“Watching my naturally shy little boy become comfortable and have fun with other people is incredibly satisfying.”
Much to my surprise, I’m finding motherhood to be incredibly therapeutic.
Part of it is certainly that I have felt far more socially connected since my son’s birth than at any other time in my life. Ironic, I know, but true. I feel incredibly supported by my friendships with other parents, accepted for who I am, and inspired to grow. Finally experiencing the social connection that I desperately craved for my entire childhood has increased my self-esteem and has decreased my issues with depression, which in turn helps me feel like a better mother.
But more specifically, as a mother, I feel like all the kindness and love that I pour into my son’s life is somehow healing my own childhood wounds. I see him learning the lessons that I wish I had learned myself as a child, and I feel at peace.
He is learning, right from the start, that his feelings are important. As a toddler, he has so many feelings, which often appear suddenly and catch both of us off guard. My job as a parent is to help him learn to recognize his feelings, to validate his feelings, and to direct him toward an appropriate action to manage his feelings. For us, that means when he’s expressing an emotion, I get down at his level and say things like, “Sweetie, are you feeling sad/upset/angry because _______? Awww!” And then I suggest an appropriate comforting/distracting/calming activity. The most amazing thing to me is that, even as a toddler, he usually quiets down in order to listen to me name his emotion, and seems incredibly relieved just to be understood.
He is also learning that his opinions and desires are are worth expressing, even though at this age they sound like nothing more than him shouting, “No! No! No!” It’s up to me to help him phrase his opinions and wishes more clearly, because his “no” could mean anything from, “Don’t do that!” to “I don’t want to do that!” to “I want to do what you are doing” to “I want to have what you have.” Once we understand each other, we can decide how to proceed. But most importantly, I always try to praise him by saying something like, “Good job asking!” even when I have to delay or deny his wish.
Finally, he is also learning, along with me, about the importance of social connection and the joy that others can bring into our lives. He is not yet in pre-school, so as a stay-at-home mom I have to make a conscious effort to teach him this. We leave the house at least once every day, either for a playdate, coffee date, mommy & me class, park, children’s museum, library, or errand.
For myself, I know that I need to be around other people daily to avoid emotional flashbacks to the isolation of my youth.
For my son, I know that he needs to have a lot of early positive experiences with others and have a lot of opportunities to observe social interaction so that he can build his confidence for later social success. Watching my naturally shy little boy become comfortable and have fun with other people is incredibly satisfying. It gives me hope that my personal social weaknesses will not greatly limit him.
Seeing my son learn these three lessons has made my motherhood experience wonderful so far. I only hope, as Baby Boy #2 joins that family this fall, and as my boys get older and start school, that we will be able to continue building strong family relationships on this basic foundation.
Homeschooled Girls and Trash Cans: Latebloomer’s Story, Part Seven
HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Latebloomer” is a pseudonym. Latebloomer’s story was originally published on her blog Past Tense, Present Progressive. It is reprinted with her permission.
Part Seven: The World — (Not So) Evil and Dangerous!
“In some ways, I felt like my gay boss was a better example of love than many of the Christian people that I knew.”
From hanging around with people such as Scott Lively in my fundamentalist Christian homeschooling community, I understood the danger that America was facing from the gay agenda. I believed that the gay lifestyle was depraved and corrupt and a sign of rebellion against God. I believed that God expected me to use political activism to stand up for righteousness and his design for the family. I believed that my “pro-family-values” activism was actually me being loving to the deceived people around me, people who were just taking the easy way out by accepting every type of lifestyle.
Then one day I accidentally met a gay person.
It was at my first real job, when I was 23 years old. My favorite manager, Chris, called the store one day while he was off-duty. He chatted with the on-duty manager Katie for a few minutes; when she hung up, she remarked to me, “He’s so funny! Why did he call me from a gay bar? haha!”
I was extremely confused. “Yeah, that’s weird,” I said, trying to process the information, “Why would he be at a gay bar?” Her jaw dropped, and she stared at me for a minute. Then she said slowly, “Um…..because he’s gay. Didn’t you know that?”
It was a huge moment for me, but a million panicked thoughts flooded my mind at once. How was it that I hadn’t noticed anything “different” about him? He seemed so normal and sweet, not at all detrimental to society! He had always been so thoughtful to me, even from the first day I walked in the store in my awkward unstylish clothes and shyly handed him my resume. He was the first guy to tell me that I was pretty, that I looked like his favorite childhood actress Molly Ringwald (he couldn’t believe that I had never heard of her). But he was gay?? What was I supposed to do now??
I started to feel a huge spiritual burden for him, the feeling that I had a responsibility to help him get out of that damaging lifestyle somehow. But how should I approach that topic with him? Should I try to talk to him about turning away from that lifestyle and starting to follow Christ? Or should I just invite him to church and let God speak to him through the sermons and the pastor? I couldn’t really see either scenario playing out very well, so I waited and thought and prayed.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had no idea what was inherently wrong with gay sex and gay love! Why was it not equally valid? It started to seem a very arbitrary thing to forbid, and reality didn’t match what I had been taught about it in Christian culture. In some ways, I felt like my gay boss was a better example of love than many of the Christian people that I knew. After all, he had hired me willingly, even though he knew that I was a very conservative homeschooler and very likely to be strongly anti-gay. I knew he would not have gotten the same treatment from many conservative Christian employers. Cautiously, I started to think to myself, “Maybe homosexuality is ok after all.”
And that was just one of many cracks that formed as my Christian worldview hit reality. For the first time in my life, I was hearing about other worldviews directly from their source, instead of a filtered, watered-down version presented merely to strengthen my own worldview. And, for the first time in my life, I realized it was possible to hold different opinions from my own without being “blind”, “deceived,” or “in rebellion against God” — my worldview was not so obvious, and “unsaved” people were not so bad after all.
But what were the implications for the Bible? I had always tried to approach it simply, ready to believe the literal interpretation even when it required personal sacrifice. To me, it was a timeless book, orchestrated by God, without contradiction, the only reliable source of truth. But as cracks formed in my carefully-constructed Biblical worldview, in the end I had to decide what I thought about the Bible. I had always avoided my natural curiosity about how the Bible came to us in its current state–it certainly didn’t fall from the sky in its present form! Acknowledging my questions about it was terrifying, but ultimately necessary. If it were really from God, and if I really genuinely wanted to know the truth about it, I shouldn’t have anything to fear. So, very gradually, I looked at my beliefs and asked the hard questions.
My worldview said, “The Bible is the source for morality!” — But then why does it condone things like genocide, and call men “godly” when they offer their daughters to be gang raped, and advocate forced marriages between a girl and her raper? Why doesn’t it condemn slavery and child sacrifice and polygamy with child brides?
My worldview said, “The Bible is written by eyewitnesses, and their accounts don’t contradict each other!” — Then why was I afraid to look at the supposed contradictions? They are there, after all, and just saying they don’t exist isn’t a valid argument. The Bible has internal contradictions on theology and history, and there are significant variations between historic manuscripts. Also, many of the books have unknown authors and were first written sometimes hundreds of years after the events took place. In its present form, the collection of books we call the Bible doesn’t have even more contradictions because those other books were thrown out as “uninspired” simply because they contradicted too much.
My worldview said, “The Bible is the source of truth about salvation through Jesus!” — Then why are there over 2,000 language groups in the world today that have no way to access that truth? Why have billions upon billions of people lived and died without ever having a chance to hear it?
I was rooting for my Biblical worldview to win, I really was. It was comfortable because it was all I knew, and I really don’t like change. However, in the end, it didn’t hold up very well against reality. In the end, there were too many cracks, and my worldview shattered. And when it shattered, I finally saw what a tiny box I had been living in, and what a huge, beautiful, and interesting world was out there to discover.
