homeschool

Begging God To Make Me White: Rachel’s Story

HA Editorial Team16 Comments

race

Also by Rachel on HA: “Hurts Me More Than You: Rachel’s Story.”

I never realized what an anomaly my family was at homeschool conventions or homeschool co-ops until recently we ran into another Indian family at one. The first I have ever met. And they were only looking into homeschooling. They weren’t even homeschooling yet!

See, my family is not your typical homeschooling family. We’re brown. But more than that, we’re Indian. Like, from India.

And we are still the only Indian homeschool family to date that I know.

For years I’ve felt like an outsider at homeschool conventions because I would look around and every single other person was white, with either brown or red hair neatly tucked into a bun, a traditional jean jumper or skirt, and a nicely demure aura, and there I was with my brown skin, long straight black hair hanging loose, jeans, and gauzy shirt. You can imagine the looks I got.

And here’s where it gets personal.

Race is a very big thing in the homeschool community, I’ve discovered. Douglas Wilson has been skyrocketed into the spotlight for his classic white supremacist views, and his book excusing slavery in the American South, but before I even read his book I started having problems with a class I was taking at the time: Gileskirk Christendom, based on the beliefs of a certain Dr. George Grant. He portrayed Western Civilization, and, most notably white people, as the “greatest flowering of Christianity”, and descrys the rest of the world as pagan, primitive, and ungodly.

It’s as if Christianity equals White.

When I was 12 and 13 I had a mad crush on a young man who was a personal friend of our family. I thought he was fantastic. I adored him pretty much. But he was a good 7-8 years older than me and never realized my hopeless obsession. Before long I realized that there was no way he would ever fall for me, and I remember my mom telling me that it was hopeless because his mom would decide who he courted, and the girl he married would have to be white. (His mom was just that kind who read all the “white supremacy couched as christian” homeschool literature, and raised her kids on Westerns where white = good and dark = bad).

After all, good upstanding white Christian homeschooled guys want a “clean” girl. They want someone with white skin and brown hair, who’s tall and fair and a poster child for homeschooling. They don’t look for shorty curvy brown girls who have way too much passion and poetry in their veins.

And believe me, I’d read all the books. On how you had to be meek and quiet and not rebel or listen to secular music; and all the books made a white southern lifestyle seem equatable with Christianity. You know, where you didn’t go to college, and waited for the perfect Prince Charming. What particularly impacted my view, though, was that the books said that being seductive or sexy was “the sin of Bathsheba” therefore it was considered taboo.

Now, one considers white skin inherently “seductive” or “exotic”, yet those are exactly the stereotypes which come with having copper colored skin. I was convinced that had I only been white, he may have cared for me and it broke my heart and plunged me into extreme self-hatred.

I can remember writing a teary-eyed journal entry begging God to make me white because if I was white, then he would love me. Well, he turned out courting a girl who is just that: white. tall. fair. with brown – blonde hair and who’s pretty much perfect.

And while we all have ideas of what our first heartbreak will be, little did I think that it was my skin color which would break my heart.

I came across a small homeschool pamphlet on courtship yesterday which listed a number of factors which would disqualify a person as a potential spouse. One of them was entitled “race”.

My eyes filled with tears and I threw the book across the room.

It’s just that mindset which is so contrary to the Word of God which says that in Christ there is neither “Jew nor Greek” and that God is no “respecter of persons”, that frustrates me so much. Perhaps this is because I personally have experienced it. I know firsthand the destructive consequences.

It has taken me years to see anything beautiful in my skin color. It’s still a struggle. There are days I’m ok with it, and days I hate it because it’s so…. brown.

If race is something I have no control over, then what makes a white girl more christian simply because she, through no superiority or fault of her own, was born with less melanin in her skin than me?

And after years spent with SPF 100, whitening creams, etc. I give up.

I’m me and that has to be enough.

But I can 100% assure you that those books aren’t helping anything. It’s stupid to hold one skin color up as “better” than another. Because in the eyes of God we are all equal, no matter.

It’s about time the homeschool community discards the religious baloney and heads back to Scripture on this one.

HSLDA Members Put Naked Child in a “Cage With Feces and Urine”

HA Editorial Team16 Comments

hslda

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

5 years ago, in 2009, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) claimed Karen S. Tolin and Timothy E. Tolin as a victory for their organization. According to an HSLDA press release on January 12, 2009 (archived as a PDF here),

“When Tim and Karen Sue Tolin received notice that officials with Ubly Community Schools in Michigan had called a due process hearing for their son Sean, they turned to HSLDA for help… They currently have nine adopted children, seven of whom they homeschool. Sean, their 8-year-old, has been diagnosed with multiple challenges… The Tolins withdrew Sean from public school to homeschool him… School officials insisted that the Tolins have Sean undergo the evaluations they recommended and that he be given an Individual Education Plan… Mr. and Mrs. Tolin refused.”

The Tolins were members of HSLDA and contacted the organization for help. HSLDA attorney Darren Jones put pressure on the school district and “Ubly Community Schools dropped the proceedings.”

Fast forward 5 years. Last month, this headline appeared:

Two arraigned on charges after teen found in cage in Michigan’s Thumb

That headline eerily resembles the case of Michael Gravelle, the abusive father and husband that HSLDA attorney Scott Sommerville once called a “hero” and who was later indicated to be a child abuser and wife-beater. Gravelle had similarly placed his adopted children in cages. As it turns out, the two arraigned on charges last month were — you guessed it — Karen S. Tolin and Timothy E. Tolin, the parents HSLDA defended in 2009.

