homeschool – Page 33 – Homeschoolers Anonymous

Navigating the Justice System, Part Three: As a Young Adult

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

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Sarah Henderson’s blog Feminist in Spite of Them. It was originally published on her blog on June 12, 2014.

< Part Two

When I was about 17, I moved out.

Once it was truly clear to me that what happened in my home was abusive and not normal I decided to try to end the abuse for everyone. I started making regular calls to Children’s Aid on my father. I had to get help making these calls because Children’s Aid did not take my calls seriously because I was perceived as a disgruntled daughter (I was a disgruntled daughter, I suppose – but it didn’t negate what I had to say). There had already been multiple closed investigations on my family, and my parents presented as godly people who were just doing the best they could do with very little money and terribly rebellious children (although the social workers were always impressed with our obedience). I had help from guidance counsellors at my high school, and from the family I was staying with.

This process exacted a steep personal cost.

I had to relive what had happened constantly, and I worried that if this bid for freedom for all my younger siblings failed, and my parents found out, I would be cut off from them forever. My father had always threatened to pack everyone up and move to Mexico in the middle of the night, and I was afraid that if CAS called and invited themselves over for a pre-announced visit, my father would follow through on this threat and be forever protected by his friend-of-a-friend counterparts in Mexico. This situation caused a lot of pain for me. I had a lot of suicidal thoughts, and began engaging frequently in fairly serious self-harm, although I had done some self-harm even as a pre-teen before I knew that it was a thing. I have self-injury scars on my arms that will never go away.

My self-injury served as a tangible demonstration to those who were supporting me by calling CAS, that there was a real problem that needed to be fixed. I believe that some of the thinking was that maybe if they could get an intervention in the family home, they would be able to save my younger siblings from going through the same thing. It was kind of too late to save them from the pain, but at least they could end it.

CAS became convinced to take a closer look.

Once another investigation was finally launched, things moved quickly. There were a few meetings, and my dad was given the option of promising to not yell at my mother or physically punish the children (this may sound familiar). They found out that he chased teenagers with garden implements, and beat kids with dowel rods and broomsticks. They only wanted that to stop. He declined this option, so he ended up being removed from the property by CAS and police. He was taken to jail and charged with child abuse for his use of unreasonable corporal punishment. He was not allowed back on the family property because my mom was there with the kids (I had also moved home) and he wasn’t allowed to displace the family. We went to criminal court when I was 19. I had just started dating my now-husband, and going out for some lunch while at court was our first date. I testified, along with several of my siblings.

We were given victim support this time.

We testified much more clearly than we did when we were kids. We went for a few days. The judge was kind to us, and cleared the court room of anyone that we didn’t want to have there. They asked us questions kindly, and didn’t push us when it was hard. We only testified against my father, not against my mother. We decided as a group of teenagers that the priority was to get my father to answer for what he did, because what he did was much more serious than what my mom did, and my mom had not been physically abusive to my siblings in the time between my father’s arrest, and court. The result of those court proceedings is that my father took part in a plea deal, where he pled guilty to three counts in exchange for the other six (there are nine siblings) charges being dropped.

He was given a year of probation. He also had to continue going to court with my mom (family court, I believe) to work out issues of custody, but for him to get a say, he was supposed to file his own papers. He never did. He repeatedly attended court with no representation, or asked for adjournments to have more time to file papers. Eventually this ended and my mom pretty much ended up with custody and residency in the home, because of his inaction. My grandfather bought my father a car and a cell phone, and he has spent the past 7 years floating around between staying on his other property in Nova Scotia, and living with his like-minded friends in Ontario who allow him to live in their houses with their children, or to set up a shed or camper in their back yards.

He still has no concept that he did anything wrong at all.

End of series.

Navigating the Justice System, Part Two: When My Parents Went to Court

July 24, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Sarah Henderson’s blog Feminist in Spite of Them. It was originally published on her blog on February 2, 2014.

< Part One

This part of Navigating the Justice System deals with a time in my life when my parents went to court and I didn’t, but I am including it in the middle of a three part series since it hinges them together. Here is what happened when my parents went to court:

When I was about 11, we were living in Ontario, where we had moved to get away from the court proceedings in Nova Scotia. However, my parents had been ordered to appear back in court in Nova Scotia. We had been going a conservative church in Ontario, for about a few months to a year. My parents talked to some of their friends in the church, and the decision was made to “farm out” the kids to various families while my parents were away, for about 10 days. I was pretty excited about this, because I was always helping to look after my siblings, and I thought it could be a fun break for me. My parents sent my two close-in-age brothers to stay with a family on a farm, which they didn’t mind too much. They sent my next younger sister to stay with a family with a number of young children, with a daughter that was close to her age.

They didn’t consider that that daughter bullied my sister.

They sent me to an older couple with grown up children, along with the youngest two sisters. They took my youngest brother at the time with them. The two younger girls were very young, so they were not potty-trained and showed some signs of what I now know to be disrupted emotional development. (I would like to note here that these girls have grown up into wonderful young ladies). So the couple agreed to take them for the ten days only if I went there too, so I could change their diapers, and look after them. I suppose this wasn’t that much different from home life, but the lack of supervision at home meant I could make some of my own decisions and revel in some 11 year old laziness. While I was there, I had to do quite a bit of work. I washed their eggs for their egg business, got up before the girls so that I could change them and dress them before they disturbed the family, and usually got the girls their breakfast and did the dishes. I did laundry and other chores also, but I was always responsible for the girls too.

