homeschool

Living with a Schedule: Karen Poole’s Story

HA Editorial TeamLeave a comment

Stepping onto a college campus for the first time was not a big deal for me. I was ready to leave home. Tired of the monotony, drudgery of my daily life at home, I was excited to move on to bigger and better things.

Thankfully, my parents had never encouraged me to believe the typical mantras that many of our homeschooling friends encouraged, that 1) I shouldn’t go to college and have a career, or 2) women can go to college, but their main priority should be to find a husband.

I wasn’t fazed by the dorm life. I had grown up with 8 younger siblings, after all. Crazy and hectic was the norm. I wasn’t even concerned about the fact that I had 5 roommates in a small room my freshman year. We all shared growing up. That was normal life for me.

The atmosphere of the college wasn’t an issue. My parents both happened to be alumni, so I was familiar with the campus and the overall feel of the small Christian liberal arts college. I wasn’t even really concerned about not knowing a soul. I wasn’t overt or outgoing, but I was comfortable meeting new people and developing new friendships. Our close relationship with many of our “secular” neighbor friends growing up had provided a good background for that.

The classes weren’t really that big of a deal. I actually found them to be much easier than most of my peers, and didn’t have to work extremely hard to do fairly well. I graduated with a 3.64 GPA. None of these factors bothered me that much. NO, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the schedule. As an education major with a music minor, I had about 160 credits to cram into the shortest time possible. My family didn’t have very much money, and I didn’t have access to a job that would allow me to take the sometimes 6 years that many people allow themselves to graduate with an education major. This meant that I was constantly tired, always on the run, had many credits each semester plus the music electives and performing groups to fulfill my requirements for my minor. It was insane.

I went from the doldrums and lazy days of being homeschooled, where I could set my own schedule as long as I completed my assignments in a timely manner, to sometimes 8-10 hours of classes per day. Don’t get me wrong, college is exhausting for everyone. However, not having a structured routine or going through the high school experience, I did not have a clue as to what I was getting myself into schedule-wise. I ended up sleeping through classes and feeling guilty about it, going back to my dorm if I had more than a 45 minute creak to take a 20 minute nap, falling asleep in the library, etc., etc.

The routine was so different than my entire school experience, that it was almost mental overload. I wasn’t an organized person, and certainly wasn’t used to having to micro-manage my time to accomplish everything that needed to be done. However, I soldiered through. I didn’t quit. I drank 64 oz. sodas to keep me awake to finish projects and papers. I persevered.

And although I think my homeschool background failed to prepare me for that aspect of college, another trait got me through – flexibility.

Because, even though the overall experience could have knocked me out and I could have run away with my tail between my legs sobbing because I just couldn’t do it anymore, homeschooling taught me that it’s ok to be flexible. It’s normal for things not to go exactly the way that you planned them. Constant changes in plans – Dad has business colleagues over today so we have to clean the house instead of doing school this morning, or it just snowed 6 inches and we need to go shovel our elderly neighbor’s driveway – taught me that my life will never be just the way I want it, and that I need to adjust to what it is, make the best of it, and keep on going.

Awkward But Determined: Darcy’s Story

HA Editorial Team8 Comments

 

At my homeschool graduation ceremony, I received around a thousand dollars in gifts from friends and family. I decided right then and there that I would spend it on the first month of classes at the community college in the city. I didn’t have a plan, I only knew I had to do something, had to get out of our house, had to fill my time while my boyfriend and I tried to talk my parents into letting us court and marry. (You can read that story here.) I had an idea that I would take all music classes so I could be better educated to teach my piano students. I didn’t know anything about how to fulfill certain credits, or what credits were, how to get a degree, how to plan your college years.

I was completely ignorant about how it worked. But that didn’t stop me. I’ve always been stubborn like that. 

I walked onto campus the first day of school and sat down with an advisor. He was a little baffled about what my plan was and why I’d waited until the first day, but said it wasn’t too late. I handed him my GED and SAT scores (I had taken the COMPASS test just for kicks a few months before). He determined I wanted to be a music major (I didn’t know what that meant but I figured he knew what he was talking about), and signed me up for Theory 101 and several other classes, including some general education classes and an art class that fit an elective credit. I was euphoric. I was going to college!

The next day, I drove the 1 hour drive from our home in the mountains to the college campus in town. I was nervous as hell. A real classroom?! But I put on my confidence face and walked into my first class, an art class. I was amazed at the diversity of people there, and a little scared of them, but determined to be friendly and make friends. I still remember that I was wearing a very long, full blue skirt with a large, collared button-up blouse that was 3 sizes too big. With my long hair in braids, bangs curled to perfection, I was the perfect model of a stereotypical homeschooled girl. And everyone knew it but me.

The teacher was not excited to have a new student that started a day late, and had no supplies. I didn’t know I needed supplies. She gave me a list and I was appalled to find out how much they would cost. But I had a couple hundred left over from paying tuition so I knew I’d be OK. Until I discovered with each class that I’d need textbooks and that textbooks are outrageously expensive. I will never forget standing in the campus bookstore, totally lost, and handing my list to a helpful volunteer who found everything for me. Between the books and my art supplies, my leftover cash was wiped out. I knew my parents could never afford to pay for me, I didn’t know what financial aid was, and I would never be allowed to get a real job to pay for myself. But I was determined to have one great semester and not think too far ahead, just figure it out as I went.

There are so many stories I could tell about those two years.

I could fill pages with memories, some funny, some cringe-worthy, all that point to a spirited young woman who had determination and resilience, but who was thoroughly unprepared to be an adult.

Who didn’t even know what she didn’t know. Who gradually went from a skirted conservative homeschooler full of trepidation and fear of the world, to a person in her own right.

I could tell about how when my art teacher asked what our favorite artists were, everyone said various contemporary artists whom I had never heard of. I blurted out “Thomas Kinkaid”, much to the amusement of several students and the outright disdain of the teacher. Apparently Kinkaid was not considered a real artist in real art circles.

Or the time I finally found out what “gay” and “homosexual” meant after someone told me one of my friends at school was gay and I had to look that up in the dictionary. At 19 years old. I was fascinated and figured he was a cool person so it didn’t matter. He didn’t seem like more of an evil sinner than any other evil sinner. He was an educational friend to have for a girl who had never heard the word “penis” before and had no sex-education. He treated me with friendliness and thought my ignorance was hilarious and endearing.

Then there was the time I explained to one of my instructors that I couldn’t get the scholarship he was offering because I didn’t have a social security number. His reaction told me that this was so far from normal and it was the first time ever that I questioned the weirdness of not having identity. I credit him with helping me go through the grueling process to finally get one.

I cringe at all the times I was asked out on a date but didn’t really know what was happening.

Then there was that logic class that pretty much was the beginning of the end for many of my Fundy homeschool beliefs. Now I know why they say college and education corrupt good Christian kids. Because the majority of everything I learned from the likes of Bill Gothard and Joshua Harris and Ken Ham and our Abeka history books didn’t stand a chance against critical thinking and logic.

Explaining why I had a secret boyfriend but didn’t go on dates was another awkward memory I’d rather forget. Also explaining why he was secret and why I was so worried about my parents when I was an adult, not a child.