Here are the conditions the Tolins forced their developmentally disabled child into:

Police responded to investigate a civil dispute about 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20, to a home at 3700 Minden Road south of Priemer, when they discovered the mentally challenged male teen in a caged bed with the door chained shut, the Huron County Sheriff’s Department said in a prepared statement. 

“The odor was very noticeable as the deputy began to climb the stairs,” Hanson said.

Huron County Prosecutor Timothy Rutkowski said the teen was found naked in the cage with feces and urine around him, based on his review of the police report. The 19-year-old has a developmental disability called Angelman syndrome

Libby Anne at Love Joy Feminism first discovered this story, and made the following observation:

“This is another verifiable case where HSLDA defended the rights of people who turned out to be abusers. In this case, it was actual legal assistance. (I know several individuals whose abusive parents were also defended by HSLDA, but these are stories where social services never became involved and the abuse was never discovered.) Now yes, abusers should have legal defense. It’s how the system works. But HSLDA doesn’t position itself as an organization that defends all comers and sometimes has to do dirty work, it positions itself as the family-friendly smiling face of homeschooling and actively works to shape policy. That HSLDA doesn’t vet those it defends, and does in fact defend abusive and neglectful families, needs to be more widely understood.”

Yes, I Am Latino; No, I Am Not Joking: Joe Laughon’s Story

HA Editorial Team1 Comment

race

Also by Joe Laughon on HA: “Engaging the World — Debate and the BJU Protest: An Interview with Joe Laughon.”

First I think the sensitive nature of this topic demands me to explain what this piece is not about. It is not intended as a litany of racial incidents I saw or a list of microaggressions allegedly inflicted upon me. It isn’t some blanket condemnation of the society home education creates, painting it as a reborn White Citizens’ Council. Nor is it intended to be a condemnation of identifying as American, being of European background, middle class, Christian or conservative. Lastly, I am not going to pretend like I was oppressed by any means. (Sidenote: For those who are far more learned in this subject, I would like to note that my subject of study has not been critical race theory, postmodernism or even sociology but rather was rather early modern European political theory and the Near East. So, mea culpa, if I use imprecise terminology. By all means let me know.)

That being said, I feel like my experience in home education can possibly provide a helpful perspective. My experience in homeschooling has slowly taught me how race operates in our society. It’s rarely some KKK bogeyman but rather is often unconscious and structural rather than personal, and is usually unthinking. In particular it’s made worse by what theorists call whiteness.

Now what do I mean by “whiteness”? By this I do not mean simply being of a European background but rather a society system in which being labeled as “white” (a constantly changing definition with several criteria such as light skin, European background/features, English speaking, Judeo-Christian and being seen as “respectable” and middle class) is the unconscious presumed default in society and is seen as best, where one is given the benefit of the doubt. The more checkboxes you can list off the more benefit of the doubt you will be given (throw in American born, and male in there and you won the bingo game). Today that has often meant:

1. Not being classed as a criminal.

Pastor Matt Chandler, of the Acts 29 network, made a really helpful insight when he stated that his son, blonde and blue eyed, would never be followed around in a store with the assumption he was up to no good.

2. Historically seen as more accepted in society and those people of color who do conform to what we see as respectable are labeled as “courageous” or peculiar.

3. Thanks to the mistakes and outright misdeeds of history, someone who is white is more likely to be better off, better educated and safer.

This does not discount personal success or personal failure but it does mean that history does play a role into where in society we start. Historically being white has afforded economic privileges such as not being redlined, being considered acceptable for credit, being shown houses that were often denied to people of color. This meant that their children could use equity to build more opportunities such as college education and business loans, which creates more opportunity. There is nothing inherently wrong with this ladder of opportunity itself, but the fact that the rungs have been traditionally denied to people of color.

4. Lastly, and most powerfully with recent news, it means that, being white, you will not be inherently defined as suspicious or a threat.

For instance, even the rate of drug usage, possession and sale is the same across the board among ethnic and racial groups, people of color will find themselves targeted for prosecution more often and, when equally prosecuted given harsher sentences for the same crime o the same severity.

Now how did my experience play into this? Specifically I saw how the way we racially and ethnically construct identities is a game in which whiteness determines the rules and gets to decide what identity you have. For instance my family’s identity is not monolithic. English is my language, I have an Anglo sounding surname and my mother’s family is pretty stock European Midwestern-southern white folks. On the other hand, my father’s family is entirely from Mexican from South Texas and Los Angeles and I usually identified most with the Latino community, especially growing up in a neighborhood dominated by this demographic and going to Catholic school in which I was certainly the whitest there.

In my old neighborhood I was certainly an anomaly perhaps but not totally unheard of as “gueros” (“blondies” or “whiteys”) can be more common in some parts of Latin America. Thus my friends didn’t really question what I called myself (although I do remember parents laughing when I had told my class my father was born in Mexico. I simply assumed, “We’re Mexican, he must be from Mexico.”). However once we moved and I began to homeschool, I noticed a subtle shift in how the identity game was played. If you don’t even fit into one identity, one will be chosen for you. Period. I can’t remember the amount of times I’ve explained to folks, “Yes, my skin is very light. Yes, I am Latino. No, I am not joking.” (This could turn into an Abbot and Costello routine as one father literally refused to believe me.) My particular favorite was during our testing and a mother witnessed me filling in the “Latino/Hispanic” bubble. She quickly pulled me aside and noted that if I was mixed I needed to put mixed. No exceptions.