I was expected to keep the girls in the same room all the time and watch them. I don’t know what month it was, but it was some time in the summer, since we went outside at certain times too. The girls weren’t used to that kind of structure, since while my parents were extraordinarily controlling, they also had a notable lack of control in daily life, with no structure, no schedule, and the only rule really was to not upset the parents, and do everything they specifically demanded immediately. I think that this couple disapproved of my siblings’ behavior and my parents’ parenting style and methods, and decided that they could fix it. But it doesn’t work to take an 11 year old or even toddlers and suddenly change everything about how they do life in ten days. They talked to me about how I should behave and what I should be doing in daily life, and to respect my parents, but they also spoke negatively about my parents.

It was very confusing for me as an 11 year old. I knew that my parents were going back to court but I didn’t really understand it.

I kind of hoped that they would go to jail while they were there, but then I was afraid I would be stuck with this couple, raising my two siblings forever.

I had also been extensively isolated so I did not know how to function well around other people all the time, and they made fun of that. I was very awkward. I suppose I also showed signed of disrupted emotional development. My mom and the lady decided that I should keep a diary while I was there, but the lady read what I wrote every day, and then my mom read it when they returned. I felt like I had no privacy, so I only recorded what we ate, and when we went out for groceries.

I do not blame this couple, but it was after I returned home that I started to really experience depression. I didn’t want to go to church anymore, and I didn’t want to have friends. I still was forced to go to church, not that I tried to argue, it wasn’t optional. Being with this family really taught me what other people in the church thought of us, and I knew there was a good chance that everyone talked about us like that.

It also caused a great deal of conflict for me. On one hand, I was angry that they tried to impose so much structure, but on the other hand I realized that if I complied with the structure, it would be peaceful, and that was not how it was at home. Because there were no predictable rules at home, it could never be peaceful. I think as a child I wanted to have the best of both worlds: the comparative freedom of having no supervision at home, the power of being in charge when my parents were gone all the time, but also the peace in the presence of authority figures. The couple we stayed with never hit me or yelled at me or my siblings, just expressed “disappointment” if I didn’t live up to their expectations.

Being around this family 24/7 also really emphasized to me that I was socially awkward, and I felt like my actions and words were on display for constant scrutiny. It wasn’t even that I felt I couldn’t do anything right, but I didn’t even know what the right thing was. I think it was obvious to them that something was wrong in our family, and I wish that the couple had used that knowledge to get us some help, instead of becoming part of the oppression. Every week when we saw them at church after that, I felt exposed, like they knew something bad about me. They were disappointed because they thought I would have some sort of connection with them after I went home, but I didn’t. This experience really reinforced for me that adults had all the power and that no one would help me, and that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. That I was the problem.

My parents were finished with court and didn’t go back to court. I don’t really know what the resolution to that was. I just know that it was a terrifying time for me, and I don’t think it was right that I was put through the knowledge that they were going to court, and that it had to do with parenting, but I wasn’t made privy to the resolution. It also makes me very suspicious about the outcome. I also think it wasn’t right for the church to have that window into our family problems and not do anything about it. I know it should be surprising, as it is very difficult to risk being the whistleblower when surrounded by others who do not seem to recognize the problem.

But if any one of those three families who got glimpses into the mental health status of my siblings and I had chosen to do something, it could have saved us from the six years of suffering that was to come.

Part Three >

Gothard’s Sex Rules: Marital Consent? What’s That?

July 23, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team7 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on May 13, 2014.

My family never attended one of Bill Gothard’s seminars, and we didn’t use Gothard’s curriculum. We children were, instead, raised on the outskirts of Gothardism. We knew people who were followers of Bill Gothard, and we imbibed a few of his teachings (umbrella of authority, anyone?), but that was the extent of it. As things began to snowball over the past months and Gothard was exposed as a sexual predator and ultimately relieved of his leadership position, I wanted to learn more about what Gothard actually taught, in his own words. So I purchased Gothard’s “Advanced Seminar Textbook,” which was published in 1986 and can be found used on Amazon. I’m not going to blog through it page by page, but I do plan to write some posts on various sections. Today I offer my first of these posts.

In his textbook, Gothard covers his rules for periodic abstinence during marriage, which centers on a woman’s menstrual cycle (pages 175—185). Of all of Gothard’s teachings, this may be the one I’m most unfamiliar with, as it is foreign to anything taught in the evangelical church my family attended. In this post, I will cover the first pages of this section and then finish with a letter Gothard received from a follower.

To start out, here are the rules Gothard lays out as “God’s laws on abstinence”:

What Are God’s Guidelines for Times of Abstinence?

During the menstrual cycle—Ezekiel 18:5-6

Seven days after the menstrual cycle—Leviticus 15:28

40 days after the birth of a son—Leviticus 12:2-4

80 days after the birth of a daughter—Leviticus 12:5

Gothard’s critics tend to do two things: they call him a “legalist” and argue that his teachings in this area come from the Old Testament and are therefore invalid, as the Old Testament is superseded by the New Testament. Here, on the first page of this section, Gothard directly counters both of these arguments.

