Christian patriarchy

Feeling Empathy for Christian Patriarchy Parents and Leaders

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s blog Becoming Worldly. It was originally published on November 13, 2013.

I did a couple things I never expected to do yesterday. I had a thought-provoking conversation that left me thinking about how it is easy to decide that someone is an enemy, a jerk, a selfish person. It is easy to determine that people are unworthy, undeserving, maybe even unclean. It is easy for them to decide that about you too.

Yesterday I found myself talking about my blog with my Dad. 

He’d found out about it a month ago. It hadn’t mattered to me. We hadn’t spoken since before Father’s Day. I expected we might never speak again and it might be for the better. But I got off the phone from that thought-provoking conference call and sat in my chair for a bit, thinking. Then I called my Dad.

Why? Well, sometimes you find out information that humanizes people a bit more, that explains why, and that makes you realize you attributed motives to them that weren’t exactly accurate or that didn’t contain some missing pieces of a bigger picture.

The more adults I talk to or learn from who are walkaways from the Quiverfull and Christian patriarchy stuff, or even ostensible leaders or former leaders within it, the more I see them as not abusers and power-grabbers per se, but also victims. They often had harsh upbringings filled with authoritarianism and loss or were constantly uprooted, never knowing what to expect next.

My Grandad, the man I looked up to and loved so much, was not the same man when my Dad and his siblings were kids. He’d just gotten back from Vietnam back then.

He was a tyrant.

He beat his kids, like his father before him.

Even my Grandad said it, telling me “I was a son of a bitch, and I was a son of a bitch to my kids.” He realized later in life that kids need something different then what he’d gotten and what he’d given. He told my Dad, “Don’t raise your kids like how I raised you.”  My Dad thought he had found a different way. Except it wasn’t really all that different.

Him and my Mom got sucked into extreme religion like a drug when they were just kids, each not yet 20 years old. They became true believers. They more or less still are. That sort of faith easily attracts young people from dysfunctional families who are looking for guarantees, assurances that family life will be different, better, and that heaven awaits if they follow what I have occasionally referred to as “the faith equivalent of the Nutrisystem diet.”

They were trying and failing and starving away on the inside and it was as hard growing up with them as if they had been on drugs.

I thought of Dr. David Gil, a social policy professor I had at Brandeis, in his late 80′s and a holocaust survivor, a man who had testified before Congress against corporal punishment of kids back in the 70′s and had spent much of his career working on fostering reconciliation after atrocities. He’d spoken of society’s ills all coming back to unmet human need. That we have kick the dog syndrome, we have substance abuse, we have wealth hoarding, we have people treating other people (generally weaker people) like objects, and almost all of it is due to stunting – people not being able to reach their full potential during their formative years because the previous generation has hurt them, and the fact that they were born into a society that did not meet their needs starting at a young age. Dr. Gil talked about how people-led movements for equality and social change were all that could alter this dynamic. That it was about interpersonal interaction, sharing, and giving, collaboration rather than competition.

I am not a Star Trek nerd, but this video really moves me. Patrick Stewart’s father was an abuser. He watched his mother get abused as a small boy and couldn’t do anything about it. Later on he learned that it was untreated mental health problems from wartime experiences that caused his father to have so many issues, and while it did not excuse the abuse (because nothing does) it did help him develop empathy for his father. So he is doing work to help veterans and work to help battered women, in order to honor them both, in order to help others avoid beingthem both. I thought it was so moving because this is someone who gets what the cycle really is like. Hurt people hurting people.

We can sit here loathing each other, re-wounding each other, blaming each other, but an eye for an eye truly does make the whole world blind.

I thought about how people often try to improve a dysfunctional world by creating little Utopias and about how people do what they can with the tools they have and sometimes when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail, and sometimes you get caught up in hammering away at everything only to get stopped in your tracks when you least expect it and find that you do have empathy for where someone is coming from simply because you see humanity there. Even if they’ve done things you think are shitty and even if you don’t agree with their outlook much at all. You remember that they are a person too, and if you remember that they are a person they just might remember that you are a person and then as two people you can do the hardest and most special thing that people can do, which is to be people, together.

So many homeschool parents who got sucked into the Quiverfull and Christian patriarchy stuff are still hurting. 

They secretly bear so much shame. So much self-loathing. So much guilt and fear and they are tired and worn down. They often have too many kids and not enough resources or answers. They are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives, decide where their boundaries are, figure out what’s right and what’s wrong and what’s bullshit. I don’t think a lot of them are doing as good of a job as I’d expect, but then again I do have pretty exacting expectations, very little tolerance for the sort of brokenness that reminds me of my childhood. It’s pretty triggering.

But I am trying to be more forgiving. I am trying to bear in mind that once safety has been ascertained, that forgiveness is an option and sometimes recovery, rehabilitation, and reconciliation are too.

I try to remember that at one time they were all babies – they were all cute and innocent little children making mud pies or pushing their peas around their plates. They were all pimply teens trying to figure out what to do with crushes and first loves and first kisses and broken hearts and whether their friends liked them and their clothes conveyed the right message about who they were on the inside. They were learning about education and vocations and how to pay the bills in a world where none of those things were simple (and still aren’t). They were learning how to be parents and what it meant when nobody had ever taught them how. None of it was easy.

They went through hardships, too.

Hardships that caused damage and misconceptions and harms that they passed down to the next generation and sometimes the people around them in one form or another.

I expect most of the time they didn’t mean to cause hurt, but they did and we can’t change the past. We can only look to the future and try to do what we can with what we’ve got. I’m not a fool. I know the odds of my Dad and I having the sort of quality relationship that I would desire in an ideal father-daughter sense is unlikely bordering on neigh impossible. But maybe our relationship can be more than nothing. Maybe it can be more than him getting old and dying and me not seeing him for years before that day. If it has to be nothing I’m ok with that. But something would be better.

And that’s why I called my Dad. I told him that he was worthy of forgiveness. I told him that I forgave him. I told him that I had two rules. He couldn’t tell me what to do and he couldn’t try to rewrite the past. He said ok. Then we talked.

We talked about an old family photo my sister had texted to all of us, when I was just a baby and my parents were young, starry-eyed, and impossibly good looking, and how the picture reminded him of when I was small and he took me to the University of New Orleans once. He said he remembered how happy I was there. I said yes, that I’d remembered that visit, walking up the liberal arts building stairs, him buying me a Coke (a rare treat) out of the vending machine, and seeing adults poring over their books and listening to lectures in classrooms.

He said, “I did good things too, you know. I did good things too.”

I said, “I know, Dad. I remember the good things too. I remember them.“

He told me that when he watched the Al Jazeera video he agreed with Pat Farenga’s perspective more than mine, that he felt I did a good job but my framework was off, that he figured modern technology and online schools solved a lot of the homeschooling issues I was concerned about, and with my skills (and here he sounded proud) that I should work towards bigger issues, things that could do more for society, that homeschooling was small. I replied that Pat was a nice guy and we just disagreed about a few things, and I figured if I used my education anywhere, I should start close to home, in an area I know, and so that’s what I was doing.

I said I didn’t do it to shame him. I did it to help other kids.

So I’m gonna call my Dad again in a few days and see if we can start small, start with more good things, attempt to be family to one another, and meantime I’m gonna work on some child abuse prevention resources so that other families can stop the cycle before it gets as bad as it did in mine.

I’m not going to whitewash everything and act like its peachy keen now (because there has been a lot of damage done and a lot of work still needs to be done to bring things in a positive direction and it’s a pretty tall order) but I am hopeful. There is still room for redemption. There is still room for improvement. We are all still alive. Or most of us are anyway, and those who aren’t should be held in our memories, their stories and hardships learned from, their lives honored, the lessons not forgotten.

It is a punitive, careless, and authoritarian culture that hurts us.

This issue isn’t about Christianity. It isn’t about homeschooling. It isn’t about families. It isn’t about faith or love or loyalty. It’s about power. Power that the fearful grasp onto or lash out with. That is what we need to try so hard to end, to use our own power to do.

Sharing is still caring. There is still room to learn and grow and try to make the best of the present, using what we know from the past. There is room to accept broken people and wounded people and people who have done serious harms that are not able to be erased but who are trying to do better now, even if they don’t hardly know the way. We don’t have to do it. We don’t have to do anything. But we can. If we want to.

I’m still pretty early in my career, green in the public policy profession, but today I wanted to share this lesson that I learned, that hit home, that I hope to always remember.

We think we’re just working on metrics, policy issues, and stakeholders and then we run into raw humanity – unmet human need, trauma, and people trying to find a way to get by and make it better than they’ve had it. Maybe this shouldn’t change our goals but our methods. Remind us that it’s never “just business.” It’s always personal.

Everyone is a person.

Ready for Real Life: Part Seven, Vocations

HA Editorial Team10 Comments
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Ready for Real Life: Part Seven, Vocations

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Ahab’s blog, Republic of Gilead. Part Seven of this series was originally published on November 11, 2013.

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Also in this series: Part One, Botkins Launch Webinar | Part Two, Ready for What? | Part Three, Are Your Children Ready? | Part Four, Ready to Lead Culture | Part Five, Science and Medicine | Part Six, History and Law | Part Seven, Vocations | Part Eight, Q&A Session | Part Nine, Concluding Thoughts

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In this part of the “Ready for Real Life” webinar series, the Botkins discuss the transition from homeschooling to adult life, offering advice on work, education, and adult leadership. As with prior webinars, the Botkins give this a separatist spin, discouraging young people from entering traditional workforces, the military, or universities that could “exploit them to their ruin”. Maintaining Christian dominion is paramount, as usual. Unfortunately, the Botkins fail to understand the relationship between impractical homeschool teachings and homeschooled youth who are ill-prepared to take on the world.

Geoffrey began by praising Christian homeschool families, asserting that parents pulling their children out of schools was one of the most significant movements in history. However, he lamented the “nationwide fragility” of the Christian homeschool movement, claiming that a “lack of a dominion pattern of thinking” has weakened homeschooling. Many children remain confused as to why their parents homeschooled them, failing to see the “Biblical purpose” or “urgent reasons” to propel the movement, he claimed. “Some of them are even confused about marriage,” he added.