Since much of my personal growth happened while I was in college, some have said that my changing opinions were the result of “liberal college brainwashing”. To those people, I doubt that I could say anything to change their opinion about that. However, the fact is that at no time during my education at community college or Christian university were my opinions mocked or belittled. At no time did anyone tell me what to believe or not to believe.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the fundamentalist Christian homeschooling environment. That is where you are told what to believe. That is where other opinions are belittled. That is where even questions are dangerous. I don’t want to be part of that culture anymore. To me, a worldview is not worth keeping if it requires ignoring or twisting reality to fit the worldview, pushing down your questions and doubts, and only listening to those who already agree with you.
These thoughts took a very long time to process, and my ideas are still a work in progress today. For now, I am finding that many of my new ideas fit within a looser interpretation of the Bible, one where I don’t completely abdicate my responsibility to think about what’s right in today’s world. I see that morality was a work in progress in the Bible, and I accept that it still is today too, and that I have a role to play.
Homeschooled Girls and Trash Cans: Latebloomer’s Story, Part Six
HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Latebloomer” is a pseudonym. Latebloomer’s story was originally published on her blog Past Tense, Present Progressive. It is reprinted with her permission.
“If I had known the term ‘badass’ back then, I would have applied it to myself with pride.”
I was not the type of daughter that my mother wanted. I was a tomboy.
My hair was very short and I preferred blue clothes. I wanted to run faster and climb higher than anyone. I wasn’t afraid of slimy frogs and worms, and I could kill a spider without batting an eye. I looked with confusion and disdain at the passive little girls with their hair-bows, sitting and talking about clothes and boys. If I had known the term “badass” back then, I would have applied it to myself with pride.
When I was young, my mom was more tolerant of this. After all, in the early days, there were mostly boys in my age group in our small homeschooling community. So I was free to run wild with the boys and join their sports games during our weekly park days.
However, puberty was looming, and it signaled the end of my adventurous life. It was time for me to learn to act like a “lady”, and the means of teaching was through one sentence: “That’s not very ladylike”.
I was a difficult student; after all, the rules seemed very arbitrary and I couldn’t see any advantages that compensated for the extra restrictions. The heart of the message seemed to be that I had to become extremely aware of my body in order to keep other people from being aware of it. A lady did not run. A lady did not sit with her knees apart. A lady did not lie down in public. A lady did not make random bodily noises or find them amusing. A lady did not use crude language like the word “crap” or “fart.” A lady did not wear tight or revealing clothing — for awhile, that meant no shorts or sleeveless shirts. A lady never pointed to or discussed her own body in public. And most of all, a lady never called boys or invited them into her bedroom (not even when I was 23, in a group, with my family home and my door open! What did my mom think I was going to do, have a blatant daytime orgy before my first kiss??).
And besides the extra restrictions, there were also extra responsibilities. I had to learn to sew and cook, things that my brother was exempt from. I tried and tried, but I was never able to enjoy these womanly skills. Eventually my mom gave up on me and moved on to teaching these skills to other more grateful homeschool girls, leaving me feeling jealous and rejected.
It didn’t help my situation that my sister took naturally to wearing cute dresses, having tea parties, and making crafts. She didn’t even need coaching, while I was unsatisfactory even with coaching. As I watched my brother leave for his many outdoor adventures with other boys, I felt cheated and limited, having been born a girl.
In some ways, I was lucky compared to many other girls in the Christian Patriarchy culture that attended Hope Chapel with us. I was never required to wear only dresses or have long hair. I didn’t have to take care of innumerable younger siblings. But most importantly, I was actively encouraged to go to college.
For many conservative Christians, higher education is seen as suspect because of the so-called “secular liberal bias” of universities and professors. That was the case for my family as well. However, my parents were unusual in our church and homeschooling community because they believed that even a daughter should be educated enough to support herself if necessary. So they encouraged me to attend a very conservative Christian college such as Bob Jones University, Pensacola Christian College, or Moody Bible Institute. They advised me to choose an area of study that would allow me to supplement my future husband’s income by working from home after I had children.
So, why didn’t I head off to college right away? After all, I was completely miserable at home due to the extremely authoritarian parenting style that my church promoted. There were really two reasons: first, my severe social anxiety made the thought of college overwhelming and terrifying. Second, my parents’ pro-college message was drowned out by the sexist anti-college message of my church.A couple more years of worsening family relationships, of increasing depression, of a sense of purposelessness, of no prospects of a church-approved way out of that mess — that was exactly what I needed to reach my breaking point. My exact thought process at the time was this: “I’ve been praying for guidance about my future for years, and I haven’t heard anything. I can’t go on like this. I’m going to just start moving and hope that God will steer me if I go the wrong direction.”As I left home for the first time at age 23, I felt small, weak, timid, and vulnerable, heading out into the great wide world all alone. There was no trace of my former badass self from childhood. So is the Christian Patriarchy right about women after all?People tend to live up to the expectations of those around them, what others believe they are capable of. The sexist beliefs then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The women in the church were told over and over that they were easily deceived and easily swayed by their emotions and needed a man’s protection/guidance. But denying women education and experience is what made them that way.College was a time of transformation for me; I was overcoming my severe social anxiety, discovering my true identity, learning to be comfortable with sexuality, and learning to set boundaries and take responsibility for myself. Marriage has only continued that process, as my husband and I work to maintain an equal partnership–something truly beautiful that I didn’t know existed 7 years ago.Now I am a feminist stay-at-home mom. I stay at home because I want to, because I love the bond I have with my little one and the adventures we have together as I introduce him to the world. I can understand his excitement as he discovers what he’s capable of — because I’m finally feeling. it too.
Homeschooled Girls and Trash Cans: Latebloomer’s Story, Part Five
HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Latebloomer” is a pseudonym. Latebloomer’s story was originally published on her blog Past Tense, Present Progressive. It is reprinted with her permission.
“I wasn’t secure enough in my boundaries, so I was hyper-sensitive to any attempts to control or manipulate me.”
Do any of these sound like you?
I have to always say yes to others, or else I am selfish.
I have to always hide my hurt, or else I am unloving.
I have to treat other people as faultless, or else I am holding a grudge.
I have to keep my wants and needs to myself, or else I am a burden to others.
People who experienced authoritarian parents tend to turn into adults with poor boundaries. They were trained for it their whole lives and can’t imagine another way of doing things. However, it’s an extremely unsatisfying and unsustainable way to live, don’t you think? But most importantly, it’s actually not what a loving person is like! For me, when I was in that mindset, my “loving” actions were actually motivated by obligation or guilt because I thought I didn’t really have a choice; I was just an actor.
Besides hindering me from showing real love based on real choice, this mindset also prevented me from ever feeling loved. My buried wants and needs were still there; I just expected any true friend to be hyper-vigilant to my emotional state and correctly guess my unexpressed wants/needs. I felt that anyone who didn’t put in that monumental effort didn’t really care about me. And when people hurt me, I didn’t give them a chance to repair the damage to the relationship; I either lied to myself and them by saying that I wasn’t hurt, or I expected them to realize the problem and fix it without being told. Obviously, it was really hard for anyone to break through those defenses to form a real and lasting connection with me, even if they wanted to.
When I was in my late teens/early twenties, equipped with my driver’s license, I began to have more opportunities to interact with my peers. However, with my poor boundaries and repressed emotions from authoritarian parenting, and with my severe social anxiety from isolated homeschooling, I wasn’t exactly set up for success. It’s not surprising that I was able to form friendships with more dominant and outgoing people most easily at first. They were the ones who were confident enough to break through my guardedness and befriend invisible me. I had no identity and nothing to contribute, and they were the ones who could talk enough to cover for my silence. They were the ones with ideas that I could go along with. And, thankfully, they were the ones who could ask me the pushy and nosy questions on occasion that helped to break open my protective shell.
It’s also not surprising, although really sad, that many of those first friendships didn’t last through the turbulence of my mid- and late- twenties. In a way, I was really experiencing my teens and twenties simultaneously. Out on my own for college, I was trying to discover and establish my own identity for the first time in my life, and dealing with an incredible amount of childhood baggage at the same time. And just when I felt I was making real progress in replacing social anxiety with relationships, my progress in forming boundaries set me back.