I cringe thinking about the clothes I wore that were ill-fitting and “modest” and frumpy. When friends took me shopping and I tried on real clothes that fit me right, I realized I was attractive and an adult and maybe I didn’t have to dress like my parents wanted me to all the time. I bought shorter, more fitted skirts and tall boots and tights and tops that were cute and fit me well. I even bought my first pair of jeans and sometimes changed into them in the car before going in to school because I didn’t want to deal with my parents freaking out over my clothing. I wanted so badly to have some freedom and independence but was still so afraid of what my parents would say, even to the point that I was worried someone who knew them would see me and tell them I was dressing immodestly at school. Eventually I got over that, with much fighting and “rebelling” and standing up for myself. You don’t get over having “obey your parents” drilled into you from birth overnight.

I ended up getting a job as a live-in nanny for the remainder of the two years I was in community college. I moved out of my parent’s home under much protest from them, but determined to find my own way and finish school. Caring for kids was something I knew and did well, and we were happy, my charges, their mom, and I. I paid my way through the next two years of school by nannying. I started buying my own clothing and got a stylish haircut at a salon, and realized I needed car insurance. My employer gave me a cell phone and I was able to talk to my boyfriend whenever I wanted to, which was heavenly.

In those two years, I grew up a little bit. I grew a backbone. I discovered the world was so much bigger and better than I’d ever imagined. 

As my relationship with my parents got worse, I became more confident in who I was and what I wanted in life. It would be another decade before I really broke free from all the crap that was my past, but those two years were a good start.

I look back, and I cringe. About everything. I was so unprepared for the world, for being an adult. I had to figure it all out by myself and it was overwhelming. I understand now the funny looks I would get from my instructors and friends. I knew nothing about financial management, banks, insurance, medical services, dating, sex, rent, bills, taxes or anything else that suddenly I was responsible for. I made a lot of mistakes and didn’t know it til years later. My parents were neither supportive nor a hindrance. I think they thought this was just something I got in my head to do and they didn’t really care. They gave me gas money to get to school until I moved out. They wouldn’t sign the FAFSA so I couldn’t get financial aid once I figured out what that was. They didn’t like me “out from under the umbrella” of their authority where they couldn’t see what I was doing and who I was with. I never really talked about my life in the city with them. I hid much of my self and my new, blossoming thoughts and changing beliefs We fought a lot when I went home on weekends. Our relationship continued to get worse until I got married the end of my 2nd year in school.

They had no idea how to prepare a child to be a functioning adult outside their homeschool bubble, and no idea how to have a relationship with an adult child.

I had no idea that I could be an adult, or what that meant, that I had a right to make my own decisions and plan my own life. It was a gradual dawning and a painful process.

Due to a number of reasons, not the least of which was my ignorance on how degrees worked, I ended those 2 years with 70 credits and no degree. I got married, started having babies, and my husband and I went through a lot in the first 10 years of our marriage. I am now 31 years old, and at 29 with four small children, I made the decision to go back to school. I’ve been taking classes online to finish my BA and have plans to go on to grad school when my youngest starts Kindergarten. I’m now a senior at a state university. I know the ropes this time. I’m doing well. Still pulling great grades and enjoying the learning experience.  I’m planning a career and that makes me happy and gives me hope for the future. I wish I had known more and finished my Bachelor’s before having children, before life got more complicated, but here I am. Hind-sight can’t help me now. There is only the future and it’s a bright one.

My kids like to say fondly that I’m not a real grown-up because I’m still in school. They have no idea the irony of that. Someday, maybe I’ll tell them.

Doug Wilson Continues to Twist the Truth About Child Molester Jamin C. Wight

HA Editorial Team17 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Natalie Rose Greenfield’s blog My Naptime Journal. It was originally published on October 1, 2015.

For background information about Doug Wilson, Jamin C. Wight, and Natalie Rose Greenfield, see The Jamin C. Wight Story: The Other Child Molester in Doug Wilson’s Closet.

Once again the spotlight is being taken from the only place it has ever belonged.

Once again accusations against my parents for allowing a ‘secret courtship’ to occur between my 14 year-old self and my abuser have been plastered all over the Internet. Comments about my physical appearance as a young teen are being used to redefine the nature of the criminal activity. A severe and dangerous contorting of my story by people who were not there is taking place and while this means a very uncomfortable re-shaming for myself and my family, the deeper concern is what it means for future victims. The marginalization of a serious and devastating crime does not bode well at all for others who will suffer abuse in the future.

The church’s lack of acknowledgment of mishandling the situation and causing further devastation to myself and my family and to the individuals my abuser would go on to hurt is disheartening and deplorable. It is tarnishing not only Pastor Wilson’s reputation but the reputation of every pastor in the CREC denomination and every last member of those churches, for that matter. Another such pastor reached out to me earlier this morning, one removed from this particular situation, and he expressed his severe disappointment in how I and my family were treated and are continuing to be treated. He wanted me to know not everyone in the CREC feels this way and that there is serious questioning happening from within.

I have heard from myriads of others, some within the denomination and some not, who are appalled at the way sexual abuse within the church is handled. Personally, I have experienced a wide range of emotions concerning all of this but the overwhelming emotion recently has been sadness – sadness that a pastor’s gross misunderstanding of abuse, consent, and criminal behavior has resulted in such harm and shaming and will inevitably result in harm to others who are abused. I am sad that he cannot humbly admit wrongdoing and begin to rebuild a system which is broken, a system which perpetuates abuse and marginalizes victims, which in turn creates a ripple effect of devastation and pain.

Doug was not in my home when my parents discussed allowing Jamin to court me.

Doug was not in the room when they spoke about whether or not we should be allowed to hold hands. I imagine he may have something in writing from them, perhaps asking advice or seeking guidance on the situation and this may shed light on the foolishness and naivety of some of my parent’s choices. The fact that my parents trusted a dangerous and conniving criminal to respect the boundaries they had set is no secret and yes, it’s embarrassing. They have sought my forgiveness heartily over the years and I have unconditionally given it. But I would like to also point at that neither was Doug in the room when my father said, No. I am not comfortable with this. There will be no courtship. There will be no hand-holding. Do not touch my daughter and do not foster a relationship with her. Doug was not with my father as time dragged on and he began to become suspicious of Jamin. He was not in the hallway with my father where he sat on a chair in the middle of the night watching my bedroom door to make sure I was safe and protected. If only he had known my father’s heart, and yet he is quick to place blame on two parents who were deceived and manipulated by a calculated criminal.

The fact that my parents were deceived does not change the nature of Jamin’s crime.

The fact that my parents had moments of naivety does not merit letters from a pastor requesting leniency for a man who the prosecuting attorney called ‘a textbook pedophile’ and place a massive amount of blame on a father already broken by the news of his daughter’s abuse. The fact that I was beautiful and stood taller than my abuser does not lessen or change the sickening nature of what he did to me. The fact that I was infatuated with him and lived to please him does not mean that I was asking for it. Nobody asked for it.

In a response published on the widely viewed Christian publication, The American Conservative, earlier today, Doug calls what happened ‘sexual behavior’. A conveniently softened term for the abuse that took place.

Doug says about he and the elders, “we wanted him (Jamin) to pay the penalty for that criminal behavior, which was a species of statutory rape.” What Jamin did was severe far beyond statutory rape, though it did include that. Jamin targeted, groomed, and molested me for several years while manipulating and deceiving every other person around him in order to cover his crime. Jamin is a sexual predator in every sense of the word.

Doug writes “The reason we did not want it (the crime) treated as pedophilia is that her parents had bizarrely brought Jamin into the house as a boarder so that he could conduct a secret courtship with Natalie. So Jamin was in a romantic relationship with a young girl, her parents knew of the relationship and encouraged it, her parents permitted a certain measure of physical affection to exist between them (e.g. hand-holding), Natalie was a beautiful and striking young woman, and at the time was about eight inches taller than Jamin was. Her parents believed that she was mature enough to be in that relationship, and the standards they set for the relationship would have been reasonable if she had in fact been of age and if the two had not been living under the same roof.”