Who do the Botkins blame for anemic homeschooling and disappointing results? Mothers.

Victoria Botkin claimed that the homeschool movement’s biggest weakness is that it’s “mommy-driven”. At the 4:06 mark, she elaborated on how homeschool mothers allegedly stunt their children.

“We have to be honest and say that the weakness is that it’s mommy-driven … I know that what homeschool mommies like me love most is to gather our chicks together and snuggle up together on the sofa with our cups of cocoa and just have a wonderful time reading together. This warm, cozy mothering style is very good and it’s very nurturing when the children are little, but we have to face it, as they get older, this is simply not a good formula for training up cultural leaders. So, as our children grow up, the way we interact with them and the way we mothers discipline them has simply got to grow with them.”

Geoffrey Botkin agreed, claiming that homeschooling is stunting children’s development in part because “mommies” are driving the process and fathers are insufficiently involved. At the 5:04 mark, he criticized homeschool mothers for cocooning their children in a safe, sheltered environment for longer than necessary.

“We notice that parents’ teaching styles and techniques and priorities really are not growing with the children. We’re keeping the children young. We’re keeping the children undeveloped, and part of that is because mommies who are still driving the process, and because so many dads are not as engaged as they should be, mommies would like that warm, cuddling, secure, sheltered life to continue far into life as adults, as adulthood. And so too many young men, young boys are growing up being dwarfed or emasculated by the world and its real-life issues.”

My jaw dropped at all the sexism, scapegoating, and flawed thinking I just heard.

First, repeatedly referring to stay-at-home mothers as “mommies” was condescending. Second, the Christian Patriarchy Movement demands that women stay in the domestic sphere and nurture their children, so why were the Botkins blaming women for doing what they’d been instructed to do all along? Christian Patriarchy women who were listening to this webinar must have felt frustrated as the Botkins accused them of failing at their demanding, unending duties. Third, Geoffrey Botkin focused on young men, ignoring the possibility that his version of homeschooling might stunt young women as well. If this particular branch of homeschooling is failing to prepare children for adult life, its leaders need to reexamine their methods instead of blaming mothers as a knee-jerk reaction.

Geoffrey Botkin complained that many 17-19 year-old homeschool graduates are not the “dominant minds” in their environments, but rather find themselves being dominated by others. Such young people either strive to fit in with the outside world, or hide from the world out of fear, staying home and indulging in wasteful activities that aren’t “dominion-oriented”.

Christian faith requires Christians to have the “dominant mind” of each generation, Geoffrey reiterated.

That is, Christians are not to dominate others “like the Islamic world teaches,” but to be leaders. Christian homeschooling families are to instill this goal in their children, rather than training them to withdraw into a “sheltered” or “agrarian” lifestyle.

First, I was puzzled by Phillips disapproval of “agrarian” lifestyles. What’s so un-Christian about farming? Second, if the Botkins are so perturbed by homeschool graduates shrinking away from the outside world, shouldn’t they worry that their education model has poorly equipped students for adulthood? Finally, since some branches of the Christian homeschool movement live in their own bubbles as a way of shielding families from “the world”, aren’t withdrawn adults the natural result of this ideology?

As with previous webinars, Geoffrey expressed his distrust of universities. Too many homeschool parents discover that their 16-18 year-old offspring have no social skills or capabilities, he claimed. He warned parents that if their children do not have university-level knowledge by the time they turn 18, their children’s character will be deficient. If such young adults go to college, that poor preparation will “only exploit them to their ruin”.

Geoffrey fielded a listener question about how to make sure children don’t “crash and burn”, that is, lose their faith or degrade their character after leaving home. In reply, Geoffrey warned that children can “crash and burn” even before they leave home if they’re ill-equipped to cope with moral challenges. He condemned country music as one example of a moral challenge in Christian culture, accusing country music of promoting a “very destructive, counter-Christian theology”.

Another alleged source of moral corruption lies in homeschool support groups, he argued, where insecure children can become “peer dependent” and succumb to “peer-dependent compromise”.

Translation: Don’t you dare compare notes! Don’t let those other homeschooling families suggest non-insane ways to homeschool your kids, I thought.

Parents need to talk with their children and understand their minds, as a strong family life can instill vital maturity and responsibility in young people. Parents need to test their children as they would “arrows“, giving them opportunities for moral tests outside of the home.

The Botkins shifted gears to talk about careers and vocations. Immediately, Geoffrey dismissed parents’ concerns about their children’s financial well-being. Parents, especially “mommies”, focus on how their children are going to make a solid, stable living as adults. Geoffrey frowned upon his focus on jobs and validation from the “elite oligarchy”, reminding listeners that a supposed fixation on money, pensions, and “carnal security” isn’t Biblical. A Christian’s highest priority is their mission for God, not their job, he asserted.

Geoffrey’s words left me stunned.

Young adults should be thinking about how they’ll support themselves, because work and bills will be part of their adult lives.

Thinking about benefits and wages isn’t about “carnal security”, it’s about making sure one has food, housing, and medical care. Financial reflection is even more important if one is trying to escape poverty, survive in an economically depressed region, pay for an education, or start a family. To ignore money matters in adulthood is to be dangerously immature, which Geoffrey fails to understand.

At the 18:22 mark, Geoffrey dismissed the American dream as “the pursuit of Mammon”, arguing that society need a Biblical paradigm for worship, education, and career.

“The 21st century needs a completely new paradigm for education … We need a new paradigm for worship. We need a new paradigm for work because the school model, the church model, and the career model are obsolete. They haven’t worked. That’s why there’s so much confusion about going into the 21st century. The church has been endorsing this idea of the American dream since the 1950s, and people have really fallen for it. It’s the pursuit of Mammon at the expense of Biblical obedience. So these models are obsolete because they were wrong, number one, Biblically, but they haven’t worked, have they? That’s why our culture is so broken and people are so confused about what to do. The culture that they created in the 20th century simply cannot and must not be sustained. So here’s the solution. Let’s move our children and the entire culture to the Biblical paradigm. We’ve lived too long in a humanistic paradigm, the paradigm of secular humanism.”

Parents should teach children that being Christ’s ambassador and occupying the world until Christ’s return in their only calling, Geoffrey said. Christ’s civilization must be planted and preserved in every society as part of the Great Commission, he instructed. Ominously, he reminded listeners that America is a “massive spiritual battlefield” and they must not be “taken captive”.

Coldly, Geoffrey discouraged children from following “self-centered dreams” and giving themselves over to Mammon at the 24:17 mark. 

“Parents, you need to help your children aspire to something far different than one career based on self-centered dreams to achieve carnal security by accumulating Mammon.”

Benjamin Botkin, Geoffrey and Victoria’s son, echoed his father’s thoughts, stating that not every dream is worth fighting for. Sadly, by labeling dreams as “self-centered”, the Botkins refused to countenance dreams that could result in progress, enrichment, and joy. As in previous webinars, the Botkins’ advice boiled down to “do what God says, and don’t you dare think, feel, or evolve”.

Geoffrey assured listeners that if they obey Christ, they will have both money and viable occupational opportunities throughout their lives. This prosperity gospel nonsense struck me as dangerous, as it could cause Christians to neglect sound careers, financial planning, and budgeting.

In the real world, God does not always provide, as those who have endured unemployment, poverty, and hunger know too well.

Benjamin discussed the feeling of being overwhelmed, when one’s work, family, and church responsibilities seem overwhelming. His advice for uncluttering one’s life was to excise everything that did not contribute to goals, including “worthless” activities and the desire to engage in worthless activities.

Geoffrey emphasized that the Botkins were not advocating careers (which they defined as lifelong jobs), which they considered part of a broken paradigm. Rather, he encouraged listeners to devote themselves to four chief priorities — family, business, church, and civic duties — which must be integrated and pursued simultaneously.

On the topic of using talents in one’s future jobs, Geoffrey discouraged parents from excessive focus on children’s gifts. Using gifts to determine one’s future job merely plays into the “statist security state”, where a “slave economy” assigns job roles based on one’s talents. At the 46:15 mark, Geoffrey encouraged leadership and decentralized business over work in the “ant colony”.

“Keep the correct, new 21st century paradigm in mind. For the 20th century, people grew up thinking about just becoming part of this statist security state, a workforce state, and it was really a slave economy, very similar to what was advocated by Plato in all his writings. An oligarchy is in charge, and everybody else just kind of fits in as servants and slaves based on abilities, gifts, and talents. You don’t want your children even to be thinking that way … You still can go to a so-called career counselor, and they’ll say, ‘What are you good at?’. Well, they’re helping to to sort people into little cubby holes as servants, not as leaders, as those who serve the planned economy, not those who create it and do something totally different. That’s why we don’t want you to be caught up in thinking about ‘well, what are my children good at’, so they can take their little place in the pyramid, in the ant colony. We want them to be the leader of tomorrow who create the entire new business climates all over the world that are so different, a decentralized state system, a decentralized economy where there’s so many more independent businesses and business people.”

Geoffrey Botkin’s monologue reflected a certain ignorance about how employment works.

Do some businesses behave in unethical ways? Of course. Do wealthy oligarchs wield disproportionate power? Sadly, yes. Does the world need new models of business? Yes. However, helping a young person plan for their future is not “sort[ing] people into little cubby holes”. Plenty of jobs serve meaningful roles in society, and performing such jobs does not render employees “servants and slaves”. Finally, some fields require employees to work their way up to positions of authority, so we cannot expect everyone to take leadership positions immediately. Leadership and paradigm shift take time, and they require years of training and experience.

All young adults, homeschooled or not, need to understand this.

Geoffrey’s poor grasp of work realities was apparent in his advice about degrees and credentials. The Botkin family did not practice graduations, he said. Children are ready to move forward in the world when they’re able to lead their generation with confidence and “cultural discipleship”, he stated. Assessment of young homeschoolers should focus on whether they understand the kingdom of Christ, and how they will spend their lives seeking it. None of his children got credentials, he explained, but that hasn’t stopped them from getting job offers. For example, he bragged that his son Isaac received job offers to be a college professor at age 19-20, dismissing his lack of credentials, but Isaac turned them down.