I asked my husband to provide a little outside perspective of what the process looked like, since most of it took place during our relationship. He sees it this way:
1. I realized that conflict had to be acknowledged and resolved rather than ignored in order to have a healthy relationship. That meant that it was ok to admit when someone’s behavior bothered me. However, since I had no experience at conflict management, I didn’t know when or how to go about it. I was a mess of over-reactions and under-reactions, and the whole time I was incredibly stressed and afraid of rejection.
2. Once I began to open up about my feelings, wants, and needs, a backlog of repressed emotions suddenly started to flow out. In my mind, lists of ways I had been wronged started to appear, even from all those times that I thought I was being loving and not keeping a record. So, whenever I needed to talk to someone about a conflict, they would be surprised and hurt by the size of my list of related issues.
3. I wasn’t secure enough in my boundaries, so I was hyper-sensitive to any attempts to control or manipulate me, whether it was a friend or a family member. Even just their attempt to change my opinion by sharing a different perspective was threatening to me. Figuratively speaking, if a person even dared to knock politely on my boundary wall, I would appear with a shotgun and tell them to get off my property. I had very strong ideas about how I should be treated, and it was almost impossible for people to fit in my narrow tolerances. Everything had to be on my terms; I expected anyone who cared about me to change immediately when I informed them of a problem.
4. Now I’m finally feeling more secure in my boundaries, so I’m starting to become more balanced and pick my battles more carefully. I’m getting better at differentiating between real offenses and simple mistakes, as well as determining what approach might be most effective way to manage the conflict. I’m also trying to prevent emotional build-up by dealing with things right away. And most importantly, I’m trying to take other people’s differences and imperfections into account and realize that change usually comes slowly. It’s easier to accept that when I remember that others are also being patient with me in ways I can’t fully see.
I deeply appreciate my husband’s support during this process; without him, it would have been much more difficult to work through so many issues. Even though this process has been extremely challenging and painful at times, and even though I still have a lot of progress left to make, I am so much happier than I was before. Now when I choose to help people, I have the reward of feeling happy and satisfied because I did it willingly. Now I take responsibility for my needs, wants, and feelings, so I don’t feel so helpless and dependent. Now when I choose to tolerate people’s imperfections, I feel a sense of our shared humanity rather than feeling devalued.
However, it is unfortunate that I had to go through this process so late in life. I feel like it was much more traumatic than it needed to be because it conflicted with the progress I was making in forging friendships with people for the first time in my life. If you are dealing with similar issues as an adult, I’d like to recommend two things: read the book “Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend and find yourself a good therapist; hopefully you can find a way to establish and maintain good boundaries in a less destructive way than I did.
Homeschooled Girls and Trash Cans: Latebloomer’s Story, Part Four
HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Latebloomer” is a pseudonym. Latebloomer’s story was originally published on her blog Past Tense, Present Progressive. It is reprinted with her permission.
Part Four: Authoritarian Parenting and Emotional Repression
“At the worst point in my relationship with my dad, I went for several years without my dad smiling at me even one time.”
I have a lot of respect for my dad. He’s thoughtful and generous to all of us. His constant reading makes him an interesting and well-informed conversationalist. He makes his life decisions very carefully, yet never looks down on me for making different decisions than him. Instead, he tells me all the time that he loves and misses me, and that he’s proud of who I’ve become. I feel so lucky to have him as my dad.
Unfortunately, we have not always gotten along so well. Less than ten years ago, our relationship had been almost completely destroyed thanks to the authoritarian parenting techniques of the fundamentalist Christian homeschooling culture (in our case, it was Reb Bradley’s Child Training Tips). Authoritarian parenting forced both of us into roles that we were not at all suited for, with tragic results.
For my dad, authoritarian parenting caused him to see our relationship as a power struggle; maintaining his authority was his biggest responsibility and highest priority. After all, if we were calling the shots in our own lives, we would become self-indulgent and lack internal self-control. That would lead us to more dangerous “worldly” teenage rebellion against our parents and God. So in order not to fail at parenting, my dad had to be hyper-vigilant against giving up power to us kids. What an insane amount of responsibility to put on one person! And how difficult to create a positive relationship with that kind of dynamic: it’s impossible to mandate real respect and love! My dad began to crack under the pressure.
For me as a teen, authoritarian parenting very nearly reduced me to an empty shell of a person. I found that my opinions and emotions were sources of trouble and guilt. Anger or frustration–even just on my face–were signs of disrespect and lack of self-control. Questioning my parents’ decisions or expressing different opinions, even on trivial matters, were signs of rebellion. Even the simple act of lifting my eyebrows could get me in trouble. In order to survive, I had to bury my negative emotions and try to become more passive and less opinionated.
In addition to guarding my facial expressions and speech against “disrespect” and “rebellion,” I also had to hide many positive feelings. My parents’ preferred method of discipline when I was in my teens was to take away privileges. Anything that I had shown happiness or excitement about was a likely target. So, to protect things I cared about, I tried to stay detached. One technique that helped me care less about something was to focus on the negative about it. Unfortunately, it was hard to rekindle my excitement once my negativity had extinguished it, but at least it was easier to deal with the feelings of helplessness and disappointment.
At the worst point in my relationship with my dad, I went for several years without my dad smiling at me even one time. He spent long hours at work or locked in his room and tried to avoid talking to me or looking at me when we passed. But still, every night, my mom made me find him to say, “Goodnight Dad, I love you,” and stand there looking at the back of his head with no answer. Any time I protested this nightly tradition and expressed my hurt to my mom, she simply cautioned me not to let the “root of bitterness” spring up in my heart. So I did my best to bury my negative emotions, just like I saw my mom doing.
I was supposedly in the prime of my life, but I started to feel very old. My body was full of aches and pains, and I was constantly tired or dealing with a headache. Finally, at my mom’s urging, I went to see a doctor. I was caught off guard when the doctor asked, “Do you think you’re depressed?” “Oh my goodness, no!” I answered. When the doctor left the room, I burst into tears with no idea why. I finally decided that I must have been upset that my Christian witness was damaged since I wasn’t showing Jesus’ peace and joy on my face during my doctor’s appointment.
Looking back, it’s easy to identify that I was deeply depressed and incredibly emotionally repressed. But I didn’t interpret it that way at the time. I saw my depression as “deep spiritual sensitivity” that came from my desire to be perfect. And I saw my emotional repression as “true love”: by pretending I was never bothered and that I had no preferences, I thought I was being unselfish and putting the needs of everyone else before my own.
As I entered college and started to work through many of my social anxiety issues, I continued using the relational techniques that had helped me survive at home. I was passive; I went along with other people’s ideas and goals; I had no strong opinions or desires of my own. I was just there, a non-factor, grateful to be included.
The real change for me came through developing my relationship with my boyfriend/husband. Our long conversations helped me work through my pent up emotions and discover my opinions. On many occasions, he waited patiently even for 20 minutes, silently walking next to me with his arm around my shoulders, so I could finally express a basic opinion or feeling. At some point, I came uncorked, and we now have an entirely different challenge as my opinions and feelings come flying from left and right! In time, I’ll find balance.
Sorry, but I don’t agree with ___. I felt really sad when you ____. I’d really rather ____. I don’t really enjoy ___. In my opinion, ___.
These phrases may seem mundane to you, but to me they are priceless. Every time I use them, they remind me that I am a real and valuable person with my own identity, my own voice, my own choice. They make me feel empowered because I remember what it was like to try to live without them.
It’s hard to believe that it was just a month ago that we launched Homeschoolers Anonymous. So much has happened in so few weeks! This is really due to the amazing and wonderful support that you, our community of friends and family and advocates and peers, have so graciously provided.
In a mere month, our WordPress blog has reached nearly 100,000 views. More than 260 comments — almost universally positive — have been made on the site. Our Facebook page has received almost 300 likes. Our most popular post to date, a crosspost by blog partner Kierstyn King (“Sex™ (and the lies I was told about it)”), has been viewed over 3500 times; the second most popular post, R.L. Stollar’s “Homeschool Confidential, A Series: Part One,” has over 3000 views. Michelle Goldberg covered our story on the Daily Beast. We’ve also received coverage by the Daily Mail and Lez Get Real, both Google News providers. We’ve also received inquiries from other major media groups and will keep you posted on those developments.