However, I won’t pretend that being white didn’t bring privileges. Besides those listed above, I didn’t have to act as the spokesman for all things Latin. What was also interesting was, as my hand was stamped, I got to see how history and society is shaped by the default of being white.

In particular I saw that a self-reinforcing narrative is created when being white isn’t just assumed to be the default, but it often is the default in homeschooling (especially when you get to subsume everyone else’s identity into the team). Which means seeing the events of history and issues in society entirely through the eyes of one “side.” Every other narrative is conveniently ignored because it is assumed to not exist.

This occurred most notably in the NCFCA and in the wider homeschool debate scene.

Having to combat civil war revisionism (Did you know that it was just over tariffs and slavery was just totally incidental to the entire war? Yeah, me neither), or even remind some students that slavery was not a “win-win” for everyone involved, became a full time occupation as a competitor and coach. But by being white, no one would think twice about sharing their fairly one sided opinion with you as they unwittingly reinforced whiteness by engaging in a host of presumptions about undocumented immigrants or why democratic governance “can’t work” in Arab society. Around me, there was no self aware look over the should to see if any of “them” might hear but rather the opinions about how Latin immigrants will “balkanize” America and how a “Euro-American majority” is needed for society to work could be shared freely.

The catalyst for this realization came when the BJU protest occurred. To recap, NCFCA chose Bob Jones University, a school associated with racial segregation, discrimination combined with a virulent fundamentalism combined with a healthy dose of violent anti-Catholicism (if you don’t believe that last one ask why Northern Irish loyalist demagogue Ian Paisley has an honorary doctorate). Many, in particular coaches, competitors and families of color objected to associating a multiracial, multiethnic and multiconfessional organization with a tainted institution.

The response was total tone deafness from some. We were asked why we were so bitter about “ancient history”, why we can’t bring ourselves to forgive BJU (I was unaware institutions have souls to absolve) and why it was acceptable to let historically black colleges exist but there were “no colleges for whites.” I finally realized that whiteness meant not only getting to decide the rules of identity, not being afraid of spouting off nonsense about race, but also never having to acknowledge the legacy of racism today and in the past.

This is not to say that I experienced a culture of open bigotry or one filled with racial strife. More often I saw a loving, tranquil multiracial group that genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. However I also saw implicit racial assumptions and privilege reinforce itself through a lack of acknowledgement and understanding in a way that was somewhat unique to the home education scene.

So how do we move forward? I think the obvious way is to rely on what unites us and it’s not our identity as homeschoolers, as Americans or as conservatives, but rather our common faith identity, which clearly rejects such constructs (Acts 10:34-35).

The first way we do this is by listening to each other.

This is some basic advice given from James as we are told to be “quick to hear.” However unfortunately our lack of hearing has created a huge perception gap. Last year the Association of Religious Data had a telling study which demonstrated a wide gap in how different groups in America viewed the interaction between race and society. The first step to overcoming our empathy gap is to overcome our perception gap. That is going to take listening. In particular that is going to take hearing narratives on race and how it effects us from others that don’t include ourselves. Rather than get defensive and jump to meaningless tropes such as “What about black on black crime?” or “What about affirmative action?” maybe we should be quicker to hear and slow to speak.

But we need to take this further.

Pastor Scott Williams, author of Sunday: The Most Segregated Day of the Week, pointed out how the institution homeschoolers are most likely to share in common is also the institution that is most racially segregated. Roughly 90% of American churches are dominated by 90% of one ethnic or racial group. Now part of this trend reflects simple demographics and part of this trend reflects the effects of historic exclusion of people of color for mainline Protestant churches. However it should give us a reason for concern. How can we understand each other and start to break down the toxicity of race in America if part of our lives that is most significant to us is the one that is the most racially segregated? Movements like Church Diversity and Operation: Desegregation are the beginnings of something that could be truly healing.

I’m not saying this will solve everything. Homeschoolers who aren’t Christian or are excluded in other ways, such as gender or sexuality, may not find much solace in this. But it could be a start.

The general principles of listening and engaging in community with The Other hold real promise to ameliorate the problem of racism and white privilege in homeschooling.

Hurts Me More Than You: Clay’s Story

HA Editorial Team9 Comments

Screen Shot 2014-09-23 at 10.15.16 AM

*****

Trigger warning for Hurts Me More Than You series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

*****

Clay’s Story

My parents didn’t spank in anger, usually.

They were convinced that they were practicing biblical discipline.

They believed that spankings were to be delivered calmly, leave no serious injury (red marks and the occasional bruise were OK), end with reconciliation and a forced hug, and be painful. As a child I was spanked nearly every day. But I got off easy.

Dad said that children in the old testament got stoned to death for rebelliousness, so it was a good thing I didn’t live back then.

Spankings ranged from three to ten swats. I remember feeling really lucky the few times I only got one or two. Mom and Dad both spanked but it hurt more when Dad did it. I think that was just because Mom wasn’t capable of hitting as hard. When Dad spanked he swung with his whole arm like he was trying to hit a home run on our butts. We weren’t allowed to keep our pants on, but usually we could keep on our underwear.

