just a little respect

I was just reading the blog of a gal who came out of a Quiverfull family and was struck by something she said on the subject of respect. She wrote about the transcript of a television program that documented the lives of 'surrendered wives'. In once scene, a young daughter was told that the reason the house was cleaned and delicious meals prepared - indeed, the reason for anything and everything they did - was to honour the father, to be a blessing to him. Not because of anything he'd done, not because of the wonderful man he was, but purely because of his position as 'king of the house'.

I remember carrying on this charade with my own children. I would go to lengths to work with the kids to prepare nice things to please their Daddy, to do things that he would like. And he was not a nice daddy. I'd make excuses for the fact that he picked and shouted constantly at the kids and was generally miserable, immature, demanding and unreasonable. I'd tell the kids they needed to respect their father and would not allow them to canvass his bad behaviour. I taught them to deny and excuse their father's faults, not as a kind sort of bearing with another human's imperfections, but as a deluded attempt to build him into some sort of worthwhile man just by pretending that he was already there. I realise how insane that sounds now, but it's a much more common strategy than a right-thinking person outside of partriarchal fundamentalism might imagine.

My ex-husband was and, frankly, still is not a particularly worthwhile human being. He is unintelligent, weak, petty, self-centred, dishonest, underhanded, manipulative and mean. I lied to myself about this for years, in part because I was embarrassed to have chosen such a loser to be my partner for life. But eventually, the harm that he was doing to me and my children overwhelmed even my powerful capacity for self-delusion; the cupboard door squeaked open and we all ran out together.

I heard sermons on submission of wives and respect for husbands many, many times. I would leave with renewed hope in my heart that a good, submissive woman could make a half decent marriage even with a man like the one I was lumbered with...but I couldn't sustain my cheer for long.

A few times over the years my then-husband and I made it to a counsellor. I remember one Christian minister - a woman - explaining that respect was positional.  Police officers, she reminded, wear a badge which is the symbol of the State's authority apportioned to them, and so we obey them, regardless of what kind of men they may be in their personal lives. It doesn't matter if I am a better person, or smarter, or know more than the police officer, they are in a position of authority and subsequently my role is to obey without question.

While I agree that we need to respect laws and the authority of the keepers of the same, the analogy falls down in one important regard: Public servants who wield power over citizens also function within systems that are designed to hold them accountable for their actions. Our judicial system has flaws and often fails but theoretically, an officer who abused his power or used it to serve himself instead of the public good would be publicly disciplined and stripped of those powers so he could not abuse them again.

But accountability is completely absent from the fundamentalist submission-cult equation. The men, and in particular married ones, are ordained by God to wield unbridled power, unchecked and unobserved by those outside the family. Indeed, the better he appears to have his wife and children under his thumb, the more kudos he will earn in the church setting. Bullying and domination are valued as expressions of manly, biblical strength. His character is never called into question. Although *plenty* of sermons are preached on the inherent sinfulness of man, no one thinks to ask whether any particular sinner is effectively overcoming his nature and so behaving properly in the relationships most prone to abuse. The husband and father is not trained or equipped to rule, and yet he is given free reign without the need to account to any superior. Even when his subordinates go public with a complaint, the blame is laid at *their* feet. If they were any good at submitting, things wouldn't be in such a mess. I mean, how can a man be expected to lead if the rabble God gave him won't follow?

On our domestic front, the any-failure-is-your-failure belief system meant that I was obliged to respect my husband - not just act right but genuinely generate an attitude of respect - or I'd be sinning and in danger of judgement. I needed to respect him - and obey him - because of the position that God had put him in, that is, in authority over me. I was to do this whether or not he treated me and the kids appropriately, whether he was right about an issue, and whether he was capable of having a single, intelligent idea and carrying it out. The less I questioned, the more I swallowed, the closer to a Biblical ideal I would become. I'd be a Proverbs 31 woman such as our brand of Christianity understood her to be.

As I've mentioned, my ex- is not an easy man to respect. Indeed, once I started to really think about it, I could think of only one thing he did that deserved honour and that was working hard to earn a living. And, don't get me wrong, I don't undervalue the fact that we were well provided for. It's just that it's not enough. You also have to be some kind of decent human being if you want the people you are providing for to genuinely love and respect you.

Towards the end, when I dared to whisper the truth as I was just beginning to see it, I received more of the same kind of bad advice. For 20 years, I never criticised my husband openly. Finally, realising truth might be the one thing that could save my kids mental health as well as my own, I confided in an older Christian woman, respected as a counsellor in the church, telling her what an average evening in our home looked like: how my ex-husband would behave and what a misery he'd make of every moment he was with us. I explained that I wanted to please God but was at a loss as to know how to do that in my situation. I asked her to tell me how our evenings should look if I was getting it right. How should I walk it? Exactly what should I *do*? She told me that, whatever happened, I must not point out that my ex- was was shouting at the kids when it was *he* who had the behaviour problem, but that I must respect him and insist the children to do the same.

That counsellor was so disturbed by some of the things I was telling her about my then-husband that at one point she said, "Whoa! Slow down! It sounds like you are suggesting that marrying your husband was (gulp) *a mistake*." I replied that, in fact, I was not any longer afraid to go even to *that* deep, dark place. She wrung her hands, speechless at my heresy and pale with worry.

I was too polite to that woman. Was marrying that man a mistake? Well, pardon my crudeness but, um, doh! That imposter, pretending to be wise woman and qualified to impart biblical truth, was just another cog in the machine that works to keep that truth at bay and women and children under the miserable control of wicked men.

Even our pastor at the time, a man who I still love and respect more than any Christian leader I ever knew (although, let's face that's not saying much), participated in perpetuating our misery. Right at the end of my marriage, my ex- called the pastor in to straighten out our troubled teenage son. I listened to my ex- lambast our lad for 10 minutes. Then, asking JC to leave the room for a minute, with fear and trembling, I stated that the problem was not with our boy at all but with his father who was a person such as I have described above.

