homeschool

Pray For All The Children Of The Twelve Tribes — Part One

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Pray For All The Children Of The Twelve Tribes — Part One, By Jennifer Stahl

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Jennifer Stahl’s blog Yeshua, Hineni. It was originally published on September 12, 2013 with the title, “The Twelve Tribes group in Germany.”

Today I wanted to take time and discuss a recent breaking news story coming out of Germany about a cult that is three hours to our east.  If you haven’t heard the news, well, stay tuned as I’ll help get you caught up to speed.

Today’s post is about the Twelve Tribes, or Zwölf Stämme group that is based out of Klosterzimmern in the municipality of Deiningen, and Ansbach, Bavaria. Twelve Tribes is a very difficult group to pin down, theologically speaking. They take elements of fundamentalist beliefs (mostly Independent Fundamentalist Baptist), Messianic Judaism, Hebrew Roots, Sacred Name and World Wide Church of God beliefs.  Where they diverge, is that they believe and teach that they are the only group that has truth and will be going to the afterlife.

Twelve Tribes also is extremely patriarchal, racist, antisemitic, somewhat communist (they live in communes and everyone works), and engages in child labor. In Germany, Zwölf Stämme is known more for their push for homeschooling which ended somewhat amicably with them creating their own private school that did not have to teach any sex education or evolution theory or anything else that they believe is contrary to “biblical” beliefs.  The agreement with the government included that there would be state oversight so that the community would not be fully removing itself or the children from society at large.

Contrary to the painting by the HSLDA, Germany does not retain Nazi-era laws where it pertains to homeschoolers.

I love all of you, but Hitler was not the one who made school compulsory in Germany. I’ve discussed that before, just a little bit and about our educational system when I blogged about the homeschooling Romeike family.

With the Zwölf Stämme, there have been many concerns of child labor laws being broken before. It is not uncommon with this group that every person gives and puts in work with their fields, and also with their money-making ventures.  What hadn’t been well known until recently, was how abusive and systemically so, their child rearing practices were. There were suspicions, but people cannot be investigated solely based on suspicions here.

There have been teenagers and 20-somethings that have left the cult, but they, for the most part, had been getting psychological help and then moving on with their lives, rather than assisting others in leaving the cult. They have mentioned the abuse, but the onus was on others to go in and prove it was happening other than “he and she said”.

I find this heartbreaking for all people who have been put through abuse like this.

From what I understand from an acquaintance that had gotten in with the group in Vermont, Twelve Tribes is extremely difficult to get into, and that much harder to get out of. The abuse is not just with children, but also with those who come into the group. There are enforcers, and if you question anything, you are starved of food and sleep until you comply with the group leaders. Also, the oversight committee is only very loosely associated with each Twelve Tribe community.  This means any appeals for assistance in leaving will have to be done through loving family members and possibly the local police departments.

From what I can gather, punitive parenting books are quite the rage in the Zwölf Stämme. Interviews with the reporter who came out proving the abuse, and with some of the survivors of the group have mentioned  practices that are inconsistent with child-rearing in Germany and Biblical practice.

The abuses this cult has carried out were well hidden from the German government, because these methods are illegal.

If you’re new to the blog and don’t know much about Gentle Grace Based Discipline, what I am discussing here is the systemic belief that all children are born horrible sinners (or easily influenced by the Devil) that need to be physically and emotionally abused from birth.  What parents want to result from this is first time obedience, unquestioning obedience, and no talking back. What they receive?  Abused children that are terrified to do anything that would ever cross their parents, or the leaders involved in the community. Grace is not for children in this belief system. Grace is for adults who have found some sort of agreement with the leaders of the community that they are living “Biblically” and for them alone.

What hasn’t much been discussed in the German case is the propensity for sometimes sexual predatory action in communities such as these. When you have children that are too terrified to speak out against systemic abuse methods such as whipping for doing anything the parents or community leaders do not like, they also will not speak out when they are being sexually abused, because surely that wasn’t something they were not supposed to do, as someone in authority forced themselves onto them.

I am praying that, beyond all hopes, this is not something that was happening at this Twelve Tribes compound.

The news that has come out of the community is that children as young as six months were taken away from their parents to be punitively disciplined by select members of the community. Babies that cried or were otherwise deemed “sinful” were held very tightly so that they would cry until they could cry no more.

Forty children were removed from the compound outside of Deiningen, and placed into child protective services while being interviewed by authorities who are trying to find ways to assist them, deprogram them and get them into schools and families that can help them detox from this lifestyle.

I cannot begin to tell you how much agony I have been in since the news broke. Several methods mentioned that were employed in the compound are methods I am having PTSD-reactions about from my own childhood.

What has angered me beyond all reason is how quickly Michael Farris, head of the HSLDA was to pick up this story and stand behind the Zwölf Stämme and say that there was no abuse happening. Because we know the HSLDA is all about systemic abuses and hiding those from authorities. It bothers me how little the HSLDA respects other country’s laws and rights to live according to their belief systems and instead do not focus on the abuses that are endemic in their own back yard.

For those who think that is quite the thing for such a blogger as myself to say, I too was an HSLDA child. I didn’t trust them as far as I could throw something at them as a homeschooler, and I trust them even less now that I’ve an adult and living outside of the US. They are a terrible representation for Christians and of Christianity when it comes to how they treat others. Where’s the grace there guys? Really. Where’s the love?

So, after the news breaks as to how the information came to the police and to raid the compound, Michael Farris is notified of the abuses. All he says is “I said something in that nature, but I see now that my sources were wrong.” [He said and implied there were no abuses.]

So, all we get is a “my bad.” Not an apology.

The best news source at the moment, that has discussed what happened, comes by way of The UK’s Independent Newspaper.

The film shows how children are made to get up at 5am and stand though an hour-long prayer session. They are obliged to labour with adults in the community’s farm plots and workshops…
“It’s normal to be beaten every day,” said Christian…
The film also shows… a baby boy being forcefully gripped by the back of the head in a practice referred to by sect members as “restraining.” 
In Germany’s Twelve Tribes sect, cameras catch ‘cold and systematic’ child-beating

The remainder of the news stories I will be quoting are from German news sources. I will translate them and share them here with the original sources. I would suggest using Google Translate to read them if you do not have German language knowledge. It will not be a perfect translation, but it will help you know what is going on. Just plop the link in the translate area and set the translation from German to English (or your language of choice). It will do the rest of the work for you.

There is video here from RTL, where two former members, Christian and Jael (or Yael?) explain how children are mishandled in the sect. I have to admit that I did big giant ugly cries when I listened to them and saw the video attached.

There is also video here from RTL where a former member, Klaus F., discusses his feelings and knowledge about the revelations from the Zwölf Stämme, after having lived for many years in the sect, leaving with his four children but without his wife; who chose to stay behind.

Over and over again, in both videos, a current member of the sect says they “do not call it spanking or hitting, we just call it disciplining.” And goes into detail about how they pick rods to hit the children with.

I do not see how this can be deniable when it was recorded and the members are known.

On top of this, the reporter asked the authorities, and they knew that the children were being spanked, but they didn’t know how badly or how many. (This is cleared up in the second video at about minute seven.)