When Mom or Dad spanked it was painful enough to make me see stars. One time after getting spanked by Dad the pain was so much I almost vomited. When I told my Dad this he laughed and said that was impossible.

We were supposed to be still and quiet while receiving a spanking. If we resisted at all we got spanked more. Spankings with our hands in the way didn’t count. If we screamed we got spanked more, and told that CPS would come and take us and we’d never see our family again. We were allowed to cry, but it had to be sorry cries, not angry cries, or we would just be spanked more.

My Dad chose wooden instruments that would leave as few outward marks as possible. Usually something flat like a wooden kitchen spatula. As my brother got older Dad spanked him more, and harder. He started breaking wooden spoons and spatulas on him. Dad made a paddle out of a thick piece of wooden molding or something. It was about two and a half inches wide, half or three quarters of an inch thick, and a couple feet long. He drilled a couple big holes in it so that there would be no air cushion, that it would sting as much as possible.

I always thought I was a bad kid. We got spanked more than anyone else we knew, so it followed that we must be the most disobedient. It didn’t occur to my childish mind that maybe my parents were spanking too much. I remember when I was eight years old realizing that I had gone three days without a spanking.

I thought that was really cool because I had set a record for being good.

Maybe if I had gone on that long I’d be able to be good forever and never get a spanking again. Alas, I got a spanking later that day.

I always wished I could be my cousins. It must be easy for them to be good. I wished it was easy for me to be good. I didn’t understand why it was so hard for me to be good. Impossible, in fact. My parents explained that it was because I was a sinner, but that didn’t explain why I was apparently a worse sinner than anyone else my age. I couldn’t wait to grow up, because grown-ups don’t sin — that’s why they don’t get spankings. My last spanking was when I was twelve, I think, but the threat didn’t go away. Mom would tell me that a teenaged friend of mine still got spankings for rolling her eyes, so I’d better watch myself.

My parents stated goal in all this discipline was to break our wills.

A child’s will was something evil, something that needed to be eradicated.

They never really explained what this meant in detail, but it had something to do with us never having desires that misaligned with theirs. I can only imagine that the desired result was to condition us to have a visceral reaction to the thought of going against their wishes. It worked very well on me. I learned early on that the best way to cope was just to go along with what they wanted, to say what they wanted to hear, to hold still and not resist, it would be over most quickly that way.

It didn’t work so well on my brother, he would fight. Not fight physically — he’d fight by not crying, or by saying that the spanking didn’t hurt. That’s why Dad had to hit him so hard that wood broke against his flesh.

Yet, I’m not convinced that my strategy was better. It seemed so at the time because it was the path of least pain, but there were long-term consequences. For years into adulthood I wasn’t able to act in my own best interest. Doing something just because it was the best decision for me was so far off my radar I rarely contemplated it. I lived my life with pleasing my parents in mind. It wasn’t even conscious, it just was. When I started making decisions I knew they would disagree with I had physical reactions that were so intense I would sometimes be incapacitated for days. It would start with my whole body shaking, then my throat would close up. Then my heart rate would soar, like my heart was trying to escape my chest. My mind would race, and then I would start vomiting. Even after the vomiting stopped it would take a day or so before I could eat normally again. It would take several to get my energy back.

I’m shaking just writing this post.

My parents always told me that they spanked us because they loved us. It is true that they loved us. But I don’t think that was their primary motivation in spanking.

Spanking gave them a tremendous amount of power over us: power to break and then remake us according to their will.

The Nightmares

HA Editorial Team1 Comment
CC image "Nightmare" courtesy of Fernando Rodríguez.
CC image “Nightmare” courtesy of Fernando Rodríguez.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Darcy’s blog Darcy’s Heart-Stirrings. It was originally published on October 19, 2014.

I keep having these dreams that my parents are keeping my husband away from me, or me away from him, like they did 12 years ago, only worse. Sometimes they have me locked up somewhere, sometimes they deny he ever existed. Always I’m trapped and defenseless and frantically searching for him, trying to find him, to get back to him. Always I can’t find him, or he can’t hear me, and my parents gain control and drag me away from him.

In the last dream I had, I woke up and was back in my childhood home near Seattle. I was scared, I ran upstairs from my basement room, asking where my children were, where my husband was. Everyone looked confused and didn’t know what I was talking about. They treated me like I was mentally unstable and insane and making stuff up. They said I didn’t have any children, that we’d never moved to eastern WA, and that I’d never been in love or married. I became frantic, begging them to let me out, to go search for my family. They refused and locked me in the basement, saying it was for my own good, that I was sick. I started to think they were right, but something happened to make me sure that I did have children, that I was married, that I had a life, and that I had to fight with everything I had to get out of that house and away from those people who claimed to be my family and claimed to love me. I knew that my kids were missing me and my husband was probably looking for me, they probably all thought I’d run off and didn’t love them anymore and that broke my heart. I sat in the basement room, screaming, bloodying my knuckles trying to escape. I knew I wasn’t crazy but….what if I was? What if they were right and there is no husband, no children, and I am truly sick, trying to escape walls that keep me safe?

I hate these dreams.

I hate that 10 years after I won and took control and chose my own way in my life, I still fear being controlled.