My ex- frankly admitted that there was no untruth in any of my statements, that he was indeed the person that I had described, but that he found it so difficult to lead as he lacked confidence and I was so tricky to manage. The pastor rightly noted that he hadn't really expected to be opening such a messy can of worms that night. Suddenly, his cute little marriage relationship survey form didn't seem so helpful. He left us promising to pray and consider what was to be done next. What was done next - indeed, all that was done - was that the following Sunday, he handed me a yellow envelope containing two articles warning of the destructive nature of wifely bitterness and husband-directed anger. That was the extent of his support. And boy, was I pissed.

I realise that that pastor was probably just well out of his depth as others had been before him. And my marriage and the lies I told myself, my kids and the world about it were not that pastor's doing - our mess was not his fault. But, he remains culpable for failing to shed any real light on our situation when the privileged opportunity to do so arose. Had I taken his advice, we'd still be there, playing a soul-destroying submission game with that horrible, horrible man.

To be fair I need to add that shortly after that encounter with the pastor I had coffee with another, younger woman leader in our church who listened to my very brief explanation of our domestic situation and bluntly said, 'Doesn't sound fixable. You should consider getting out.' I wasn't even able to think in terms of a possible divorce at that point - her words genuinely shocked me. But that extreme good sense, and from a Christian too, eventually seeped into my brain and was one of the factors that empowered me, finally, to act. I feel grateful to her still. I hope she can cope with the knowledge that she was influential in my ending my marriage and leading my children to freedom and a much, much happier life.

***

A lovely friend of mine, who grew up in the daughter of a fundamentalist minister - a very, very sick man and a violent sexual abuser - surprised me some years ago by announcing that she didn't care who she offended, her children were not to call anyone 'Mr' or 'Mrs', or, heaven forbid, 'Pastor'. She said that she wasn't going to assist anyone in gaining her children's respect and that if they wanted it, they could damn well earn it.

Her motivation was to abuse-proof her children. She was determined that no one would ever be able to trick her children into participating in their own abuse by waving some certificate of authority under their noses and demanding respect on that account.

I just wonder how many children could have been spared the horrors of abuse at the hand of the wicked men - and sometimes women - in their lives if we all taught our kids to practice similar small but sensible acts of psychological self-protection.

manipulation by any other name

As I've admitted before, I never did do very well in the submission stakes. This is not surprising considering who I am and to whom I was married. Submitting - which in QF circles means to willingly place yourself under the God-given authority your husband in every way - more or less necessitates there being something of a reasonable height to look up to and get under. My former husband, C, although he has some good qualities, was and is a particularly weak and and vacillating man. Trying to submit to C was like trying to squeeze my entire body into a dollshouse and call it comfy.

But call it comfy I did. At least in public. And while I admit I didn't manage to pull submission off very well at all, considering how low I had to crawl to properly locate myself 'under' him, my efforts to submit to my husband were pretty heroic at times. Still I came in for a fair bit of criticism for not looking or not sounding as submissive as I ought.

This brings me to a particularly distressing and frankly, in my view, nauseating aspect of the QF doctrine of submission. While some of the men I knew in QF families were domineering bullies, a good number of them were weak-kneed ninnies like my husband. Except they were the only ones who didn't seem to know it. This was because their clever and seemingly super-submissive wives concealed that inconvenient truth from them. These women managed to run the show while contriving to trick their men into believing that they were in fact in charge.

Consider the following interaction between one sweet wife and her lazy whimp of a husband. J had all the submission boxes ticked: floral frocks, long hair, heaps of kids, homeschooling, husband 'working' from home.... While I suppose she may have considered us friends, she often made her disappointment in my failure at Christian wifely submission plain with disapproving looks and sometimes helpful suggestions for my improvement. 

At the time this particular incident occurred we were enjoying our post-home church afternoon tea on the verandah of J's country acreage (tick, tick). As usual, the men were sitting at one table and the women at another. This was the usual arrangement but I don't recall it was done by explicit rule but rather a general consensus. The women talked about homeschooling and kids, the men about doctrine and work. 

J's children were making themselves unpleasant a short distance away from where we adults were sitting. I could see J was uncomfortable with her kids' behaviour but didn't want to 'usurp' her husband's authority by doing anything about it. At least, she wanted to take the opportunity of making both herself and hubby look good in front of us all. Several times she cast a slightly irritated glance in the direction of her children and then more pointedly at her husband before she hit on the perfect solution. Summoning a sickly tone reminiscent of 50s sit-com housewives, here what she said:

"R, would you mind using your big, strong man's voice and correcting our children? I think they need their Daddy to do that right now."

I almost gagged on my brownie.

This is how submission is done in many QF households. It isn't OK to say, 'Honey, how's about you get off your lazy duff and man up for a change?' but it's fine to 'motivate' your man to do whatever you want by using clever brain-circumventing, ego-massaging manipulation strategies. And if you have a good bucketful of QF cred because of the box-ticking mentioned above, nobody minds a smidge. If she wears a floral frock and talks so sweet she couldn't secretly be (gasp) a manipulative, underhanded bitch, could she?

I have had conversations with QF women about their in-good-conscience use of these techniques many times. I would point out that I was working hard to find ways to respect my husband - and that wasn't easy. Treating him as though he were an idiot would not have been a good strategy for me - even if he liked it a lot. 

And as a young woman, my eyes opening to the power of my own sexuality, I made a decision that I would never, never use tricks of that sort to manipulate a man I cared about - or ones I didn't either. I don't know anyone I despise so greatly that my conscience wouldn't prick me if I patronised them in this way. Manipulation and integrity don't live on the same planet and I don't any longer want to live where we pretend they do. Integrity is too important to trade it off for domestic peace and fundamentalist kudos.