What angers me is that the members of the group say that they have frequently had doctors come in and they have proof that their children were not abused.

The exclusive 45 minute long news exclusive is now available in RTL’s iTunes app. (They move it off site after 7 days.)

The Ansbach Youth Office has maintained in regular contact since the influx of children in 2010. Their visits would present concerns and worries that could not be dissuaded, but were also “not sufficient evidence for the initiation of family law measures” to be submitted. Only now the Family Court and the Youth Office of Nördlingen districts in the  Donau-Ries region received “credible, concrete and actionable information,” showing that the “physical and emotional welfare of the children could be permanently compromised.”
Der Spiegel: “Twelve Tribes”: Police take 40 children from Christian sect in Bavaria

There are 150 German members of the international community of ’12 tribes’ faith – in their own words “Bible in the tradition of early Christianity.”  …The children are taught early on that Africans, Blacks and homosexuals are cursed; and women belong to an inferior race.
RTL: Raid on sect ’12 tribes’ – RTL reporter provides evidence of child abuse

…the children would be “cleansed” by the blows and “freed from the devil.” Strikes would constantly be administered due to varied reasons. It is enough already to be struck, if a child does not pay attention in class…
…there is “ubiquitous, mutual supervision, built on intimidation, by this spying totalitarian system” which makes it impossible to live differently at all, says Kuhnigk.
Der Spiegel: Suspected abuse at Christian Sect: “They live with their children in their own world”

 “[In Germany] Every child has the ” right to a violence-free education “. And “despite many calls and offers of help” the community members would continue to be “disciplined and mentally abusing towards” their children…
… “Mental abuse and isolation has only occurred when the authorities have taken away our children,” says a father.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung: Those who wish to play are beaten

 Kuhnigk: The children do not have close ties to their parents because they can not protect them. If the parents refuse to,the elders deemed necessary to punish pressure them to give their children over to others to mete it out. The children may not develop individuality. There are no children playing in the yard, fantasy play and free play are prohibited. The children are broken.
Augsburger Allgemeine: Hidden reporter: “I almost cried.”

 …The violence done to the children is “so quiet, so systemic, and planned,” such as torture…
…Also shown is the “Restraining” of the babies with one arm, where a tightly wrapped baby with a black head of hair that can hardly move…
Augsburger Allgemeine: Children of the Twelve Tribes: nearly 100 floggings in two days

…The RTL reporter also was able to procure the special “educational book” of the sect. Here, it refers specifically to physical pain as an integral part of education. Especially for strong-willed children, beating their tails for instruction is recommended.
Augsburger Allgemeine: Spanking as an educational system: Undercover in the Twelve Tribes

“The whole procedure is such that the adult relies on a chair. The child must present themselves to adults then. Either he or she puts their pants down, or it can be pulled down. Then the adults look for a suitable rod with appropriate length and begin to beat the children…
The children are beaten until they say what adults want to hear…   Not a single child has struggled in any form. Anyone who turns away from adults while being beaten, is returned to the ‘right position’ and additionally punished, “said Kuhnigk.
Focus: Incognito reporter in the “Twelve tribes” describes perverse whipping system of the sect

 …a lecture by the cult leader Gene Spriggs in 2000 is documented, among other things. “Our children were brought up with the rod of correction, we do not argue that,” says the gray-haired, bearded man who has tied his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail, in English. “And when we are put in jail for it, then we go to jail, because we know that we are doing right and discipline our children in love.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung: He who spares his rod, hates his son

Against asylum seekers and protesters, the authorities in place practice vigorous crackdowns. But when it comes to the children, when the most vulnerable of society are in danger, the Bavarian courts exhibit boundless patience…
Süddeutsche Zeitung: Embarrassing Failure

I cannot begin to tell you how this breaks my heart.

I know that this is systemic elsewhere, especially in parts of the US. But in a country where children are usually protected?

So many checks and balances broke down in protecting these children.

In a land where spanking and other punitive forms of discipline that include striking a child are outlawed, it’s just unbelievable. To hear in other people’s words what I lived as a child, it just completely validates how I feel about punitive parenting, and how it simply cannot, and does not have a biblical basis whatsoever.

I have sat and written this entire blog post while shaking and having flashbacks of my own childhood and all I can say is that I hope and pray that these parents are given more early childhood education and that their children are not given to them in unsupervised visits until they have proven their mentality and hearts have changed for the better towards their children.

I just cannot imagine giving my children over to someone else to do anything to them. Then again, I am a very protective mother bear, and I never allowed my spirit to be completely broken by my family or their beliefs in punitive discipline.

If there is one thing I could ask tonight, I would ask that you pray for all the children of the Twelve Tribes and do what you can to support the survivors of this awful abuse.

*****

Part Two >

I Love All of You, But Hitler Was Not The One Who Made School Compulsory

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

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I Love All of You, But Hitler Was Not The One Who Made School Compulsory, By Jennifer Stahl

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Jennifer Stahl’s blog Yeshua, Hineni. It was originally published on May 16, 2013 (and updated on September 22, 2013) with the title, “The German Homeschool Case — The Romeike Family.”

I’m probably not going to earn any brownie points today from any of my readers or family after this post… and I’m sure I know why.

I have been asked repeatedly for my opinions on the Romeike family from Germany that is seeking assistance through the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) for asylum in the USA.

Many people think that because I am a former home-schooler, and especially because I live in Germany (I’ll come home before my children go to school and home-school them, right?) that I will be incensed and defend the family.

However, since the story broke, I have pointed out several inconsistencies, as well as the fact that the Romeike family could pursue legal actions for the laws to change in Germany, take it as high as the highest courts in the EU and even go to another European country that is not restrictive towards homeschoolers rather than lying about Germany on their asylum application.

Many might think I’m overreacting by saying that they lied about Germany — especially since my children’s foray into education is still very fresh and in the non-mandatory stages of compulsory education. Actually, I’ve spent many hours looking into their case (not just today!) and into the German educational system when I entered into it, as well as when I found out that I was pregnant. I’ve asked extensive questions and I’ve been researching all home-school cases friends and families send me that are out of Germany.

Here is the news that the HSLDA is disseminating about the Romeike family right now:

There are four articles I found that sum up every bit of the story very well in a nice tight bow. You can find them here, here, here and here.

You can also find a video in German from a show here that covered the Romeikes’ after they went to the US. This video is shared via the HSLDA, but is originally from a talk show in Germany, which tries to show both sides of the issue.

It bothers me terribly that the main thrust of the case all depends on issues that just throw a monkey wrench in everything. If you want to make a good point, do not invoke Godwin’s law.

I know Wikipedia is not authoritative, but honestly, it’s the best write-up I’ve seen in a very long time (in English) about the German educational system. (see here) I love all of you, but Hitler was not the one who made school compulsory in Germany. Each of the Länder (German states) decided on compulsory education and all had different laws. The goal was that all children, whether poor or rich, had an equal chance at education in a time when many children were removed from school to work at home, or in the fields.