This is a very difficult project. If you have any experience at all with the conservative Christian homeschooling world, you know how defensive they — we, really — have been, are, and will likely continue to be. You can see how afraid some of us are about speaking out with our experiences. Qualifications and disclaimers abound. The fact that such fear exists, merely about saying one has had a personally negative experience in homeschooling, is indicative that something has gone awry. No one should feel afraid of speaking up about abuse or hurt or pain. That is why we feel this community is so important and necessary. We want to create a platform for sharing and healing. We want to be a voice in defense of those who have been hurt.
It’s truly been a wild ride. We’ve been accused of being nut jobs, anti-God, anti-homeschooling, a vast liberal conspiracy manufactured by Obama, the NEA, and the ATF, and opportunists that want to take advantage of abuse victims in order to achieve vast fame and fortune.
But as someone much wiser than us once said:
Haters gonna hate.
We’re here and we’re not going away. We will continue to share stories, we will not be silenced by intimidation, and we will do our best to represent our collective voice accurately, compassionately, and strongly.
Thank you for your encouragement, support, and love. We are very grateful. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
In honor of our one-month anniversary, we’ve decided to take our top search terms — the phrases that people have Googled that have led them to us — and ask each HA Community Coordinator and Blog Partner to write a paragraph about one of the search phrases. (Some of us went over this paragraph limit.) This was presented to them as a creative challenge. They could write whatever they’d like that they thought was important to say to whoever might be drawn to our site because of the phrase in question. To make this a bit more challenging, we intentionally switched up who wrote about which search term, so it’s different than what that person might normally write about.
The idea is to highlight both the diversity of our voices and the unity of our mission.
So, without further ado, we present to you the first ever group post from Homeschoolers Anonymous!
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“homeschoolers abused” — by R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator
Not all homeschoolers experienced abusive situations. Not all homeschoolers have the same story. The fact is, homeschooling is a vast and diverse phenomenon that includes different religions, different political beliefs, and an immense variety of educational philosophies and teaching styles. But from my own personal experience in the conservative Christian homeschooling subculture, I can confidently say that — within my particular subculture — there is a tendency to operate from an “Ideology First” mentality, instead of a “Children First” mentality. And when you elevate the importance of ideology over the humanity and well-being of kids, you can easily create cult mentalities. And cult mentalities can cause immense hurt and pain for so many people. They can create emotional, mental, physical, and sexual abuse.
Not all homeschoolers experienced abusive situations. But many have.
Not all homeschoolers have the same story. But there are striking similarities.
I want their stories — my story, our collective story — to be heard. And if you listen with an open heart and mind, maybe you can help us make homeschooling better in the future.
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“homeschoolers anonymous” — by Libby Anne, HA Blog Partner
Why homeschoolers anonymous? I think I understand why. The first time I met someone raised in the Christian homeschooling subculture who had, like me, grown up in a homeschooling family and then questioned and left the pervading ideology of that family and subculture, I was overwhelmed. Before, I had felt alone. Like it was just me. Invisible, unnoticed, an anomaly that people didn’t acknowledge, or even know, existed. When you realize that you’re not alone, that it isn’t just you, everything changes. And some of those who visit Homeschoolers Anonymous may still be in the closet or on the wall, unready or unable to make the leap, to say that there was something wrong, to speak about and acknowledge the hurt and the pain. And that’s why we’re here.
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“stand up for my children” — by Vyckie Garrison, HA Blog Partner
I know this will be controversial, but when I was asked to write about the search phrase, “stand up for my children,” I immediately thought of the period of time when all the abuse and dysfunction of our Quiverfull lifestyle culminated in a nasty court battle when I left my ex-husband and sued for custody of our six children who still lived at home.
My lawyer told me that I would need at least three people who would be willing to write affidavits for the judge stating that they were aware of abuse in our home. I was extremely discouraged because I believed I had done such a good job of covering up for my husband and protecting his reputation that nobody, with the possible exception of my mother, had any clue that there was anything amiss in our “big happy family.”
Undaunted, a fellow homeschool mom started making phone calls, and in about a week’s time, was able to gather more than 20 affidavits from friends, family, and acquaintances who all testified that they had been aware that the children and I were being abused.
That’s over twenty Christians who could have stood up for my children and spared us all those years of abuse.
I understand that as evangelical Christians we were all taught to fear the evil government social workers, but looking back now, I can honestly say that the court-ordered involvement of CPS was one of the best things that ever happened for my family.
I have plenty of suggestions for intervention and support (see the NLQ FAQ: How can I help my Quiverfull friend?), but if you clearly see children being abused or neglected, please call this hotline and get the family some outside, professional help: 1-800-4-A-CHILD.
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“homeschool uniform denim jumper” — by Nicholas Ducote, HA Community Coordinator
Jumpers, especially the denim variety, were the unofficial uniform of the homeschool mom. My mother had an entire closet full of jumpers in an array of colors, but none rose above her knee. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve seen my mother wear pants in the last decade. I wish it wasn’t so stereotypical, but a quick Google search of the terms “denim jumper” will bring you to www.denimjumper.com – “your source for everything homeschooling.” Most Christian homeschooling sub-cultures emphasize modesty in young women, especially in reaction to what they see as an over-sexualization of young girls, but their attitudes often read like an unironic guide to rape culture (i.e. The Rebelution’s Modesty Survey). In short, women are told their bodies can make men lust and, in a revolting twist of logic, the immodest women is responsible for “defrauding” the lusting man. Young women are encouraged to hide their curves behind baggy jumpers or long skirts and modest tops. Fashion, they are told, only serves to bring excessive attention to the superficiality of a woman. Modest, godly women do not need to appeal to a man’s lust. Instead, she strokes his ego by serving in the cult of domesticity.
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“homeschool cult” — by Anna Ruth Fuller, HA Community Coordinator
Think about what a homeschooler looks like. What comes to mind? If images of religious children passing out pamphlets or holding signs comes to mind, you’re thinking too narrowly. If images of hippies unschooling their children comes to mind, you’re again thinking too narrowly. Broaden your thinking.
Homeschooling occurs everywhere and for all types of reasons. The same is true of public schooling and private schooling. How you choose to educate your children is your choice. However, it is important to remember that in all of this, children have a right to their own views that aren’t necessarily your own. This is true no matter what type of schooling they undergo.
So what happens when parents do not respect a child’s right to their own worldview? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about letting your children run amok. There’s a difference between pure hedonism and having a worldview.
Not letting your children choose their own worldview is a dangerous road to take. It might seem like a good idea at the time since it is easier to control a child’s thoughts than to guide them. Most parents these days recognize that guiding their chidren’s thoughts is the way to go, but there are those that still cling to controlling them.
It is considered bizarre to isolate your children from the world so that you can protect from worldly things. We are becoming a global society with the advent of the Internet. Preparing your child for the different worldviews they will face (and more importantly, how to respect them for what they are) is crucial to that child’s success. Yet there are many Christian homeschooling parents that purposefully decide to isolate their children from all of this. It is this type of homeschooler we are bringing to light here with our stories.
This brings me to my topic. One of the most popular search terms for our site has been ‘homeschool cult.’ When I learned that, I began think about whether we were really part of a cult as Christian fundamentalist homeschoolers. According to Wikipedia’s article on cults: “The word cult in current popular usage is a pejorative term for a new religious movement or other group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre by the larger society.”