But nonsense like J's is widespread in the QF and patriarchal Christian communities - at least it is in the ones with which I have been associated. In her book "Created to be his Helpmeet", Debi Pearl described several instances when she not only tolerated her husbands infantile tantrums but 'learned how to win', that is, got back into his good books by tempting him with goodies like sex. (I hope I'm remembering this right. I'd go check my copy of Mrs Pearl's book but the kids and I had a Pearl-shredding party a while back. Felt gooood.)

Val Stares, one of the long-time leaders of conservative women's magazine Above Rubies in Australia once told a story at a women's group I attended. Val's husband does not identify himself as a Christian - at least, he didn't then. Val said that once, as she was looking out her kitchen window while he mowed the lawn, she watched as her husband ran over and destroyed a seedling tree that was precious to her. An uncharacteristically unsubmissive ejaculation along the lines of 'Oh, no! Not the ornamental cherry...' escaped Val's lips. Hearing this, her husband pitched a fit stomping and kicking angrily. Poor old him.

While Val is a gorgeous and intelligent woman and while I think the moral of this story was intended to be 'Let him be. Don't criticise' I still don't get it. How could anybody think that anyone benefits from encouraging the man of the house to behave like an three-year-old? That just leads to nowhere good: the women have to put up with and justify a whole heap of moronic behaviours and the kids nearly go mad trying to learn how to be healthy adults while buying in to far-fetched excuses for their father's immaturity. The man himself probably gets the rawest deal - he just stops growing. And what is a life without growth?

Worst of all, bang goes everybody's integrity. The whole family is forced to perform all manner of intellectual and emotional contortions in order to accommodate their own hypocrisy and self-deceit. Trying to live with a growing disparity between your inner and outer identities is a dangerous route. Aye, thar be madness, mateys.

QF patriarchal Christianity such as I have seen it practiced does not value truth and it does not value women. It harms children...and it harms men. It trades integrity for a floral-frocked lie and then tut-tuts at those who don't toe the line as though it has a monopoly on moral high ground. It disgusts me.

My heart breaks for all those women who still believe QF's sales pitch as I once did but I'm saddest for the children growing up inside QF who are unable to develop a healthy, honest sense of self while simultaneously being forced to deny the bleeding obvious and perpetually pretend it is not so. I'm devoting my energies to helping my own darlings walk away from the lie and towards freedom and wholeness. 

boobs: i've got 'em. get used to it.

My daughter K recently brought an interesting book home from the library this week. In "The Body Shape Bible" British fashion problem-solvers Trinny Woodall and Susanna Constantine identify 12 body shapes that they give names such as cello, goblet and column and then detail how women, seeing as how they are stuck with it, can best dress for the shape they've been given. There are lots of books like this about, I know, but this one is written in such a warm, supportive, woman-to-woman way that it's a stand out.

Trinny and Suzanna confirmed what I knew already: there's no doubt about it - I am a textbook hourglass. I have this in common with women like Marilyn Munro and self-proclaimed kitchen goddess, Nigella Lawson (pictured above). Women with my body-shape are variously described as 'generously proportioned' (by our grandmothers), 'curvaceous' (by our friends) and sometimes 'voluptuous' (yes, that would be the men).  

You probably don't need me to point out that hourglasses are not generally found lacking in the boobie department. Even at my slimmest I am possessed of what might be called 'a good set'. When pregnant, lactating or 'cuddly', that description scales up into something between 'impressive' and 'oh, my'. 

As we ate breakfast together yesterday, K read me the introduction to the Hourglass chapter in Trinny and Suzanna's book. Here's what it said in part:

"As a girl you could very well have bloomed early on. Your boobs will have attracted attention before you were mentally equipped to deal with the sniggering. This would have been hard and may have left a lingering shame over your buoyant figure. So rather than celebrating your iconic shape you will be left wondering how the hell to hide it from unwanted glances."

I was surprised to discover that hearing those words made me come over a bit teary. How well I remember being the first girl in my grade to wear a bra, and how the boys would run rulers down my back in class to confirm their suspicions. Feelings of shame about my breasts started early and continued into adulthood. Those feelings may even have played a part in my willing acceptance of QF modesty standards later on.

Being well-endowed causes all sorts of difficulties for the QF woman. Modesty is a highly valued virtue in QF circles and consequently boobs tend to be left to languish unobserved under multiple folds of loose, and generally floral, drapery. When one of my dearest friends joined an Amish/Mennonite group she told me that her new 'cape dresses' were designed to perpetually keep not one but two layers of good thick homespun between the conscientious amishwoman's breasts and the boob-watching world. And no doubt that did limit the visibility of errant and inconveniently erect nipples at chilly church suppers, and that appealing bobbing about breasts are wont to do - strap them down as you may. 

The primary reason for excessive modesty rules in the QF movement is that good submissive wives and daughters would not willingly elect to be a 'stumbling block' to the poor, weak-minded men-folk they encounter at home, at church or in the supermarket. Men, we are told, are 'easily excited by visual stimuli'. Be that as it may, it is we women who bear responsibility for preventing men from sinning by keeping our girly bits well out of sight. 

I have a one or two problems with that.

First, while I am not planning on dressing in traditional prostitute's garb any time soon, I refuse to accept that I am in any way responsible for what goes on in someone else's head. I don't believe a man's secret sexual thoughts are my responsibility any more than a girl walking alone at night in a t-shirt and mini-skirt is responsible for the actions of the man who decides to rape her. QF fundamentalist modesty is only a tiny step away from the Muslim insistence on covering women in burqas lest the very sight of the temptresses provoke a man to imaginings that put him in danger of hellfire. None of us will ever dress modestly enough to avoid lighting the fires of some men. So they just need to take responsibility for their own thinkings and doings like the rest of us do. (See this article for an excellent rant about the illogicality of blaming women for rape.) Women need to know they have the liberty to inhabit fashion real estate between the extremes of prostitute and nun without guilt or condemnation.