Wait. What? I thought. Universities. Don’t. Work. Like. That. Competition is fierce for new faculty positions, and degrees are essential requirements for applicants.

No college worthy of the title is going to hire a 19 year-old kid with no degree or credentials.

On the topic of degrees, one listener asked what to do if their state required homeschooling parents to have degrees. Geoffrey scoffed at the idea, encouraging listeners to “stop complying with unlawful laws” and warning them against submission to the state at the 57:06 mark.

“What kind of degree? What if they tell you you need a PhD in education, or a Masters from a teachers college? Would you bow the knee to the state just to get that so you could homeschool your children, or would you give up and throw your children back into the government system? Christians have to stop complying with unlawful laws, especially without challenging the idea behind that law before they’re ever passed. We should be articulating and declaring our independence as parents to have the freedom to educate our children, because this freedom comes to us as a command from God Almighty. I mean, the state does not regulate this … No, we don’t have to go chasing these degrees just because we’re afraid something is going to happen. What would you do if they passed a law outlawing spanking? Would you just simply stop spanking your children? You can’t do that. You have to continue to obey God first more than man. You have to obey God first.”

David Botkin tackled the topic of military enlistment after homeschooling, listing and critiquing four reasons why some homeschooled youth choose the military. First, some people want to earn degrees after their service, but David claimed that degrees weren’t desirable ends. Second, some people want to establish a long-term military career, to which David replied that while short-term work for the military was acceptable, long-term work was not. The Constitution doesn’t allow for a long-standing army, and that the Founding Fathers disagreed with the idea, he insisted. Third, some people want to reform the military from within, which David claimed was a positive but misguided intention. A private would have very little impact on the military as a whole, and many people don’t even know what needs to be reformed. Fourth, some people want to protect and serve their country, but David argued that the government (including “unconstitutional” departments such as the IRS and EPA) are a much greater threat to Americans than any foreign aggressor. David, it seemed, had absorbed much of his father’s disgust toward alleged “statism”.

David discouraged military enlistment, citing the U.S. military’s flaws.

For example, he argued that many of the U.S. military’s actions have been unconstitutional and unbiblical, and that it has involved itself in inappropriate tasks (i.e., nation building) that should not concern the U.S. government. He also complained about the presence of “sodomites” and women in the military, which he blasted as an “abomination”. The supposedly declining moral standard in the military, such as current tolerance for fornication, also disgusted him.

David, if you think “fornication” in the military is something recent, think again, I thought. And I can think of far more serious moral outrages in the U.S. military than gay or female soldiers.

David emphasized that while joining the military would be a bad decision in most cases, Christians would be obligated to uphold the law and the Bible if they did enlist. Specifically, they would be obligated to disobey any unlawful orders, which would result in a court martial and possible dishonorable discharge.

Geoffrey Botkin addressed a listener’s question about whether parents should prepare their sons for social and economic collapse. At the 1:11:41 mark, Geoffrey claimed that the U.S. is already in the throes of collapse as a result of God’s “chastisement”. 

“America has been in an economic and social collapse now for two generations. This is by direct intervention and the will of God, and it’s part of a chastisement of God that’s promised in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. And so, yes, you should be preparing them to live in this time of economic and social collapse. We have lost so much social fabric, and the value of the dollar, and the freedom to even conduct business. They need to be fully aware of these things and the direction–they need to know that the direction for the future–yes, it’s very, very fragile. The good news is that things are so bad now that there could be such a collapse that it’s time [for a] great opportunity to begin rebuilding when things stumble and fall clear to the ground. And this has happened at so many different times in history. You can look at history and you can see the trends and you can see  when things actually collapse and totally fail. What a phenomenal opportunity that is for Christians who have wisdom and knowledge to rise up and take the lead and begin the rebuilding process and lay the foundations together again.”

Geoffrey sounded almost gleeful as he spoke of the opportunities Christians will have to rebuild society after a collapse, as if he were excited about the prospect of fundamentalists forming a new world in their image. The fact that a real societal collapse would be terrifying, and that millions of people would face deprivation and death in the ensuing chaos, did not seem to perturb him.

I found Geoffrey’s insistence that America is collapsing to be ridiculous.

While America has many problems, it is not experiencing a wide-scale collapse. Look at war-ravaged countries. Look at failed states. Look at societies that disintegrated due to genocide or ethnocide.

That is what collapse looks like.

Geoffrey’s apocalyptic warnings echo those of other fundamentalist Christians, who see America disintegrating when it really isn’t.

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This part of the “Ready for Real Life” webinar exhibited the following themes.

  • Little respect for degrees and certifications: The Botkins do not see college educations, degrees, or other certifications as necessary for success. Geoffrey also sneered at the idea that parents should have degrees before they homeschool their children, seeing this as an act of unnecessary intrusion by the state. The idea that a college degree could make young people more competitive in the workplace, or bestow knowledge otherwise unavailable to them, was not considered.
  • The workplace as the tool of an oppressive oligarchy:  Geoffrey spoke of the traditional workplace as an oppressive, deadening environment in which workers are rendered “slaves” by a callous oligarchy. He compared workplaces to pyramids and ant farms, refusing to consider that not all workplaces oppress their employees. Geoffrey could have discussed serious problems facing some workers, such as low wages, unsafe working conditions, and job discrimination, but preferred to warn listeners about a supposed “statist security state”.
  • Dismissal of monetary matters: Geoffrey discouraged people from focusing on money matters when contemplating young peoples’ futures. Money matters were dismissed as an obsession with “carnal security” and Mammon.

Which leads to my last observed theme . . .

  • Homeschooling failing to prepare children for adulthood: Geoffrey and Victoria complained that too many homeschooled children were unprepared for adult life. Instead of questioning their impractical beliefs about degrees, money management, careers, or raising children in a fundamentalist bubble, they blamed over-nurturing “mommies”. The irony would be hilarious if real children’s futures weren’t at stake.

Stay tuned for the next part!

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To be continued.

Ready for Real Life: Part Two, Ready for What?

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Ready for Real Life: Part Two, Ready for What?

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Ahab’s blog, Republic of Gilead. Part Two of this series was originally published on September 30, 2013.

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Also in this series: Part One, Botkins Launch Webinar | Part Two, Ready for What? | Part Three, Are Your Children Ready? | Part Four, Ready to Lead Culture | Part Five, Science and Medicine | Part Six, History and Law | Part Seven, Vocations | Part Eight, Q&A Session | Part Nine, Concluding Thoughts

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As discussed in a prior post, Geoffrey Botkin of the Western Conservatory of the Arts and Sciences is hosting the “Ready for Real Life” webinar series. “Ready for Real Life” is a seven-part audio series on how Christian homeschooling families should educate their children. Alongside his wife Victoria, his son Isaac, and his daughters Elizabeth and Anna Sophia, Geoffrey Botkin praises Christian homeschooling as a means of resisting a supposedly overbearing government and striving toward Christ. I purchased access to “Ready for Real Life”, and over the next few weeks, I will post content and commentary from the webinar series.

In webinar #1, “Ready for What?”, Geoffrey Botkin argues that Christian homeschooling is more than just education inside the house. Rather, home education is Biblical education. He acknowledge that homeschooling is demanding on parents, especially mothers, requiring a great deal of time and emotional investment. However, such hardships are worthwhile for the sake of one’s children and country, Geoffrey Botkin claimed.

At the 3:50 mark, he assured homeschooling mothers that their efforts were a declaration of defiance against “political enemies” who despise Christ.

“Did you mommies know that simply keeping your children at home and teaching them that B says ‘buh’ and G says ‘guh’ is such a powerful declaration of freedom and academic integrity that your political enemies — and yes, you have political enemies that hate what you’re doing and and all the powers who hate Jesus Christ are losing sleep over your act of defiance and heroic political will. You mothers really are heroes. We want you to know that!”

Christian homeschooling constitutes some of the most important work for the kingdom of God taking place in the 21st century, he told listeners. Homeschooling families are changing the world by teaching math, language arts, and “real” history, he said (an asserting that made me cackle in light of Botkin’s participation in a revisionist history conference this summer).

At the 5:25 mark, Botkin celebrated Christian homeschooling as a challenge to “all controlling” governments, demonizing the American government alongside Russia and China. 

“Home education is the most effective challenge to every runaway, all-controlling government from Germany to Russia to China — every nation that has surrendered liberty to a national curriculum, and that’s what our country has done.”

Homeschooling is more than a “lifestyle option”, he insisted, but rather serves as a way for parents to lead their children through a “very treacherous battleground”. Christians do not want their children to be pushovers for government or culture, he said, so they must find ways to raise their offspring with wisdom, no matter how “confused” the church becomes on real-life issues.

Geoffrey Botkin told listeners that he wanted his children to face the 21st century with “boldness” and stand tall when “enemies scream at them”.

A Biblical foundation for children’s education, he explained, is a correct attitude toward children. Citing Luke 1:17, he invoked John the Baptist turning the hearts of the fathers back to their children to prepare for the Lord’s arrival as a metaphor for the right parental attitude. Geoffrey Botkin used himself as an example of a father whose heart was turned toward his offspring. Initially, he described himself as a former “bad guy” who was once a “disobedient Marxist” before he embraced Christianity. Now, he has rejected the Marxist vision of social transformation in favor of the fundamentalist Christianity vision of changing cultures through families. When his wife Victoria was pregnancy with their first child, Isaac, God turned his heart to his child, he told listeners.

Next, Victoria Botkin spoke at length about motherhood and homeschooling. At the 15:00 mark, she claimed that our “culture of egotism” has encouraged women to see their children as annoyances and assume that their lives are their own (!).

She casts feminism not as a movement that liberates and values women, but as a negative force alongside materialism.