Germany wasn’t really unified until around World War I. Even as the Federal Republic of Germany, each state has its own government, laws and practical application until around World War II.  Compulsory Education was actually put into place by Napoleon and the Prussian Empire.  Some of the best minds about children’s early Education came out of this market in Germany, Austria and Swizerland. (Friedrich Fröbel, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Rudolf Steiner)

Yes, the Nazis used compulsory education to their own ends. I definitely do not dispute that. The least I expect is a bit of factual reporting. At this point, most of the information that has covered Germany and homeschooling has been full of holes.

School here is completely different. Government here is completely different.  I’m actually finding it very laughable that they are claiming Christian persecution. Germany is in every sense of the word a Christian nation, even if most/many of the actual citizens are not Christians, and the bulk of the Christians are “nominal” at best. (I really hate using that word.) Many are unaffiliated and therefore not even counted due to various reasons of theological difference and not wishing to pay a flat church tax out of their income. (You pay tithes and offerings, we pay church tax [Kirchensteuer])

All public holidays here that are not explicitly listed as Federal holidays, are Christian holidays. (see here) Most of the political parties have a Christian basis and base. (see here)  Many public schools and kindergartens still have religious symbols up. (Crosses, Crucifixes, Mother and Child)

As it stands, if one does not wish to use the public school closes to them, the following options are available:

I can semi understand the concern that the Romeike family may have in regards to sexual education… but at some point someone has to tell all children the facts of life, and about how babies are born, marital relations and that sort of thing. With the hours at school being as few as they are, parents have as much opportunity and much more obligation to disseminate this information than schools do.  I wish I could say all parents feel the same, but they sadly do not.

Depending on one’s school district, what is covered in sex ed will vary from school to school, state to state. Most of the kerfuffle I’ve heard from the US or even the UK in regards to sex education in our schools here, actually center around older initiatives or books that are available in the library, but hardly ever checked out. It makes me wonder what the actual point is of those articles and what is covered in the sexual education. . . if anything much.

I do not understand their apprehension and statements about witchcraft and paganism at school. Neither are at this point recognized religions that have religious coursework in either state, but that could possibly (maybe) change in the future.  For now, you have Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Islamic studies offered. If you are non-religious, you can take a social ethics course instead.

I also do not understand their statements about indoctrination at school. The attitudes here as far as education goes is so far from indoctrination that I find it pitiable that such a statement has been made to American mass media, especially those with a religious bent.  As far as the quality of education, their home state is home to some of the most prestigious universities in Germany.  (I would love to know more, but I live in a neighboring state and am very happy with our educational opportunities.)

There has also been brought up that the family may face fines or prison time for home-schooling. This is only a half truth. If the Romeike family sends their children to school, and  home-school after school hours or on the weekends; they will not be penalized. They also could move anywhere in the EU that home-schooling is still legal while still fighting for legalization here in Germany.

Another argument the Romeike family raises is that their human rights were breached. The current court decisions deny this, and I hope to discuss this further on my blog at some point in the future.

I wish their family no ill will, I only wish to present some facts unavailable to the American public in general.

My home-school experience wasn’t the best, and I know that there are exceptional, awesome home-schoolers out there. I wish all of them the best, but I find cases like these certainly do not help ours, or for us to be better accepted or trusted by society at large. As someone pursuing higher education at the moment, I find it difficult not to speak up.

A Quick and Dirty Primer on HSLDA

HA Editorial Team16 Comments

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A Quick and Dirty Primer on HSLDA, By Kathryn Brightbill

Kathryn Brightbill blogs at The Life and Opinions of Kathryn Elizabeth, Person.

Did you find your way to Homeschoolers Anonymous because of the press coverage of the Wunderlich and Twelve Tribes cases in Germany? Or did the Romeike case in the United States send you hunting for more info on this HSLDA group that keeps showing up in news stories?

Then this story is for you.

It is in no way meant to be exhaustive, just to provide basic information for people who did not grow up in the homeschooling world and are unfamiliar with HSLDA’s activism.

Early Days

HSLDA was founded by Michael Farris in 1983. At that time, homeschooling as a movement was in its infancy, and because parents were concerned about the legality, the idea of a legal defense and advocacy organization dedicated to homeschooling was an attractive one.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, HSLDA was involved in liberalizing the homeschooling laws in states across the US, mobilizing homeschoolers to bombard their legislators with phone calls, telegrams in the early days, faxes, and emails. During this time period most of the restrictions and regulations on homeschooling were removed so that in many states there is now minimal oversight of homeschooling families to ensure that children are receiving an education.

In 1991, HSLDA went international with the formation of HSLDA Canada.

A turning point came in 1994 when HSLDA used the power of its network of homeschooling parents to fight against H.R. 6, a federal bill that said that non-public schools applying for federal funds must have teachers certified in the subject matter in which they teach. For reasons that are not entirely clear since the bill was about non-public schools that received federal money—an issue completely unrelated to homeschooling, HSLDA decided that H.R. 6 meant that the federal government would require homeschoolers to be certified teachers. Although many other homeschool leaders disagreed with HSLDA’s analysis and did not see any threat to homeschooling in the bill, nevertheless, HSLDA mobilized tens of thousands of homeschoolers to contact congress and in the process discovered just how powerful a political network they had built.

HSLDA Branches Out: Non-homeschool-related activities

When you are an organization that is run by conservative members of the religious right (Farris was an attorney with Concerned Women for America who fought against the Equal Rights Amendment, former HSLDA attorney Doug Phillips is the son of Constitution Party presidential candidate and former Nixon administration member Howard Phillips, to give a few examples), and you have built a powerful grassroots network that will do your bidding, the temptation to limit your work to homeschooling is evidently too great to resist.

Coming on the heels of the H.R. 6 fight in 1994, HSLDA touts their involvement in killing the US ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a human rights treaty.

The only UN member states that have not ratified CEDAW are Iran, Palau, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tonga, and the United States.

In 1995, HSLDA took a case in Virginia, In re Brianna, where the parents were charged with neglect for refusing to vaccinate their child. HSLDA successfully argued that the parents should be given a religious exemption from providing childhood vaccinations to their child. HSLDA’s timeline of events does not indicate that this case had any connection to homeschooling.

In a case where the only relationship to homeschooling was that the party involved was a former homeschooler, HSLDA and Michael Farris took on the case of Michael New, a soldier who refused to wear a UN beret as part of United Nations peacekeeping actions. In a 1995 Court Report cover story, the case was described as, “Michael New v. the New World Order,” a reference to fundamentalist Christian beliefs about the End Times and the United Nations as ushering in a one world government that would lead to the rise of the antichrist.

In 1997, a constitutional amendment drafted by HSLDA, the “American Sovereignty Amendment, H.J.R. 83,” was introduced by Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth (R-ID). The amendment, which did not go anywhere, would have changed the Constitution so that treaties were no longer on the same level as the US Constitution. The text of the amendment is not available online, but it is evident from HSLDA’s own description that it would have had significant effects on the United States’ ability to meet its treaty obligations.

By 2003, HSLDA decided to organize young homeschool students into Generation Joshua to create a generation of young, politically active kids who could provide the manpower on the ground in conservative political campaigns. Generation Joshua was designed to build a second generation of kids to carry forth the culture war battles of their parents.