This paragraph is so full of untruths it makes my head spin.

I’m not sure if Doug is deliberately twisting the truth or if he is basing his version of events on incomplete information (my sincere hope is that it’s the latter), but these allegations are simply false. As I said before, he was not there for any of this. There were discussions of this nature but the truth is that Jamin and I did not develop and maintain a romantic relationship under the encouragement of my parents. It is false, and from where I stand it is dangerously close to slander. Additionally and most importantly, why the hell does it matter? These grandiose and desperate attempts to take the attention away from what matters and place it where it does not belong is truly frightening and it’s hurting real people.

Doug is spending an awful lot of time and energy saying things like this “But please note well: Things like her height, apparent maturity, and parental knowledge of the fact of a relationship are simply irrelevant to the morality of Jamin’s behavior. They are irrelevant to the criminality of his behavior. They are irrelevant to whether Jamin was selfishly manipulating a young girl, preying on her for his own selfish ends. They are irrelevant to whether it was statutory rape or not. But such things were not irrelevant to whether it was pedophilia.” when he should be spending time and energy saying “We messed up. We defended a really bad guy. I wrote to a judge and an officer on his behalf and it directly effected the outcome of the sentencing. We failed the victim, we didn’t extend to her the love of Christ and offer her the resources she so desperately needed. We blamed her parents disproportionately, we talked about her physical appearance and said it changed the nature of Jamin’s crimes. We are deeply sorry and we want to learn how we can educate ourselves and how we can do things differently in the future so that more innocent people are not hurt and shamed and subsequently driven away. We want to learn from this mishandled situation.”

Will that ever happen? I hope so very much that it will. I hope we can stop talking about the things that don’t matter and start talking about things that do, like how we can spot potentially abusive situations before they escalate and destroy lives, how we can educate our youth to have strong voices about their own bodies and sexuality, how we can create a system in which criminals are not readily trusted and given opportunities to re-offend, how we can foster an environment in which victims feel as though they are unconditionally supported and cared for, free of suffocating judgement and blame…This what truly matters.

Doug sums up the way he feels about his role in my situation “…it is also a snarl where it is possible to look back with a clean conscience.”

He has no regrets and clearly no intention of apologizing. He has twisted the truth. He has shone a light in a place where there is nothing of relevance to see, and in so doing has pushed into the shadows a hideous truth that promises to grow and swallow Lord knows how many more innocent victims.

That is the story we need to listen to. That is what we should be talking about.

How I Learned to Pregame (and Other Transitions): Casey’s Story

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

There are certain things you expect on move-in day: The frantic in-and-out of your new neighbors transferring mountains of luggage from car to dorm room, being forced to repeat your name and hometown fifty times before sunset, excited hellos and heartfelt goodbyes. The faint whir of your pathetically small desk fan, which accomplishes little as the room fills with people and the last of the summer heat sets in. Getting to know your first roommate. Talking nervously, hoping you’ll click. Your parents making friends with her parents. Delaying the tearful moment when you hug your mom and dad and watch them drive away. Then, the moment comes. For every new college student, it comes. You are prepared. It is expected.

Mine was not.

“You don’t have to do this.” I’m not sure what possessed my mother to say these words, though I confess I wasn’t that surprised. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she did not let go of me. “You could come home and try community college. We could pack the car up right now. You don’t have to do this.”

I knew that as far as the infamous “college goodbyes” go, this was a bit on the extreme side, especially as I was positive that she meant it. Even having earned a full scholarship to my college of choice, therein saving us about $70,000 worth of financial burden, I was made aware from the start that if at any point I did not like it, I could drop out and be welcomed home. This, coming from the woman who raised me from infancy and schooled me for all of my life, both comforted me and stung the pride a little.

When I was four years old, all I could talk of was starting school. Having taught myself to read a year prior, I was already drawing my own comic books and writing short narratives to go along with them. I could count pretty high, and I thirsted for more, as much as my little mind could absorb. My parents decided the best option was for my mom to homeschool me, and through all of elementary, middle, and high school, she did – taking a strong role as teacher at first, and then letting me take more initiative as I grew older. She took note of my interests and chose curriculum based on that – for instance, my senior year I had an English textbook centered on The Lord of the Rings. It was a very “personalized” experience, tailored just to my unabashedly nerdy self. My mom put everything she had into properly educating me, to the extent that there was no privacy or separation between us. We were always together.

There was very little that I did without her, and almost nothing I possessed that was entirely my own.

We went to church and to bi-weekly homeschool meetings, from which I gained a total of three friends. Though I never felt unfulfilled in my schooling and excelled at most things I ventured to try, I was devastatingly lonely as a teen. Growing up in the most stereotypical of small, Southern towns, I had next to nothing in common with most of the other kids, who ridiculed my quirky personality and interest in books. My only release was in writing, which I did alone and often. To create brought me joy, and it wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I discovered a means of sharing that creativity with others: theater. And all of a sudden, I knew what my major would be.

It seemed cruel irony that less than a year after meeting the first genuine group of friends I ever had, I would have to leave them behind. That small community theatre was the outlet I desperately needed, and in my seventeen-year-old mind I was leaving the only place I would ever feel accepted. To tell the truth, my mom’s offer was a little bit tempting. Still, beyond a shadow of a doubt I knew my answer.

“I do,” I said, hugging her tightly. “I have to do this.”

So I did.

And it was the absolute time of my life.

The first week was the hardest. We were scheduled from day to night with festive activities to welcome the new freshmen – ice cream socials, mud volleyball, “get-to-know-you” circle games complete with constant regurgitation of everyone’s name and hometown – basically my school’s method of keeping us too busy to miss home. All it really accomplished for me was allowing no time to unpack; though I did make a few good friends fairly quickly, many of whom will probably be my bridesmaids if I ever decide to do the whole marriage thing. Still, when the first weekend came around, I visited home and found that it felt much different than I expected it to. Actually, it felt just like that – a visit.

My mom called to check in with me at least twice a week for a long time, and when my first assignment came around, she was more nervous than I was. “Let me proofread it,” she insisted. So, I put my all into this miniscule, two-page paper for English Comp 1 – the easiest paper no freshmen realize they will ever have to write – and let her have one more say in the quality of my scholastic work. With her approval, I turned it in expecting a C+ or a B at most.

I got an A+.

This baffled me. Yes, I had always made good grades in the past, but those were from my mother. Every mother thinks her kid is the best and the brightest; this was my first experience receiving praise from a teacher who wasn’t obligated to give it. In time, I found that other teachers, as well as peers, found me intelligent and hard-working, an overachiever even. In reality I pushed myself harder at first because I expected to come up short.

With no real world experience with which to compare my level of knowledge, I had no idea I was actually smart until I went to college and realized that I could do this on my own.

I had, in fact, been thoroughly prepared. And on that foundation my confidence started to grow exponentially.

Soon after, I became more integrated into the theatre department and the honors college, and started making a lot of friends in a short span of time. I even caved and pledged a social club, which is my school’s version of a mini-sorority, only smaller, cheaper, and exclusive to the campus. The extent of my book smarts became as apparent as my lack of street smarts. I can still remember my first experience with alcohol (as can my social club sisters, as they like to remind me every chance they get): When asked to “pregame” with them one Friday night, I brought over a curling iron and makeup, thinking that term was synonymous with primping before going out (or as I so eloquently put it, “doing each other’s hair and stuff”). They laughed (with me, not at me, which was nice), shook their heads and handed me my first drink. In hindsight, I would have been an easy one to manipulate, humiliate, take advantage of…any and all of the above. But these friends weren’t like that. It was simple: We had fun together, I cared for them, and they cared for me. On multiple occasions they took care of me. And words could not describe how lucky I felt or how much I appreciated every positive relationship I had with my peers. They also appreciated my incessant Hobbit references, which was a definite plus.