Second, as my daughters will tell you, over-emphasising female modesty can make girls ashamed of their bodies, afraid to grow up and become women, and terrified of men and their apparently hair-trigger-set and unrelenting desires. It breaks my heart that this is the legacy I inadvertently handed to my own girls. I am doing everything I can to change that now.

Further, I wonder whether these prudish beliefs and practices might make our boys even more curious about the undiscovered territory that lies beneath girls' dresses than is usual and healthy for normal, curious boys. After all, Victorian men could by all accounts be driven to unbridled lust by the unscheduled flash of just one well-turned ankle. Could it just be that QFers actually incite unhealthy obsessions in our sons by imposing our religious nudiphobia on them?

Third, if anyone thinks that women wearing modest clothing prevents sexual sin I suggest they look up some statistics on the prevalence of porn use among church-attenders. Depending on which study you read, perhaps between 5 and 8 out of every 10 men sitting smiling at the pastor on a Sunday morning are likely to be spending at least as many minutes viewing lewd sexual acts performed by other women with boobs much less well concealed than yours Monday through Saturday. So where should the blame lie if one of those guys gets a wee tingle in his thingle as he stands impertinently chatting to my chest after the service? I, for one, am not owning that.

Fourth, I've often thought that, with respect, if God was so hung up about keeping boobs out of sight and mind, he could easily have built us more like other mammals, none of which seem to have noticable bumpy bits unless lactating. He could have, for instance, given us a couple of rows of nipples like dogs' that swell with milk only when needed to sustain offspring. Or located breasts somewhere less visible - in our armpits for instance. But no, he made breasts bountiful, bouncy and, in my case, big, and tacked them tantalisingly in a spot just barely below the line of polite eye contact. Would he have done that if he didn't mean for us to acknowledge they are there? Clearly if we believe God made them at all, it seems he planned breasts to be an undeniable reminder that women are not the same as men  - and that they are very, very different to dogs.

Finally,  QF modesty + big boobs = frump. When you are in possession of a curvy boob, waist and hip configuration, adhering to the QF dress code means doing it baggy and, you can ask Trinny and Suzanna, baggy doesn't work for hourglasses. Frocking up like Demis Roussos doesn't do a lot for a gal's self-esteem either I can tell you. Even my legalistic zeal and belief that I was doing 'the right thing' and 'setting an example for my daughters' could not possibly compensate for how depressing mirrors became to a hourglass-shaped QFer like me.

Anyway, it's all good now. I am happy and comfortable in my skin and have no axe to grind with any other woman, whatever she chooses to wear.

In conclusion, for what it's worth, I'd just like to say this to all the men I know and to those I have yet to meet: 

I have breasts - two of them. They are big, bouncy and beautiful and they are mine. I'm not going to go out of my way to use them to terrify or titillate (heh, heh) but I'm not either going to gear up like a nun just because some of you have active imaginations. I dress to please myself. I am trying neither to entice nor repel you. Unless you are a family member, work colleague or friend, I'm just going about my business and ignoring you. They're just boobs, mate. Women have them. Grow up and get over it. It's up to you to control yourself and limit your imaginings and gropings to the ones that that are attached to the woman in your life.

And that's got nothing to do with me.

crushing daisies - ways in which patriarchal fundamentalism harms its children #3

The crippling weight of sin-consciousness

I am likely to say this more than once here but one of the most important things I learned as I made my way out of delusion was that integrity is vital for mental health....it's vital for survival. In fact, I believe that when all is said and done, who we are and who we know ourselves to be is all we've got to offer ourselves, our families and the world.

The scary thing about delusion is, of course, that you can't see it. It's not just dummies that are drawn into cultic groups like QF patriarchal fundamentalism. A lot of clever, strong, thinking women find themselves there too. Getting dibs on a guru's formula which is guaranteed to please God and produce great kids is a big drawcard. And once you enter in Delusion begins to build a wall of ideology-protecting self-deceit around you. In the end, for many of us, it takes a major disaster to open our eyes.

The disaster works wonders because it activates a sledgehammer of truth that knocks a hole in our wall and lets in some honest light. And that helps us begin a journey that starts with telling ourselves some painful and frightening truths.

I adore my children. Admitting that my beliefs and practices had harmed them was truly agonising and something I did in increments as I was able to cope. But truth, in particular painful, life-altering truth like that, is the only way out of the prison cell that is legalistic delusion.

I've observed large numbers of women who have parented similarly to me. By and large they have produced disasters at both ends of the spectrum - either they have simpering, dominated 20-somethings still cringing around their dinner table, or rebels who busted out leaving an unsightly mess. While there is obvious collateral damage when kids are forced to fight their way to adulthood, injury is just as present in the quite, respectful ones who are of age but have failed as yet to make that journey. 

For some children, the element of their parents' faith that harms them the most is a fundamentalist view of the inherent sinfulness of humankind. That's how it was for my beautiful oldest son, D. 

We were pretty strict on D. He was our firstborn and we adored him. He was so smart, so funny, so lively. I remember saying that the saddest thing I could imagine was for a child to grow up in a home where the Saviour was known without ever having encountered the Christ for himself. I was going to make sure that didn't happen to my darling boy.

I read psalms to D before he was even born and thrilled that he jumped as though he enjoyed to hear them. I sang songs of God's wonderful love over his cradle. I taught him that God made him and loved him and wanted him to live a life of abundance and joy. In those days while I did use spanking as a method of discipline I believed I handled it as lovingly as was possible. D, as I often told him, was the most loved boy in all the world. He was my heartbeat, my breath.

But somehow D missed grace. I mean, he completely missed it. He got sin, and guilt, and judgement and hellfire alright. But he missed grace.

This grew D into a perfectionist who struggled to avoid mistakes at any cost. Inevitably, he would fail and this would lead him to go to lengths to conceal his wrongdoing and avoid subsequent consequences. Unlike my other children I don't ever remember a time when D came to me to say his conscience was bothering him and he wanted to get something off his chest. He would just wait until he was caught out, and then furiously deny his involvement.