First, Gothard urges his readers to “distinguish between legalism and godly living” and states that: “(1) Legalism is trying to earn salvation; (2) Legalism is trying to live the Christian life with the energy of the soul; and (3) Legalism is following ‘the letter,’ not ‘the spirit.’” Gothard uses Bible verses to back all of this up, focusing especially on II Corinthians 3:6. Gothard argues that he is not teaching legalism but rather godly living.

Second, Gothard pulls up each time the New Testament references “uncleanness” and uses that to claim that the Old Testament teachings regarding a woman’s menstrual uncleanness is still valid. This is a fascinating attempt, but it does not actually work, as it’s pretty clear he’s proof texting and he comes across as being unaware that the New Testament was written in a different language from the Old Testament. Still, that he at least tried is fascinating.

Now I want to turn to the first of the “Benefits of Abstinence” Gothard lays out.

1. It builds self-control.

When sex drives are misused, they become self-consuming and can never be satisfied. Burned-out lusts call for new forms of perversion, which become even greater tyrants of unfulfillment.

Okay, so here’s the thing. If I’m overeating and I know I’m overeating, and it’s making me feel unhealthy, I can fix that by moderating what I eat. I don’t need to spend time fasting to do that. In fact, fasting in order to lose weight can easily lead to binge eating when the fast is over. I guess what I’m saying is that there are better ways to foster a healthy and balanced sex life than abstaining and then (presumably) binging.

But what’s actually going on here becomes more clear with the letter Gothard prints from one of his followers, and it’s not pretty.

How a Commitment to Abstinence Transformed a Marriage

I am writing to report what has happened in our marriage since our decision to follow God’s guidelines for abstinence. To be honest, I was waiting to see if the changes in our lives were short-lived or permanent. Now after a third of a year and five menstrual cycles, I am encouraged that our decision was correct, Biblically-based, and that the Lord is blessing our marriage more than ever before.

Let me start at the beginning. Our dating relationship was based on the physical, not on the spiritual. It ended in pregnancy and then marriage. She was sixteen, I was twenty.

Depending on the state, this might not have been legal.

After we married, our sex life became a shambles. My physical drives were impossible for her to satisfy, and even with a daily physical relationship, I became involved in pornography and other impure habits.

If you’re having sex daily and yet you’re not sexually satisfying, it’s probably worth seeing a doctor or a therapist.

After ten years of marriage we attended our first Basic Youth Seminar. When you went over the consequences of defrauding in dating, I suddenly realized my problem and our marriage problem.

And exactly how do we explain all of the couples who had sex before marriage and are currently in healthy, sexually fulfilling relationships?

I asked God to forgive me for defrauding her before marriage, and for the first time in my life, I began exercising self-control.

Also for the first time in ten years of married life, we began to experience true sexual intimacy. Our relationship continued to improve, but my wife still felt forced to submit to me, and she worried daily about whether or not she would have to ‘make love’ that night.

Wait. Wait wait wait. So the whole time this guy was having sex daily, his wife was only participating because she believed her role, as his wife, was to submit to him and be sexually available. You know, the fact that she felt she had to have sex with him whether she wanted to or not might just play some part in why their sexual relationship wasn’t fully satisfying him.

I began having difficulty exercising self-control.

I really want to know what this means. Was he raping her?

Then we attended your Corporate Leaders Seminar and learned about abstinence during the menstrual period and for seven days after the period. I knew immediately that this is what God wanted me to commit to, and it scared me to death! I couldn’t picture myself being committed to anything like that!

However, God gave me the strength and encouragement to talk to my wife. We discussed it and that day, with her permission, I made a commitment to follow that principle.

Now he’s concerned about getting his wife’s permission?

The relief within my wife was almost visible. The “fear” is gone from our marriage.

Well of course her relief was almost visible! His poor wife knew she would have have two weeks of blessed relief from her husband’s constant (and unreciprocated) sexual demands!

We now have a freedom we never experienced before. We are blessed to the point that we almost feel guilty when we are around our Christian friends who are completely loaded down with problems. Our lives have been transformed by applying this and other principles from God’s Word.

You replaced consent with biblically-mandated periodic abstinence, you asshole.

A Confirming Report from the Wife

I cannot tell you how much the material on abstinence has meant to me and our marriage. I have never experienced what has been happening in our marriage since we began following the principle of abstinence.

It is indeed a miracle!!!! Through the power of the Holy Spirit, my husband has exercised real self-control in the area of our sex life. I feel so loved, cherished, and protected! I have been able to respond to him as seldom before. The difference in our relationship is difficult to describe, but very wonderful to experience. Thank you again for motivating us to choose God’s best.

Someone tell this poor wife about consent and marital rape.

I didn’t expect to be this frustrated when I opened the volume to these pages, but I am. I am really, really frustrated. It appears that Gothard is using abstinence during the period and for seven days after the period as a replacement for consent within marriage. With these teachings, women who find themselves forced to submit to sex they do not want—forced by their believe that that is the wife’s biblical role—can find relief in two solid weeks of freedom from those demands.

