally resulted in not having enough money to provide for the family. My mother never worked because my parents believed that her place was in the home being a homemaker.

My parents disapproved of welfare, and in hindsight I realize that they would certainly have not been eligible for welfare, given that two able bodied people cannot sit at home and receive welfare.

They did receive the Canadian child tax benefit, and when you have 9 children under the age of 18, it turns out that that benefit is not an insignificant amount of money – still not enough to properly care for that many children, but there was more money than we were led to believe as children. This money was spent mainly on groceries and “business expenses”, and on housing costs, however my family never had very high housing costs because my parents owned properties and stacked many children into very small spaces. They also kept expenses under control by gate-keeping the use of heat and lights.

My parents had a number of businesses over the years, so many that it is difficult to keep track of all of them. There was a furnace selling business, in which my father spent a great deal of money on pamphlets and a floor model and a trailer to pull the floor model (it was the size of a garden shed), entry fees to farm shows, and advertisements, and in the end sold less than half a dozen over two years. There was a wood selling business in which my father bought chain saws and other equipment like protective pants and helmets and gloves, and then piled firewood up near the road and behind the house and sold it to passersby. The money earned through this simply could never pay for the amount of labour (child labour and his own) and start up costs. We did not burn wood in our own house.

There were yearly attempts at market gardens. These were family exercises, in which we all went out in the spring (homeschooling did not interfere with this) and dug up the garden by hand and with a rototiller that my dad spent thousands of dollars on to maintain every year – for some reason it never worked and he had to take it for servicing literally several times per year. We then put about $100 worth of seeds in the ground. Most of it never came up. My sisters and I tried to water the garden with buckets, but we couldn’t water an acre of garden by ourselves. Depending on the year and what stage of child-bearing my mother was in, some of it was picked and some of it was left to rot in the garden – my father had always lost interest by this point and was off working on some other ‘home business’. We never really sold much. We sometimes paid for a farmer’s market booth and tried to sell there, however never earned as much as was spent on seeds. We also preserved some of it through canning and freezing.

Because of all these financial decisions, my parents did not provide the basic necessities to us. Instead they depended on the charity of acquaintances, even for such dubious items as hand-me-down underwear. Underwear for children, even 9 children, is very cheap, but my parents decided to ask other families to give us their underwear that was no longer wanted. And they did. They were also given ratty dresses and shoes and pants and shirts for the boys. We sometimes wanted new items, but we were shamed for not being grateful to the church families for giving us their castoffs, and were forced to wear the cast offs to church and thank the parent and the child who gave the clothes personally.

My parents always seemed to be able to provide for their own needs.

My mother wore hand me down clothes sometimes, but usually other women made clothes for her. My father always bought his own clothes, likely from Salvation Army, but it did not go unnoticed that he was allowed to not prostrate himself to others and beg for clothes. They also seemed to be able to squeeze in date nights, even when they were barely speaking to each other and we were on a steady rotation of oatmeal, rice, and rice. They sometimes bought steaks and had them after we went to bed. They always had coffee in the mornings, even when they couldn’t afford anything else.

It was very hard for us to see other children get some of what they wanted and everything they needed, and even to see our own parents have what they wanted, while we were not allowed to have what we wanted. When we did have treats or get new things, we hoarded them and saved them and bragged to our siblings. We would take as much as we could of free things. Our parents tried hard to make sure that we viewed desiring things as a sin. Even expressing a desire for something was enough to put it completely out of reach. We were taught to put ourselves down for wanting things. We were taught that others were entitled to what they wanted, but we were not. Because we had to take what others no longer wanted, we felt like the trash of the church. We were taught that what we wanted was not important.

The psychological cost of not being provided for was a loss of self-worth. It took many years to realize that we are worth the same as others. It was quite an experience going shopping for what we wanted in the mall. Now that I work full time, and I get cheques regularly, it is still a weird feeling to see that we have enough money for what I want – not to mention what I need. I sometimes have to force myself to see that it is ok to buy a few new shirts even if I still have some. The decision to withhold basic necessities of life and let children depend on the charity of others, by choice, is intrinsically harmful and teaches children that the world is a dangerous place.

Teaching children that they are not as important as others is self-serving and abusive.