When D finally would confess, he'd sob that he was foul and make promises that he would never, ever do it again. I would explain that he certainly was not foul but a flawed human like the rest of us. I'd remind him that he didn't have to carry the burden of his sin but as a much-loved son of God could come to the cross, lay it down and be free. D would repeat the prayers but the burden remained.

And I couldn't convince D that in his determination to be perfect in future he was setting himself up for inevitable failure and self-condemnation. He simply couldn't grasp that we all make mistakes and need then to say so, make amends, seek forgiveness, brush it off and move on. D dealt with the weight of guilty feelings with a never-ending regime of internal self-flagellation and continued to conceal and vehemently deny even minor contraventions of the rules.

I didn't realise the degree to which D was living in fear of being overwhelmed by the monster Sin that apparently lived inside him, crouching and ready to drag him off to misery and damnation. As he grew older these fears left him unconvinced of his intrinsic wonderfulness - no matter how often I told him it was so - and unable to grow into the strong man I always known he was born to be. D wore every little misdemeanor he had committed on his back and remained unable or unwilling to lay a single one down and find forgiveness and freedom.

Ultimately D's fear, spiritual emptiness and lack of self-esteem made him an easy target for the advances of M, a self-appointed leader in the Christian homeschool movement and a trusted friend of many years. At the time we failed to discern what we see so plainly now - M was also an accomplished sexual predator. I think it may have been after D's sixth suicide attempt that he finally began to disclose the nature and extend of M's abuse. 

My precious son has attempted to take his life more than 10 times now and has literally hundreds of appalling scars all over his body where he has cut himself horribly with knives. Last year D spent more than 5 months in a psychiatric hospital where he diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and possibly Borderline Personality Disorder. Currently he on a concoction of meds including anti-psychotics, is not able to work or study and has lost all his friends. He self-medicates with drugs and alcohol in an attempt to dull the pain of his traumatic memories. If you had known D before he was abused, you would never believe he could come to this.

It has been a challenging couple of years for all of us. For months I hardly slept as I struggled to find a strategy for living with the unrelenting dread that is part of awaiting the next horrific incidence of suicidality or self-mutilation. During the worst times I would not be sure if I was going to faint or vomit any time the phone rang so often had calls brought terrible news. It took me time to learn how to love my son while keeping my own heart safe. I still very much feel for D but I no longer am at risk of being destroyed by internalising his pain. Efficient compartmentalising has become a matter of survival.

Whatever the Bible says about vengefulness, the day D finds it in himself to report M to the police will be a happy one for me. I would gladly see the bastard who stole my son's soul get some of his own back in prison and I don't care who knows it.

But however much it hurts, it's really important that I accept responsibility for the part I played in D's sad story. Thankfully, our relationship remains good and strong. Just yesterday when he was visiting we talked about this again. I believe it strengthens him to be reminded that some of the things he struggles with were produced by the unbalanced sin-consiousness that his dad and I mistakenly imposed on him when he was little. It helps him to know that others have come out and recovered. It helps him to know that I am so very, very sorry. 

D is both gracious and increasingly realistic. He's glad to be able to talk about the difficult parts of his childhood without fear that I'll take offense and he reiterates that he knows I was sincerely trying to love him the best way I knew how. But he rightly agrees that I made some very bad choices and that he has been hurt by them. Truth is a very powerful medicine. I like to believe that each time we squeak open a door and welcome a little more truth into both our hearts, we get one baby step closer to D being well again.

Those domineering parents like 'Leigh', who played the Jonathan Lindvall 'obedient adult children' card so well that they succeeded in preventing their teens from wriggling out of the nest and into healthy adultood really frighten me. I've made a lot of mistakes but when I realised my beliefs were harming my children - and it's pretty hard not to notice when they find their voices in their teens - I dumped my bundle. I chose to love my kids first and figure out the rest second. I get it that I will be criticised for that in some circles but I'd suffer any punishment rather than turn my back on my kids when they are floundering as I've seen some parents do. Owning our mistakes is the only way out of delusion and self-deceit and on to integrity. And come what may I'm going there.

Sin doesn't figure in my conversations with my kids now. They hear enough of that from their dad who rarely lets the opportunity of a good finger wagging condemn-a-thon slip by. At my house we focus on how fabulous my kids are, how emotionally intelligent, how intuitive, how capable. I listen to them and tell them to listen to their own hearts, to trust their instincts and to know when to seek wise advice. I encourage them that they are capable of making good choices. Sure, they'll make some lousy ones, we all do, but we are learning how to admit it when we screw up, make amends, seek forgiveness - forgive ourselves - and move on.

I want my kids to be emotionally healthy, growing, thriving and courageous. I want them to be adventurous, to walk boldly into the world trusting that they really can do great things. I want them to be aware there is real evil out there, but to live confidently, unafraid of a sin-monster within that dooms them to live as pathetic slaves to their own wicked desires. I want my kids to be flawed but fabulous. I want them to be free. That's what legalistic fundamentalism stole from D. That's what he's missing.

D has had a pretty good couple of weeks. The depression which constitutes a large part of his illness has given him a few hours reprieve most days. He's been good company when he has come to stay and is talking about the future and maybe even applying for university one day. I know enough to realise that this is a journey of 10, 000 steps many of them backward but nevertheless it's encouraging. I hold on to the firm hope that the time will come when D is not just functional but truly well, thriving and making the most of the wonderful gifts God has given him.

I believe it and I'm waiting.

out fundying the fundies

 

pilfered with thanks from stufffundieslike.com

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Warning: this post may contain traces of nuts

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Coming out of a cult-like mindset is a journey of a thousand steps. As I've said before, for me it was discovering an increasing number of things I didn't share with the QF/Christian patriarchal/Fundamentalist camp that formed a large slice of my escapee education pie. 'Leigh' (not her real  name) unwittingly taught me one of my most memorable lessons.