This is sick.

Navigating the Justice System, Part One: Alone at 9 Years Old

July 23, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Sarah Henderson’s blog Feminist in Spite of Them. It was originally published on her blog on January 18, 2014.

Trigger warning: discussion of child maltreatment and its consequences.

If this is the first Feminist in Spite of Them post you have read, please consider reading this either before or after.

When I was about 9, my parents were investigated by Children’s Aid. Social workers came out to talk to us. They met with us and found out that my parents spanked as punishment — which made sense since my parents had posted “The 21 Rules of This House” next to the dining room table. They came back a few times and spoke to each of us children. My parents homeschooled and they questioned whether we were getting an adequate education and whether abuse would be identified easily enough without regular contact with other people. One day they came with police cars and two police men and took most of us to the police station and interviewed us on video. My parents left the youngest with friends and came to the police station too but we didn’t see them all day.

I don’t know what my siblings said in their interviews, but I had always been taught to be very honest so I answered all their questions honestly, which was hard because I had also been carefully taught to not divulge family business to strangers. The information I gave outlined clearly that we were spanked, when we disobeyed or showed a bad attitude, with an object that was somewhat anthropomorphised in our home: “the rod”. My parents also practiced time-outs like shutting children outside in the evening for several hours for not eating all their dinner. I trusted that my parents were acting appropriately, since that is what they told me when they did it, so I presented it as fair and reasonable, and did not see a reason to hide anything. They told me what abuse was and asked if I was abused. I responded that technically we were because of the punishment methods but it was not abuse because it was Biblical. We were sent home with our parents. They asked my parents to promise to not spank and they were very resistant.

A while later, we went to court. I went to court three separate times. As far as I can remember, I went to family court one day, and then later on I testified two days at a higher or different level of court across the hall.

I don’t really understand the reasoning that led to this situation, but I was interrogated in court by the prosecutor in family court as a reluctant witness to my own parents’ abuse. I testified that I loved my parents and I wanted to be spanked when I disobeyed. I wasn’t quite sure about that but that was what my parents and their lawyer and all their friends told me to say. Please note that I was sent home with my parents after court and although I spent a few days away from my parents they were able to choose were I went, and they chose a family friend who reinforced my parents’ beliefs. At least two of my brothers may have also testified in that court. I believe that my parents and their lawyer offered us up to testify, but I am not sure. Part of the reason I believe that I was there by the choice of my parents is because we did not receive any kind of victim witness counselling or preparation, and I don’t think that my parents could have declined on my behalf if I was there as a victim of their actions. They should have not been allowed to decline in any case.

I may as well have been alone the whole time. My parents were absorbed in their case, their lawyer treated me as a pawn, and anyone else involved were concerned that my parents might be punished for their actions. I am unclear on the outcome of that case, but my mother tells me that the judge threw that case out but that children’s services tried again from a different angle and that was why there was another prosecutor and case across the hall.

In that court, I was more reluctant to answer questions, things had changed for the worse at home since the first court and I was far more unhappy. We weren’t being schooled anymore, there was another new baby on the way, and there was more yelling and beating instead of rational spankings. I was not happy at home anymore. My father was sitting only a few feet in front of where I sat in the stand, and frowned every time I spoke. I had gotten in trouble for some things I had said in the first court, and my parents were so incensed by what two of my brothers said in the first court that they somehow made sure they did not testify again. My answers were inconsistent so the judge decided to bring out the taped interview taken at the police station that I mentioned earlier.

I was very afraid of what would happen if my father saw that video I had made at the police station outlining his punishment methods, and I knew I had to go home with him.

I protested persistently, begging the judge to not play the video, but I couldn’t tell him why, with my dad sitting a few feet away. I was removed from the courtroom by the bailiff. He was this hugely intimidating man and I was really afraid of him, but he was actually really nice and expressed his outrage about the whole thing, even though I didn’t understand what he meant at the time. He took me to a small room with my mom and a friend of hers.

The judge showed the video to the courtroom, and the bailiff brought me back when it was done. The judge asked me what my story was, if I wanted to stick to my very inconsistent story of a loving family, or if I stood by the police interview that outlined what legally qualified as abuse, depending on interpretation. I didn’t know what to do and I was very traumatized by the experience, to the point that I cannot remember how it ended and I got out of there. I am not sure if the judge decided to discount my testimony or if he took the whole scene as evidence of abuse.

The truth is, I was abused. I was told what to think and how to think it. I was a somewhat compliant child, but I witnessed my other siblings rebel with terrible consequences. I was afraid of what was going to happen all the time, and it felt like I couldn’t breathe sometimes.

Being put into a situation where I had to defend the actions of my own parents created a claustrophobic conflict for me.

Even before court, I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t treated well. I had to give up my own wishes all the time even when it wasn’t reasonable, I had to help take care of younger children, I had to bargain for my own education as a child under ten. Periodically my parents’ beliefs completely changed and most of my possessions would be disposed of because they didn’t comply with the new beliefs. I walked around with suicide notes in my pocket. We had to ride around in a big van with no windows and couldn’t see out, so I always thought we were going to die, and I was ok with that at 9 years old. Life was too hard and too long, and there was nothing good.