40 Ways to Help Homeschool Kids in Bad Situations, Part Two

June 19, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team20 Comments

HA note: For this two-part post, we asked members of the Homeschoolers Anonymous community the following question: If you grew up in a bad or less-than-ideal family and/or homeschooling environment, what are things that people around you (other family, friends, community members, etc.) could have done to help you and make your life better, more tolerable, etc.? We edited and compiled everyone’s answers into a list of 40 suggestions and will present those suggestions in 2 sets of 20. Each set is a group post compiled from various people’s answers.

< Part One

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21. Remember to distinguish between the children and their parents.

If you homeschool for non-religious reasons, strive to distinguish between religious homeschooling parents and religiously homeschooled kids, rather than negatively lumping them all together as “religious homeschoolers.” With your own kids, try not to model contempt for those religious homeschoolers, especially not the kids, even if they proselytize or repeat views with which you strongly disagree.

22. Create opportunities for the children and their families to broaden their horizons.

Keep your own children safe and socialized with diverse peers, but when possible, consider organizing pluralist homeschool events at which religious homeschooling families will feel welcome. These can broaden the horizons of all kids involved and help break down the “us-and-them” of religious vs. secular homeschooling.

23. Challenge them.

Disagree with them in a kind way. Most these kids are parroting the same rhetoric they’ve heard for years. Say it’s not a sin to be gay, that atheists have the same capacity for morality, that liberal Christianity has a solid theological basis, that you don’t believe in a young earth and don’t think it’s necessary to maintaining faith. They’ll probably disagree with you, but it opens you up as someone who they might be able to ask questions they don’t already know the right answers for. It gives them permission to consider alternative view points, just knowing that someone they respect can have good reasons to think in a different way than the conservative noise machine. Speak Christianeese if you can, but let them know that you can have conversations where the bible is not the only authority. Tell them about the way other countries work ± it challenges our extremist rhetoric when other places make things like healthcare work.

24. If they have mental health struggles, encourage them to get help.

Let them know anxiety and depression have real causes, they are not sent by god or caused by the devil. If they struggle with those things, let them know they can ask for help from someone who won’t try to exorcise them.

25. Encourage them, period. Let them know it gets better.

I wish someone had told me that I would be able to make it on my own both mentally and physically because I was strong and capable. Give them hope that there is life beyond the prison they are in and that with enough determination and planning you are fully capable of escaping. Let them know that the life they have outside of their parents’ home is so much more beautiful and amazing than they can imagine and that although the road is hard it is worth every effort it takes to get there so don’t stop trying.

26. When appropriate and welcomed, show them safe physical affection.

If they aren’t uncomfortable with it (always ask first) give them hugs and pats on the back and warmth. My family was not a touchy family, more about rules and basic provision than affection or pleasure. I hug my mother perhaps three times a year, tops, and this has been the case since late elementary school when she stopped forcing me. I probably have an inclination to physical affection naturally, but this affection desert I grew up in definitely starved me painfully. It was awkward at first when I got to the age where friends started hugging me (when I got out of the conservative circle the first few times) but as soon as I acclimated my heart started opening up a bit, because of the affection suddenly available to me.

27. Encourage them to accept and love their bodies.

Everyone here has such amazing, positive suggestions and mine is going to sound really lame but here it is: Tell her she’s pretty and give her a reason that’s nothing to do with her home schooled outfit. When I was in the hospital having my appendix out at age 11, right before I went under, the doctor said “You have such gorgeous brown eyes. You’re going to drive the boys wild one day.” Throughout my years of homeschool depression, house church, frumpiness, everything, I clung to that doctor’s words like a teeny-tiny lifeline.

28. Teach them about consent.

It would be really helpful if you discussed things like consent and that it really is ok if you say no… and also how to contact a domestic violence center.

29. Only teach them about consent (and other such things) when they’re comfortable with it.

If they’re getting married or in a relationship, it’s ok to discuss sex/relationship related things. But if they’re creeped out or obviously feeling like you shared too much information, please stop for the time being.

30. Help them realize public school isn’t the Anti-Christ.

As a public school teacher, I try to talk to some of the folks about the cool, fun, educational, and wholesome projects and activities my students are doing at school or how advanced their learning is. I also try to give examples of how Christian kids in my public school are able to share their faith.