I still fear losing control over my own life and losing the man and children who are mine. I can still feel the agony and helplessness of being trapped, even though the cage was really in my own mind and theirs and nothing physical was keeping me from walking away back then, only spiritual manipulation and fear. I wonder when these dreams will ever stop. I wake up from these dreams in a panic, reaching for my husband, putting my hand on my baby son in his crib next to me, tangible evidences that I am in my own bed, in my own home, in my own life.

And I try to reconcile in my mind the parents I know now who come to visit to bring gifts to their grandkids and have coffee in the mornings and do a little bit of life with us, with the parents back then who controlled and manipulated and who had convinced me they had power over me and my choices and whom I believed. And I wonder how long I can keep saying “my parents weren’t abusive, they weren’t like those horror stories you read about. They loved us” as I wake up in a cold sweat from these dreams. Do motives really matter in the end? Because it was the actions that broke me; their motives can’t fix that. I wonder if we are ever going to talk about it, to go back there and expose all the ugliness that was my life 12 years ago, and if I will ever stop having these nightmares if we don’t.

I am 30 years old, a successful mother and student and advocate. I control my life and my choices. I am loved deeply by the man I share my life with, the man who fought for me. I have four children whose lives I nurture and guide. I chose to live every day with a whole heart, with vulnerability, with honesty, with empathy, with authenticity, with deep joy in my amazing life and my beautiful family. Yet one dream every few months with the same theme over and over again, touching a very broken place in my soul, and I am completely undone. I have to fight yet again to convince myself that no one controls me but me. That I am free and no one can take that from me.

This is the power of childhood psychological abuse, emotional abuse, and spiritual abuse.

It breaks parts of us that no one can see. That often even we can’t see. But that are evident in the panic attacks, the recoiling from normal things, the nightmares.The rage that comes out of nowhere as an instinctual defense. The feeling of being a helpless child again. The confusion when presented with two differing stories of the same incident and being told yours is the incorrect version.

This story isn’t over. But as dark and unfinished as it is, it’s a necessary one to tell right now, in this moment, so others living the same story don’t feel quite so alone. We fight and we win. I know we win. I have already won so much. And I’m not finished yet.

A Closer Look at Karen Campbell and Lisa Cherry’s Podcast Series on Sexual Abuse Prevention

HA Editorial Team5 Comments
CC image "Magnifying Glass" courtesy of Flickr, Auntie P.
CC image “Magnifying Glass” courtesy of Flickr, Auntie P.

About the author: Kathi is a Bible-belt midwest transplant to the beautiful Pacific northwest. After homeschooling her kids for 10 years (she decided that high school math and science were not her strongest subjects), both kids are in public school. She is a former church goer and finds herself in that unstudied demographic of middle-aged Nones. She has a B.A. in Urban Ministry and a M.S.W. (Master of Social Work). Her goal is to work with children who have been abused or are in foster care. She loves to knit, cook and read (not in any particular order). The following was originally published on Kathi’s blog Moving Beyond Absolutes on November 4, 2014 and is reprinted with permission. Also by Kathi on HA: “Kevin Swanson, Child Abuse, and Dead Little Bunnies”. 

I first heard of Lisa Cherry when R.L. Stollar at Homeschoolers Anonymous did a series about Lisa Cherry’s Frontline Family Ministry’s Child Abuse Prevention Week. While reading this series, I happened upon thatmom.com, Karen Campbell’s, first podcast with Lisa Cherry. I thought this first podcast was decent. It mostly addressed Cherry’s experience with her daughter when she was lured into a sexual abuse situation with an older man at church. She also addressed that homeschoolers face some distinctive vulnerabilities when it comes to abuse. The kicker, though, was that she did not address the fact that homeschooled kids may be abused by their parents until the end of the conversation.

This is my main frustration with homeschooling leaders.

I have yet to hear from one homeschool leader that homeschooled kids can be abused by their homeschooling parents. Karen Campbell’s second podcast with Lisa Cherry lived up to this.

Karen starts off her podcast by saying:

“The protection of homeschooling children from the ravages of sexual abuse is one of the hot topics within homeschooling circles, and for good reason. As much as we would love to be able to say this never happens in homeschooling families, sometimes it does.”

Okay.  Good start. At least she’s admitting that “sometimes” child abuse happens in homeschooling families. However, further on in her podcast, Karen states:

“One of the concerns that I have had is that there seems to be an agenda on the part of some people that the parents are the perpetrators of abuse towards children. Now you and I both know that there are times when that is true. We watched in horror the reports of what happened with people who had used the Pearl’s “To Train Up a Child” book. We have heard these abusive stories, we’re talking about physical abuse. We’ve, we’ve seen and I’ve heard and I know people personally who have been through very spiritually abusive homes where legalism rules and there is no desire for relationship with children. So we know those kind of things do happen. But I do not believe that parents for the most part are the perpetrators of this kind of situation with their children. And I also believe that sometimes when those things have happened it is not because you have parents who desire to be abusive, it’s because they have been subjected to teaching that tells them that this is the only Godly way.” 

This is the point at which I think I spit my coffee out on my laptop. Really, “But I do not believe that parents for the most part are the perpetrators of this kind of situation with their children.” And this “agenda?” Really?

And, even later:

“And I’m not convinced what they think is a problem actually is a problem.”  

Let’s look at some facts from Children’s Bureau, an Office of the Administration of Children and Families. Every year they post child abuse statistics. The most current listing regarding child maltreatment is for the year 2012.