In 2004, despite the fact that it has not even the slimmest connection to homeschooling, HSLDA backed a constitutional amendment to ban both same-sex marriage and civil unions.

Another way that HSLDA expanded their reach beyond homeschooling was with the 2007 launch of ParentalRights.org, an advocacy organization devoted to expanding parental rights free from government interference. This includes advocating for a Parental Rights Amendment that would subject all laws relating to parental decisions on the upbringing, care, and education of their children to the highest level of judicial scrutiny, a standard that is extremely difficult to overcome, and which would remove almost all legal protections from children.

HSLDA was also instrumental in blocking United States ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, despite the fact that the treaty mirrors the Americans with Disabilities Act.

On the treaty front, HSLDA has also led the fight against the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Among their objections to the treaty is that it would prevent minors from being sentenced to life in prison—something that the international community agrees is unacceptable but that the US still practices. They also object to the fact that the convention uses the best interest of the child standard in determining matters involving children, even though the best interest of the child standard is the guiding standard in American family law already. Furthermore, they oppose the idea that children should have a right to be heard in decisions relating to their interests.

The only countries that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States. HSLDA bears much of the responsibility for America’s failure to ratify the treaty.

HSLDA and Abuse

Starting from 1992 on, HSLDA’s timeline lists their involvement in an increasing number of cases where homeschool families were accused of child abuse unrelated to homeschooling itself. Further, HSLDA’s timeline credits their work with member families in defeating Virginia Senate Bill 621, a bill that did not involve homeschooling but rather the standard of proof in child abuse investigations.

They also brag on their timeline about their role in killing a 1997 bill in New Hampshire that would have defined isolation of children as a form of abuse, because they believe it could apply to homeschoolers. This certainly suggests that HSLDA believes that some homeschool parents isolate their children to the point that a bill designed to protect children from abuse would apply, and thinks this is okay.

This is particularly relevant given the accusations against the Wunderlich family—HSLDA says that the family wasn’t abusive, but HSLDA doesn’t think that extreme isolation is abuse.

In his 1996 novel, Anonymous Tip, a story intended to dramatize the position that Child Protective Services are a threat to families, Michael Farris repeatedly has his protagonists insist that spankings that leave bruises are not necessarily evidence of abuse.

For more on HSLDA’s handling of child abuse cases, see Libby Anne’s extensive documentation on HSLDA and abuse, including their fight against child abuse reporting, the time they called a man who caged his children a “hero”, and their opposition to Florida’s proposed law that would have defined leaving bruises and welts on children as abuse.

This is not to say that HSLDA supports child abuse. As Libby Anne explains, it is entirely possible to abhor abuse while still taking actions that end up protecting abusers.

Michael Farris’ other non-homeschooling activism

An overview of HSLDA would be incomplete without noting at least some of Michael Farris’ other activism during his time with HSLDA. In addition to an unsuccessful 1994 run for Lt. Governor of Virginia, Farris was the founder of the Madison Project, a political action committee that bundles small donations in support of right wing candidates. Furthermore, his support of right wing candidates extended to backing John Ashcroft for President in 1998 and Mike Huckabee in 2008 (chastising other leaders of the right for not backing Huckabee sooner), and has mobilized Generation Joshua in support of Ken Cucinelli’s run for governor of Virginia.

As already mentioned, before founding HSLDA, Farris worked with Concerned Women For America in fighting against the Equal Rights Amendment that would have guaranteed equal constitutional rights for women. Also in the early 1980s, he worked with the Moral Majority in Washington state to try to get sex education materials removed from libraries.

Farris has also taken to fighting other broader culture war issues after the founding of HSLDA. Writing an amicus brief on behalf of Patrick Henry College in the Hollingsworth v. Perry (Prop. 8) United States Supreme Court case, he argued that if the government recognized marriage between two people of the same sex it would make it harder for Patrick Henry College to continue with their current (discriminatory) policies.

More recently, he spoke at the founding meeting of Trail Life, USA, the scouting group that was formed as an alternative to the Boy Scouts after the Boy Scouts stopped kicking gay kids out of the Scouts. The head of the Trail Life organization has gone on record stating that he believes that parents accepting their gay children is a form of child abuse. Farris, for his part, seems to agree with the head of Trail Life that gay children should be subjected to reparative therapy, a form of therapy condemned by every major psychiatric organization because it is psychologically harmful to the point of being abusive.

In Conclusion

While HSLDA may have started as a homeschooling advocacy organization, over time they have shifted and expanded their focus, fighting against international treaties, expanded child abuse legislation, and fighting for broader religious right causes. They are an organization founded and led by religious right activists who treat homeschooling as yet another front in the ongoing culture wars.

Alternative Narratives On Germany And Homeschooling: An Introduction

HA Editorial Team6 Comments

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By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

So much of the “news” one hears these days about Germany and homeschooling comes from the same sources: Fox, The Blaze, World Net Daily, the Christian Post, and WORLD Magazine. Often times it seems like these sources merely copy and paste press releases from the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) rather than do their own research. I can also count on one hand how many times they did not bring up Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party or the Gestapo, or encourage their readers to think in terms of xenophobic slurs.

When I wrote my essay about how American-based organizations like HSLDA and the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF) supported the Bavarian branch of the Twelve Tribes through the efforts and money of American Christians and homeschoolers, I was struck by the vast differences in coverage between American media and German media. I think, honestly, what I was most struck by was that — there has been an abundance of German media coverage on the homeschool question in Germany over the last decade. While that probably ought not be surprising, it was surprising for this reason: that coverage is almost universally absent in American coverage.

And here is why this is a problem: there are really, really important details in the German media coverage that get conveniently left out of the American media coverage.

Details that can make all the difference in the world in how one perceives individual situations.

I am hoping this week to provide the HA audience and a wider audience with some of this missing information. I also want to encourage Christians, homeschoolers, Americans, and so forth to think beyond the predominant narrative on what is going on in Germany — a narrative that is intimately and methodically constructed by HSLDA itself — and consider other narratives and points of view.

This week HA will not be presenting merely one narrative in opposition to HSLDA’s narrative. Rather, we will be sharing viewpoints from a diversity of sources. Some of us might actually believe Germany’s almost-ban on homeschooling is in fact silly, but at the same time believe homeschooling is not a human right. Or we might disapprove of excessive police force against German homeschoolers, but agree with Germany’s almost-ban on homeschooling. Or we might be 100% cool with homeschooling but think it is 100% not cool to use American immigration and asylum policy as a battleground for homeschool politics.

The point this week is not to force any one perspective down your throat. The point is to encourage you to consider more than HSLDA’s perspective — more than the perspective that is allowed to go unquestioned and parroted by Fox, The Blaze, WND, and so forth.

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Introducing Jennifer Stahl

As we begin this week on Germany and homeschooling, I am excited to introduce Jennifer Stahl to the Homeschoolers Anonymous audience. Jennifer was homeschooled from the sixth grade forward under the Home School Legal Defense Association umbrella — and she is currently residing in Germany. She has written a number of excellent posts about German homeschool controversies on her own blog.