31. Counter-act the demands of exceptionalism.

Let them know it’s okay not to focus on “being a leader” or “changing the world” or “being a light.” You can just be you, have fun, play or read or watch TV all day, and you haven’t wasted one second.

32. Teach how to establish boundaries.

Encourage them to be careful of mentors who try to treat you like their child. We have broken relationships with our parents, so we crave these bonds, but it’s often the first red flag for someone who will try to control and spiritually abuse you. Get comfortable with being treated like an equal, it’s something you need to expect in relationships or you will get walked all over. You’re not better than anyone else, but neither is anyone else better than you.

33. Respect their boundaries.

If a child (teen, young adult) who is still living at home after their homeschooling career tells you “I really can’t talk about that” or “I am uncomfortable discussing that”, please for the love of all that is holy, drop it. Bring it up sometime later, but not the same day/week/month. There is a reason they asked you not to discuss it.

34. If they’re high schoolers, give them information about what they will need to finish.

If they’re high schoolers, give them information (or just implied indicators phrased as questions like “so have your parents written up your transcript yet?” if you’re being subtle) about what they will need to finish, have documented, etc. to go on to college or a particular career. Their parents might not know or care about this, or they might be actively obstructing it. There’s no way for the teen to know this if their social / internet / library access is censored. But they’re still the ones who will pay the consequences later in life.

35. Help them with resources to succeed.

Help or show them how to find the right resources and make good choices in housing, employment, and whatever else might be necessary to get out.

36. Help them prepare for the work place.

If you have a lucrative skill/trade, or one that looks great on resumes, offer to tutor them in it. (Example: Any computer skills, handcrafting items, foreign languages, etc.) Things like that will help them get out living on their own and buy them (literally) time to catch up on school if they need to, or earn money, before pursuing higher education on their own. Pitch it to the parents as extracurricular, and better yet as free. Lesson time would also give you time to connect with them, invest in them, and encourage them emotionally.

Also, teach them about finances: I wish someone had taught me how to work and save, instead of isolating me from money so that I didn’t learn to manage it.

37. Help them get breaks from their family.

If you have offered for them to stay over, find a reason like dog/cat/baby/house sitting. Let them know they can use your internet, cable and peruse your books. Offer food they can eat (if there are dietary restrictions, be mindful of those) and understand if their parents freak out and don’t let them do it. Start challenging those parents but maintain your relationship with the (teen/adult) child. Odds are, they’re stuck at home “care-giving” and have no outlet, especially if they are not working, but also if they are.

38. Stand up for them against their family.

One thing I wish someone had done was stand up for me. My dad used to grab me and spank me — hard — as a joke for “things he didn’t catch me at.” He still did this when I was a fairly old teenager. He sometimes did it in front of friends of his for a laugh and not once did anyone not laugh. Not once did anyone stand up for me. I wish they had. I regard those people as unsafe people now.

39. If you’re going to help them in a drastic way, actually be prepared.

If you offer a way out, be sure you have all the ducks in a row, because they likely have very little resources at their fingertips and cannot truly function as an adult “outside”. Think of them as being raised in “The Village” and finally being outside for the first time. They are going to need a safety net.

40. Don’t give up on them.

Stick around. If you sense that anything might be wrong, stick around and find out what it is and what you can do. Even if the family situation makes you uncomfortable, even if the parents hate you and creep you out.

Stay in the child’s life.

It will take a long time for them to come to trust you, but once they do you can be an invaluable lifeline. Let them know that they can always come to you. If anything really concerning comes to light, call CPS. If nothing happens, call CPS again. I had someone in my life who was an “outsider” and for the most part a stranger, but she instantly grasped that our family was messed up and could see how unhappy I was. The four most important things she did for me were: 1.) Offer me a free place to live (I was 18 so that was an option). 2.) Convince my mom that I needed to see a therapist. 3.) Tell me over and over and over again that I was pretty and talented and could do anything I wanted. 4.) Listen.

As I grew to trust her I poured out my whole story for the first time, and she listened and offered genuine sympathy. She also let me know that yes, my mom really was abusive and that my situation was not normal. She affirmed and validated all my feelings.

Don’t give up.

Homeschoolers Anonymous

An Archived Blog

Author: HA Editorial Team

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