  • Four-fifths (80.3%) of perpetrators were parents
  • 6.1% of perpetrators were relatives other than parents
  • 4.2% of perpetrators were unmarried partners of parents
  • 4.6% of perpetrators were an other relationship to the victim
  • 3.1% of perpetrators were an “unknown” relationship to the victim

These statistics are consistent with all of the statistics that I have ever read about child abuse. When it comes to child abuse, the only grace that I will give Karen Campbell and Lisa Cherry is that in the area of child sexual abuse, it is difficult to find information regarding the breakdown of the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim. Most statistics note that a “very high percentage” of victims of child sexual abuse “know” the perpetrator.

Lisa Cherry continues the train of thought:

“To think, to think that, you know, we’ve got a few cases here in homeschooling. Well, I open my, my email feed just constantly and I find, you know, the, the two women that went after the teenage boy in the high school just a few weeks ago. You know, you find just case after case after case.”

It’s as though child sexual abuse is committed by the bogeyman or some other government sponsored officials.

The continued denial of child abuse happening within Christian homeschooling families does not help victims. It is time for Christian homeschooling leaders to tear down the pedestal of the perfect Christian homeschooling family and admit that child abuse does happen.

The other point which stood out to me was this part of the conversation:

Lisa: “Now I know that there’s some places online that are saying we need the government to step in, we need more regulation, we need to protect our kids, we need to have more rules, we need to have more laws. Karen, I don’t believe that’s the answer.”

Karen: “No.”

Lisa: “I don’t believe the government will be able to protect from these kinds of very sensitive things. I think, I believe that God placed families together to provide protection for children.”

I would agree that the government is not the best parent of a child. I have been working with a kid in the foster care system due to child abuse and it is frustrating to get her the help that she needs. However, I believe that DHS is an avenue that attempts to help kids who have been abused. And to say that God provided families to protect kids? What about the kids who are being abused by their family members? Who is protecting them?

As far as Lisa’s concern about government’s regulation over homeschooling, I would agree with “some places online” that think there should be some regulation. Having been a homeschooler for 10 years and interacted with some in my state’s Christian homeschool association, I understand the concern for having more regulation to protect children. Campbell and Cherry’s defense that the government does not help protect public schooled kids is not helpful. First of all, let’s consider the fact that there are far more children schooled in the public school setting than in the homeschool or private school setting. Secondly, consider the fact that at least public schooled kids have mandated reporters that are able to see any potential child abuse problems and report them. Homeschooled children do not have this extra attention from mandated reporters who may advocate on their behalf.

But it was this additional statement that made me almost spew my coffee a second time:

“We’ve seen HSLDA try to help us with them.”

HSLDA? Honestly, I have not seen much by them for supporting victims of abuse. ThinkProgress.org has a good article about how HSLDA has lobbied for laws against making “false reports.” It is my opinion that HSLDA’s main goal is to protect the rights of homeschooling and parental rights. While HSLDA does not condone child abuse, I think that they really do not know how to handle a case of an abusing homeschooling parent unless it directly relates to homeschooling. In that case, I think that HSLDA will fight for the right of the parent to homeschool and not for the child victim.

All in all, this second podcast by Karen Campbell with Lisa Cherry left me very angry and frustrated. It seems that we will continue to wait for homeschool leaders to admit the fact that child abuse does in fact happen within homeschooling families. Until they are willing to accept this fact, child abuse “may” happen in homeschool families, but most likely it will be perpetrated by someone outside of the family.

Darn that elusive bogeyman.

Hurts Me More Than You: Jennifer’s Story

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

Screen Shot 2014-09-23 at 10.15.16 AM

*****

Trigger warning for Hurts Me More Than You series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

Extra trigger warning for Jennifer’s story: descriptions of blood in relation to physical abuse during menstruation

*****

Jennifer’s Story

I am 17.

Funny how the majority of my life is a blur; I have very few clear memories of my childhood. I believe this is because my mind is suppressing the worst of the abuse.

But I do know that every day my oldest brother was beaten for mocking  and hitting me and that at least once a week I and my other siblings were beaten.

Rather than talk to my brother about why he felt the need to bully me, my parents used belts which only exacerbated the issue. And of course, I and my two other siblings were  ambiguously “disrespectful” and deserved beatings, no matter that everyone we ever had contact with thought us perfect.

I remember the times we hid from my father when he came  home and read the list my mother kept of infractions the children committed and deserved being beaten for. The four of us were always  found out and told to “line up.” Listening to my older siblings’ screams and being a helpless bystander knowing it would be my turn next was so much worse than the beating itself. Listening was much more psychologically damaging. Thanks to that damage, I was incredibly introspective.

It was a habit of mine in middle school  to sneak out and wander the streets by night, fascinated by the stars, doubting God. One day I was caught by a police officer, who called my mother at 3 a.m. I was  menstruating, but my father beat me anyway, until I had lost about a quart of blood, my legs coated in it. The combinations of cramps and blunt force created the most excruciating pain I have ever experienced.

That was four years ago.

Today, I still recoil when people reach out to me. I still cringe at the sound of a belt. I am still not free from them; indeed, today my sister has healing scabs on her arm from our mother clawing her.

And the worst, most depressing, soul draining thing is not the scars, but how I have no recourse but to watch her cry.