As a former HSLDA kid currently living in Germany, Jennifer’s voice is a fascinating and important one to consider.

As a former HSLDA kid currently living in Germany,, Jennifer Stahl's voice is a fascinating and important one to consider.
As a former HSLDA kid currently living in Germany,, Jennifer Stahl’s voice is a fascinating and important one to consider.

Here is a little bit about her: Jennifer was raised in a US Military home where she lived in six different states and in two foreign countries before getting married and moving to Germany. She is the oldest of three children and her school background varied greatly, including six years of home-schooling. Jennifer’s faith took a different direction in the last decade, towards Messianic Judaism, which has been a source of contention with her family’s fundamentalist background. After moving overseas and having her first child, she began questioning the doctrine that children are inherently sinful beings who need to be beaten regularly, obey instantly with a happy heart and never question their religious and household authority. She has also been unpacking much of the harm of purity culture, spiritual abuse, and anti-feminism while navigating cross-cultural norms. In processing these issues, she came to realize how much doctrine had been passed off as “Gospel Truth” and began blogging about this late last year.

You can follow Jennifer on her blog at Yeshua, Hineni and on Twitter at @HadassahSukkot. She was recently interviewed about Christian feminism on From Two to One.

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Since the Bavarian Twelve Tribes were recently filmed committing child abuse and Dirk and Petra Wunderlich were recently reunited with their children, and HSLDA members have been flooding the Germany Embassy’s Facebook page, there are likely a lot of Germans wondering about this American organization called HSLDA and about homeschooling and the like. So to start this week, Kathryn Brightbill has written “a quick and dirty primer on HSLDA,” so that interested individuals can learn more.

The battle over homeschooling in Germany has raged for well over a decade. There have been many high profile cases, ranging from the Twelve Tribes (Zwölf Stämme) to the Paderborn Seven to Melissa Busekros to the Romeike, Wunderlich, and Dudek families. Most of these high profile cases involve some form of fundamentalist Christianity, with evolution and sex education as motivating factors for homeschooling. They also involve the hand of an American organization like HSLDA or ADF — or a German-based affiliate, like Schulunterricht zu Hause and Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit.

Since it is unlikely this battle is going away any time soon, the least we can do is understand the situation and get our facts straight.

I hope that this week’s series will aid in that endeavor.

Corporal Punishment and The End of The Red Stick: Heather Doney’s Story, Part Two

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

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HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Heather Doney’s blog Becoming Worldly. It was originally published on February 18, 2013. Read Part One of Heather’s story for HA’s To Break Down A Child series here.

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Trigger warning for To Break Down a Child series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

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This picture could be anybody’s little sister blindfolded and hitting a piñata at her Dad’s house for another sibling’s birthday.

My little sister lives in a different world than I did.
My little sister lives in a different world than I did.

But it isn’t. It’s my little sister.

She lives in a different world than I did. One with her own bedroom and court-ordered visitation and Christmas presents from a kind stepmother. She has never been homeschooled. She does not remember a time when our family didn’t celebrate birthdays, or was too poor to buy a piñata, or was too “modest” for her favorite summer clothes to be allowed.

She could be using any stick to hit this piñata but she isn’t. She’s using the “red stick,” the most infamous spanking implement our family had.

As far as I know, none of the younger siblings attending this party were ever touched by the red stick and I imagine just a few had been threatened, but the grim knowledge of what it was used for had been passed down.

The red stick had started out as a handle to a child-size broom and then when the broom broke 25 years ago, it became a toy (a walking stick, a bat, a pretend sword) left in the yard until my Dad picked it up off the patio one day, tapped it against his palm a few times and said, “This would make a real good spankin’ stick.”

Then it became something totally new. An object of fear.

It stayed hanging on a nail or propped in a corner in my Dad’s bedroom or office for years except when it was picked up and used to threaten or to leave welts.

“Daddy, please don’t spank me. I’m tender.” No red stick today, only fodder for years of teasing. “Aww, is my little heatherjanes still tender?”

“Do you want a spanking? Don’t make me get the red stick.”

Mom catches one sister padding her underwear with toilet paper in anticipation of a beating. After that, it’s bare bottomed.

“Pull down your pants. Bend over.” Red stick.

Sitting in the “punish chair” corner ’til sundown, hearing the car crunch gravel in the driveway, shaking, hands going cold. Red stick.

“But I don’t want to try and eat a pickled pig lip out of that jar, Dad. It looks just like apig’s lip.” “If you don’t try it, you’ll get the red stick. You’d better eat it and like it.” Tears. Gagging. Spitting chunks of pickled pork into the sink. Red stick.

Pain, shame, anger, fear. Yelling. Red stick.

Running, cursing, slipping, falling, being caught and dragged. Red stick.

Grabbing the red stick tightly, just as tall, if not quite as strong as the woman holding it. “Let go,” Mom says.

“No,” I say, “You’re gonna hit me with it.”

“Yes,” she says.

“Well,” I say, “I’d be an idiot to let it go then, wouldn’t I?”

It strikes me that this photo is the only known picture of the red stick. The only official proof of it ever existing or being used is in a pleasant scenario. As it happens, the red stick finally died that happy day, broke while connecting with the piñata and ended up in the garbage.

A sibling sent me a message informing me that the red stick had met its end and that when Dad was out of range, they had celebrated its demise. I was glad, too: glad it was gone and that it did not die the way I had always imagined it would — splintering into pieces over a child’s behind.

It would never be used to hurt anyone again.

It had broken being used the only way it should have ever been used, in the original spirit it had once had — innocently in child’s play.

Public Schools and Home Dictators: Keziah’s Story

HA Editorial Team5 Comments

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

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Trigger warning for To Break Down a Child series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

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I have half-moons on the sides of my nose. They are actually the third set of bags under my eyes. I didn’t cry all night, or stay up late with a baby. In my mid-thirties, I cannot sleep at night. Once my distractions and duties rest for the day, ghosts play in my dreams and the memories of fears warn me to stay awake. The dark is when bad happens and my parents trained me to fear it.

A lack of light is evil.

Even now, I want to write anything but this. Writing is my life’s work, but this shouldn’t be my story to write. I shake my head, furious that I know this tale, my stomach forcing me hunched over.

I won’t write it – fuck them. Then I remember the other “them,” and write. I sigh. The quiet “them”no one talks about. My being a “them” that no one talks about, that my parents still try to silence.

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I remember a tired face, another face of my current age; this face was my face, only on a different person, twenty years ago.

This face stood over a five-year-old me, throwing fists on a starving body, as punishment for adding sugar to cereal or adding pepper to an already perfected meal, thus insulting the cook. I saw this face as I stood shaking every morning as it scowled at the unruliness of my hair, turning my scalp to fire so that it was perfect – a twisted mix of undiagnosed OCD and passion to present perfect children, so the ultimate secret remained so. I turned green every morning and threw up many and that face didn’t care. It showed anger that I was wasting food, wasting hair-fixing time so it could return to bed.

And yes, I was going to school – a public school.