This definition makes me think we weren’t part of a cult. To have been a cult, we would have needed to have been unified religiously somehow. We weren’t. Each of us went to churches in conflict with each other on various minutiae. There was one thing that united us and that was the need to reclaim this country for the Christian God. Our parents wanted us to dream of a Christian nation and placed that first and foremost in our minds by excluding the teaching of other worldviews (thankfully this didn’t happen nearly as much to me as it did to others). We were trained up in debate to help us become better lawyers and politicians to lead this new country to its destiny. So in reality, we weren’t part of a cult in the religious sense. While there were certainly practices and behaviors that could be seen as cult mentalities to outsiders, we were less a part of a religious movement and more a part of a political movement.
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“homeschool and abuse and fanaticism” — by Kierstyn King, HA Blog Partner
Art by Kierstyn King.
This is a touchy subject, because you’re screwed in the eyes of parents or vehement pro-homechooling-beyond-all-reason-crowds from the start. The fact is, this sentence and search term oddly defines my experience in a very succinct way, and like the lonely oppressed girl over here, it’s not a good thing. Homeschool and abuse and fanaticism don’t have to be related, but sometimes they are and here’s how: parents have the idea to homeschool, they then are told they must homeschool to essentially indoctrinate their children to their cause (fanaticism) which in some way or another usually is along the lines of “taking over the world” (who doesn’t want world domination?). Of course getting to that point means squelching the life out of the individuals you’ve stopped seeing as human and started seeing as arrows – focused solely on your needs, wants, and purpose you deny basic rights, dignity, and sometimes the security of unconditional love to the child you’re supposed to care about above everything else (abuse).
The unnecessarily necessary disclaimer here is: obviously not everyone is like that (but some people are).
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“why all of the attacks on homeschoolers” — by Julie Anne Smith, HA Blog Partner
I have been homeschooling my children for the last 20+ years. When I hear about “attacks” on homeschooling, I suspect there could be some confusion. Taking a closer look at the attacks, generally, it is not homeschooling in general that is attacked (ie, the education of one’s children at home), but more specifically, a lifestyle connected with the “Homeschool Movement.” The Homeschool Movement is associated with practices and ideologies not even remotely related to scholastic achievement, e.g., full-quiver lifestyle, patriarchy, purity and modesty teachings, etc. These practices and ideologies have had mixed, and sometimes very sad results. The methodologies employed to enforce these lifestyles can also be troublesome. The Homeschool Movement must not be confused with homeschooling. I believe homeschooling to be a valid and exceptional option for motivated and capable parents who have a vested interest in the proper education of their children.
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“homeschooling and mental illness” — by Latebloomer, HA Blog Partner
For a well-informed and supported parent, homeschooling may be an excellent way of supporting a child suffering from a mental illness. It could allow for high quality personalized instruction, easier access to appointments with medical professionals, and protection from peer bullying. Unfortunately, the combination of homeschooling and mental illness also has the potential to do great harm. For instance, children with mental illness can go undiagnosed for much longer if they do not regularly come in contact with trained educators and medical professionals. Distrust of those resources is very common in fundamentalist homeschooling circles, where parents are much quicker to blame unusual behavior on rebellion and worldly influences. An additional concern is the potential for harm when a child is homeschooled by a mentally-ill parent. The child will often be far more affected by the parent’s mental illness because of the increased time spent with the parent and the lack of time with other adults. For such children, the parent’s paranoia, depression, narcissism, etc, define their entire childhood and hinder them from developing positive and healthy relationships with others even in adulthood.
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“which is more effective for learning homeschool or public school?” — by Brittany Meng, HA Blog Partner
So you’re wondering which is more effective for learning: homeschool or public school. To answer this question more effectively, you should add the phrase “for my child.”
It all depends on what your child needs to be an effective learner. Here are a few issues to consider about the effectiveness of homeschooling for certain ages and needs.
Elementary school: Homeschool can be very effective for Elementary school because children often need one-on-one time to learn basics like reading and math, which are foundational for a strong education. If your child needs extra help in these subjects, homeschooling might be a good choice. On the other side of the coin, if your child is advanced in these areas, homeschooling might be good for your child as well. Nothing squashes the natural love for learning faster than a child who is bored. Homeschooling allows you to move at your own pace.
Middle School: Let’s just face it—middle school stinks for most people. Homeschooling will not remove all awkwardness, angst, self-doubt, or attitude problems from your child. However, if social issues are getting in the way of your child’s academic success, homeschooling may be a good option for your family.
High School: By this point, most young people are able to voice their educational and social needs. These wants and needs should be taken into consideration. This is also the point where parents need to consider how capable they are to meet the needs of their child, especially if he or she wants to go to college. I believe that homeschooling can be effective in high school but only with a strong outside support and supplemental network: classes at a local high school, community college, and/or homeschool co-op.
Personally, I believe that homeschooling becomes less effective for learning the older the child gets but this is a blanket statement. Only you can determine what your child needs.
You also have to consider the needs and abilities of your family: finances, time commitment (contrary to what many people think, your child needs as much academic attention from you in 1st grade as he does in 10th grade. Kids need accountability, motivation, and a sounding board for ideas), a strong support network, and whether or not you actually want to homeschool. Even if you feel that homeschooling would be the best option for your child, if you don’t want to homeschool, don’t do it. Homeschooling is a huge commitment. You can’t toe the water; you have to jump in with both feet. However, some states allow your child to be homeschooled by someone else. Check into all your options.
When choosing the best learning option for your child, it is important to consider what you and your child need and want both academically and socially. So, which is more effective public school or homeschooling? It all depends on your child.
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“pscyholgoy of bad/evil” — by Lana, HA Blog Partner
In conservative circles parents often have a tendency to refer to their children as all good or all bad. In public — that is, among other conservative families — kids often are forced to play the role of the perfect family, the perfect godly family. I felt this a lot as a child when we did cookouts with other homeschool families, or a respected homeschool family came over for dinner. I had to smile and pretend that I was godly (whatever that means) while everyone talked about how we were great and the future of America. At home our house was in shambles, but none of that mattered around our friends. Perhaps this alone would make a child go crazy. Why is it necessary to fake it? Why weren’t we genuine? Was it all in my head that my home was dysfunctional? Was it my fault when I was unhappy? Was my friends’ home totally perfect? These are legit questions that I and many others have experienced, but the confusion goes much further. For every time a child is praised as good, its likely that he or she is shamed as bad for the most ridiculous things at home. I was taught that I was not dressed until I wore a smile. If I did not wear a smile, I was ungrateful. If I expressed frustration (that admittedly did get out of hand sometimes), I was disrespectful. A simply bad act is escalated as totally evil or rebellious. There are plenty of homeschoolers who had it much worse, directly being called evil for not being submissive to an abusive situation. And so the soul is torn between good and evil. Sometimes kids just need to be told they are human. We aren’t perfect. We aren’t all bad. We’re human.
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“living my life” — by Heather Doney, HA Blog Partner
What my life was supposed to be was set. One story said that because I am a woman, by the time I was 30 I was supposed to have been married for a decade and have somewhere between 3-6 kids, homeschool them in a nice house, and be involved with a local church. The other story was that I was supposed to have a mid-level office job where I wore business suits and cute pumps, had a comfortable salary with decent benefits, ho-hum dates with guys who wore nice watches, and appletinis with the girls on weekends.
Neither are my life. I truly thought I was supposed to somehow make one or both my reality, that they were in fact the going realities available, but now I know they weren’t, at least not for me. I knew it just didn’t feel right, but I somehow figured I’d still end up in one or the other. I didn’t. I’m still just me, and while I do own a business suit and those cute pumps today, I generally wear flats or leather boots with jeans. I have only a laptop computer, not a cubicle, to go to. If I’d wanted a baby already I expect I could have had one, but I didn’t. I don’t go to church and I don’t even like appletinis (or guys who wear expensive watches, for that matter).
So while I didn’t want my life to look like either of these so-called options, I didn’t know what it should look like. What I knew it shouldn’t look like was what I call “living in the meantime.” I lived in the meantime for a few years and meantime mode is where you just let life happen to you, figuring it knows what is best, not-so-patiently waiting until it resembles one of your ideals. The scary thing is it likely never will. You can easily spend your whole life in meantime mode, waiting on serendipity to rescue you, and the thing most people forget about serendipity is that it isn’t just some happy accident or eureka moment that breaks you out of your ordinary life. Serendipity is what you find while you are out looking for, working on, and doing other things. Because serendipity requires action, it is a lot harder to find while in meantime mode or while you’re living someone else’s idea of your life, just going through the motions.