“We have been raised in a culture of feminism and materialism, and of course, those things have been around a very long time. But our generation, I think, may be unique in that we have been raised in such a culture of egotism. Women have been encouraged to think that the only thing that’s really important is self-fulfillment. We’ve been strongly encouraged to think of our lives as our own. We’ve been encouraged to think of our children as a nuisance.”

Victoria spoke of her life as a mother of young children, when she found it difficult to balance child rearing with other activities. For instance, she loved sewing, but quickly grew annoyed when her children would interrupt her sewing time. After reflecting on Matthew 18:9 (“If your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out”), she gave up sewing completely so that she could devote more attention to her children. In another example, she heard another woman holding up Maria from The Sound of Music as a role model because she loved being with children. Victoria liked this idea and wanted to have such a relationship with her own children, but struggled to balance time with her children with household duties such as cleaning and cooking. If she incorporated children into household tasks, he realized, she would not need to take time out away from them.

As Victoria continued, she continued to depict Christian homeschooling and child rearing as a task without rest for mothers. At the 18:29 mark, she explained that full-time motherhood and homeschooling meant no opportunities for recreation or socializing.

“We had a relative visiting, a woman about my age who asked me, ‘Well, do you ever get to do anything YOU want to do?’ Her question stopped me cold, and I knew what she meant. She meant going out shopping with a friend, or going out to lunch and an art exhibit like she did. And for a minute I was tempted to go down the road of self-pity because no, I never did do any of those things. But then, it was like a little voice inside me pointed out that this was a trick question, and all of you who’ve been to public school know what a trick question is. And I realized in reality, I got to do what I wanted to do all the time, and not just once a month or once a week or whatever like she did. I got to do what I wanted to do all the time because I loved being with my children. I loved taking care of them and living with them and learning with them, and it was just exactly what I wanted to do, and I got to do it all the time.”

Quoting Psalm 37:4 (“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart”), Victoria claimed that when she chose to find delight in her offspring, God made that the desire of her heart.

Victoria Botkin’s commentary troubled me, and not just because of the cognitive dissonance.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the life of a stay-at-home mother, but neglecting all other activities is unhealthy. I love my job, but if I worked in the office from sun-up to sundown seven days a week, I’d be a basketcase. I take great pleasure in gardening, but if I spent every waking moment cultivating my garden without any time set aside for hobbies, volunteering, or a social life, I’d be miserable. Victoria Botkin’s advice is a recipe for burnout, as she fails to recognize the need for balance and rest in mother’s lives.

Victoria elaborated on the content of homeschooling, citing Deuteronomy 6 as a foundational text. Parents not only need to teach children to love God, make disciples, and take dominion of the earth, but also need to teach reading, writing, geography, science, and current events so that they can operate in the world. For instance, homeschooling parents should teach children history so they can see “God’s workings in the affairs of men”, civics so children know how government works versus how it’s “supposed” to work, and media literacy so children recognize how the media “twists” coverage of current events to manipulate viewers.

At the 22:40 mark, she rejected the idea of teaching academic subjects apart from God, insisting that it would render subjects “meaningless”.

“The public schools pretend to teach all these things, but there’s one big difference, and it is a colossal difference. If we are obedient to God’s sacred command to parents in Deuteronomy 6, we will be teaching all these things in light of the sovereign God who made all things and who rules all things by his might forever. And we simply cannot pretend that math, science, or history are secular subjects and they’re neutral. Being taught as kids are in public school that science, math and history were and are random happenings makes them meaningless, and that’s why these are the subjects that were especially boring in public school. Meaningless, random facts aren’t interesting or relevant. As Christians, I believe we need to teach our children to love learning about God’s ways and God’s deeds, and that includes loving to study science, math and so on.”

Children will love what their parents love, Victoria claimed, and thus parents should model a love of learning to their children. If Christians love God, they will long to understand God’s workings in all things, including science and history.

But what if science and history show your children facts that don’t agree with fundamentalist Christianity? What will you do if knowledge leads them to question your fundamentalism? I thought.

Geoffrey Botkin stressed that parents must cultivate correct knowledge about their children. Children are “godly seed”, not pupils or accessories, he argued. The Bible teaches that children are weapons of war, he added, asking listeners if they were truly acting like warriors.

Like other fundamentalist voices, Geoffrey Botkin described children as torchbearers for a fundamentalist agenda.

On the subject of discipline, Geoffrey Botkin insisted on absolute obedience from children. He spoke approvingly of spanking and “the rod”, and discouraged parents from countenancing any form of disobedience from their offspring.

“Discipline is not an option in your home. You have to bring discipline and order to your home. Disobedience is not an option in your home. Children cannot disobey parents, ever, either outwardly or passively. They can’t roll their eyes … We have to be very quick to rebuke them and reprove them in a way that we want. The rod and reprove give wisdom … Did we spank our children? Yes, we did spank our children. And there were times that there were children who were easy to spank, and children that were literally impossible and difficult to spank. And did we want to give up on that? Sure we did. And there were many times when I would come home and I would need to encourage Victoria and say, ‘Honey, were you faithful in obeying the Lord in this? Because when you discipline your children, they will delight your soul, and they haven’t delighted your soul today.'”

Throughout the webinar, the Botkins addressed listener comments. One commenter asked the Botkins how he and his wife could “detox” from the “garbage” they learned in public school. Geoffrey Botkin replied that they must replace their old public school teachings with “Biblical truth”. Public school teachings are part of a larger flawed culture, Geoffrey Botkin claimed. We live in a “dirty toxic nation” that is “pagan”, he insisted, lamenting that many Protestant churches have embraced dubious ideas steeped in Greco-Roman thought.

WHICH Greco-Roman ideas? I thought. Greek and Roman thought was not monolithic. Why are you lumping it all together and discarding it?

Geoffrey Botkin’s disdain for Greek and Roman cultural contributions ran deep. Another listener asked about the role of Latin and classical texts in home education, to which Geoffrey Botkin gave a polemical response. At the 56:11 mark, he associated Latin with “pagan” indoctrination, caricaturing classical thought as anthropocentric and monolithic. 

“Latin was basic to the initiation process of pagan or deeply compromised academics to gain control over the training of each generation of Christian leaders in England and America. And it was the kind of thing that we must be careful about because the classics are pagan. Greek and Roman literature and philosophy is pagan. They were based on the premise that man is the total measure of everything, than man’s reason is ultimate. It’s such a toxic thing if our children begin to pick this up and become arrogant.”

In conclusion, the Botkins’ first installment of the “Ready for Real Life” series urged parents to homeschool their children with fundamentalist principles at the forefront. Their webinar placed great importance on parental involvement, the Bible, and studying subjects through a fundamentalist Christian filter.

Several recurring themes became apparent.

  • Children as Torchbearers — Christian homeschooling, for the Botkins, is a deeply political act. Geoffrey and Victoria Botkins saw their Christian homeschooling efforts as a means of raising children for future Christian dominion. Children were compared to weapons and arrows in a quiver, and their home education was intended to produce future Christians who would resist messages from society and the state. 
  • Dominionism — The Botkins repeatedly presented Christian homeschooling as a means by which Christians were to exercise dominion and train the next generation for dominion. Geoffrey Botkin spoke warmly of spoke of the Christian reconstructionist author R. J. Rushdoony, whose books were required reading in the Botkin household. He even celebrated Rushdoony’s Institutes in Biblical Law as a “dinner table reference book” in the family’s conversations about current events. 
  • Christian Patriarchy — The roles that Geoffrey and Victoria Botkin prescribed for parents and children were heavily gendered. Women were expected to be stay-at-home mothers and devote themselves entirely to the education and upbringing of their offspring. Geoffrey Botkin also encouraged mothers to treat their sons like men, not boys, so as to prepare them to be future leaders. Revealingly, he did not say the same about daughters.  
  • Obedience — The Botkins called for children’s absolute obedience to their parents, as well as parents’ absolute obedience to God and the Bible.
  • Disdain with the Outside World — The webinar was riddled with condemnation of the state, public schools, humanism, feminism, alleged “political enemies”, and society in general. Christian homeschooling was presented as a form of resistance to “runaway, all-controlling government”, in keeping with Geoffrey Botkin’s fears of statism. Public schools were denigrated as ungodly learning environments that stuffed students’ minds with “garbage”. “Anyone who went through the American public education system in the last thirty years is not totally ignorant, but mostly ignorant,” Geoffrey Botkin insisted at the 58:25 mark. Society at large was demonized as “dirty” and “pagan”, with Christian dominion as the only true antidote to its ills. In short, the outside world, with its diversity and secularism, was framed as a malevolent force that Christian homeschool families must resist.

Stay tuned for commentary on the rest of the Botkin’s “Ready for Real Life” webinar series!

*****

To be continued.

Ready for Real Life: An Investigative Series

HA Editorial Team11 Comments
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Ready for Real Life: Part One, Botkins Launch Webinar

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Ahab’s blog, Republic of Gilead. Part One of this series was originally published on September 15, 2013.

*****

Also in this series: Part One, Botkins Launch Webinar | Part Two, Ready for What? | Part Three, Are Your Children Ready? | Part Four, Ready to Lead Culture | Part Five, Science and Medicine | Part Six, History and Law | Part Seven, Vocations | Part Eight, Q&A Session | Part Nine, Concluding Thoughts

*****

One of my readers alerted me to a webinar series hosted by the Western Conservatory of the Arts and Sciences, led by Geoffrey Botkin. The Ready for Real Life webinar series, hosted by the Botkin family, is a seven-part audio series on how Christian homeschooling families should teach children.

“Starting this September, the Botkin family will be hosting a 7-week webinar series on educating children for leadership in the real world. Featuring all seven Botkin children, as well as Geoffrey and Victoria, they’ll be taking on the tough questions: What do you do if your child has a special gifting? How should we teach our sons and daughters marketable skills? How do we teach them to navigate the real world without becoming like the world? How do we find the best resources without breaking the bank? How do we prevent homeschool dropouts? What constitutes “success,” and how do we help our children achieve it? What should we do about higher education? And how do we teach our children well about things we don’t know ourselves?”