I first heard of Leigh when a mutual, and very lovely, fundy friend asked if we could put Leigh and her son up for the night at short notice. My friend regularly had them to stay but unexpected circumstances prevented her offering a room this time. I said I'd be happy to find them some space.

Leigh and her 23 year old son James (also not his real name) needed to fly to across the continent two or three times each year. James was studying a Bachelor of Music through a university in a city near us and was periodically required to attend in person to sit his exams. Apparently this was the only uni in Australia that offered the course James wanted to study but allowed students to complete it from home. Home university - within limited approved course choices - is pretty popular in QF circles.

Leigh arrived in a particularly dull and dowdy home-made floral frock, her uncut hair wound up tight in a bun and wrapped in a crochetted 'covering'. This bun cover was not intended to be decorative but was worn as a religious garment, a symbol of her submission to her husband. Leigh wore no make up or jewellery, her calves were swathed in a pair of peculiar fuzzy socks and I'd seen more stylish footwear on psych ward night nurses.

It quickly became apparent that Leigh liked to hold court from a position squarely in the centre of things. She fended off all direct contact with James. Whenever we could get the lad to answer a question for himself Leigh would either finish his sentences for him or chip in and correct the details with a brusque, 'No, no, James. It wasn't like that!' It seemed James was used to being harried by his mother but, despite his charming manners and respectful fascade, there were unmistakable signs he was embarrassed and annoyed at her constant chiding. I managed to get Leigh's to loosen her grip once or twice and allow James to play table tennis with my boys in another room. The boys said James was transformed from a nervous, twitching mummy's boy into a regular, jovial bloke at these times.

Leigh, not unexpectedly, turned out to be one of those fundies who likes to let loose every hobby horse in her not-inconsiderable stable right up front without regard to the possible opinions of her beleaguered audience. Indeed, she didn't allow for alternate positions at all but treated us to an unabated tub thumping from the moment she arrived until she finally was forced to sleep that night. I've met a lot of these sorts of fundies and suspect they persist in such thick-skinned, anti-social, brow-beating monologues in part because of a short-sighted assumption that if one has 'Christian homeschooler' tattooed across one's forehead one must also be in happy receipt of the whole box and dice. In addition, I suspect they think it good policy on the off chance they have struck some poor fellow not fully right-minded quite yet. Then, as their victim is lucky enough to be in attendance while the fundy pursues their favourite subjects ad nauseum and without drawing breath, there is a fair possibility the wayward one may be brought round. I'm ashamed to say I have indulged in this sort of arrogance myself on many occasions.

So...Leigh began by holding forth on the 'right' kind of homeschooling. ACE, of course. I gathered as she continued that in general the only 'suitable' material for the consumption of children was overtly Christian both in authorship and message. She assumed we were in agreement about the evil practice of reading literature containing animals or inanimate objects that talk. The kids smiles froze and they shot panicked glances my way. I crossed my fingers and hoped Leigh wouldn't look too closely at any of my many bookcases containing as they did contraband favourites such as The Hobbit and D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. Still hoping she wasn't a Pantry Checker (I've known a few), I made a metal note to remove my wine to a safer location under my bed just in case.

Leigh went on to treat us to sermons on modesty and feminine submission. My girls and I were past wearing skirts by this time but, suspecting our houseguest may tend to the conservative side, I had dug one out for myself so as not to cause offense. I had stopped short of imposing that on my girls.

At that precise moment twelve-year-old K unwittingly entered the room dressed modestly enough in jeans and a blouse. It was now that Leigh revealed she had rebellion-spotting super powers. These enabled her to detect the tell-tale whiff of a rebellious seed '...even as young as 12...' She narrowed her eyes to suspicious slits and cast a despising glance K's way. Leigh had, apparently, the only 'saved' kids left in town. She said they started homeschooling with 40 other children each and every one of whom she assured us had 'gone off the rails'. She said that she was well-known for being the only parent of their acquainance who had been able to raise 'godly' children. Subsequently, Leigh volunteered a deal of her time to support less successful mothers in their grief. Occasionally she took one or two wayward souls into her home for a time, fixed them and then sent them back home for their hapless mothers to ruin again.

At one point I asked Leigh why she accompanied James each time he flew to Queensland. I thought she must have friends or relatives nearby that she wanted to visit. With a disappointed look, Leigh, sat up a little straighter and explained that obviously it wasn't safe for James to catch a plane and then a bus on his own so she came along every time to make sure that he'd be safe. What made Leigh think she'd be able to keep a grown man safer than he could keep himself was not specified.

As it happened, I'd managed to kick the hobby horse closest to Leigh's heart. She took the opportunity to explain that she lived on a farm (brownie points there for sure) and shopped in the small, quiet country town nearby. But, she said, she would never let her two girls - aged 18 and 21 - walk from one end of town to the other, a distance of some 500 metres, unchaperoned even when she was shopping nearby. She was worried that men might try and....I'm not exactly sure what men might try and do but it was something and it was bad. Consequently, her girls had attained adulthood with virtually no opportunity for unsupervised conversation with a non-family member. 

Leigh had chosen careers for all her children that would keep them safely with mama for the long haul. She and her husband had built a music studio in their home so that James could try and earn a living teaching piano and still be able to eat all his meals with his ma. Leigh had helped her daughters establish a business making and selling modest clothing to other fundy women. The business name was based on 1 Timothy 4:12 and revealed the object was not just to keep certain body bits under wraps but to be - and be seen to be - better than everyone else because of your exemplary dress standards. Anyway, those young adults were kept safely under Mother's gimlet eye 24/7 and were apparently not due for parole any time soon.