So to me living your life is not about doing one thing or another but about breaking out of that. It is about actively writing the next chapter to look differently, resetting the script, welcoming the changes, courting serendipity. It is about “if you build it, they will come.” In order to do that you have to do something scary though – be real about the person that you know you are, not stuck on the one you feel you “should” be. You can’t go squeezing yourself into a role that makes you look like you’re wearing somebody else’s style.
To live life, forget the ideal life someone else created for you and said should be yours.
Homeschooled Girls and Trash Cans: Latebloomer’s Story, Part Three
HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Latebloomer” is a pseudonym. Latebloomer’s story was originally published on her blog Past Tense, Present Progressive. It is reprinted with her permission.
“At Reb Bradley’s church, my family found a culture of people who were also trying to ignore the elephant in the room.”
My mom walked into my bedroom and handed me a heavy biology textbook. “Read chapter 13,” she told me, breathless and blushing. Then she rushed out. I opened to the appropriate chapter: “The Reproductive System”. That was my entire sex education; I was 17 years old.
I think we can all agree: sex education should probably be done by people who have said the word “sex” out loud at least once in their lives.
My parents’ denial of sexuality couldn’t stop puberty, and couldn’t stop our curiosity about sex. Instead, their attitude clearly showed us kids that we could never go to our parents with any questions or concerns that were related to our sexuality or genitals. For me, I found some answers around age 11 when I looked up “sex” and “puberty” in the encyclopedia. Later, a hidden copy of “What Solomon Says About Love, Sex, and Intimacy” in my parents’ closet provided hours of heart-throbbing reading.
Not every homeschooling family is so repressed about sex, but at Reb Bradley’s church, my family found a culture of people who were also trying to ignore the elephant in the room. A favorite theme of Reb Bradley was sexual purity and “Biblical courtship”. He was fond of referring to 1 Timothy 5:2, which says, “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.” According to his interpretation, all young men were to treat all young women as sisters, absent of sexuality.
Paradoxically, Reb Bradley also taught that these single “siblings in Christ” should not be allowed to mingle freely with each other because of temptation…..wait, what? How are you supposed to treat someone as a brother or sister if you’re not allowed to spend time with them? I guess Reb really didn’t believe that platonic friendships were possible between the genders after all. I think even Jesus himself would have gotten disapproving looks like the mingling teens in the back row if he came to Hope Chapel. After all, “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5)–if Jesus was close friends with single women even in ancient Jewish culture, then why was it forbidden at Hope Chapel?
So how could an honorable young man find himself a wife in this gender-segregated culture? Ideally, he had to notice a girl from across the room–for her godliness, mind you, not her body–and approach her dad to ask permission to court her. Without knowing much about her, he would have to prove to the dad that he was serious about a relationship with the daughter.
If the dad thought the young man was suitable, he would inform the young man of the physical boundaries of the relationship, such as when/if they could start to hold hands. The dad could also control the frequency of contact, monitor emails and phone calls, and require all interaction happen in the presence of other family members. It was encouraged but not Biblically necessary for the father to ask his daughter for her opinion of the young man, regardless of the age of the daughter.
I saw this courtship process attempted once in Reb Bradley’s own family. However, even with his courtship “expertise,” Reb’s involvement was not able to prevent a lot heartbreak, drama, and broken friendships when the courtship ended. And even Reb’s involvement and teaching couldn’t prevent at least three of his six children from having premarital sex, including one unwed pregnancy. I am not saying this because I think his kids are bad people–they certainly are not. I’m only saying these things because Reb Bradley is still trying to sell himself as an expert on family relationships and courtship. His materials give other parents false expectations of the outcome; people who take his advice should not expect better results than the man himself has been able to achieve.
When I started college at age 22, I determined to give male friendship and dating a try. It was very difficult at first. Because I was paranoid about flirting or being attractive, I had trouble relaxing and just being myself. However, I was encouraged to persevere because I could see the benefits right away. Long conversations with guys helped me see the world differently and let me experience a different style of communication. Once I could interact freely with guys, I stopped developing crushes on every boy I saw. I started to gain confidence about myself, and I started to see what type of guys I got along with the best.
Compatibility, not just character and beliefs, is important to consider when selecting a spouse. This is something that the couple can only determine for themselves by spending lots of time together, not only in groups but also alone. No wonder Reb Bradley tries to downplay compatibility; he wants to keep the father in charge and he wants the father to control the sexual aspect of the relationship as well. That’s why he teaches singles that they can make a marriage work with anyone, and it’s better for their sanctification to marry someone really different from themselves.
In case anyone cares, even though I dated a few different people in college, I was still a virgin when I married. However, I was surprised to learn that my virginity wasn’t the “gift to my husband” that I was led to believe. My amazing husband, himself a virgin at marriage, honestly didn’t care about whether or not I’d had sex before. Additionally, we both found that physical closeness helped us maintain emotional closeness and openness with each other throughout our dating relationship. The process of getting to know each other mentally and emotionally is gradual, so why should getting to know each other physically be so abrupt? We were both very happy that we allowed some sexual progress in our dating relationship, and we both feel it has helped us to have a healthier sex life in our marriage.
For me, what I’ve learned is that there is no use in denying that we are sexual beings, and no benefit to fearing it or trying to hide it. Accept yourself, take responsibility for yourself, and make your own choices. You’ll find that sexuality is not such a scary and powerful monster when you stop treating it like one.
If I had stayed within the constraints of fundamentalism and Christian Patriarchy, my husband and I would absolutely not be happily married today. Our relationship from the very beginning consisted of many departures from the teachings I grew up with. Each of those departures furthered the development, health, and mutual happiness of our relationship.
The first departure: As a single woman, I moved out of my parents’ home to get a college education. What is a completely ordinary step for many North American women was a desperate and terrifying leap for me. My family’s homeschooling church, led by Reb Bradley, promoted a very restrictive view of gender roles along with a strong suspicion of the “liberal bias” of higher learning institutions. Within the church culture, daughters were obligated to stay home under their father’s authority until marriage; once married, they would be housekeepers and stay-at-home mothers. For daughters, a college education was dangerous (because it removed them from their father’s protection), risky for their faith (because it exposed them to non-Christian ideas), and wasteful (because it was not practical for their duties at home).
However, despite my church’s reservations about college, only good things came to me through my experiences there, far away from home. College helped me grow socially, intellectually, physically, and spiritually in ways that have benefited me in every area of my life since then. But of all the good things, I am most grateful for the chance to meet my husband; we were definitely meant to be together. Without college, we would never have met.
The second departure: My boyfriend and I dated instead of courting.According to Reb Bradley’s teaching of “Biblical” courtship, a daughter needed the protection and guidance of her father to find a spouse. This was because women were supposedly easily deceived, just like Eve in the Garden of Eden, swayed by their emotions and easily taken advantage of. Through the courtship process, a father could “guide” his daughter by screening any suitors for “correct” religious and political beliefs; he could “protect” his daughter by making rules about displays of affection and enforcing those rules through constant supervision.
My experiences away from home at college convinced me that my church was completely wrong about women. In fact, it was denying women experience and education that caused them to be so dependent on men; it was not an innate quality of women. As I was working hard to increase my self-confidence and independence that my church and family had damaged, I made a goal for myself: I was not only going to date, I was also going to ask out the guy.
The first and only guy that I asked out turned out to be my future husband. As it so happened, we lived several hours apart from each other, so we only had one meeting and one shot at a relationship. If I hadn’t taken the initiative to ask him out, we would never have ended up together.
It is absolutely critical that my husband and I found each other without being pushed or restricted by our parents. We were not playing a role of trying to please our parents and stay true to our parents’ beliefs; we were free to be ourselves, and we could see more clearly what our life would be like together if we got married. We were adults, taking responsibility for ourselves and our well-being in the present and the future.