I have purchased access to the webinar series, and I will be posting a series of blog posts on its content. 

What I’ve listened to thus far has depicted the state as an antagonistic entity and Christian homeschooling as a positive force for freedom, children, and the future of faith. As the series progresses, I am eager to hear how the Botkin’s views on gender roles, “statism”, and children as torchbearers color their views on children’s education.

For readers unfamiliar with the family, the Botkins are a fundamentalist Christian family with strong ties to Vision Forum. The Botkins are not only supporters of fundamentalist Christian homeschooling, but vocal proponents of Christian patriarchy. For instance, books by the Botkins at the Western Conservatory of the Arts and Sciences are supportive of Christian patriarchy tenets such as courtship and traditional gender roles. Geoffrey Botkin took part in an interview for the anti-contraception film The Birth Control Movie. Also, So Much More by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin encourages young women to be helpmeets to their fathers and promotes a “stay-at-home-daughters” vision for girls. Websites such as Overcoming Botkin Syndrome, Time to Live Friend, No Longer Quivering, and Love, Joy, Feminism have criticized the Botkins for promoting sexism and unhealthy family relationships.

To boot, Geoffrey Botkins is vehemently opposed to so-called “statism”, painting the modern state as a bloated, intrusive entity at odds with the Christian community.

For instance, at this summer’s History of America Mega-Conference, Geoffrey Botkin devoted a talk to the alleged harms of the “Messiah state” and social safety nets. In a 2009 commentary piece, he attacked the state’s alleged “Marxist social engineering”, accusing it of seeking to kill Christendom, emasculate boys, exploit women through the workforce, and confiscate wealth. Geoffrey Botkin’s caricature of the modern state must be understood in order to understand his enthusiasm for fundamentalist homeschooling and Christian patriarchy.

With this in mind, the Botkins’ webinar series should offer a revealing glimpse into their ideology. Stay tuned for commentary on the “Ready for Real Life” webinar series!

*****

To be continued.

When Your Daughters are The #1 Threat to Your Agenda

HA Editorial Team16 Comments

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HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Julie Anne Smith’s blog Spiritual Sounding Board. It was originally published on October 15, 2013 with the title “Are Daughters the Biggest Threat to the Christian Patriarchy Movement and Reconstructionism?”

Whether they say it publicly or not, I believe that Christian leaders in the Reconstructionist and Homeschool Movements view adult daughters to be the biggest threat to their agenda in furthering their ideologies.

In this video trailer of The Return of the Daughters, you can hear the urgency of this movement, the fear-mongering blaming the feminists as the primary cause of the destruction of the idolized godly family image.

Stay-at-home daughters — it’s a matter of choice

I want to be clear what my beef is with this movement.

It is not the idea of daughters staying at home if they choose to stay at home.  It’s about an adult daughter not being allowed to make choices for herself.  It’s the idea that if daughters don’t stay at home under their father’s “protection,” they are not being biblical – that the only right way is if a daughter has her father’s blessing on all of her choices, including marriage – and that marriage is very selective as the father wants to make sure that his future son-in-law holds to the same Patriarchal beliefs as he.

I am sick and tired of the implication that young ladies who go to college are trying to perpetuate the feminist agenda and destroy families, simply for making the adult choice to further their education.

In studying the patterns of abuse in churches, the control tactics the proponents of this movement use are similar.  

Why does this issue have to be so black and white?  Because it’s about control.  We see love-bombing of daughters, building her up in her femininity, her homemaking skills, but there is no allowance for an adult daughter to question of authority, to have differing viewpoints, to have a mind of her own.

If adult daughters are not sold on the concept of first being comfortable at being stay-at-home daughters, and then stay-at-home moms, the authoritarian position of the Patriarch, and thus, the entire Movement, is diminished. Any diminishing of their role as Patriarch by a daughter challenging or questioning them would be looked at as disobedience and sin and divisive, just as in spiritual abuse patterns, any questioning of a pastor’s authority would be labeled as divisive.  Do you see the parallels?

Their ideology is that husbands will be spiritual heads of the home, will rule over their wives and families and wives will humbly submit without question to everything they say.  They will be reproducing babies and raising them with the same ideologies:  boys will grow up to be men and heads of households and will rule their families spiritually.  Daughters will grow up and embrace their “biblical role” as submissive wives/mothers.

But ask these folks what happens when abuse enters the picture?  

Does the wife and children get support?  Or what about a death of a husband or disability or unemployment?   Does the church assist these families in real and practical ways?  Or is the family abandoned and the wife accused of sin when she attempts to earn income for her impoverished and broken family?

…O, treason of the blood!
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds
By what you see them act.  ~ Othello

Daughters who are allowed to think for themselves, make their own choices, are viewed as a threat

It is my belief that daughters who go against this system, who go to college, learn how to think for themselves, are viewed as a threat. It is wrong to challenge, to question, undermine, speak out against this destructive movement.

I’m certain that Patriarchs know this real threat and that is why we are seeing so much building up daughters positively by glorifying the godly wife role and encouraging the relationships with fathers and daughters.

Patriarchal fathers must win their daughter’s heart at a very young age, win her approval and trust, in order to successfully perpetuate this cycle.

I am now convinced that for many Patriarchs, the agenda is not to honestly build the relationship between the father and daughter. Rather, fathers are using their daughters to instill in them what they believe to be the godly ideology and sell the daughters on their role in continuing and supporting this ideology. This is accomplished through purity balls, purity covenants, books, videos, conferences or retreats like this:

God’s Word speaks volumes to the relationship between fathers and daughters: His most sacred duty is her protection and preservation from childhood to virtuous womanhood. He leads her, woos her, and wins her with a tenderness and affection unique to the bonds of father and daughter. Success in his life mission is directly related to the seriousness and compassion with which he seeks to raise her as an industrious, family-affirming, children-loving woman of God.

She, in turn, looks to her father as a loving picture of leadership, of devotion, and of care. Her relationship with her father will help to define her view of the worth of a woman, the meaning of fulfillment and contentment, and her vision for virtue. When these relationships are realized and cultivated, the generational mission of the Christian family is secure.

Is it any wonder that Satan is on the prowl seeking to tear the hearts of daughters from their fathers, and driving wedges of indifference between them — fathers with no time for their little girls, and young ladies who have replaced the love of their fathers with the acceptance of peers and inappropriate romantic relationships? The Vision Forum Ministries Father & Daughter Retreat is one step on the journey of recovering the preciousness of this relationship so crucial to the kingdom-building work of the Church. (from Father & Daughter Retreated Sponsored by Vision Forum)

Sadly, I also think that some fathers are unknowingly climbing aboard this fast train of destruction.

They don’t understand the system in which they are caught.  

They believe what they are doing is good for their families and daughters and don’t understand the price it will have on their family. It really is not about a relationship for many.  It is about an agenda.

As I have been following trends in the Homeschool Movement, what I am seeing is that those fathers who tightly control their daughters and their lives — do not allow them to have educational and work choices, do not allow them to make important life decisions,  do not allow them to think for themselves spiritually or own their own faith — will likely lose their daughters in adulthood.

They may in fact lose a relationship with their daughters forever.

How Not To Homeschool Your Children: Judith’s Story, Part One

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

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

My parents started homeschooling me in the mid-90’s.

Recently I asked about the factors involved that led them to homeschool, something I never thought to ask about previously because I always assumed it was for the stereotypical reasons. Turns out, they were not ever “anti-public school”, nor was it a matter of “we can better educate them at home”– in fact, one of the reasons why they chose the home they bought was because it was in the “good” school district.

They were also not afraid of secular thought and stated clearly to me that their decision was not influenced by religious-based fears like evolution vs. creation or “liberal brainwashing” or any sort of dominionist thinking. Apparently they simply were exposed to the idea, gave it some serious thought, and decided to go for it. At one point in the conversation, the comment was made that they are glad they made that choice and are pleased with how things have turned out—and by that I assume they refer to the fact that at the time of writing this, one child has a master’s degree, two have bachelor’s degrees, and two more have associate’s degrees.

All of us are under 25, and there are still a few children at home, still being taught by both of my parents. They frequently receive comments about how smart and well-educated we all are and how proud they must be.

But in the process of “turning out” there was, for me, a lot of pain.

There were lots of tears. Nightmares. Crushing of dreams. A un-feeling stretch of depression. [cue creepy dramatic music]

I had lots of dreams and ideas when I was a small child. I wasn’t scared of anything (except large predatory cats). I assumed that when I grew up, I would be a mom, because that was the only adult woman role model I had in my life at the time—my mom. As I got older and was exposed to teachings about daughters staying at home until marriage and motherhood being a woman’s highest calling, this assumption was given even more ground to stand on. But I also had dreams of outdoor adventuring, sleuthing, going to a prestigious music college, becoming a famous novelist, creating stunning pieces of art. Being a successful business woman who got to wear fabulous office clothes. Being a ballerina. A Christian vocalist. Going into politics and “fixing” everything.

Aside from the music, which became my emotional release, I never pursued any of these dreams for a couple reasons.

The first was that I quickly became withdrawn and shy. My mom got swept up in the quiverfull/patriarchy fad that was making its rounds in the homeschool community, despite the fact my dad thought it was cultish (thoughts that apparently he never shared with her at the time), and as the babies kept coming she became more stressed and irritable. You never knew what would set her off, and you sure as anything could count on the fact that whatever you were doing, you weren’t doing right. And there was a chance that if it wasn’t done right, obviously it was because you were lazy and rebellious.

While only very, very rarely physical (not counting incidents of “non-abusive spanking”), my mom was quite verbally abusive and we would be made to sit and listen to long lectures and screaming tirades about how awful we were, complete with many shame and horror-inducing threats mixed with half-given, half-taken back apologies made in annoyed tones.

Obviously, this sort of environment does not prompt one to be open about their dreams and live without fear of mistakes.

The second reason was that my schoolwork got in the way of everything. I have never been officially diagnosed, but I am pretty sure that I had ADD (or something with like effect) as a child. I would continually swing from hyper-focusing on something that was insanely fascinating to me to being completely unable to focus on anything at all no matter how hard I tried to harness my crazy livewire thoughts and daydreams.