It eventually became plain that the rest of James' life was pretty well stitched up for him. He had managed to select a prospective life partner from a mother-approved shortlist. This gal was from a similarly-minded fundy family who lived in another state. (It is common for QF families to start making connections like these as their children reach their teens - marriage partners not being thick on the ground in your average homeschool kitchen. In Australia ACE families seem to do this best.) James had met his chosen at a fundy-only 21st birthday party and after much prayer and character-sussing on both sides a betrothal contract agreeable to both families was negotiated.

All that remained was for the lass to come and enjoy an extended visit where she would be subject to a final bout of scrutiny from her mother-in-law-to-be. In due time James' beloved arrived, endured 10 days with Leigh, then rushed home to her own mother refusing to speak to James or any of his family ever again. This hard-heartedness despite Leigh's offer to section off a bit of unsaleable land on which James could erect a house for himself and his bride, and a promise that, faithful matriarch, Leigh would be on hand every single day to mentor the poor ignorant thing and help her properly raise the hoped-for tribe of grandchildren. Ungrateful wench! Leigh could not find it in her heart to forgive the girl or her family and would not brook my gentle suggestion that it was perhaps better after all to call it off now than after the wedding.

Don't ask my K about bedtime that night unless you want an earful. At 8.30, after phoning her husband and tersely delivering a full menu of instructions and reminders, Leigh announced that it was well past James' bedtime and insisted he head off at once. James offered a sheepish goodnight to my pre-teen children who were still up and about and headed obediently for his nigh-nighs. And he almost escaped without further humiliation. At the last moment though Leigh called him back, offered her cheek and insisted on a 'kiss for Mummy'. Honestly, we were all starting to feel a little ill.

The following morning Leigh was up and floral-frocked nice and early. She wandered the halls for over an hour (I kid you not) until everyone had seen her with her Bible (in hand-made quilted cover) and so knew she'd been at her 'devotions' while we were all still dribbling on our pillows. It was the day of James' big exam so I asked him what he'd like to eat. He cast a worried glance at his mother whose glare left us in no doubt that I was sadly mistaken if I thought James was the honoured guest at this little party. Nevertheless I made James coffee, bacon and eggs and porridge and told him to help himself and have as much as he liked and not feel it was too much trouble. Leigh was pissed at all the attention James was receiving and also because, the service being a little slower than usual that morning, she had to shout from the dining room and hurry me along with her cutlery. All this without a word of a lie. And there was so, much, more more besides.

Leigh is not exactly typical of the women I met in QF fundamentalism. Certainly, she was uncharacteristically rude. But her meanness and self-absorption aside she is really only slightly more extreme in her views than many - both women and men - I knew personally. Still I was staggered at her self-rightousness and the depth of her self-deception and appalled at the abusive and inappropriate control she inflicted on her children

Truthfully, Leigh scared the shite out of me. I realised that Delusion was a near and dangerous enemy and wondered if I was looking at a portrait of me in twenty years time. I determined then to ask others to hold me accountable as I searched my heart and pleaded with God to show me whether I might be on the same path. I told every friend who would lend me an ear about Leigh and reminded them that if they saw characteristics like that in me and didn't tell me, they couldn't rightly say they loved me. I decided I didn't want to build myself into the kind of woman whose kids don't visit her once they are given the choice. It was a good plan.

Sadly, although Leigh is a shocker she is not unique. Neither was she relegated to the outer corners of QF Fundidom. Leigh had real cred and was an honoured stateswoman in the QF pool in which she swam. I don't doubt she had moulded many, many young women in her image over the years. I met her when I was already on the way to asking some difficult questions about the belief igloo I'd built around myself and my family. Consequently, Leigh repelled rather than attracted me. I wonder how I'd have responded if I'd still been in the throws of fullest QF zeal. I know this for sure, if she came to stay today I wouldn't fail to challenge her nonsense. What a coward I was then.

James was a nice young guy though and I suspect he'll make a decentish sort of man if he can ever get out from under his mother's thumb. Perhaps he has. I sure hope so.

I'd also like to say that I hope this post serves to more clearly define the parameters of fundamentalism such as I will use the term on this blog. When I say fundy, I mean legalistic, self-righteous, delusional folk like Leigh. Sometimes I'll be referring to homeschooling, homebirthing, home churching, home businessing, frock-wearing, KJV 1611 sorts. Other times I'll include independant conservative and charistmatic/pentecostal believers.  I do not mean to cast my net around Christians who simply believe the Bible is true and seek to live as though Christ is real - whatever I happen to believe myself. I fully intend to criticise a bunch of church practices that may be common across the board but I want it known that I love and respect many of the mainstream Christians I know who identify positively with the term Fundamentalism as they understand it.

And, I should note too that I have a lot of love and respect for QFers who are sincere believers and seekers after the truth - whether they are still in or have found their way out. But I'm not wasting any warm fuzzies on Leigh or her sort.

crushing daisies - ways in which patriarchal fundamentalism harms its children # 1

Work, work, work!

Last night I endured the tail-end of a Wife Swap program. The father in one home was a real stick-in-the-mud and a big believer in strictly 'training' his children. How I cringed to watch a work ethic so like my ex-husbands standing pasty white, flabby and naked on reality TV. This guy and his wife owned a restaurant and they - and their children - worked 7 days/week so that they could 'have the freedom of lifestyle' they wanted. Those poor kids had no free time and lived weighed down by inappropriate burdens their parents inadvertently laid on them.

Of course the new mom was a servant to did not allow her kids to do anything for themselves at all. Juicy conflict ensued as she insisted Dad sell the inn and give his kids their lives back. The new mom encouraged the kids to string worry beads on a thread to symbolically give back the adult worries they were carrying. The poor little mites listed things like 'I don't want to worry that the inn will go broke and we'll all have to live on the streets'. It was all uncomfortably familiar. I've seen it in so many QF patriarchal homes.