One thing I’ve noticed with homeschoolers is that, once given the option of becoming social, they will remain in their comfortable shell, or they will eagerly break free. My parents had taught me all I needed to know about socializing myself, and I was ready. I knew that I should be quick to show kindness, but slow to trust. To take note of who would lift me up and who would tear me down. To probably wait on the dating thing, but always “protect” myself if I decided to do it anyway. Oh, and to keep a can of wasp spray in my dorm room, because unlike pepper spray, “they won’t see that coming!” With all this in mind – and the wasp spray in its designated spot on my bedside table – I became something of a social butterfly. And as someone who suffers from Social Anxiety, I really surprised myself on that one.

I’d always wanted to branch out and find others that I could feel comfortable with.

And after going without for so long, I doubt that will be something I’ll ever take for granted.

I should establish that my campus is well-known for being extraordinarily friendly and open to all, which is a significant portion of why our alumni base is so active and supportive: For me, and for countless others, this small liberal arts college was not just a place of education but a tight-knit community, even a home. Differences of race, religion, culture, gender identity, and sexual orientation created very few divides – we were all family. And it was incredible.

This may sound like a paradox, but I was raised a Progressive Christian in a very Fundamentalist Christian church. The Fundamentalist faith was what my parents knew and understood, so they took me to church every Sunday, where I would sit silently (like a good female) and agree with about half of what was preached to us. Politically and socially, both mom and dad were quite liberal. They raised me to love and accept everyone equally, yet college gave me my first experience with true diversity. For instance, I had never met a transgender person before, and though I had spent many a Sunday morning listening to the same “we are right, they are wrong” speech behind the same pulpit, I had never experienced real, enlightening discourse regarding religion. Here, I could actually learn from other people with a wide variety of backgrounds.

My own beliefs, both spiritual and political, developed and took concrete form.

Though I started out Progressive, I grew more so, and I held on to my faith with a better understanding of what it should signify: Love. Not judgment, never exclusion. Just love.

With each new year of school I made leaps and bounds in my personal growth, learning so much about myself in such a short span of time that from sophomore to junior to senior year, it was like becoming a whole new person four times. Developing “street smarts,” and with them my own personal tastes and interests. Becoming more cultured through experience and associations. Swearing when angry, and not feeling bad about it. I like to think of it as making up for lost time.

But not all answers would come with ease. As graduation grew closer, I grew more unsure of what I wanted to do after. A general theatre degree carries with it a wider range of possibilities than one might think: Did I want to act, or paint sets? Research plays, or try to publish my own? Following an internship in stage lighting, I found my answer. And that began my first ever mental switch from school world to career world.

As it turned out, pushing myself so hard in classes had caused me to neglect some things that I would really need once school was over. The theatre department saw me as “honors student first, theatre major second,” which I realized was true, and not, in the bigger scheme, a great thing.

I was thankful for my generous scholarship and wanted to prove myself: “Get good grades,” in my homeschooled head, was always going to be the goal.

But what my parents didn’t know to warn me about was that being a successful theatre technician has little to do with grades and everything to do with hands-on experience. My GPA was near perfect, yet I was a senior by the time I had finally declared my emphasis in lighting design. It took nearly all four years to earn the full respect of the other theatre majors, who understood what it took me regrettably longer to grasp: that we were there to pursue a career and one requiring not a 4.0 and honors cords but a remarkable tech portfolio. I had a lot of catching up to do in that respect.

Now that I’ve been out of college for over a year, I do regret that lost time. But, in continuation of the habit, I’ve made up for it as best I can. Once my brain was able to shift from school to career mode, it became my passion. I travel often for work now, something I’ve always dreamed of doing. I go to the mountains, to tropical regions, theme parks, the Big Apple, once a Tony-winning regional theatre, doing what I love every step of the way. I think back on my lonely years in that small town and wonder if I would have the same appreciation for the incredible things I get to see and do had I not been contained there for so long.

Though in a considerable many cases homeschooling can be a terrible idea, I see my personal story as a successful one. Not perfect, by any means, as I was heavily sheltered and limited mostly to my mom’s perspective. Luckily for me, this also meant that I got to learn from a strong, intelligent and open-minded woman whom I will always look up to, and that made all the difference. Though I had a lot still to learn once I got to college, very little of it was learned “the hard way.”

Because on that first move-in day, when I made the decision to stay, the decision to see life as a new adventure came along with it.

I guess I’m kind of like Bilbo Baggins. And college was my Gandalf.

A Quiverfull of Definitions

HA Editorial Team1 Comment

CC image courtesy of Flickr, WannaBEEfarmer Jeff.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on September 2, 2015.

I’ve increasingly seen the media use the word “quiverfull” used to describe the Duggars’ entire subculture, and that’s bugging me, because this use of terminology is neither very accurate nor very helpful. In its purest definition, “quiverfull” means abstaining from using any form of birth control and instead letting God plan your family, and yet I’m increasingly seeing it used as a label for an entire subculture. There are several issues with this.

First, “quiverfull” is usually a term used by outsiders looking in. The Duggars themselves have said they do not use the word to describe themselves, and honestly, it is fairly rare to find someone who does. My parents never used the term.

Second, many people who are often included under the “quiverfull” umbrella are not in fact quiverfull. For example, Michael and Debi Pearl actively preach against quiverfull teachings. They do not have a problem with couples using birth control.

Third, one can be quiverfull without adhering to patriarchy (this is actually a thing that really does exist), but this gets completely erased when the term “quiverfull” is treated as a wholistic descriptor for people like the Duggars.

The best way to implode some of the overlaps and issues here may be to tell you a story about something that happened to my mother. First, a word of background. As a child, I grew up reading Above Rubies magazine, which we received regularly. While even she does not use the term “quiverfull” to describe herself or her ministry, Above Rubies’ Nancy Campbell is probably the closest you can get to pure quiverfull, with her magazines full of stories of oversized families and tubal reversals. Her magazines center on the beauty of large families and the value of motherhood and the importance of accepting as many “blessings” as God has to send your way.

Some years back my mother attended an Above Rubies conference. She told me that when the other women at the conference found out that she had twelve children, they gathered around her and called her blessed (that’s Bible language for heaped her with praise and adoration). But when they asked her if she was open to having more children, she told them she had recently had her tubes tied. As a result result, she was shunned for the remainder of the conference.

My mother was really upset when she told me this story, because, she explained, Michael and Debi Pearl taught that a woman must bow to her husband’s will in areas like this, and it was my dad who had insisted on her getting her tubes tied even though she hadn’t wanted to. She felt that she had been unfairly shunned by these women. She wanted to have more children. She hadn’t wanted her tubes tied. I remember her crying over this decision. But my dad said he was going to lose his sanity if we had more children, and for all of the importance my mom put on welcoming every blessing God had to send along, she believed even more strongly in male headship and female submission, so she submitted and underwent a tubal ligation.