The third departure: My fiance and I cohabitated before getting married.It goes without saying that cohabitation was forbidden in the culture I was raised in, since even the alone time of dating was considered unnecessary and hazardous to “purity”. In fact, cohabitation was seen as one of the great evils of society and a major contributor to the decrease of marriage and increase of divorce rates in North America.
My fiance and I never planned to cohabitate. The circumstances of life simply made it the best option for us. It was only later that we saw that cohabitation itself benefited our relationship. It gave us confidence that we were making the right decision to get married, because we could more clearly envision our future married life together. What were the gaps like between structured activities and conversations? What were we like as introverts, when we withdrew from our pseudo-extroversion in order to recharge? What was it like to take care of mundane tasks together, like keeping up an apartment, cooking, cleaning, and shopping for groceries? What did he act like, first thing in the morning before he’d had his coffee? What did I look like, first thing in the morning before I’d put on makeup? The fewer surprises, the better–especially when it’s a lifelong commitment you’re talking about.
The fourth departure: He pushed me to freely express my opinions and disagree with him.As we developed a closer relationship, we began to experience some communication challenges. Specifically, I found it extremely difficult to express my opinions, even when we were just making simple decisions such as what movie to watch or restaurant to eat at. A lot of this was due to my emotional repression from authoritarian parenting, but there was more to it than that. It also came from a serious misunderstanding of healthy relationships, which I had learned from my church and family. I felt, deep down, that having and expressing my own opinions was selfish and would cause my partner unhappiness. I thought we would have a better, stronger, and happier relationship if I buried my preferences and played the role of a supportive wife.
To my surprise, the opposite was true. Due to my “unselfishness,” I rarely felt loved or understood, and my partner constantly felt frustrated as he tried to guess my wants and needs in order to make me feel valued.
It turned out that he wanted to have a relationship with a real person, a person with feelings and thoughts. He did not want a “yes man” or a deferential subordinate; he wanted us to learn from and challenge each other. Improving our communication skills beautifully affected our relationship; we began to understand ourselves and each other much better. With that greater understanding, we were able to begin making better decisions as a team, compromising and compensating each other when necessary, so that we experienced the most mutual benefit.
The fifth departure: We don’t separate our responsibilitiesbased on gender. Within fundamentalism and Christian Patriarchy, your role in life is based on your gender, with no regard for your personality, strengths, weaknesses, or preferences. If you are a man, you must provide and lead. If you are a woman, you must take care of the house and children and defer to your husband’s decisions. Any unhappiness that arises from this gender-based arrangement is merely a sign of your need to depend on God more and try even harder to fulfill your gender role properly.
That approach to life is blind to the huge amount of variety in the world and even the variety in the Bible. Instead of acknowledging variety and diversity, everything is black and white, neatly categorized, and stacked in little boxes. All the misfits and in-betweens are either ignored or labeled as sinful.
My husband and I realized right away that we would both be unhappy if we just automatically followed traditional gender roles without adapting them to suit who we were. In some ways, we appear very traditional at first glance; I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom, and he supports us financially by working every day. However, we are only doing that because we both happen to be happy in those roles right now, and we do not feel trapped because we know we could choose another arrangement at any time.
In many other ways, we have chosen to depart from traditional gender roles to promote the greatest mutual happiness and success. For instance, he loves cooking and experimenting in the kitchen, while I find cooking to be a monotonous chore. We are both happier when we share the cooking responsibilities. Also, organizing and planning comes naturally to me, but he has a lot of difficulty thinking of and keeping track of the details. That means we are both happier and things run more smoothly when I take charge of managing our plans and vacations. Over time, we have recognized that we each have areas of expertise, so the person with the relevant skill or knowledge naturally takes the lead at the appropriate time. Each of us is unique, and together we make a unique team; it would be a shame to damage that dynamic relationship by trying to force ourselves into roles that don’t fit us.
These five departures are risks that I took, doing the very things that I had been warned about for my whole fundamentalist youth. In the end, it turned out that they were stepping stones from my depressed past life to my satisfied present life. They were an escape route surrounded by scary shadows and “maybes”, but I’ve finally made it out into the light. I feel extremely lucky. I hope for the same happiness for each person who reads this; just realize that happiness doesn’t come from formulas and rules, and it will probably look different for you than for me, because of the beautiful variety of life.
Homeschooled Girls and Trash Cans: Latebloomer’s Story, Part Two
HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Latebloomer” is a pseudonym. Latebloomer’s story was originally published on her blog Past Tense, Present Progressive. It is reprinted with her permission.
What do homeschooled girls and trash cans have in common?
They both only leave the house once a week.
“What do homeschooled girls and trash cans have in common?”
This joke was well-received among homeschooled youth because it rang true for so many of us. For almost all of my teen years, church was the only social activity that I engaged in, the only time during the whole week that I might have a chance to interact with people who were not my immediate family. Making friends in that context, especially as a shy teen girl, seems daunting. However, I had an even greater obstacle to deal with: I was not allowed to participate in youth group.
My parents were absolutely terrified of teenage rebellion. Thanks to various books and speakers popular in the homeschooling community, my parents believed teen rebellion to be a recent American trend due to indulgent parenting and peer pressure. A rebellious teen was more than just an annoyance in the homeschooling community: that teen was turning his/her back not only on the parents, but also on God. What a tragic waste of years of sacrifice and careful training by the parents! This type of thinking motivated my parents to maintain careful discipline and to shelter us from almost all contact with our peers, even at church.
I distinctly remember the conversation between the youth pastor and my mom. I was probably 14 or 15, and so shy that I would start shaking if anyone tried to talk to me at church. Although social interaction was painful, I desperately needed it, and I think the youth pastor noticed that. He approached my parents after church one day to invite us to Sunday school. My mom asked for the materials that were being used in Sunday school, and took them home to peruse them with my dad. I heard the decision the next week at the same time as the youth pastor: “Our kids will not be attending Sunday school.” The reason? Apparently the material mentioned a teen who was frustrated with his parents, and it was dangerous for me to think that frustration was a valid or normal feeling for a teen to have toward parents.
The tough thing about social phobia is that it is often self-reinforcing. In my case, my severe social anxiety displayed itself in uncontrollable muscle spasms, and anticipating the shaking made me even more anxious about interacting with people. What if someone noticed me shaking? I used to cry myself to sleep at night quite often, occasionally trying to get my mom to notice my tears by sniffing juuuust loud enough for her to hear as she walked by my door. When she came in to ask why I was crying, I would say something like, “I don’t have any friends” or “I don’t know how to talk to people.” The answer to these was always the same: “You have us” or “You’re talking to me right now.” In the morning, life would proceed as usual.
Unfortunately, the “usual” for my life at home was very empty and quiet. My dad was working long hours and was permanently in a bad mood when at home, and my mom was always sapped of energy for various reasons. She left us kids to do our schoolwork independently much of the time; we even corrected our own errors from the answer key. Later, due to mysterious and debilitating health problems, her energy was so low that just going to the grocery store was often too much for her to handle. It was simply understood in the family that we shouldn’t harass her about wanting to leave the house. Since I wasn’t able to get my driver’s license until I was 18, I was stuck for hours, days, weeks, months, years with little-to-no mental or social stimulation.
Little-to-no stimulation is not an exaggeration; obviously, a teen girl who can’t even go to Sunday school due to “bad influences” is going to find many other things forbidden to her as well. Our home did not have a TV; we watched few movies; we only read pre-approved Christian or classical books; we did not have internet access; and we certainly did not listen to most music. My one musical joy was listening to Steve Green and going to his concert with another homeschooling mom. When I tried to add Rebecca St. James to my CD collection, my mom almost had a meltdown because of the beat and the heavy breathing; it didn’t matter that almost every song was a verbatim quote from the Bible. I knew my role–honor your parents–so that CD went straight into the trash and I tried to feel happy that I was obeying God.