After court was over and my parents packed us out and secretly moved us to another province, everything got much worse. By moving away from the child protection case they moved away from all consequences and started over again in a more conservative church and a more isolated property. I blamed myself for not somehow making sure we got sent to foster care during the court episode, and I spent my pre-adolescent years as a self-harming desperate little adult in a child’s body.

For more reading on my parents’ beliefs, please click here.

There is an outrageous lack of support for children who are put in the position of navigating the justice system, and there is not a great deal of information on the consequences for the children. If you would like to add to the conversation in any way I welcome your comments.

Part Two >

I Was You Once

July 22, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team6 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Darcy’s blog Darcy’s Heart-Stirrings. It was originally published on August 17, 2011.

You…the girl with the waist-length hair, long denim skirt, and downcast eyes. Trying on old clothes in a thrift store because new clothes are too “worldly” and “immodest”.

I was you once.

You…beautiful girl, hiding behind your walls; walls built to keep the evil world and influences out. Baggy, ugly clothes to hide your shape. Ashamed of the looks cast your way. I was you once.

You…standing there as your mom tells you that this dress or that skirt is unacceptable because it shows your budding womanly form which must be hidden at all costs because of it’s danger. Blushing at the critique of your body, casting longing, furtive glances at the other girls your age in the next dressing room having the time of their lives trying on cute, stylish clothing. Wishing you could be them, just for a little while, just to know what it’s like to feel normal. I was you once.

You…feeling like a freak show everywhere you go. Being ashamed of your feelings because you’re supposed to be a freak show…a “pecular people”. Different from “The World”. More pleasing to God then the rest of them. Not foolish like those girls in the next dressing room. I was you once.

You…telling yourself that the way you dress is more godly, more pure, that you’re better than other girls who dress like the world. Trying to convince yourself that you know better than they and God loves you more for dressing unattractively. Trying to stuff the pain that comes from being ashamed of your beauty and the evil it causes the poor men around you. Trying to tell yourself that this is your lot in life. Trying not to look longingly at the pretty things that you can never wear. Trying not to wonder what it would be like to feel cute for a change. Using pride as a wall to protect your hurting heart. And feeling guilty for it all. I was you once.

You…ashamed of your beauty, afraid of your shapliness, afraid of loosing your purity and taking some man’s purity because you didn’t dress modestly enough to keep him from noticing you. I was you once.

You…crying to God “why didn’t you make me a man?!” because you hate being a woman and having to hide and look ridiculous. Longing for the freedom to dress without wondering if a guy is going to lust after you and if it’ll be your fault or not. I was you once.

Anger, fear, shame, guilt, pride, helplessness, hopelessness, insecurity, and confusion, all hidden behind a shapless, ugly jumper and a heart shut off to keep from hurting. I know. I felt it once too.

You…do you know that you’re beautiful and that God made you that way?

Has anyone told you that being a woman is a wonderful thing, not something to be hidden or ashamed of?

Do you know that God loves you for who you are, not for what you wear? Do you know that’s it’s OK to be pleased with being beautiful? That’s it’s OK to want to be attractive and desirable? Do you know that you are not responsible for the purity of the male race? That is a burden far too heavy for any woman to bear. I long to take your hand and tell you these things. But I am just a stranger in a thrift store.

You…I look into your eyes for the brief moment they meet mine, and I see so much pain. I hurt with you, the little girl inside that wants to be beautiful, noticed, and desired. The little girl that’s been told all these things are evil and your heart is wicked for wanting them. The woman that feels ugly and thinks God wants it that way. And my heart breaks all over again.

You…God hears the cries of your heart. He wants to tell you you’re beautiful, that He made you that way, that He’s so very fond of you. That bondage to men’s rules was never His idea. That nothing you wear or don’t wear can make Him love you more or love you less. That, even if you are stuck in that bondage not of your own making for a time, your heart can be free from the lies that put you there.

Beautiful you. I was you once. Sometimes I still am. Because broken hearts can be hidden by both ugly and pretty clothes. And lies once embraced can be hard to let go of. So for just one moment in time, that moment you allow your heart to show through your eyes as you gaze at me, the stranger in the thrift store, let my smile tell you that you’re beautiful. And that I understand.

I pray you get a glimpe of God’s grace and His love for you in the eyes of a broken-hearted stranger.

How Purity Culture Kept Me Silent About My Sexual Abuse as a Child: Dinah’s Story

July 21, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team10 Comments

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

Trigger warning: discussion of child sexual abuse.

I’m going to be honest—growing up in the Christian homeschooling world is hard.

People in the community that I grew up in were picture perfect families, with all their perfect children all in a perfect row, making perfect grades, milling their own wheat and making their own bread. They were highly esteemed Christians who (of course) have a home church and serve their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. These people sound like they’d be lovely to be around, however, that was not the vibe I got at all. There is a heavy feeling that comes with being around those families—judgment:

You don’t mill your own wheat? Shame on you! Don’t you know store bought bread has chemicals? You don’t pastor your own church? Shame on you! Don’t you know about all the horrible mistakes large churches make? You don’t use the same curriculum as me? Shame on you! Don’t you know that you’re going to be dumb?