Schoolwork was not usually interesting, and there was a lot of it (we were the “bringing school to the home” type), but I was pretty smart and most of it didn’t require much thought or deep concentration of any kind. I could breeze right through everything except math– my brain would move on to something else within five minutes because as a whole, math was simply manipulating meaningless numbers into meaningless answers for no real reason at all, except, you know, college was in my future and I would need it for that. It was not difficult to learn how to solve certain problems or formulas, but I never learned why math worked the way it did, or what use it would be to me in real life, and so much concentration was required to get through thirty plus problems without making several stupid mistakes.

I couldn’t concentrate that hard for that long on something that boring.

At least in the other subjects, we used words instead of numbers, and words conveyed meanings and ideas that were much more likely to be interesting. So more often than not I would do my easy subjects during the morning and then sit down after lunch with my math book and a sinking feeling of impending boredom. And that one math lesson, that supposedly only took 45 minutes to finish, would take me the entire rest of the day.

This, of course, was not a good thing. The mantra in our household was “work before play” and work included school work. As it became more and more common for me to be sitting at the dining table staring blankly out the window all day long, one of the first casualties was my closest sibling, who tearfully confided to my mom that it wasn’t fair that I wasn’t available to play anymore.

Cue lectures on what a selfish big sister I was being.

My grades suffered. Cue lectures on how I should be getting excellent grades considering how long it took me to do things, and bonus lecture! Here’s a comparison of your poor grades and another sibling’s excellent grades (and academic drive)! Feel guilty, but don’t worry, we know that you two are not the same and we are not comparing you at all. But while we’re (not) at it, don’t forget that even your less intelligent sibling is getting better grades than you. Ah, now we will move you to a location where you cannot stare out the window, that will help you not be distracted. Erm, look, this is not a convenient place for you to be, we will move you to a desk in your poorly-lit room where you will spend the rest of your teenage-hood prior to college. A dark, dusty existence where we will occasionally come to yell at you for being rebellious and refusing to do your work. Wait! You are 16 now! You will learn to drive and I will spend the entire time that I am sitting next to you as opportunity to lecture you not only on every little driving error you may make, but also on how poorly you are doing on your schoolwork and how bad of a person you must be. Why are you this way? Why? Why? You don’t know? Let me tell you why! It is because you are a bad, selfish, miserable excuse for a human and your adult life will suck if you don’t get it together! By the way, you will also be fat when you are forty, because you are sitting around too much.

Part Two >

Then Why Didn’t You Tell Us That, Mom?

HA Editorial Team15 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on September 1, 2013.

"My mother subscribed to Above Rubies and read each issue thoroughly."
“My mother subscribed to Above Rubies and read each issue thoroughly.”

“I want you to know that I never actually believed everything in those Above Rubies magazines,” my mom told me when I was visiting home a while back.

“Then why didn’t you tell us that, mom?” I asked. “I read every issue of that magazine cover to cover, and I always thought it was completely approved material.”

I don’t know why my mother made that admission to me when she did.

It was before the Mother Jones article about Kathryn Joyce’s new book on evangelical adoption, which sheds light on the Above Rubies/Liberian adoption scandal. My mother knows I identify as a feminist and that I’m critical of at least some aspects of the culture of the Christian homeschool movement, but that’s about it. Beyond that, we have a strict Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. Except, I suppose, for the Pearls child training methods—that we’ve discussed on more than one occasion. But the Pearls don’t run Above Rubies magazine. Nancy Campbell does.

Regardless of what prompted my mother’s admission, I think there is something incredibly important to be learned here.

Kate and I were talking a few months ago, and she told me she doesn’t think her parents realized quite how many extreme patriarchal/purity ideas she picked up and took to heart through Christian homeschooling culture. Her parents, she said, were always quick to condemn reading material, organizations, and leaders they believed promoted ungodly ideas or false doctrine. Because of this, she always assumed that materials that entered the house under the banner of Christianity and without condemnation were things they approved and endorsed.

My experience was very much the same.

My mother subscribed to Above Rubies and read each issue thoroughly. The ideas contained within the magazine aligned at least generally with beliefs I heard my mother espouse. When my parents disagreed with a religious leader, they were quick to say so. In fact, I grew up hearing James Dobson described as too wishy-washy and soft. Yet, I never heard my mother call Nancy Campbell or her magazine into question, so I assumed that the messages contained therein were approved, and that it was something I should read, take to heart, and learn from. And read, take to heart, and learn I did.

I’ve talked to many homeschool graduates—some I knew growing up, some I’ve met in person since, and others I’ve connected with over the internet or through facebook. This thing I’m talking about? This thing is important. Once homeschool parents enter the Christian homeschool subculture, if they don’t vocally and openly condemn, question, or contradict what that subculture teaches, their children will assume that the ideas and ideals of that subculture are approved—something they should listen to, take seriously, and imbibe.

I’ve talked to more than my fair share of homeschool graduates who grew up in this culture and took to heart things they later found out their parents never even realized they were learning.

Christian parents who choose to homeschool their children but do not ascribe to the ideals of the Christian homeschool subculture, especially things like Christian Patriarchy or Quiverfull, need to be on guard against this. It’s not uncommon for homeschool parents who happen to be Christian to find themselves in the same homeschool circles with Christian parents who homeschool out of religious conviction. And it’s also not uncommon for their children to find themselves in those circles whether their parents actively frequent them or not. In this kind of situation, parents may not realize the toxic ideologies their children taking in through osmosis from the Christian homeschooling culture around them.

In my mother’s case, it’s not that she disagreed entirely with the Above Rubies magazine. My mother was more mainstream than many, but she definitely ascribed to the outer circles of Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull ideology. To be honest, I don’t actually know what parts of what Above Rubies she takes issue with—I was too surprised by her admission to think to ask.

There is one thing I was not too shocked to make sure to tell her, though:

“You need to tell the girls, mom,” I said. “They read Above Rubies just as I did at their age. You need to tell them you don’t agree with all of it, because if you don’t, they’ll think you do.”

Ninja Training: Chloe Anderson’s Story

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

positives

Ninja Training: Chloe Anderson’s Story

My best memories from high school involve dressing up in suits, sorting through philosophy books and shopping for office supplies for the next speech tournament.  It was a dignified, serious existence.

This will be explained later.
This will be explained later.

And then there’s this photo — which I will get to.

A lot of this post may seem like it focuses on my parents more than homeschooling per se.  However, from what I have seen the homeschooling experience is made or broken by the parents doing the homeschooling.  Homeschooling was a lifestyle for our family.  Everything — every experience, every family friend, every activity we did and book we read was all centered around my parents work homeschooling us.   And they did that work with passion and care.

A Little Bit of Backstory

My homeschooling experience had its ups and downs.  I loved the ups: Choir tours (all by my-middle school-self!) with my co-op friends; Highschool trips to Europe to visit the historical sights I’d studied for years;  Family weekends at the Scottish Festival; Learning beekeeping… The ups were largely thanks to an amazing peer group that I adored and a good relationship with my parents and siblings.

The downs were mostly usual issues; teen angst, and the occasional tousle with my parents.  I never felt like I really fit in with the more conservative majority of our social/church circle.  My parents were alright with that.  They never really fit in with them either.  My parents were reformed, but they rejected heavy handed theology that sidelined women or centralized church authority to squash dissent and learning.  Because of this we found ourselves moving often from church to church, even though my parents desire was to be active, participating members of a stable church community.

My family wasn’t perfect.  A couple members of my extended family vehemently, sometimes explosively, disagreed with my father’s relatively liberal interpretation of “biblical patriarchy”.  My mother, an educator and a passionate advocate of higher education for girls, was sidelined more than once from homeschool conventions for that perspective.  My relationship with my father was sometimes rocky, but he has been more than willing to invest time in working through those issues with me.

Today, I value our relationship more than ever. 

When my parents’ marriage ended three years ago, I was confronted with a mountain of baggage that was compounded last summer when my mother suddenly passed away to cancer.  Now I’m left picking up pieces while building a life for myself in California, and I’m struck by the rich silver lining to all my drama.

My family wasn’t perfect.

But for all its imperfections I think that they got a lot of things right.

My parents home schooled me K-12, not because they thought they had discovered the perfect formula for parenting, but because they loved me and my brother and sister, and wanted to give us the very best of everything.  And in the process they gave me, a lot of tools I treasure now that I’m on my own.

And that brings me to explaining the picture at the beginning.

I was a speaker/debater for all of highschool and I loved it.  My biggest challenges, and best friends growing up were found there.  One of the debate camps I helped coach had a ninja debater theme.  Needless to say it was awesome.  I believe that this is a carefully staged photo illustrating the mesmerizing power of effective criteria.  Through homeschooling my parents inadvertently passed along a plethora of moments like this filled with possibility, wonder and hope, which I have only just begun to mine.

They have helped me sort the other wounds that I have received in the normal course of life.

School in your PJ’s?

Similar to many of you reading this, my education was largely custom built.  Both of my parents were college educated, lifetime scholars with a passion for knowledge.  My mother worked to bring education to life for us on a daily basis early on so we’d catch the passion too.  History lessons about Egypt tied into real-life biology lessons as we dissected and mummified a frog – which we then placed for display in the handmade sarcophagi we’d done in the art lesson that day.

What kid wouldn’t like that?

Or in highschool we volunteered at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for their new space exhibit, getting cutting edge lectures from NASA/NOAA scientists and then running cool experiments on a daily basis for the museum patrons.  School was a wonderful time for me and my parents did a good job of teaching me not only tons of information, but how to find it and how to love the search for knowledge.

My mother was the primary teacher, but as we got into highschool years my dad took over languages and History.  A Russian linguist for many years, he taught me Russian for high school language studies.  Now I have a degree in Russian and endless cocktail conversation about my semester abroad in Russia to accompany it.

We also were not limited to classes taught by my parents. 