You see, a home dictator doesn’t have to be a homeschool parent, or a religious zealot. A home dictator needs a cause – which can be simply to bury their pain or to feel powerful. My home dictator was mentally ill, and surrounded by enablers: my dad, her siblings, her parents, and once I was old enough, me.

You see, if an outsider catches a glimpse of a home dictator, they recoil – in fear, in disbelief, or with thanks their kids are unaffected.

You see, a child victim’s role in life is to protect the person assigned to protect them who actually fails the most. Any psychological means keeps that victim quiet, even in a public school. The maelstrom of life creates a lack of words for people still learning their words.

If the victim speaks out, that teacher or counselor must act because revealing the fear may happen only once.

You see, an outsider who escapes has little recourse. Often suffering and sometimes still dependent, she gets little help from a state agency – especially once she is no longer a minor. When I contacted CPS for my younger brothers and sisters, the initial phone worker asked little and the investigator saw food in the fridge and left.

American culture (and perhaps others, too) can change this. When I contacted my state’s child services, they wanted to know what they would find. I told them they would find no evidence – only children who believe those workers will take them to a new home, one where they will be raped and beaten, maybe experience the same treatment they do now, only worse, because they will have no parents who love them.

And those children will lie and protect. They will be confused and scared.

You see, there will be no evidence of abuse.

The weltschmerz of these children has inspired action and a weird happiness kept me reading Homeschoolers Anonymous. I fit in, even though I was never homeschooled a day in my life.

This movement that the Internet has enabled, comprised of parents and victims, the growth of psychology and the explanations of science and brain functions the masses can understand and access, this can be the kairos to educate about child abuse.

The identity of “them” is often formed in the name of God, for pride, for the appeasement of elders, for the appearance of good parenting. Homeschooling provides a hidden world, a place of acceptable child abuse.

The same stories happen with “them” in public schools, out in the open, with the same training methods so that children remain silent.

Corpses Don’t Rebel: ExPearlSwine’s Story

HA Editorial Team8 Comments

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HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Vyckie Garrison’s blog No Longer Quivering. It was a guest post by ExPearlSwine originally published on Patheos on November 2, 2011.

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Trigger warning for To Break Down a Child series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

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The death toll from parents following Michael and Debi Pearl’s teachings continues to mount. Another child is has been “biblically chastened” to death via corporal punishment, and Michael Pearl is defending his teachings in the mainstream media while promoting his new book. Gary Tuchman and Anderson Cooper both reported on the death of 13-year-old Hana Williams, whose adoptive parents Larry and Carri Williams subjected her to beatings and neglect while following the teachings of the Pearls.

Michael Pearl defends himself and his teachings during his CNN interviews using two arguments:

First, the presence of his book, To Train Up a Child, and the presence of his other teaching materials on “biblical chastisement,” in the homes of homicidal parents, is purely circumstantial. It makes no more sense, Pearl argues, to blame To Train Up a Child for discipline-turned-abusive-turned-murderous than to blame Alcoholics Anonymous brochures in the home for deaths due to drunk driving, or weight-loss materials in the home for obesity.

As Anderson Cooper pointed out, this defense is illogical.

AA literature says not to drink, especially while driving. Pearl literature emphasizes inflicting physical pain on children in order to break their wills and achieve total obedience to parents. In the Cooper interview, Pearl talks about physically chastising to “get the child’s attention.” What if your child still isn’t paying attention?

Pearl’s second argument comes up every time his teachings are linked to children beaten to death: kids end up abused and killed because parents, despite owning copies of his teachings and trying to follow them, aren’t really following his teachings. They are missing the joy part, the reconciliation part, the praying part, the loving part, or whatever. They discipline in anger instead of in love.

Or—and I suspect this is what Pearl really thinks but can’t say without contradicting his own child-training directions—they should have known when to stop, when they were being cruel and abusive instead of loving, even if the child was still in rebellion and hadn’t budged an inch. At some point, a loving parent with some sense and a conscience will stop inflicting more pain. This is what Pearl believes, or at least one would hope this is what he believes.

This isn’t what he teaches.

I followed the Pearls’ teachings for years, and the children I subjected to “biblical chastisement” are very much the worse off for it. I’m wondering which part of Michael Pearl’s teachings he’d say I was missing:

  1. Get Pearl’s teachings and read every single word and pray. Check.
  2. Start striking infants with objects on the hand or in the buttocks area as soon as they are able to reach for something you don’t want them to touch and ignore your “No.” Check.
  3. Hit them harder if they continue. Check.
  4. When they cry, lovingly console them and “reconcile” them to yourself and God. Check.
  5. Always use physical chastisement on them when they don’t respond to spoken correction. Check. If I didn’t strike them, my husband did.
  6. Believe that they will end up juvenile delinquents and go to hell if you slack off. Check.
  7. Pray and study the Bible some more. Check.
  8. Be joyful about chastising your baby all day. Praise God while you slap a three-month-old’s hand with a ruler and think about how godly he’ll turn out. Half a check. It was hard.
  9. The children will quit rebelling and be wonderful children who sweetly, quietly obey and love you to pieces. . . No check.

This is what I was missing: the part where the Pearls’ teaching worked. Only one child out of the oldest four quietly obeyed in response to chastisement, but she also had signs of severe emotional disturbance. She withdrew into herself and didn’t speak until she was two. The other three oldest children out of my Quiver Full of kids would rebel. And rebel. They would go to the wall rebelling. They would rebel until the cows came home and the bulls came home and calves were born.

The more you hurt them, the more they rebelled.

Michael Pearl has only three methods to deal with continued rebellion in children, since his teachings are straight from the Bible, and therefore infallible:

  1. Blame yourself. You must not be getting my teaching right.
  2. Hit harder. Pain is of the essence.
  3. Blame the kid. What else is left? Other people’s kids give in and act godly.

Oh, and don’t forget to be loving and joyful and kind and patient just like Jesus (only I can’t see Jesus removing the diaper of a baby to inflict any degree of pain on her whatsoever using any object or even his hand, by any stretch of my imagination). Butdon’t give in. Don’t stop chastising, and make sure it hurts. Don’t let the kid (and the devil in the kid) win.

When the Pearls’ methods failed, I got stuck on method a. Blame yourself.

 I re-readTo Train Up a Child. When I knew I had it right, I hit harder. Prayed harder. Did the whole disciplinary routine smiling from ear to ear and cooing like a dove. My babies acted freaked out by my grin (it was a lot like Debi Pearl’s vacuous, huge grin in the Tuchman interview) and were enraged by my efforts to “lovingly reconcile” with them after spankings. They kept up the fight. At this point, I think I would have admitted to myself that something was wrong with this whole child-training method and stopped torturing the toddlers all day to no avail. If you have to be cruel to get the Pearl method to work on some kids, it’s wrong. I had a husband, however, who was firmly convinced that Pearl was right. He went right for the b. and c. options: hit harder and blame the kid.

Options b. and c. are hard to do without getting angry. They are hard to do without leaving bruises, especially since Pearl discipline is cumulative: faced with entrenchedrebellion, you are supposed to hit repeatedly and in the same areas. My ex-husband got angry with the kids for thwarting the Pearl method, but he remained coldly self-controlled. He also left bruises. A lot of bruises.