Every homeschooler I talk to tends to make me feel self conscious and guilty for not being the same as them. But there’s one thing that I can not stand. You don’t have a purity ring? Shame on you! Don’t you know that you are dirty if you even think of having sex or kissing before your wedding day?!

You. Are. Dirty.

This is the message I got every single time I listened to anyone who spoke on purity. That’s what I was being told every time I went to a “purity seminar” or read a book on purity. People were going around telling girls that “God doesn’t want you having sex before you’re married. It’s a horrible sin, and if you do it, you won’t be pure anymore. You won’t have a gift to give your husband on your wedding. You’ll be used goods.”

I didn’t want people to think I was dirty—so that’s why I didn’t speak about my sexual abuse for 7 years after it stopped.

I didn’t tell anyone. I put on a façade. I am a quick learner, and always have been. I learned all the answers. I knew all the Christian responses to many situations, I knew what purity was and what was required of girls who wore a purity ring. So that’s what I fed anyone who wanted to talk. I put on this mask. I pretended that I had never had a sexual encounter, that I was oblivious to sexual desires, that I would never kiss a boy until my wedding day. Every time I lied, or just fed people answers, I was digging a deeper, and deeper hole for myself. That hole is what became a dark depression.

Every girl struggles during puberty. It’s exciting, but often times it’s hard to accept your new curves and all the changes that are taking place. You notice that boys look at you differently. You hear about purity, and how you should dress modestly so that men and boys don’t think about you in a sexual way. That’s what made puberty a living hell for me—a living hell that I could tell no one about.

“You must dress modestly so boys don’t think sexual things about you” translated to “Your new body is going to attract more men and boys, and if you mess up or dress wrong they’re just waiting to rape you.” There’s no way in hell that I wanted to attract anyone. I didn’t want these curves. I didn’t want to look like a woman. I didn’t want to enter this world of boys and sex and marriage because of what I had experienced for 5 years. When I was 4 years old a family member molested me and sexually abused me– forcing me to do things, and forcing himself on me. This went on until I was 9 years old.

By the time the abuse had ended, I knew much more than any 9 year old should know about sex. I knew so much, but I also knew that if I told anyone, I’d be in a lot of trouble. My abuser made me believe that what he was doing was okay, but if I told anyone he would hurt me. Because I was only 4, he was able to scare me so badly that I didn’t realize that what he was doing was wrong. I listened to him and kept quiet.

Well, when puberty hit me when I was 11, I was introduced to the concept of purity. This scared me because I knew that I had already had sex, and already kissed, and already did everything that I was being told not to do. That’s when the depression set in. I was so depressed that I became suicidal, started cutting and started struggling with an eating disorder. I didn’t want to be attractive. I didn’t want attention from boys. I was afraid that my abuse was going to happen all over again. I didn’t want anyone to find out about my abuse. I just wanted to get away from this guilt and shame. This feeling that I was used goods, and that I’d never find a man who will love me. I wanted to die because that was the only way to escape the pain.

Never ever make purity such a priority that it makes a girl want to commit suicide.

Looking back, I know that if someone had said that sex is a wonderful thing that is supposed to be enjoyed, I would have told someone about my sexual abuse a lot sooner. If I knew that sex was good, I would have known that what was happening to me was wrong. It was not good, it was not enjoyable. Because people were telling me that sex wasn’t good, that I would be dirty if I had sex, I didn’t tell anyone because I was full of shame. I didn’t want to be the girl with a scarlet letter. I didn’t want to be dirty. So I didn’t tell.

I’m still coming to terms with my abuse. I still struggle. But I no longer hold myself to the standard of purity. I’m not going to wear a purity ring, because that doesn’t mean anything to me. I am going to obey my heavenly Father and I’m going to honor Him with my body. That’s really all that matters.

I want people in Christian homeschool circles to talk about sex in a positive way. I want parents telling their kids that sex is amazing and enjoyable, but it also comes with a lot of responsibility. I want people to stop shaming girl’s bodies, or boy’s sexual desires. I want people to be careful about what they talk about when they talk about purity. Talk about sex in a way that is positive, because if someone is being abused they’ll know that something is wrong with what is being done to them! Never ever tell someone that they’re dirty. Never encourage the shame that is already abundant.

I’m not “pure” by society’s standards, but I’m pure by God’s standards. That’s all that matters.

Why I Don’t Trust the Homeschool Community to Self-Police

July 18, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team6 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 8, 2013.

When I was a young teen I made some new friends, a couple of homeschooled girls like me, both right around my own age. They were the oldest in a large homeschooling family that in some ways was very much like mine own. In other ways, though, their family was very different.

As far as I could see, unlike my mother their mother never lesson planned, never sat down with her children to work on multiplication tables, and never pulled out the science supplies and a biology book. Their mother was very involved and active in an all-consuming interest of her own, and the children were pretty much left to their own devices. The children had interests, but they never really had the tools they needed to carry those interests out, and they certainly never had the basic education in a range of subjects like math, English, and science that we so often take for granted. And while I won’t get into specifics, the repercussions of missed opportunities have followed my friends and their younger siblings into adulthood.

What’s most baffling is that no one said anything.