From very early on me and my siblings were involved in classes taught by outside tutors whether it was in a co-op setting early on, or a community college setting later in our schooling career.  All three of us graduated highschool with at least a full year worth of credits from the local community college. Those classes were especially helpful for areas that my parent’s weren’t so prepared to teach like upper level math or chemistry.

 Silver Screen Dreams

While many of my peers were limited in their consumption of media, my parents encouraged an active dialogue on just about any topic.  I remember the awe in my friend’s eyes (and the horror in her mother’s) as 12-year-old me happily announced at lunch one day that I had seen The Matrix the other night.

Granted, my parents watched it with us and they had remote-edited a couple of scenes they didn’t think were totally appropriate.

But the fact remained that I was raised in a really rich creative environment.  Movies were a part of my life from early on (I literally can’t remember I time I didn’t have all of the original Star Wars movies memorized).  Natural next steps for me were interests in living out these movies somehow.

What started as imagination and play acting turned into a real passion for acting, writing and producing for both film and theater.  My parents were delighted with my creative talents and encouraged my theatrical tendencies wherever they could, even though I know my mother in particular was a little worried about what might happen to me were I ever to pursue them professionally. As I grew however, she was willing to work through those concerns as I demonstrated that I was thoughtfully investing in my God given talents.

She knew she had to let her girl fly and she was willing to make that sacrifice even if it meant that she was a little uncomfortable.

That willingness on her part, to let me try things that scared her, was key in building a relationship that allowed me to actually grow up — not just get older under her watch.  T

hanks to her encouragement early on I’ve had the tools and the courage to step out on my own now and go beyond just being a productive member of society.  I’m chasing dreams out here in California and hopefully you’ll be reading my name in the credits of your favorite summer flick someday soon.

Learning to Speak My Mind

My parents also encouraged debate.  But long before the competitive bug bit me, I remember my parents hosting “Soirees” at our house after church; potluck food, and a grab bag of topics to discuss ranging from literature to politics to science.   I loved them and felt so grown up when I was included at 11 years old in the adult discussions.  We’d invite the most interesting people we could find.  My Dad often would actually seek out people with odd views just to have them over so we could have an interesting discussion. “All opinions are welcome here.  If you have a problem with that, you can leave.”  That was his rule.

Looking back, the group was mostly varying shades of conservative and the occasional communist friend of Daddy’s from the Tattered Cover Bookstore where he worked.  (They liked us because we were all a little bit different.  He liked them because they knew about Russia — his deepest passion in life.)

But while the opinions weren’t that diverse, those afternoons ingrained in me early on that everyone deserves a voice.  Even if you think you don’t agree with them.

That attitude served me well as I emerged from the homeschooling community into a liberal college where I encountered people with actual differences in opinion.  They weren’t scary to me.  They were just different people – with opinions of their own.  And since I knew how to listen, it didn’t take me long to figure out that “the world,” as many christian worldview apologists like to call it, is just made up of people like me;  People who have passions, who have loved ones, who have been hurt, who have dreams.

And when the debate is over and the ideas are put to bed, you should still be able to sit down with them over a lovely meal and ask them how their kids are doing.

One of the Boys

Boys.

Oh, boys! 

I was kind of odd in our circle of girls, because I never got the romantic fascination with marriage and boys and Mr. Darcy.  Frankly, if you ask me even now he’d have made a really boring husband.

But, that meant that after about 9 years old, a giant chunk of my good friends growing up were boys.  Even in college they were often the most interesting (drama-free) people around.  I’m sure that there were mothers who thought that was odd or inappropriate, but my parents were fine with it. They were great guys and I’m proud to say that I’m still good friends with many of them even after almost a decade in some cases and marriage in others.

I love them like brothers — totally inappropriate brothers who would let me rough house with them, who would play stupid games with me, who would match my banter word for word, who would take me swing dancing and who would talk theology, politics, video games and movies with me till dawn. I am deeply grateful for those guys in my life because I truly believe that without them I might not have been able to process the Daddy issues which are inevitable for any girl whose parents divorce.

In those friendships my parents gave me a piece of the external security net that has kept me grounded as I begin to live life as an independent adult.

Learning to Say, “No”

My parents’ marriage was far from perfect.

But, with all their issues, they were a rock of help for several families struggling with abuse.  They worked so hard to provide a harbor in the storm.  My dad partnered with other men to help mentor a few of the fathers who were struggling.  My mother hosted bible studies and invited single moms over to learn how to make jams or study child development.  They even included us kids in a limited fashion, asking us (never forcing us) to watch the young toddlers while my parents had coffee or dinner with one or both parents.

I was never really privy to details and for that I am grateful.

But in light of the little I did know, my mother made sure that my sister and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we never had to stand for abuse whether it was verbal, physical or emotional.  It was an especially important lesson to her because of the systematic abuse we observed all around us which was justified under the label of “biblical patriarchal theology.”  When seeking help from many churches for their own marriage issues the constant refrain aimed at my mother seemed to be, “If you would just submit better to your husband, your marriage would be fixed.”

With this useless advice ringing in her ears, within our conservative circle there was no one able to help until it was too late.

When my brother was a senior in high school, my sister was finishing her last year of college and I was doing my first year of internships post-college, my parents finally ended their marriage.  They had sacrificed much to try to make a home that was healthy for me and my siblings.  And when they finally ended their marriage I was witness to another step they were taking, at least in part, for us kids; they had the courage — even in the face of the social stigma in the church against divorces — to walk away from the marriage so that they themselves could heal.  Many people would see this result as a total failure.  But as I watched both of my parents wrestle through that time, I saw two people emerge with an even greater capacity for grace and forgiveness than ever before.

The divorce was not a failure.

It was the first step towards healing and restoration. 

 Hindsight, Always 20/20

The area that I look back on with the most pause is just how much I held my parents up as perfect — especially my mother. They were responsible for introducing me to the most fascinating ideas, the most wonderful people and for sheltering me from as much of the junk theology as they could.  So their opinion of me, their blessing, their respect was something that I not only wanted, but it was something that I needed on a deep and very unhealthy level.

This was something I didn’t fully register until recent years.

As I hit the later years of high school and throughout my college years I found my opinions shifting as I experienced the world without parental filters.  I knew the filters they had applied had been applied in love, but they were filters never the less.  My experiences began to show me that perhaps my parents aren’t infallible after all.  Especially spending as much time as I did with the theater department at my school my perspective on LGBT issues, sex, drugs, alcohol, democrats, republicans, “world view”…. all of it was shifting in light of my new experiences —

And the thing that tore me up was that I felt I had no tools for telling anyone from my family. 

At school I was one person, and at home I became expert at active listening, passive questions, sidestepping issues, or sometimes just lying to avoid telling my parents I’d come to a different conclusion than they had.

The internal dissonance didn’t really come to a head until I met the love of my life.  His name is Dylan.  We met in Stage Combat learning to sword fight.  It was awesome.  And really quickly we became fast friends.  He was the adventure I’d always hoped for in the moments when I dropped my usual “one-of-the-guys” act.  He was kind and smart, better read than anyone I knew, a professional athlete, on a full ride scholarship for acting and passionate about making a positive impact through politics.

But he was also a Democrat, a former player with the ladies, and I had no idea where he really stood on the spectrum of religion but I knew it wasn’t nearly “christian” enough.

I was terrified to bring him home. 

I didn’t even tell my family I was dating him for about a month.  I knew in my heart that our relationship was healthy, that I was growing and that I trusted him with my life even with our differences.  The fact that our friendship was based on a choice to be invested in each other rather than a checklist of intellectual compatibility was freeing.  But my parents didn’t know how to handle him. They were shocked by my choice because for about 7 years I’d been hiding behind my silent nods.

They didn’t know me anymore because I had stopped letting them in for fear of losing them. 

I had to learn to speak again.

And this is the juncture at which I find myself today.  My mother passed away last summer, so I never got to finish letting her back in. But my father and I are watching our relationship slowly heal.  I still have the need for approval of people I respect — but I think that’s more me than any homeschooling-bred need for perfection.  And I’ve finally been able to be honest about my choices — choices that I make on a daily basis using so many of the tools that my homeschooling experience gave me.  I would never give back that experience.  The glue that held it all together and kept my parents from being dysfunctional task masters, or chronic busy bodies with a messiah complex was that they loved us kids and wanted the world for us.  And they sought every day to live out a faith that convicted them to serve, love and empower.

That is perhaps the greatest example that they left me. 

And while I now no longer really identify as a conservative as they did, I carry that passion of theirs with me.  And I carry a faith that I have inherited but have also grown to own as mine.  In many ways I’m still the crazy kid in the photograph: Obviously not totally put together, but self possessed enough to fake it till I make it — and wise enough to love the journey along the way.

For that, I have my parents and my time homeschooling to thank.

Voices of Sister-Moms: Part Three, Maia’s Story

HA Editorial Team7 Comments

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HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s guest series on her blog, Becoming Worldly. Part Three was originally published on July 5, 2013. “Maia” is a pseudonym chosen by the author. If you have a Quiverfull “sister-Mom” story you would like to share, email Heather at becomingworldly (at) gmail (dot) com.

*****

Also in this series: Part One: Introduction by Heather Doney | Part Two: DoaHF’s Story | Part Three: Maia’s Story | Part Four: Electra’s Story | Part Five: Samantha Field’s Story | Part Six: Mary’s Story

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Part Three, Maia’s Story

My family started out in a pretty normal way.

But where most families stop creating new children and start raising them, my parents forged ahead having more. I don’t know what came first, but my parents got excited about having a lot of children (being Quiverfull, as the Bible says), homeschooling, and being very literal Christians.

I am child #2, the oldest daughter. My daily activities were pretty normal until I was 8. I was asked to do a few chores but not too many. We were somewhat effectively homeschooled until that point, and my parents were ramping up their enthusiasm for radical religion.

Then came child #6. I was 8 years old. 

It was explained to me by my father that my mother had cervical cancer during the pregnancy and was at risk of losing the baby, and therefore I needed to step up and help. She was born in May. As I understand it was a difficult labor. My father’s way of parenting during my mother’s recovery time was to lock us outside to fend for ourselves except for meals.