What did I do with my time at home? I dragged my school work out to take up most of the day; I spent large amounts of time spaced out, lying on my bed; I wrote in my journals; and I made my own clothes. My homemade clothes were the outward sign of my feelings of isolation. Starting at about age 13, I was responsible for furnishing my own wardrobe (within the boundaries of modesty my parents provided, of course). I had $25 a month to work with, and my mom could tolerate shopping at fabric stores much more than at clothing stores, where everything was “immodest.” (And that was in the women’s clothing sections–I didn’t even know that clothing came in junior sizes until after I had graduated from high school!) Out on various errands or on family vacations, wearing my very odd, ill-fitting clothing, I felt the stares and desperately wished that human contact was unnecessary. “I wish I could just be a hermit!” — this sentence occurs a little too frequently in my teen journals.
My first friend of my teenage years came from Hope Chapel, when I was about 17. Pastor Reb Bradley, with the support of the homeschooling families of HC, would not allow a youth group in the church. Finally, I was not so odd! It was easier to strike up a conversation with someone, knowing they might be just as desperate and nervous as me. It was easier to not feel judged when the other person’s clothes were just as odd as my own. I could more easily feel successful at conversation because it was not full of cultural references that I had no idea about. I became a little more confident socially, strengthened my atrophied conversational muscles, and got a little more hopeful about life. I was even able to add a second friend by the time I was 19.
Now I’m 30 years old, with four years of college and eight years of work between me and my teen self, yet I still feel the effects of the isolation I experienced growing up.
First, I still feel significant social anxiety in even the most non-threatening situations. I am particularly at a loss in group settings full of new people. What do I say? When do I say it? Whom do I say it to? How/when do I end a conversation? Even in a circle setting, when it’s my turn to say my name, my blood pressure skyrockets.
Second, in the whole world, there is no place and no group of people where I feel like I belong. It’s like I was raised in a different culture, with the distinct difference that I can never go “home” to it. I’m permanently a foreigner; interacting in this foreign culture takes a lot of attention and effort. I’ve tried to catch up on the culture I missed…to watch the movies, to listen to the music, to see pictures of the clothing styles…..but it will never mean to me what it means to you. People always use cultural references and nostalgia as a way to build community and connections between people; for me, they create distance and remind me how different I am inside.
My profile photo is of the 80s star Molly Ringwald. The first time I ever heard her name mentioned was at my first real job, when I was 22 years old. God bless my dear gay boss, who saw through my awkwardness and gave me a chance at the job because I looked like his favorite childhood actress! When he learned that I had no idea who she was, his jaw hit the floor.
These days, I manage to avoid shocking people too much, unless I decide to tell them about my past. To me, the biggest compliment I can receive today is, “You were homeschooled? Wow, I can’t even tell!”
“I’ve slowly been reconstructing a healthier and more balanced view of myself and others.”
Growing up, I heard a lot of scoffing at psychology in my family, homeschooling community, and fundamentalist church. In those circles, the study and application of psychology represented a worthless human attempt to feel happier apart from God and become better without the guidance of the Bible. The anti-psychology sentiment was so strong that even building kids’ self-confidence and self-esteem was derided as a “worldly” goal. There was too much “self” in the name. Real True Christian children were to be obedient and humble instead.
Looking back, I definitely had the obedience thing handled; in fact, I cannot remember ever purposefully disobeying my parents, even in my teens. Yet I was constantly reprimanded for unsatisfactory performance because I was unable to be constantly cheerful about the instant unquestioning obedience that was required of me. The impossibility of my situation left me feeling extremely frustrated and guilty; however, I reasoned that my faults were just a “thorn in my flesh” to keep me humble and seeking God’s help (
But apparently even my humility was a fault; I wasn’t doing that right either. In my late teens, I heard Reb Bradley‘s teachings about pride at his homeschooling church Hope Chapel. According to Reb Bradley, true humility was the absence of thought or awareness of yourself. So those feelings of shame, awkwardness, self-consciousness, and frustration that I dealt with daily? Sinful pride, not humility. Talk about kicking a person when they’re down! My tortured teenage mind twisted itself in knots trying to get out of my body, trying to have no positive or negative thoughts about myself, no “selfish” dreams or desires or goals for the life that stretched endlessly before me. Really, I was tearfully and prayerfully trying to cease to exist.. It’s no wonder that my depression often spiraled out of control, and I spent almost all of my free time in my teens lying on my bed like a zombie, alone, dead inside.
One day in my early twenties, as I was driving my car home from work, I heard an unexpectedly beautiful and compassionate new voice coming from the Christian radio station. In his gentle Southern accent, he talked about dealing with the pain of rejection and struggling with poor self-esteem as a result; I stopped the car and cried. It was the first time I felt that my broken-heartedness was not yet another fault of mine; it was the first time that I heard the idea of self-esteem referenced positively.
Who was this pastor who seemed so liberal and gracious to me at the time? Charles Stanley, the president of the extremely conservative and fundamentalist Southern Baptist Convention.
Starting with that one small first step of hearing a sympathetic voice on the radio, I’ve slowly been reconstructing a healthier and more balanced view of myself and others over the last ten years. Shedding my misunderstanding of the Bible and my deep distrust of extra-biblical resources, including psychology, has been immensely helpful to me in my own journey. It has opened up a whole new world of fascinating ideas, including ones that have helped me make sense of my own childhood experiences and their effects on me.
Recently, I’ve encountered one particularly relevant idea that has increased my self-understanding. I am what personality psychologists call a “highly sensitive” or “high-reactive” person. This refers to an inborn aversion to novelty and a tendency to more easily become overstimulated; it is not very common, but it is strongly correlated with being introverted. It explains why I always order the same food in restaurants, choose comfort over style, love predictability, and avoid spending too much time around loud noises and large crowds. Understanding the biological basis of my personality quirks is helping me manage my stress and not demand too much of myself.
But it has been even more helpful to look back at my childhood with the understanding that I was a highly sensitive child. In her book “Quiet“, Susan Cain discusses how childhood experiences can affect the highly sensitive or high reactive child:
“The destinies of the most high-reactive kids are also influenced by the world around them–perhaps even more so than for the average child, according to a groundbreaking new theory dubbed ‘the orchid hypothesis’ by David Dobbs…This theory holds that many children are like dandelions, able to thrive in just about any environment. But others, including the high-reactive types that Kagan studied, are more like orchids: they wilt easily, but under the right conditions can grow strong and magnificent.….
[T]he reactivity of these kids’ nervous systems makes them quickly overwhelmed by childhood adversity, but also able to benefit from a nurturing environment more than other children do. In other words, orchid children are more strongly affected by all experience, both positive and negative.
Scientists have known for a while that high-reactive temperments come with risk factors. These kids are especially vulnerable to challenges like marital tension, a parent’s death, or abuse. They’re more likely than their peers to react to these events with depression, anxiety, and shyness. Indeed, about a quarter of Kagan’s high-reactive kids suffer some degree of the condition known as ‘social anxiety disorder’….
High-reactive kids who enjoy good parenting, child care, and a stable home environment tend to have fewer emotional problems and more social skills than their lower-reactive peers, studies show.” (p. 110-111)
I had wondered many times why some of my more extroverted peers who also experienced social isolation and authoritarian parenting seemed less traumatized and could enter mainstream society more quickly, while I struggled with severe depression and crippling anxiety for years and years. In “Quiet”, I found a reason that in retrospect makes perfect sense. As a highly sensitive child, the negative experiences simply affected me more strongly.
I started adulthood almost destroyed, with almost no ability to function. Yet here I am today, a far happier and healthier person. It turned out that my high sensitivity was an asset in my recovery in the end. Once the conditions were right for me to “grow”, my development took off. Positive attention, kindness, and acceptance coaxed me back to life and helped me grow into my true identity.
Contrary to all the warnings I heard about psychology in my youth, I have found that the increased self-understanding has resulted in genuine self-improvement. I much prefer this approach to the ineffective and tearful fumblings that were promoted by my church.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 