Some years ago I was invited to take a session at a homeschool mothers' group. The leader had asked me to speak about home organisation as, apparently someone thought I had got that together. I'm guessing the entirety of my self-congratulatory little speech was pretty cringeworthy but I blush particularly as recall myself quoting from some book I had read on the subject which smirked, 'Don't ever do anything for yourself that your kids can do for you.' I actually read it aloud twice telling them I agreed with it so strongly. And I really did.

Although our family is not so large as many I know, having the first 6 children in relatively quick succession does make for a pretty busy household. At various times I inflicted new and proven-to-succeed home management systems on my family in an effort to impart a smidgen of orderliness. I've been known to impose Managers of their Homes, the happy face system and numerous other mercifully short-lived, chart ticking nightmares on my long-suffering offspring. While those programs are not all bad, in our home they were mostly educational in just two respects. They taught me that (1) nobody likes me when I'm in Household Hitler mode and (2) I can only tolerate making my kids miserable for a short time.

But even though I failed to stick with a consistant program, my kids used to do a huge amount of housework. That's not entirely unfair as they did create a lot of mess. And it wasn't all bad. They learned some useful skills and developed - as promised by the program publishers - the seeds of character. But looking back, they did way more than was appropriate. It's cute that a 10 year old can cook dinner for 9 but hardly fair.

I don't think I loaded the kids up was because I was lazy - I'm not. But I do think that I was rather too proud of my little army of worker ants. Obedient, productive kids are a bit of a status symbol in QF. And it's not like giving up homeschooling so I'd have time to hang my own washing was an option. Having a husband with what I think is undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome and who's Aspie 'special interest' happens to be work - his and everyone else's - did not help.

If I think about it, I suspect my easing up on the kids work-wise co-incided with my loosening ties with QF families. And now that the kids are in school, I take a totally different view of housework. I feel that getting an education and having a childhood are the primary responsibilities of children. I do nine tenths of the housework and this is how I think it should be. Everyone here has one major responsibility which needs to be done once each week, they rotate helping with the dishes, keep their rooms relatively tidy and pick up when asked. I have lowered my standards a lot. If I'm hung up about something needing to be spotless all the time, I clean it.

As well as releasing us from the children's father's high expectations, freedom has gifted me the joy of serving my children with a whole heart.The kids are happier and I have a lot more energy now that I'm not wasting it on badgering them to work, work, work. Hey.....that sounds like the beginnings of an ad for a great new program....

the problem with fundies - brain-check syndrome

I have a dear friend who attends a local independent church. She's one of the cleverest, wisest and most highly-educated people I know. I'm not quite sure why she goes to church and I'm not sure she's clear on that score either. While I think she does believe at some level, she and I share similar concerns about institutional Churchianity and the Bible. But her husband is a keen church attender and she says her kids get a lot out of Sunday School so she sticks with it. That said, she has to keep her head pretty low in order to survive.

A couple of days ago this friend rang me after walking out in the middle of a women's meeting held at her local. She was *mad*. Apparently some woman had indulged in a little rant saying she 'doesn't believe in IVF' without, of course, considering that there is likely to be at least one woman in the room who has reason to disagree. The conversation moved on to abortion and then to a long list of other things those women don't believe in including but by no means limited to wearing crystals as jewellery. This is because demons live in crystals so wearing them puts even dinky-di, born-again sorts at risk of accidental possession by evil spirits. One ex-pat Amercian gal added that she'd seen some *terrible* cases in Africa at which a wide-eyed quivering sister whispered she'd loooove to hear more about *that*.

My friend, aghast at the stupidity she was witnessing and angry that not even the usually-sensible group leader seemed willing to call it what it was, headed for the door.

It put me in mind of a story I heard when a pastor at a mainstream Baptist church I was visiting unwisely opened up the pulpit so people could share 'praise points'. These, he explained, are evidence of God's blessing and answers to prayer that have occurred during the week. One giggly 30-something homeschool mum raced to the front to share this gem: She'd been almost at the end of her sewing project when she noticed she was just about out of thread. It would have been inconvenient to have to stop what she was doing and head out to buy some more so she prayed that God would extend her thread until she was done. And wouldn't you know it: the thread lasted just until she had completed her last stitch.

I am not saying miracles can't happen but I am simply unable to accept that the Creator of the universe deigned to override the laws of physics and perform a material miracle to save this ninny a 20 minute round trip to the shops. I glanced around to locate the pastor and see if he were forumulating a kindly, face-saving rebuttal for the poor dear but, no, he was smiling, clapping and praising God for his goodness along with all the rest.

The ripples of this kind of nonsense go way beyond humouring an otherwise harmless nut on a Sunday morning. Christian ministers want their flock to extend belief to accept that miracles happen. I get that. It's part and parcel of participating in a religion that is intrinsically spiritual in nature. But it's one thing to accept that miracles can and even do happen, and another to allow that an insignificant co-incidence is directly attitibutable to the Almighty's intimate interest in one's hobbies.

Church-goers are encouraged to make these kinds of leaps all the time. Own to even a smidge of sceptisism out loud and you'll be losing your A+++ status for sure. There exists a general concensus that if it's said about God, in church, by a Christian of more than 3 weeks standing, it must be OK. The Toronto Blessing debacle is a case in point.

In my view, pentecostal/charismatic Christianity simply could not survive if it suggested followers genuinely scrutinise such claims. Leaders get away with manipulating Scripture to suit themselves precisely because they lull trusting flocks into accepting their spoonfeeding week after week. Cleverly insisting, "Don't just believe what I say, check out the Bible for yourselves," only reassures parishioners that the minister is entirely trustworthy and doesn't need us to keep tabs on them. And retelling the 'thou shalt not touch the Lord's annointed' story oft and loud helps keep any irritating free thinkers safely in their boxes.

The church that allowed the Cotton Miracle story was not QF, charismatic or fundamentalist. It was your regular run-of-the-mill Baptist job. So I guess I'm criticising mainstream institutional Christianity now and not just QF fundies.

Yeah. I am.