To my knowledge, the other homeschool parents (including my own) not only didn’t report this family or intervene and try to help, they never even said that what was going on was wrong. It’s true that someone might have said something that I didn’t hear, but I was pretty up on the homeschool community gossip (homeschool moms do talk, or at least they did in my community), and I knew well who was disapproved of for having the wrong religious doctrine or being too submissive or not submissive enough. I’m pretty sure I would have heard something.

Anyway, this is why, when homeschool parents inveigh against outside oversight and say that the homeschool community provides its own sort of internal accountability and self-policing, I want to bang my head into a wall. It doesn’t work. The culture of the homeschool community in which I grew up was such that I’m really having a hard time imagining anyone ever reporting anyone, or even simply calling them out for what they are doing.

Why is this? There is a range of factors.

There is the idea that family always knows whats best and that the family unit should be sovereign. If a family decides not to educate their kids, then, that’s their business. Inviting the government into a family’s affairs, or even questioning how they run their family, is a violation of that family’s autonomy.

There is the idea that even going completely uneducated is better than being sent to “government” schools. We saw this in HSLDA’s response to Josh Powell’s story, a story that in many ways mirrors that of the family I knew growing up—except that unlike my childhood friends, Josh ultimately fought his way into getting an education.

There is the idea that failure to educate is simply “unschooling,” and therefore a perfectly legitimate way of homeschooling. John Holt would probably be horrified to know that his ideas are today being used by some to justify robbing children of an education. But then, maybe he would have agreed with HSLDA and argued that even no education at all is better than “government” schools.

There is the idea that the importance of education is overrated.—that it is life experience, family living, and the passing on of religious values that matters. It doesn’t matter whether a child knows algebra or can write an essay, the argument goes. If they love Jesus and have a heart dedicated to serving others, that’s enough.

There is this idea that government involvement in anything ever is always a bad thing. The highest value is the individual freedom of every adult citizen. To get the government involved would put people under the thumb of bureaucrats intent on telling people what to do and result in corruption, child-snatching, and worse.

I don’t trust the homeschool community to police itself—I just don’t.

It’s worth noting that some of the ideas listed above aren’t isolated to the Christian homeschool community—they’re more endemic than that. In other words, it’s not like this problem can be solved by telling the homeschool community to self-police better—they don’t self-police because they can’t self-police given the nature of their beliefs. As long as these ideas remain knit through the homeschool community, I will be an advocate for outside oversight. To be less would be a betrayal.

Because here’s the thing—my friends’ mother wasn’t a bad person. She just needed to actually be required to educate her children and to be held accountable for doing so (this isn’t the first time I’ve written about this need for accountability). If she’d lived in a state with required subjects and periodic assessments to verify that instruction and learning were taking place, things would almost certainly have been different. She would have pulled things together, and while the education she provided her children might not have been perfect, it would have been something.

….to live without illusion: An Original Composition by Gabrielle Cerberville

July 17, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team4 Comments

Image from https://www.facebook.com/gabriellecerbervillecomposer

HA note: Gabrielle Cerberville wrote the following composition for HA, “inspired by all our collective experiences of coming out from under the veil of illusion that homeschooling so often can create.” The Ligeia String Quartet graciously agreed to record it.

About Gabrielle: Gabrielle Cerberville (b. 1991) is an American composer, artist, and musician from Pennsylvania and New York. She holds a Bachelor of Music from Butler University in composition, and has studied with Dr. Frank Felice and Dr. Michael Schelle. Gabrielle is inspired by the sensual nature of the world around her, and seeks to create art that is both practical and innovative, with an edge of wit and natural sarcasm. Many of her works comment on absurdity, complexity, and the poignancy of nature and culture, as well as delving into the deeper questions of life, the universe, and everything. Gabrielle currently lives and works in Indianapolis with her husband Jordan and their two cats, Zaphod and Bartók.

Program notes by Gabrielle: I wrote this piece after obsessing over HA blog posts for months. Hearing so many people saying the same thing inspired me: We once were blind, and now we see. We don’t all see the same thing, but at least now we’re looking out of our own eyes.

In which my genitals mean I don’t learn math or science

July 14, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team6 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Kierstyn King’s blog Bridging the Gap. It was originally published on February 9, 2014.

Alright, you have my attention. Anyone who can wield a soldering iron like that is worth some attention. […]

– youtube commenter (comment since removed by author – creepy part, also removed…by me)

I was denied physics because I was born female. I had been taught all my life leading up to that point that girls don’t use power tools, that girls don’t build, that girls can’t understand higher math, that girls can’t hammer straight, that girls can’t and don’t understand science or engineering, and that all of those things are for boys.

So when we moved and joined science olympiad and I was partnered with people who needed partners, and one of them was a dude and our project was to make an egg-car thing and get the egg to go so far and hit a tiny wall without breaking, I was unable to assert myself. I was told to sit on the sidelines because this was boy stuff, all the boys – my dad, brother, grandpa, and my partner, took over the project while I was a mere bystander.

Anytime I did try to help, I was laughed at and ridiculed because I couldn’t hammer a nail straight – because I was never allowed to build – my entire life, I was never allowed to build – I could hammer a nail into a wall to hang something, but not into two pieces of wood, that was boy stuff. They took my inability as an excuse to continue to take over the project and leave me out of it.