Actually, there’s one more thing I should share about my parents as long as we’re talking about definitions. My parents used birth control from time to time to space us children out a bit, but never methods they considered “abortifacient.” Yet even though they sporadically used birth control, they talked about children as “blessings” and spoke of raising us out to send us into the world to win souls and retake it for Christ, all of which is classic quiverfull rhetoric. Were my parents quiver full, then? Or were they not? There’s no real agreement on the definition of quiverfull, and there are plenty of homeschooling families that have more children than they might otherwise as a result of exposure to quiverfull rhetoric, but still use birth control to limit their family size. Where do they fit, exactly? Who is quiverfull, and who isn’t?

But let’s talk for just a moment about what I just described as “classic quiverfull rhetoric.” The term quiverfull is adapted from Psalm 127:3-5, which reads as follows: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.” From this verse comes both the rhetoric about children being a blessing (or a reward, or heritage) and the more militant rhetoric that positions children as a weapon and their father as a warrior.

Even here, within these rhetorics, different leaders place the emphasis differently. Nancy Campbell of Above Rubies focuses on the babies as blessings rhetoric and rarely uses rhetoric with a more militant focus. When I read her magazines as a child, her focus was always on mothers and childbearing. In contrast, Michael Farris of the HSLDA focuses heavily on military rhetoric when discussing the importance of having large numbers of children.

farris

In fact, you might very well argue that quiverfull has two separate rhetorics, one mother-focused and one militant-focused, which sometimes overlap and sometimes don’t. But more than this, neither of these rhetorics requires a full rejection of birth control. There are many many many families that use these rhetorics and also use birth control. In some sense, quiverfull rhetorics have invaded the Christian homeschooling culture more generally, and in so doing have become at once more diluted and more widespread and pervasive.

Even when using the purest definition of quiverfull (abstaining from birth control), you are going to find variations in emphasis between families. These variations will often depend on what Christian leader and ministry one became quiverfull through.  Bill Gothard preaches quiverfull within an authoritarian patriarchal family structure and through a ministry (ATI) that is often described as cult-like. Nancy Campbell preaches quiverfull through a ministry that is mother-focused and centered around babies and children. Campbell is still patriarchal, but the articles in her Above Rubies are written by mothers, not male pastors or authority figures. While both might be rightly described as quiverfull (though neither uses the word), the two ministries have very different feels and position their rejection of birth control differently.

The Duggars are followers of Bill Gothard. Their social circles (including both church and homeschool conventions) have long centered around Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute, and until recently, even their curriculum was ATI. The Duggars eschew birth control based on the teachings of Bill Gothard. In fact, essentially every one of the Duggar’s beliefs, from JOY (Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last) to the umbrella of authority, comes from Bill Gothard. Yes, the Duggars fit the technical definition of quiverfull (though they do not use that term themselves), but their essence is ATI.

The wider Christian homeschooling subculture the Duggars belong to is best understood as a cluster of overlapping circles, each circle representing a specific leader and/or ministry. There is Gothard’s ATI, there is Nancy Campbell’s Above Rubies, there is Michael and Debi Pearl’s No Greater Joy, and Michael Farris’s HSLDA, and Doug Wilson’s Credenda Agenda, and Jonathan Lindvall and others, and until recently there was Doug Phillips’ Vision Forum. These various groups and leaders may sometimes overlap, but they also have points of disagreement and position their various emphases differently.

My parents primarily followed Michael and Debi Pearl, Doug Phillips, and Michael Farris. But even then, they were not as close Pearl followers as those who go to the Pearls’ Shindigs, and they were not as close followers of Doug Phillips as those who attended his various conventions, and they were not as close followers of Michael Farris as those who sent their children to Patrick Henry College. In other words, there are those families who sample from a variety of these leaders and ministries, and there are those families who lock onto one and refuse to let go, joining an inner circle of sorts.

There are some ideas that these various individuals and organizations tend to share, but each leader and each ministry is slightly different, not only in focus but also in belief. These overlapping circles all tend to be patriarchal, though Farris encourages parents to send their daughters to college while Phillips argues against sending daughters to college and Gothard tends to be against anyone going to college. They all tend to favor large families, though Gothard is against birth control while Wilson is not, and Campbell’s reasons for opposing birth control are different from Farris’s. Perhaps the greatest point of commonality between these groups is the belief that children must be sheltered from the world and carefully trained in Christian beliefs.

Attempts to describe this constellation of groups as “quiverfull” run into serious definitional problems. While quiverfull rhetorics pervade many if not most of these overlapping circles, the number of families that give up birth control entirely is small, and even these don’t generally use the term “quiverfull” to describe themselves. One might argue that this subculture is better termed “patriarchal” than “quiverfull,” but even then I am given pause when I remember my mother’s experience at the Above Rubies conference she attended, and when I think of all of the letters the Pearls receive from women who desperately want to leave their childbearing up to God only to face resistance from their husbands.

In some sense this loose constellation of individuals and ministries is most united not by its emphasis on large families (to stretch the definition of quiverfull to its breaking point) or its emphasis male headship (which is a widespread belief among fundamentalist and evangelicals in general) but rather by its emphasis on using homeschooling to shelter children and train them up to follow God. Yet even that isn’t specific enough, because there are evangelical and fundamentalist homeschoolers who seek to shelter their children and give them a Christian education but don’t follow any of the leaders discussed above or become involved in the alternate universe that is this subculture. Perhaps it is the creation of a parallel culture in pursuance of this goal that is its most defining feature.

I’m not entirely sure where that leaves us. At the moment, we do not have a term that adequately describes the overlapping circles of leaders and organizations that make up the subculture that is conservative Christian homeschooling. Perhaps that is what we need—a new label. If nothing else, though, I hope I have given you a better grasp on the term “quiverfull” and the issues surrounding its definition, use, and meaning.

See also Quiverfull Is an Ideology, Not a Movement or a Cult.

Q&A with Jennifer Mathieu, Author of Devoted

HA Editorial TeamLeave a comment

Alisa Harris (l), Jennifer Mathieu (r).

HA note: The following interview is reprinted with permission from the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE) and Jennifer Mathieu. It was originally published by CRHE on September 22, 2015. 

To read a book review of Devoted by HA blog partner Kierstyn King, click here.

*****

In her novel, Devoted, Jennifer Mathieu enters the world of Rachel, a dutiful homeschooled daughter and sister to five younger siblings. As Rachel’s mother struggles through depression, Rachel cares for and teaches her younger siblings, escapes into forbidden books, and begins to wonder about the world outside. She reads the blog of Lauren, an older girl who left their community, and Rachel begins to question whether she really wants the path that’s set out for her: marriage, childbirth, and an end to her education. Mathieu deftly paints a very sensitive — and very realistic — portrait of a young girl whose education has effectively ended but who has so much more that she wants to learn. CRHE’s Board Member Alisa Harris spoke with Jennifer Mathieu about her research, what she learned from talking with homeschool alumni, and how her own experience as an educator played into the novel. Note: this interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Alisa Harris: Did you have any connection to the homeschool community before you started researching? How much did you know? 

Jennifer Mathieu: When I was growing up, I went to Catholic school my whole life. My family was a part of our community pool and there was a church community near us that got very involved. The pastor of the church was a college swimmer and became the coach of our community swim team. He brought his whole congregation with him. All of these children homeschooled. I had never known any homeschoolers in my life so every summer I would connect with these homeschooled kids and we would have fun in the summer and I would never see them during the school year. I remember I was always asking them why they were homeschooled. They would explain to me that it was part of their faith, that the Bible told them education was the responsibility of the parent. As a little girl, I remember feeling sorry for them because I felt like they lived for the summer. I felt like the summer was their time to have connections with a ton of other kids. That was my introduction and that’s where my curiosity began.

AH: What were your perceptions before you started your research and how did those perceptions change? What was the most surprising thing that you learned? 