This was for about several weeks. It is important to note that this is also when my father stopped working.

He interpreted some of the ATI based teachings to mean that it was improper for him to be under a woman’s authority in a workplace.

When we were allowed back, my life was totally different. Overnight I learned how to cook meals for my family and clean bathrooms, etc, under the tutelage of my father.

That was also the end of effective homeschooling.

Child #7 came when I was 9, and child #8 when I was 11. I was present for both these births, one in the hospital and one at home. In that time my parents fled the province to escape from a CAS investigation. #7 and #8 were mine. #8 was born with the cord wrapped around his neck, and did not breath for almost ten minutes after birth. My father was still in hide-from-CAS mode [HA note: CAS are Children’s Aid Societies, similar to CPS).

So he didn’t seek medical care for him until day 3 when he started having seizures. 

So I learned how to administer medication to a baby. I got them dressed and fed them and loved them and rocked them — knew what they liked and didn’t like, and they called me mom. My parents encouraged all of this — except if they heard the boys call me mom. Then I got in trouble (I didn’t discourage them from saying that, it made me happy).

When I was 13 child #9 came along. By then I was very established as a mini-mom. My parents didn’t work but would frequently leave the house in the morning and come back late at night.

To this day I have no idea where they went.

So I would cook, serve and clean up three meals a day, care for an epileptic toddler, care for a new infant, and teach child #6 and #7 the best I could. When they didn’t leave the house they would often lock themselves up in their bedroom and yell at each other. When child #9 was an infant, my mother went to have gall bladder surgery and then went to recuperate a family member’s home.

There was some help in the house through some of these times, but I was still the trophy oldest daughter.

My father was proud of showing other people how much work I did in the home.

One day a young woman who was over was asked by my father if she also fed meals to her younger siblings when they were infants, and she said no. So I didn’t have to do that when we had company anymore, but still in private. I believe that my mother had a lot of health problems and post-partum depression, and that is part of why so much of daily life fell to me to run.

I wouldn’t even mind it so much if it wasn’t that she completely denies that this took place.

She thinks she was home that whole time and cooking, etc. I know for sure that some of what my parents were doing when away from home revolved around conservative ideology and reading parenting books, because one day they came home with a set of dowel rods in various sizes and tried them out on my younger siblings to see what was the most effective size for spanking each child.

I believe this comes from the Pearl parenting books.

Leaving my siblings when I was 17 to go to school and pursue my own life was the hardest thing I ever did. My three youngest siblings still live with my mom to this day and they have no understanding of the feelings I have about them based on what I did when they were infants/toddlers. I pushed so hard to get them into school, coming over at night to confront my father and pressure my mother into signing so my next youngest siblings could go to school, which she eventually did.

When I moved out, sister-mom duties immediately shifted to Electra, the next girl in the family, who is #4.

(HA note: Tomorrow, we will share the story of Electra, Maia’s sister.)

*****

To be continued.

Voices of Sister-Moms: Part Two, DoaHF’s Story

HA Editorial Team11 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-08-19 at 5.21.49 PM

HA note: This series is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s guest series on her blog, Becoming Worldly. Part Two was originally published on June 25, 2013. “DoaHF” is a pseudonym chosen by the author. If you have a Quiverfull “sister-Mom” story you would like to share, email Heather at becomingworldly (at) gmail (dot) com.

*****

Also in this series: Part One: Introduction by Heather Doney | Part Two: DoaHF’s Story | Part Three: Maia’s Story | Part Four: Electra’s Story | Part Five: Samantha Field’s Story | Part Six: Mary’s Story

*****

Part Two: DoaHF’s Story

I loved kids and I always wanted to help with the babies that my mom kept having.

I was always “too young” to help out with baby #5, and when baby #6 came along she was fussy and stuck to only my mom or my older sister. She hated anyone else who tried to hold or care for her, and my mom still mentions to this day how I ‘reneged’ on my desire to care for babies when #6 came around.

Why does she mention it? Because her next babies were mine.

When the oldest child in our family (a girl) turned 10, she began caring for baby #5. At 12, she took care of baby #6. When I was 10 and a half years old, baby #7 was born.

I was downstairs with everyone else that January day, trying to focus on doing school work when I got called upstairs to take my mother’s blood pressure. My grandmother and my father were the only ones attending the birth. They had covered her lower half with a sheet. My grandmother’s automated blood pressure cuff could not get a bp reading. I had gotten a stethoscope and a sphygmomanometer for Christmas that year and I had learned how to use it at the local hospital where the nurses all thought I was cute.

I took my mom’s blood pressure and I mumbled out some numbers. They didn’t seem right, so I tried again. It just wasnt making sense or working. I got pushed aside as they readied my in-and-out-of-consciousness mother for a trip to the nearest real hospital for an emergency D&C (we lived outside of the United States at this time).

Somewhere along the way it was decided that the oldest girl would stay at home with the 4 kids. #7 was handed to me and I kept close to my dad and my mom on the mattress. Halfway to the main city, the ambulance broke down. A call was dispatched and the ambulance crew from that city had to be woken up and come to pick us up so we could resume our journey. As we waited and my dad haggled with the locals and I tried to keep the curious hands from touching the new baby and lifting sheets and opening the broken down ambulance doors.

At the hospital my mom was rushed to surgery and I remember sitting in a cold air-conditioned room either sleeping or holding baby #7. At one point I sat beside her as she was recovering from anesthesia. She kept asking me the same questions over and over again.

And that is how baby #7 became mine.

During my mom’s convalescence, I was usually called upon to care for her and she seemed to love being in my arms. When it was bedtime I was always handed her because she fell asleep in my arms so fast. At night when my mom would nurse her and couldn’t get her back to sleep she would wake me up to “deal with her.” I learned how to sing softly, rock in the glider rocker, and manage to lay her in bed without waking her very quickly.

Nights that I couldn’t get her to lay down I would hold her for hours, rocking with one foot while I dozed in and out. I had been changing diapers for a couple years already, so I didn’t have to learn anything new in that department, but I learned how to make do on little sleep, or to do things half-asleep.

My mom loves babies.

She kept having them because the old babies grew into “little brats” all too often.

Well, that and she believed she had to be Quiverfull.

Baby #8 was a similar story. She had a much better delivery (still with complications, but not as severe) and after #8 graduated from the swinging cradle in my parents’ room (about 4 months) he slept in my room. I was almost 13 at the time. Every night I would wake up with him and take him to my mom to nurse. I would wait in the hallway (catching sleep where I could) and then take him back to my room to get him to sleep.

I still have a very angry diary entry at 14 where my mom scolded me for “being irresponsible” and letting him cry till his face was bright red about something. She told me I was bad at taking care of him and I stormed off to my room.

I wrote in all capital letters that he was MY BABY and that she had no right to take him from me.

To this day she disputes my claim to both #7 and #8 especially. She says that I overestimated what I did and that I was being dramatic.

Once our family moved back to the US in 2004 I had to do a lot more housekeeping duties than I had otherwise done. The babies were getting bigger and not in diapers any more, so I spent more time cooking and folding laundry than specifically caring for them.

As a girl, I wasn’t allowed to get a job.

But once I got ‘done’ (unofficially) with high school I spent hours in the garden weeding and planting. I turned our hundreds of tomatoes into tomato sauce and I spent almost all day cleaning up after kids. My younger brothers (#s 4 and 5) seemed to alternate hating my guts passionately. I don’t know if it was because they resented the power I held as a second (or third) mom or if they just were reacting to me ordering them around, but without fail once they hit a certain age they fought with me every second they could.

At one point my mom wouldn’t allow us in the same room without a parent.

The younger siblings were still small enough for me to intimidate/control although it fluctuated. Sometimes I was not allowed to spank/slap them, and other times it passed under the radar. Technically I was never allowed to hit them, but other times I was told to administer discipline.

It was severe cognitive dissonance.

My dad would be out working with the boys, my mom would take #6 with her grocery shopping and I would be left with the other 3 or 4. I would be given a list of duties (usually dinner, clean the rooms, vacuum, dishes, and a certain amount of work from the younger kids).

If I didn’t get everything done I was chastised or disciplined.

Technically the younger kids needed to help since they made all the messes, but when I wasnt allowed/supposed to be disciplining them, I was given a toothless command. I felt like for every room I cleaned, they made a mess of two more. They told on me for spanking them or yelling at them, but at the same time I was under a huge amount of pressure.

I resented them and they resented me.

However, I definitely favored my babies. I called them both “my” babies and they sometimes called themselves that. I would try to protect them from some of the mental and spiritual abuse going on, but I felt helpless myself. I tried to take all of their anger and frustrations myself so that they would not have to deal with the repercussions of having the parents see.

Even so, my baby #8 developed severe anger issues.

By age 5 he was having insane tantrums where he would scream at the top of his lungs and writhe about wildly, hitting things and lashing out.

Once my dad tried to spank it out of him.

Only once that I remember. And that night I wanted to die. My little “shun-shine” #7 developed severe self-acceptance issues, always afraid that she was fat and/or ugly. It was a downward spiral.

I left home at age 20 against the wishes of my parents.

I have not seen the kids again, except for the two older boys who are on good terms with me and call me semi-regularly. I see pictures every now and then and I can’t imagine how their lives are now. They are so much bigger. I get to hear them over the phone every now and then. Baby #8 keeps asking me to come home again to visit him for his birthday. I tell him that I want to desperately, but that situations that he cannot understand keep us apart.

I only hope that someday they can forgive me for abandoning them.

I did it to save myself, and in doing so I left them exposed to every horror my parents might bring down upon them. I wish there had been another way.

When people ask me these days if I want to/plan on having kids I usually say: “Once I get over losing the babies I already had.” Most people look at me strangely, but it is the truth. I cannot be a good mother because I am too afraid of losing my kids once they turn 8 or 10. Until I can clear my conscience with how I treated them, I fear I will not be a fit mother to any biological children I might have.

*****

To be continued.