In my childhood, my parents mocked people who used the term “spanking,” saying they don’t call it what it is and they are right. Any form of physical punishment is violence and damaging. Not only to the one being hit, but to everyone hearing the screams.

Malala and Me

HA Editorial Team2 Comments
Malala Yousafzai. CC image courtesy of Southbank Centre.
Malala Yousafzai. CC image courtesy of Southbank Centre.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Kathryn Brightbill’s blog The Life and Opinions of Kathryn Elizabeth, Person. It was originally published in October 2014.

I sat here crying as I watched Malala Yousafzai talk about wanting to get an education and follow her dreams. She talks about how she decided to speak up against the Taliban because she didn’t want to be locked away in her house with no education, forced to marry at 13 or 14, and I can’t help but cry because it hits too close to home.

I know what it feels like to fight for an education in a culture that thinks girls shouldn’t get one. That believes girls should be married off young with no skills and little education beyond primary school. I know what it feels like to want more and to feel the weight of everyone around you writing off your dreams as a silly fantasy.

No, I didn’t have the Taliban forcing me home, and like Malala, my parents made sure that I had an education and encouraged me to follow my dreams. Who sent me to college, and who didn’t think that I had to marry off young and become the property of my husband.

I was lucky though.

There are so many girls stuck in the conservative Christian homeschool culture who aren’t so lucky. The stay-at-home daughter movement popularized by Doug Phillips and Vision Forum teaches that the proper place for a daughter is at home under her father’s authority until she’s given to the husband that her father has selected for her. Stay-at-home daughters are often given limited education, and dreaming of a life away from her father or husband, an education and a career, is unthinkable.

I remember going to hear popular homeschool speaker Little Bear Wheeler speak when I was in middle school, hearing from him that girls should be left as malleable clay to be shaped by their husband to best suit him as a helper. Her talents and interests don’t matter, only what her father and husband want from her.

For girls like Maranatha Chapman, long touted with her husband Matthew, as a fairy tale example of courtship and betrothal, that meant being married off as a 15 year old child to a 28 year old man. Matthew and Maranatha’s daughter Lauren was married off to a 26 year old man at 16, and I have to wonder whether it would have been sooner if Texas hadn’t raised the legal marriage age from 14 to 16.

I knew girls who started hope chests at 13 or 14 because they fully expected to be engaged or married by the time they were 17. Education? That would depend on whether their husbands decided to let them pursue it.

I’ll never forget the day that I overheard moms at homeschool skate talking about how their daughters didn’t need to learn algebra because, “they’re only going to be wives and mothers.”

Do you have any idea how hard you have to fight to hold on to a dream in that world?

I’ve wanted to be a lawyer since I was fourteen years old. I can’t count how many people I told that dream to who completely discounted it. How can I be a lawyer when I’m supposed to get married young and be a wife and homeschool mom to my dozen kids? No, that’s a suitable goal for your brother who has no interest in law, but not for you, you’re a girl, you need to stay home and work on your homemaking skills so you can have a parent arranged courtship.

No, I didn’t have a gun pointed at my head for daring to dream, but when Malala talks about facing a future as an uneducated child bride and rejecting that future, I understand.

It’s not just in places like Swat Valley in Pakistan where girls are being denied an education. It’s happening in America too, sometimes we give them reality shows on TLC and People Magazine covers.

I’m often asked why I keep fighting for homeschool children, why I care about this when there are so many other problems in the world.

I fight because every child, whether in Swat Valley in Pakistan or in the heartland of America, deserves an education. There’s a reason why Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head for speaking out, it’s because educated girls and women are a threat to the status quo. If they weren’t, no one would be trying so hard to keep them uneducated and locked away at home.

I hope that somehow Malala Yousafzai’s words find their way through to all of the stay-at-home daughters. They deserve a chance to dream.

Hurts Me More Than You: Robert’s Story

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

Screen Shot 2014-09-23 at 10.15.16 AM

*****

Trigger warning for Hurts Me More Than You series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

*****

Robert’s Story

I don’t remember anything about my young life before I was 5. They always told me I was a happy, quiet child.

The first memories I have of my childhood are extreme bouts of corporal punishment. As to whether the corporal punishment or the home education came first is as fine of a question as the chicken and the egg.

When I misbehaved as a young child my mother had the belief that “If you spare the rod, you spoil the child” in regards to punishment. In fact that’s what she told me before the belt came out.

The belt.

For the uninitiated a real leather belt taken off of a shelf can be a colossal terror for a small child. I suspect it was a 36″ model, the same size I wear now and that my father would have worn in his 30s.

My mother had a philosophy, that I assume was if I didn’t scream the neighbors would be less likely to intervene. Her exact words “Take it like a man”. Usually the beatings would be 10 at a time unless I cried or screamed, if a murmur came from my tiny mouth the count would be reset.

I cried a lot.

The beatings would continue until I was 13 and larger than her, at which point I took the belt from her by force and never allowed her to strike me again.

The “Education”.

As my young life continued I did not proceed to go to school with my friends across the street (we played their Atari and I found shelter in their house). Instead I found myself at home 24/7 with an abusive mother who decided that school wasn’t for her son. In my later years I found out that this was for religious reasons and to keep me from worldly things.

My childhood coursework consisted of whatever books she chose for me. I excelled in subjects I had interest in which led to much bragging among friends and family by mother about my proper education. Reading, biblical courses, basic math, American history (redux in a christian slant, obviously) and spelling were my highlights.