JM: I think something that I intuitively knew or sensed ended up being affirmed by my research. I thought that one of the challenges of being homeschooled, for some children, would be when they had outpaced whatever curriculum they were given. What would happen when they had a hunger to learn more and their parents couldn’t teach them? I remember doing science labs and chemistry labs that were super complicated, and we needed a chemistry lab. I remember thinking How would you do that? How would you complete certain things like that as homeschooler? That was affirmed for me in my research.

Even though it seems so obvious to me now, I had never thought about what a homeschooler would do if they were in an abusive situation. As a teacher, I have to report if a kid tells me anything. Lauren is being physically abused in the book. Who is she supposed to tell? I never thought about the fact that if your only world is this insular homeschool community, if you are being abused who do you have to tell?

AH: You did interviews and talked in-depth with homeschool students and alumni to research the book. Did you look for other types of data too?

JM: Something that I didn’t realize was that the laws were relaxed in the 1980s. I’m a former reporter, I’ve been a teacher for 10 years so the whole topic fascinates me on multiple levels. I was surprised at how easy it is to homeschool in some states. When I taught in public school I noticed there would be kids who would suddenly disappear and we would hear they’re being homeschooled. I would think, They’re getting homeschooled? I know that family and I’m a little bit concerned. Sometimes it was used as an excuse not to have to send the kid to school and that terrified me as an educator.

AH: In addition to writing novels, you’re an educator who teaches English to middle and high schoolers. How did that experience and profession shape your research and the questions you asked as you got to know homeschooled students?

JM: As an educator, what I brought to it was the experience of getting to see a child become excited about learning. I’ve taught students like Rachel who are just intuitively curious. In my mind, Rachel’s an exceptionally bright child. She had to be that smart to want to be able to learn as much as she wanted to learn. I felt that was her avenue out because she became so curious–that hunger to know was what helped her leave. I’ve taught children like that who are exceptionally and incredibly bright and there is such a hunger to learn. I watch students like that get accepted to Yale and University of Texas and they’re just going to flourish and I can’t wait. I say, “Please stay in touch — I want to find out what you do for the world.” As an educator I thought what would it be like if one of these blooming flowers were trapped and wasn’t allowed to bloom? She wants to blossom, she wants to learn.

I used to read obsessively. That was just one thing that I did and I remember thinking back on that when I was writing Rachel’s character. I thought What if that’s all that she had? As an educator I imagined my brightest stars and put them in this environment where they wouldn’t be allowed to shine, and that’s kind of how I wrote Rachel.

AH: The educational picture in the novel is complicated. On the one hand, Rachel is clearly a smart and motivated student who is gifted in math and computers. On the other hand, she doesn’t seem to receive very much instruction for her own education and spends most of her school time teaching her younger siblings. How did you decide to deal with Rachel’s education? Were you surprised at the extent to which some homeschoolers are basically self-taught? 

JM: I was surprised to learn how much responsibility the older girls were given, especially in terms of instructing the little ones. There was an anecdote I read about a man, a father talking about how his 9-year-old daughter didn’t know how to read. He acknowledged that would make people uncomfortable but she was learning everything she needed to learn to be a wife and mother. I remember reading it and my blood just ran cold. I was so shocked.

I am a licensed educator in the state of TX. My teaching certificate is only for English and I could maybe teach my son up to about third or fourth grade level math. That was one thing that I learned as I started reading more — you can buy these curriculums off the internet, but you still need an instructor who can explain it. I don’t think I really realized how much the older girls were tasked with helping the younger ones, even though I would kind of see that in 19 Kids and Counting.

AH: Your novel faces the reality of abuse in the story of Lauren, the blogger Rachel reads, but it doesn’t sensationalize it or make that the focus of the novel. What went into your decision to acknowledge the reality of abuse but also not make it the focus? 

JM: I think that Lauren’s family is portrayed more one-dimensionally and more evil, obviously more abusive. I did not want Rachel’s parents to be one-dimensional. So many homeschoolers I talked to told me about how they loved their parents. Their parents maybe had dysfunctional childhoods of their own and they thought they were giving their kids what they didn’t have. I didn’t want to make Rachel’s parents overtly abusive because that would make it obvious for Rachel to leave. But I had read stories and heard anecdotes about homeschool children who had been abused. I wanted to work that into the narrative and show this more extreme, overt abuse that has gone on. That’s why Lauren’s story is in there. I was trying to show the continuum of the behavior that can go on in these families.

AH: Have you had any reaction from the homeschooling community, alumni or current? How has it been? 

JM: The reaction I’ve received has been very positive. It made me feel good because they said, “You told our story in a way that was not exploitative but was real.” I have had a couple of people say, “It was triggering for me to read it. I had to put it down. I was too emotional at parts.” I don’t want to make people cry, but if I am creating that reaction then it’s authentic. My hope is that people will read Devoted and if people are from that world, they will read the book and hopefully find some validation, perhaps find some encouragement to look forward to enhancing their education through other means.

Purity Culture and My Sexuality

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Cynthia Jeub’s blog CynthiaJeub.com. It was originally published on April 17, 2015. 

“I know that it’s a secret,
And that I gotta keep it,
But I want the lights on
Yeah, I want the lights on
And I don’t want to run away anymore
Leave the lights on, leave the lights on, leave the lights on
What would they say, what would they do?
Would it be trouble if they knew?” –Meiko

I had my heart broken twice before I realized I’d been in love. That might sound like an exaggeration or melodrama, but it’s actually possible thanks to the wonders of purity culture.

When I was a teenager, I read and re-read books like Sarah Mally’s Before You Meet Prince Charming, Eric and Leslie Ludy’s When God Writes Your Love Story, and Debi Pearl’s Preparing to be a Help Meet.

They kept me strong in my dedication to never think about sex, or to think about members of the opposite sex. I had my obsessions and celebrity crushes, but if the image of seeing someone naked ever entered my mind, I’d fight it out with quoting the Bible.

I knew I would only ever give my heart to one person – the man I would marry. He must show interest in me; women don’t initiate. The concept of mutual consent, mutual interest, was never introduced. If he didn’t reciprocate my feelings, it was a meaningless feeling, and feelings were worthless. I needed to control my very thoughts, so I could give my whole heart to my husband, along with my first kiss. Just toeing the line of saving sex for marriage was too low a standard for me.

Blame doesn’t fall on any one person for how I controlled my thoughts. It was a personal choice, something that was very important to me. The people around me reinforced the notion that I was doing the right thing. Some people were better at the game of self-thought-policing than I was, and they made me feel like I could never be good enough. Some people saw me as unapproachable because I was so sincere. Every failure looked like rebellion and felt like despair.

Surely I didn’t love my best friend when I started college. He didn’t love me, so I told myself to “guard my heart” and push away all emotions of attachment. At the same time, our late-night conversations kept me going through my darkest depression and most intense stress. I finally told him that I needed space to figure out why the sight of his name gave me such indecipherable pain.

It would take me months to unlearn what purity culture had taught me to do: conceal all desire, even from yourself.

So it was that I fell in love with a man, and didn’t realize what had happened until afterward. I just assumed I was straight because I was attracted to men. It never occurred to me that I might make the same mistake twice, equally blinded to my desires toward a girl.

It was similar – I had a crush on her, but didn’t know it. She once kissed another girl in front of me, and I desperately wanted to kiss her. Even that feeling was not enough to make me think I wasn’t totally straight. I figured I was just curious, having never been kissed. Giving gifts is something I rarely do and often feels like an obligatory chore, but I gave her thoughtful things that I knew she’d like.