My job, in my science project was to put the rubber bands on the plexiglass wheels that the boys decided were best, and load the weights into the pulley that held the car-holder door shut and released the car/opened the door when it dropped (because weight). The only enjoyment I had was to call them tiny footballs because they were fishing weights and looked like footballs and everyone ridiculed me for that. I was so devastated about the entire project that I was just like, THIS IS THE ONE JOY I HAVE OKAY, LET ME CALL THEM THAT.

It was horrible. The entire time no one bothered to give me anything but cursory detail about what they were doing or how it worked. No one bothered to teach me physics, because I was a girl and wouldn’t need to know anyway, I was just there so my partner could enter. No one taught me the math or told me about the calculations or why they decided on plexiglass wheels and a twist system besides “this would work best because you (not me, my partner) can calculate how many turns you need for the distance”.

My entire life I have been afraid of power tools and under the impression that I would never be able to use them effectively because of my genitalia (like a vagina is power tool kryptonite). I was convinced that somehow something world ending would happen were I to try – or maybe not world ending, but it at least would break and not work. I was never allowed to touch anything, only told to stay away, barely allowed to watch, never taught.

I am angry that because I was born in this body I was not allowed to learn how to build, to learn about physics, but instead I was only told I was bad at it and ridiculed every time I made the slightest attempt to understand.

I would never need to know these things to be a wife and mother, so why bother wasting the energy, right?

Sexism and gender roles ruined my math and science education – they denied me either, and instead lied to me, tying my mental ability to my genitalia, and my life’s purpose to bodily functions.

This is why building ikea furniture, and houses in minecraft, and learning how to solder, and making little electronics work is so huge to me.

This is me standing up against my parents – who were my teachers – and learning SCIENCE because I CAN, because it is WORTH LEARNING, because I am SMART and I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED SCIENCE and was never allowed to try, never given the math skills or the time of day to learn it because I was told my entire life it was pointless for ME to learn it. I was relegated to the sidelines when I was supposed to be being educated, but I’m not anymore.

I am building things and I am soldering and I am damn good at it.

I hate it when I’m made out to be magical because I both have boobs and enough dexterity to solder. It’s not magic, I am not a unicorn, and thinking that it’s somehow remarkable for a person with female genitalia to hold a soldering iron is sexist. It’s the same kind of sexism that kept me from learning math and science in high school, and it is not okay.

Go ahead and be impressed that I can do things, but be impressed because I’m fighting against my past, because I’m carving my way out of the cage my parents tried to place me in, not because I have boobs and dexterity.

Fuck the Patriarchy.

Friendship and Parenthood

July 11, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial TeamLeave a comment

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Latebloomer’s blog Past Tense Present Progressive. It was originally published on June 27, 2014.

Many people find the beginning of parenthood marks the sudden decline of their friendships.

Babies are constantly needy and deprive you of sleep, energy, and coherence. Toddlers, when awake, need constant monitoring; and even their sleep must be prioritized in your schedule. Preschoolers are fast and fearless and can disappear in an instant because of a whim. And for all of them, their constant stream of needs and your constant stream of worries, day and night, can completely shut down your ability to think of any other topic.

But somehow, although all of those things are true about my two kids, that does not describe my experience. And I’m forever grateful for that, because increasing my already unbearable feelings of isolation just might have killed me.

Somehow, in the haze of new parenthood, I actually connected to a group of other new moms. Maybe it was because they were in a similar haze, and we were all in the trenches together. Crying, worrying, laughing, celebrating together. Just what I had always wanted, for my whole life, but never experienced even once.

And it didn’t stop there. I also began to feel closer to a few other friends that I had always wanted to connect with more. And I began to meet even more people, around the neighborhood, in kid classes, through friends, through preschool. Was it my newly increasing confidence and happiness? Was it the oxytocin boost of motherhood that made me better able to connect?

Whatever it was, I wish that myself as a child could have known that a good future was coming, so that the dark nights didn’t seem quite as cold. However, the coldness of the past makes me value even more the warmth of friendship now. The empty silence of the past, the years of absolutely no conversations with anyone, make me value so much even the broken snippets of conversations that moms have while also monitoring active young children. The lack of attention and lack of empathy from my parents means that I don’t take the attention and empathy of my friends for granted today.

Thank you friends, if you are reading this, for being you and letting me be me.

I wish it weren’t true, but unfortunately my past does still sometimes reach all the way here to my good life today. Sometimes I still struggle with depression. Sometimes another person’s choices or mistakes hit me in an area where I am vulnerable, leaving me shaken and crippled with emotion. Sometimes, when my mind is stretched between sleep deprivation and two active kids, I find I have no bandwidth left to function socially, and then I resent the deficit I have to work with, and the fact that basic social skills and conversational skills that come naturally to many others require so much extra attention for me.

But now I can better fight my way out of those dark moments. Instead of trying to “be better” so I’m not a disappointment to God, now I have the positive motivation of wanting to connect with my husband, connect with my kids, and connect with my friends. Because, now that I know what it feels like to connect with others in a healthy and non-codependent way, there is no way I’m ever letting go of that.