Why didn’t I stop him? I finally did, but early in my marriage I was paralyzed by fear and brainwashed by bad teaching.

We both feared raising ungodly kids. We were looking for confirmation that some part of this system worked, and my ex-husband began to get results. The children flinched when he even moved. Cowered when he reached for a spanking implement. Had semi-seizures on the carpet following “biblical correction.” We got compliance with our wishes. Eventually, there wasimmediate and unquestioning compliance. My ex-husband had quelled the rebellion in three kids. He had created unfocused, freaked-out little robots who obeyed. The joy and the peace that was supposed to suffuse our home according to Pearl, we thought we could dispense with. Maybe it would come later; the Pearls are a little vague on where the peace and love should come into the process, just as they are a little vague on how you can keep “chastising” repeatedly with progressively increased force in the same places without leaving bruises.

To Train Up a Child is a manual of progressive violence against children.

Not only are there no stopgaps to prevent child abuse, the book is a mandate to use implements to inflict increasingly intense pain in the face of continued disobedience. The part about not causing injury is vague and open to interpretation, but the part about never backing down or shirking your parental duty to spank harder and harder is crystal clear. The Pearls’ teachings will lead, inescapably, to extremely strong-willed kids being abused and sometimes murdered by fundamentalist parents who are determined to “break” those children.  The Pearls’ defenders will say, “Oh, they took it to an extreme and should have known better.” If anyone knows better than to keep inflicting more severe discipline on an intractable child, they can only apply that knowledge by scuttling the Pearls’ sadistic teaching and being more reasonable.

I think Hana Williams was a lot like my oldest three kids, only stronger. I think Lydia Shatz, the other recent Pearl casualty, was a lot like them too. Maybe their iron wills and endurance came from being born in Africa and living under harsh conditions. Perhaps, like some of my children, they had some innate sense that their parents were screwed up and that all their parents’ so-called “Christian love” did not cancel out or justify their own physical suffering. They resented being classified with the demons for daring to disagree, for wanting a relationship with their parents that wasn’t based on changing their behavior, personality, or identity. The pain only stiffened their resistance. They were not going to be broken by people who continually inflicted pain on them.

The only way to break the wills of children like this is to kill them.

The 911 call that Carri Williams made to the police dispatcher says it all.

Operator: What’s the emergency?

Carri Williams: Um, I think my daughter just killed herself.

Operator:  Why do you say that?

Carri Williams, Um, she’s really rebellious, and she’s been outside refusing to come in, and she’s been throwing herself all around, and then she collapsed.

What’s wrong with Hana? “Um, she’s really rebellious.” She won’t do what we say.

No, she’s not, she’s dead. She can’t rebel any more. And you’re blaming her, saying she did it to herself.

Thank God I escaped from thinking like you, Carri Williams. Thank God some of my babies were mothered without pain, once I got away from their father and all the right-wing fundamentalist teachings that had ruined my life, Pearl’s teachings included. Will I ever forget the confusion and pain in the wide baby eyes of the oldest ones, when I first swatted their tiny hands? They were startled, bewildered. And then they opened their mouths and cried the cry of the completely betrayed, the absolutely alone in the world. I was the only person they even recognized yet, and I had hurt them.

To this day, it haunts me, as you will be haunted by your last glimpse of Hana alive, just before she collapsed. Hana’s last stand.

My Regret: Quick Silver Queen’s Story

HA Editorial Team11 Comments

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HA note: Quick Silver Queen blogs at The Eighth and Final Square. This story is reprinted with her permission. Also by Quick Silver Queen on Homeschoolers Anonymous: “All My Fault, Not Good Enough.”

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Trigger warning for To Break Down a Child series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

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I wish I hadn’t done a lot of things, and wish I could change other things, but basically, I have one regret in my life. One thing that I wish I had done differently. One thing that still angers me to think about, because of the cruelty.

Thanks to a friend of mine who posted the link on facebook, I read an article titled “First time obedience, really?” First-time obedience is something that is extremely important in my family. It pretty much goes along with formula parenting. The example my dad would always use as to the merits of first-time obedience is if one of his very small children ran out into the street (which wouldn’t happen anyway), and a car came, he would say “Stop!” or “Come back!” and they would do it immediately, unlike (again, his example) “your cousins”. (Sorry, uncles and aunts. Don’t feel bad, though…at least your kids still have brains that aren’t being controlled!)

So while seeing the downside to it (which I will elaborate on in a minute), I was also warring inside myself. It would save someone from death, right? So it’s good? But on the other hand, I saw what happened, and it was most certainly not good.

Two years old. Rebellious. Self-willed. Wicked. Too young to like or dislike anything. Too young to have opinions.

Wait…what?!?

Uhh yeah, that’s my parents for you. They don’t believe in the “terrible twos”…they believe in “terrible hearts”.

You know, the verse in Proverbs that says foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction will drive it from him. And the verse that the heart is wicked and who can know it. So the first problem is, they don’t come to parenting with the view that these are people. They come to parenting with the view that these are wicked little sinners who need a radical change, whose thoughts and feelings and opinions and likes and dislikes don’t matter because it is all selfish willfulness.

Cue the dinner table. There’s a very small child in the high chair, whom dad is feeding. This child is a baby, really…crawling, maybe walking; can’t even say real words yet.

“Open up!” dad says, moving the spoon towards her.

She accepts that bite, but doesn’t like the food, and spits it back out.

“No, you eat it,” dad says, scooping it back up and attempting to give it to her again.

She makes a disgusted face and turns her head. We all laugh at the cute little shudder she makes.

“Don’t laugh, it encourages her,” dad says, still trying to force the bite with the slightly more stern command “Open”. He presses the spoon against her soft mouth, trying to force it open.

When she continues resisting, he moves her head to face him and commands sternly, “Open.”

She may open her mouth at that point, or she may not; in which case he takes the tray off the chair and gives her a few loud swats, sets her back down, and resumes with the “open” stuff.

Meanwhile the rest of us try to ignore it and eat our dinners.

If she still doesn’t open her mouth, again with the swats, and she sits there crying, looking at him with terror in her eyes, her nose running all over the place. If her mouth is open from crying, he shoves it in. If she tries to spit it out, he doesn’t let her, and she accepts that she has to keep it in her mouth.

Then comes the battle to get her to swallow.

What one- or two-year-old do you know who knows the meaning of the word “swallow”, let alone “open”? Most one- and two-year-olds are lucky to know the word “no”.

I’m sitting there, dying inside, longing to take her in my arms, wipe her tears, blow her nose, and cuddle her safe in my arms.

Nobody, not even mom, was allowed to give her any comfort. Not even dad did, until she did whatever he wanted. And if he got tired of spanking her, he sent her to bed…and when she got up she had to eat the same thing she disliked. Because her likes and dislikes didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered except that she obeyed the first time, every time.

My only regret is that I didn’t stick up for her, for them, every time it happened with I don’t know how many of them, probably all, at one time or another.