When we had a fight that ended our friendship, I was devastated. Another friend asked if I’d been in love with her. I said no, of course I wasn’t.

A few months later I got an email, and was instantly interested – this person, who hadn’t revealed their gender or identity, matched me intellectually. I assumed the sender was male, and entertained thoughts of meeting, and we exchanged lengthy emails.

The person who wrote these intelligent, complex, and beautiful emails revealed that she was a girl, and I realized it made no difference to me.

I started asking my friends questions – you don’t see both the male and female body as equally attractive? I’d assumed that everyone appreciated the aesthetic differences between the genders.

In the world I grew up in, there were two kinds of people: straight, and broken. Nobody was born gay, the church and chapel services insisted. The idea of other identities on a spectrum was far outside our reality. The idea of romantic and sexual relationships other than marriage was blanketly labeled as “sin.”

Of course I’d think I was straight. If I could close off my feelings for men, I could certainly close off my feelings for women. It was only after I started to learn what attraction felt like, that I knew I liked girls. I always had liked girls. I just didn’t know that my experience was any different from anyone else’s, because we never talked about our feelings. We never defined our terms.

Humans are beautiful to me – whether they’re male, female, or non-binary.

You could call me sapiosexual, in that I love people for their intelligence, and my level of attraction depends on how smart and interesting the other person is. Many sapiosexuals, though, don’t find the human body sexually attractive, and I do. It’s also accurate to call me pansexual, because I’m open to dating non-binary or trans people, in addition to the binary genders. For me, the title I’ve chosen is bisexual.

I’m bisexual. There, I’ve come out, now you know.

Doug Wilson: “I Do Not Believe That This Situation In Any Way Paints Jamin as a Sexual Predator”

HA Editorial Team9 Comments

Natalie Rose Greenfield, image by author.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Natalie Rose Greenfield’s blog My Naptime Journal. It was originally published on September 20, 2015.

For background information about Doug Wilson, Jamin C. Wight, and Natalie Rose Greenfield, see The Jamin C. Wight Story: The Other Child Molester in Doug Wilson’s Closet.

Content warning: detailed description of child sexual abuse.

I’ve debated whether or not to share the following letter publicly. It was given to me last week and out of respect for certain members of my family that don’t wish to have any further publicity over all of this, I’ve kept it to myself and a few close friends. But at some point every day for the last week I’ve been struck by the nagging reminder that this is no longer about me. It’s not about my family or the painful past experiences that tore us apart at the seams.  I’ve said it before, I don’t share all of this for my own personal gratification or because I’m stuck on being a victim. This is not me unwilling to heal and licking my wounds for the world to see. I share for the others. For my children, for your children, for other women or men who lost their voices when they were young and never quite found them again. By the grace of Divine Love I found my voice, and I wouldn’t sleep at night if I knew I had the power to help others and chose not to because it’s uncomfortable to talk about around the dinner table. Nobody likes talking about sexual abuse or children being hurt, and certainly no one wants to admit they could have done better or made wiser choices and thus prevented more innocent individuals from being hurt. I’m choosing not be in the latter category, so I’ll continue speaking.

Pictured below is a letter Doug Wilson wrote to the officer on my case on August 22nd, 2005. In it he tells of a ‘secret relationship’ which my parents knowingly allowed Jamin and I to enter into. He says this relationship was hidden from the broader community and though my parents didn’t realize there was ‘sexual behavior occurring’ between Jamin and I, they were aware that we were interested in each other and invited Jamin to live in our home. Doug goes on to say that it is important to note what kind of criminal this information makes Jamin. He says “I do not believe that this in any way paints Jamin as a sexual predator.”

Oh boy. I’m not entirely sure where to begin with this one.

Jamin expressed an interest in me to my parents when I was 14 years old, months after he’d begun grooming me and had already instigated a physical relationship with me. To say I had a crush on him would be an understatement – I was completely infatuated with him, as is common for abuse victims,  and had been since shortly after I met him at a church event when I was 13 years old. (No one knew the depth of my affection for him, of course, I think told my parents I thought he was pretty cool.) My parents told Jamin he could wait for me if he wanted to and they’d  reassess the situation when I was 18 years old. It was made exceedingly clear that in the meantime there was to be no ‘relationship’ whatsoever. As far as my parents knew there was no relationship, and from what I can tell any “confession” they made to Doug was taken out of context and/or deliberately twisted. There’s not much more to be said about this, honestly. My parents were naive and foolish, yes. They trusted him to respect the house rules regarding their daughter, partly because he’d been vetted by their own pastor as a seminary student. He didn’t follow the rules. I’ve written about this before, here. It doesn’t change the game.

What confuses me is how this information has any relevance to Jamin’s long term physical, sexual, mental and emotional abuse of me (before, during and after the time he lived in our home) or how it constitutes Doug writing to the magistrate judge and requesting leniency for him, or how it justifies Doug blaming and shaming my father (and mother) the way he did. Doug painted a picture in which the blame is dangerously shifted to my parents and away from a criminal. Ultimately, he was rather successful at his part in this, as Jamin’s charge and sentence were greatly reduced and he went on to criminally abuse more innocent victims after a very brief stint in jail.

I feel the need to rehash this particular line that Doug typed: “I do not believe that this in any way paints Jamin as a sexual predator.” Not a sexual predator? Forgive me if I’m beating a dead horse or being too loud about an uncomfortable topic, but Jamin is most certainly a sexual predator. Let me describe a scene to you, one scene of many, many more just like it. It’s late afternoon in an old house on B Street in Moscow. A 14 year old girl goes bounces down the stairs of her family’s 8-bedroom mansion to get her favorite pair of jeans from the laundry hamper. A 24 year old man follows her down the stairs and enters the laundry room behind her. He sneaks up behind her and grabs her by the shoulders, she shrieks, then giggles. “Shhhhh! C’mere!” He says. He pulls her by the hand into the dungeon-like bathroom adjacent to the laundry room. “Jamin, stop! My mom will hear us!” the girl protests. “Then be quiet” he says, pushing down firmly on the top of her head until she buckles to her knees. She knows what he wants, it’s what he always wants and she hates it. She begins giving it to him and a minute later they hear footsteps coming down the long basement stairs. The man shoves the girl away from him, she falls backward into the laundry room and he closes the bathroom door to finish the job himself. The girl jumps to her feet, wipes her mouth and runs up the basement stairs, shaking nervously as she passes her mother on way. A close call.

But according to the pastor of Christ Church, Jamin is not a sexual predator. What is he, then? An opportunist? If only my parents had kicked him out when he expressed interest in me, than he wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to hurt me? Anyone can see this is preposterous. Jamin’s crimes were premeditated and he would still have had access to me at church and in various other settings (he did, in fact, manage to ‘still get to me’ after he’d moved out). I could tell a hundred more stories about what he did to me but they’re all sickening so I’ll leave it at one.

So what now? Why am I blogging about this again? Because we need change and it’s not happening yet. The church needs to change the way it handles sexual abuse, and until the leaders are willing to come forward and say we were gravely wrong and we want to learn how to do better we will continue to face this problem again and again and we will hear from more victims and more lives will be destroyed as this is repeatedly swept under the rug. This is not just about Doug Wilson and the other leaders of Christ Church and Trinity Reformed Church that stood behind a dangerous sexual predator and welcomed him back into the fold, believing his cries of repentance. This happens in churches everywhere. It’s an epidemic of the worst kind and it is destroying countless lives. Churches everywhere claim they know how to handle abuse within their congregation, and the church certainly can play an important role in the healing of victims, but so much more is needed. Resources, education, trained professionals, and the willingness to step back and say “we need help”. Needing help is not a weakness, and that lie only adds insult to injury for those harmed by abuse.