The Fallacy.

When I was in my teens I hit a glass ceiling in my education. The coursework – Algebra, Trig, advanced courses were all above my aptitude levels at that time. What’s the problem? a person might ask. You have a teacher right? Unfortunately this is where my truth and many of others comes out.

I was alone, in my room, studying without a teacher.

This was my home education. I was taught core basics in my early years, in my teenage years I taught myself as I had the basic skills needed to learn from a book. For me – it was a personal shelter and I was able to avoid most verbal abuse by keeping my head inside of a book and not admitting that I didn’t know what I was doing. This continued until I was 18 years old, I failed multiple courses of advanced subject matter and at the end my mother simply stated that I wasn’t good enough.

My mother attempted to kill my father and myself when I was 16 years old because “God told her to do it”. Somehow she avoided jail time, instead going for mental evaluation. My education did not advance past that point. PTSD took over my teenage brain and I lived my next two years in fear.

Growing up.

I removed myself from my parents home at 18 years of age after acquiring a GED (this was my way to graduation according to my mother and her home school group). My father filed for divorce from my mother less than a week after I left. He is a good man. He stuck around to make sure I was able to get out.

I didn’t know anything about the world and I didn’t have any experiences to fall back on. I immediately joined the wrong crowd, drinking and smoking at 18, smuggling large quantities of weed when I was 19 until I was ripped off, drunken driving in my 20s. I never went to jail and I deserved to so many times. The thing about homeschooling is that you just don’t fucking know what to do because you have no experiences and no peers. My family lived in the country for almost all of my childhood and had contact with others at church and small home school gatherings only.

I never grew to learn what not to do or the consequences of my actions.

Getting lucky.

Today I’m in my mid 30s. I am married to a beautiful woman who showed me true love. I have alcoholic, abusive tendencies that have gained me some trouble in my 30s along with depression and PTSD. Fortunately I am stable and with the help of my loved ones I am conquering my past.

If anyone is reading this story feeling alone in their struggle I encourage them to find peers that have been down the same road. We need each other.

One last thing — regarding “spoiling the child.” I am a strong atheist who has had no need for any gods and have been since my 20s. The rod will always fail you.

~ Robert, class of 1996

Bullied and Bullying: Aaron K Collett’s Story, Part Two

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

10350426_10152409855602761_4743387567954450240_n

Aaron K Collett is currently a Communication major, with an emphasis in Digital Film making. Aaron blogs at Bringing Thought to Life.

< Part One

Part Two: Bullied and Bullying

Unlike many people coming out of homeschooling, I technically was not isolated – I got to go to a school with other people, I wasn’t stuck at home, and we referred to it in all ways as if it were a real school (spoiler: it kind of wasn’t). But “not technically being isolated” does not equal “had the opportunity for healthy relationships with my peers”.

For one thing, the school was K-12 with 60 students. We were almost literally a one-room schoolhouse. Now, the reasoning is student will learn to interact with people better if they have to interact with all ages. That can be true. It’s also true that it gives bullies a wider range of targets. And Christians are often not good at identifying and mitigating bullying, especially since the idea of God put forth by ACE is the biggest bully of all.

I was bullied pretty much from the time I started at RMCS in 1998 until the time I left in 2004.

It wasn’t the same person the whole time; sometimes it was older students, sometimes it was the teachers. In at least one occasion, to my eternal shame, I was the bully. It wasn’t any one thing – bullies are adaptable like that. But often it was because of my success academically, as far as the other students were concerned.

People lash out when they feel threatened. Because I hadn’t been in the program since elementary school, I was seen as an outsider. Since I worked so well in a self-paced program, I was an outsider that was threatening the status quo – I was better than them at “their” thing.

The teachers did not help, however. In fact, the teachers were a big part of the problem. Once, I reached the end of my patience, and went to the principal to report one particular person who had been terrorizing me particularly badly one week. Her response was to give me a chapter from the Bible to read and take care of it myself***.

Unfortunately, as is all too common, the abused becomes the abuser. Steeped in a culture which portrayed God as a merciless bully and being bullied every day myself, I projected. I became a bully myself. Not all the time, but once is enough. I shamed someone because of their height. The thing people have perhaps the least control over. I found out later she went home sobbing every day. I don’t know if she ever forgave me; I probably never will. But even if she did, I still did that harm. That won’t ever go away.

The curriculum, combined with the culture of abuse and bullying, created an awful high school experience for me.

I begged to go to a public school, or even home-school. I got to be home-schooled for one year, which was spectacular. I still had the curriculum issues (which I wasn’t aware of at the time), but the bullying had stopped. I didn’t have to worry who was going to terrorize me when I got to school in the morning.

I could just get up, have breakfast, and learn on my own, which was all I really wanted to do anyway.

End of series.

*** The passage in question was Matthew 18. Here’s the relevant bit:

 “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.  But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’[b] And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”

Those are instructions for adults. Who mostly have the same power level as each other. This particular student had at least two years, 100 lbs, and 12 inches on me. When you tell children to deal with their “problems” that way, you are setting them up to be bullied even more. It was almost criminally irresponsible for the principal of the freaking school to give those instructions to a child being bullied. And that’s even without the implied shaming for “tattling” on another student, or the implied shaming of failing to “turn the other cheek”.