The last time it happened when I was there, I was so close to exploding that had he spanked her one more time, I would have done something. I just wish I had…that I had stood up long before.

And that is my regret.

My Father Decried Michael Pearl’s Softness: Warbler’s Story

HA Editorial Team7 Comments

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Also by Warbler on Homeschoolers Anonymous: “Finding A Reason To Wake Up.”

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Trigger warning for To Break Down a Child series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

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My parents swore by To Train Up a Child.  Any new parents that they met and invited over to the house were shown the book, read passages and encouraged to purchase a copy of their own.

First-time-obedience and spankings were commonplace in our home.

My dad would spank us with his hand, but my mom’s hands were more fragile and after breaking one too many blood-vessels in her hands on our bottoms, she graduated to a paint-stirrer.  When those continued to brake, she had a paint-stirrer custom made out of a 2-by-4 and varnished.

It was solid wood and it hurt intensely.

We got 5 spanks automatically for any infringement of the rules or act of disobedience, or in my case: lies.  Any “rebellion” after that would get more spanks in 5-spank ‘increments’ (for example: crying too much after being spanked, not giving the correct reason as to why we were spanked, refusing to hug afterwards, rolling eyes [this happened to me especially], or anything else that was considered “unbroken”).

We were taken to another room (sometimes the room had to be emptied, sometimes the spanking were “saved” if we were out or if company came over and all rooms were occupied) and the door was closed.  With the parent sitting we were bent over their knees (clothing on generally, except for once or twice when my skirt was thick material and prevented the blows from causing “sufficient” pain) and spanked the expected, pre-ordained amount of times.  We were then stood up, allowed to sniffle for a couple seconds, and then expected to state the reasons for which we were being spanked in parent-approved terms.

For example:

Mom: Now, why did you get spanked?

Me: I stole crackers/was rebellious/didn’t obey you when you said to take out the compost/lied about cheating on my math.

Then, we were given a hug/forced to hug the parent that had just spanked us.

We were regaled with how the spanking was a disappointment to them/it hurt them more than it hurt us/we could avoid spankings by obeying/how much they loved us and wanted us to be better children.

Around the age of 11 for me (older for my brother) the spanking stopped because I was too heavy to be laid over their knees. They figured that more creative punishments were needed to change my heart because the spankings were not working.  The paddle mysteriously disappeared at one point and never ended up being replaced, the younger siblings getting hand-spanked or paint-stirrer spanked occasionally.  For some reason when we older children graduated out of spanking the younger children were not spanked as often either.  Usually we elder ones were held responsible for some of their faults, but (extra) chores were given out as the answer for offenses.

I read To Train Up a Child multiple times growing up because it was out/laying around, it was used as a defense/proof-text for my parents actions, and because it was required reading at one point for school. My parents also signed up for their newsletter/magazine and my mother kept it on hand for reading material for us children as well.

I remember when the “Cloistered Homeschooling Syndrome” articles came out and my father decried Michael Pearl as “becoming soft” about homeschooling issues. 

My older sister and I read them surreptitiously and found a small glimmer of hope through them (whispering between ourselves that we thought he was right–daring to disagree with our authority figure).  My parents were still preaching Pearl as late as 2010 to the latest of their “converts.”  I learned OBEDIENCE or PAIN, CONFORMITY or BEATINGS.

And when my sister and I ran away in the middle of the night, my parents could not imagine why they did not see it coming.

When Hitting Means Love: Rochelle’s Story

HA Editorial Team8 Comments

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

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Trigger warning for To Break Down a Child series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

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I don’t remember my first spanking. I actually don’t remember all that many specifics about spanking.

I remember dad breaking the plastic spoon on me…and then a switch….and then another switch….and then pulling off his belt and using it on me. I remember the sick feeling that I would get when mum would pull dad aside to tell him about how school went that day. That I didn’t get everything done again.

That I spent the day listlessly looking out the window in tears, trying to process moving again and dealing with depression as a 10 year old.

I remember the welts, the screaming, the bruising, the pain. The battle over my refusal to cry, and finally forcing tears to stop the spanking. I still get a sick feeling in my stomach thinking about my siblings screaming when they got spanked. My two year old sister getting spanked for not eating her food. My 10 year old brother getting spanked for not getting the table set in under 5 minutes. I remember my siblings getting spanked every time they did something wrong.

Sometimes the pipe wasn’t so small.  Sometimes the dowel was so small that it blistered my skin the moment it touched me.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve thought long and hard about spanking: the supposed biblically mandated law of using a rod on the backside of a child. Or as the Pearls suggest, a small pipe. If needed, a belt. Or just a dowel.

Anything to inflict pain, to bring the child under the control of the parent.

I’ve been talking to friends and peers lately about spanking. Some of them have gone as far as to say “shame on you for not wanting to spank your kids, if you ever have them.” Really? What are they basing this off of? A few verses in proverbs. Merriam-Webster defines “proverb” as “a brief popular saying (such as ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’) that gives advice about how people should live or that expresses a belief that is generally thought to be true.” So people are deciding how to treat a child, and condemning people off of a piece of advice?

Spanking doesn’t work.

“I spank you because I love you” is the same thing as “I hit you because I love you.”

Saying this gives children confusing messages about what’s ok and what’s not ok. In fact, more than just abusing the child by hitting them, spanking tells the child that they are worthless and sets them up to more vulnerable to being in abusive situations their whole life, because they don’t know boundaries of abuse.

Spanking is selfish. Minus the very few circumstances that a child does something morally wrong (and even then, I can’t say that spanking is right), the majority of spankings happen because the child did something that the parent didn’t like.  Not that it was wrong, but it just displeased the parent. The Pearls teach to set something tempting in front of the child and then punish the child when it goes for that item. Is a child’s curiosity wrong? No. But since the parent was displeased, the child gets punished.

In my experience, much of the punishing that was done was because of inexperienced decisions, not choosing to do the wrong thing. Spanking is immature. Why does an adult feel the need to resort to hitting a child? Spanking shows that the child isn’t valuable enough for your time to talk to him and help him make better decisions (when he does something that’s actually wrong), but rather that you would hit him on the butt and send him on his way.

Children are small adults in training.

We don’t hit other adults, so why are we hitting children? The ones who need our protection, our love, our care and the safety that we provide? Why are we using physical harm on little people?

Spanking damaged me. Physically, I would be sore for a while after spanking. I’d have to make sure that nobody ever saw the bruises and welts covering my legs, butt and lower back. Mentally, the list doesn’t end. I learned that if I messed up, my parents would hurt me. I learned that I can’t trust adults. I learn to lie about things, to save myself from pain, rather than knowing that I could be honest with my parents. I learned that reacting in an aggressive, physical manner to anger or someone not doing things my way is “ok.”

I learned that it was an each man for himself world, and that if I was going to survive, I’d have to protect myself.

The Pearls emphasize spanking a lot, but they also emphasize the parents being in control, the children being in complete submission to the parents and they don’t value the importance of children. The teachings of the Pearls demanded perfection from children, created an atmosphere of pain, distrust and robbed me of my childhood.

I don’t remember my last spanking, even though I was 14. I still remember the pain though.