So what can YOU do?

Stand with me. Demand change. Share your own story of abuse within the church and if you don’t have one or if you aren’t ready to share yours, then by all means share mine. Demand that the leaders of churches stop pridefully deflecting blame and ignorantly shaming victims while they stand behind predators. Urge them to show the love of Christ to the victims.

We can’t afford to let this one slip away into the night. It will only grow.

Here’s the letter Doug wrote to the officer (click images to enlarge):

The Feminist Homemaker

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Jay Morrison.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Jeri Lofland’s blog Heresy in the Heartland. It was originally published on September 3, 2015.

“And what do you do?”

It’s an innocent question, neither nosy nor rude. One that pops up in the most casual of introductions all the time. And yet it can haunt some of us for hours afterward.

Why am I a stay-at-home mom?

I found myself mulling uneasily over this question after a conversation this summer exposed my own doubts and I got defensive. When I am uncertain, I tend to flounder and feel guilty. Should I want a career? Should I want to stay home?

When I was homeschooling, the justification was simple. I was already doing a “job”. (In hindsight, it’s apparent I wasn’t aware I had other options.) I have no regrets about those early years of pottytraining and naptimes and going to the park and teaching my little bookworms to read. Still, now that they’re older and in school all day, I’ve felt the need to rethink my reasons for not earning a paycheck.

My feminist values tell me that I need to be pulling my weight, that I should have the resources to support myself instead of being financially dependent on a relationship. I’m also afraid of perpetuating an outmoded patriarchal family model or unhealthy expectations of what a mom should look like.

However… not working does not automatically put me in the same category as Michelle Duggar. 🙂 And I’m privileged to know other ardent feminists who are unemployed, by choice, for various personal reasons. And so, I ponder.

As for expectations, my children see me pursuing knowledge and new skills. They see me involved in the community. They see me actively promoting equal rights for women. They see that Chris and I have independent interests and relationships. They know women working in a variety of fields. And they know every family operates by its own rules.

Chris and I have shed patriarchy gradually and embraced gender equality together. While there has been some shading and blending as we’ve adapted to these values, he remains our household’s breadwinner. And yet, we are a symbiotic team. We eat better food less expensively because I stay home and cook (our meals average $1.25/person!). He can focus on his career from eight to five and college classes on weekends because I can run the errands, take the cars for service, schedule appointments, shop, and sign the field trip forms. I can take classes, volunteer, exercise, help kids with homework, and cultivate supportive friendships because he brings in the income. And since he currently works at home, we get all kinds of extra moments during the day to connect as friends, freeing us to better focus on the kids when they are at home.

While extra income could ease some stresses, we are financially comfortable enough. If I worked part-time, my earnings would quickly diminish in higher food, fuel, and insurance bills. If I worked full-time, we would have more stress around daily school pick-ups and drop-offs. I would have much less time for the self-care that helps me manage my mental health. And instead of relaxed evenings together, we would have to pack all the laundry, shopping, organizing, and meal prep into that time slot.

To us, that time to just “be” after dinner and homework is worth more than we would gain if I went to work. It is a matter of what we value most this year. Our schedule and priorities are always evolving and we are open to change. But for now, we are savoring that closeness and flexibility.

On a personal level, overcoming years of emotional trauma and cult mind-control has been a long journey and there are still days when the demands of motherhood on top of that seem overwhelming. I’m grateful that I’ve had the option of concentrating on those aims without trying to hold a job at the same time.

Reflection on my domestic role has been time well-spent. These days I find myself prouder than ever of what I do and of the ways I contribute to our family’s well-being. I am a feminist homemaker: a cookie-baking, jelly-making, youngster-shuttling thriving woman who thinks for herself while advocating for the right of every woman in our community to make her own choices.

Social Workers Don’t Have It Out for Homeschoolers (According to HSLDA’s Own Numbers)

HA Editorial Team8 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 14, 2015.

A New Jersey homeschool family is suing after a social worker visited their home and asked questions about their curriculum, their children’s medical history, and the safety of the firearms stored in their house. Buried deep in an article about the case are these paragraphs:

The case highlights the tension between state social welfare agencies and homeschool families as the number of children being educated at home continues to grow. More than 2 million children are now involved in homeschooling, said Michael Farris Jr., spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association.

“When we get calls, it will more than likely be about a social case worker who says, ‘I got a call from someone else who says you’re not educating your kids,’ or ‘We’ve heard that you’re spanking your kids,’” Mr. Farris said.

“Homeschoolers are a unique case, especially because there will be someone, a family friend or even a family member, who disagrees with their choice to homeschool, so they’ll call in an anonymous tip,” he said. “That’s what we’re seeing probably the most.”

These paragraphs—and especially Farris Jr.’s quote—make it sound as though it is extremely common—nay, essentially universal—for homeschooling families to be reported to social services. But is this really true?

I do have some personal experience in this area. I was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school and we never had social services called on us. In fact, to my knowledge, social services was never called on any of the homeschooling families I knew growing up, at least during the years I was there. And yet, Farris Jr. wants to make it sound like friends or family members who disagree with families’ choices to homeschool are making near-constant calls to social services.

Of course, my experience is purely anecdotal. Perhaps HSLDA’s statistics are more complete—after all, they have 80,000 member families and urge these families to call them any time a social worker shows up on the door. With that many member families and the frequency with which homeschooling families are reported to CPS just because they homeschool, their phones must be ringing off the hook!

Well, no, they’re not. Only last month, Slate revealed this:

Farris said his group gets 300 calls a year from dues-paying members worrying about “social workers at the door.”

As Slate points out:

This number . . . represents just 0.35 percent of the HSLDA’s membership, assuming each call came from a different family.

And then there’s also a 2013 HSLDA article that contained this paragraph:

The evidence suggests that abuse in homeschooling families is rarer than in the general population. In 2011 (the last year for which data are available), 6.3% of all children in the U.S. were involved in abuse investigations. The same year, HSLDA assisted approximately 1.2% of our member families in child protective services (CPS) investigations. The vast majority of these investigations were based on frivolous accusations (such as the children being seen outside during school hours or concern about a possibly messy home) and closed as unfounded. While this statistic is not comprehensive, it can be seen as an indicator of a generally low rate of abuse among homeschoolers.

I’m not sure how to bridge the gap between 1.20% and 0.35%—that’s a pretty big discrepancy—but either way, that’s a very low percentage of homeschoolers overall. In fact, these numbers reveal that homeschoolers are less likely than other families to have social services called on them. While the article stats that 6.3% of children overall are involved in abuse investigations each year, the number I found was closer to 4% for both abuse and neglect. Whichever number you use, homeschool families are less likely than other families to be reported to CPS.

The article quoted above suggests that homeschool families are reported to social services less often than other families because they are less likely to abuse their children. While this is certainly possible, it should be noted that abusive parents who homeschool are more able to isolate their children from adults who might see and report than are parents who send their children to school. Without more research, it’s hard to know all of the factors that may be at play here.

But I have to say, there is some serious irony in the fact that those at HSLDA believe they can argue both that homeschooling families are constantly reported to social services by upset friends or relatives and that homeschooling families have a low rate of child abuse based on of how infrequently people call social services on homeschooling families. 

Of course, if HSLDA was honest about how infrequently their member families are frivolously reported to social services—i.e. almost never—they would probably have a harder time maintaining members.