crushing daisies - ways in which patriarchal fundamentalism harms its children #4

I've had the privileged opportunity to talk to the kids of some of my old fundy friends recently and hear about some others. Their stories share some common threads and I learned a whole lot from listening to them. Here are some brief notes on that:

• Kids leaving fundamentalism face some special challenges. Unlike most of their fleeing mothers they have no frame of reference to help them build a life in a world filled with ordinary folk. That capacity to harken back to our pre-fundy lives is probably one of the reasons that we as mothers were so slow to realise how damaging sheltering our children was: we understood the world and knew we would be able to re-engage at any time. Some of us lost sight of the fact that this was not true for our kids. 
• All the young people I've spoken to say they continue to struggle relating socially to peers into their late teens and twenties. They say it takes a long time to begin to feel 'normal' and lose that fear of a generalised evil they believe lurks in the world outside their homes. Even once their own experience has shown them that this was not wholly true, vestigial worry remains. Further, the guilt and self-hatred that some of them endure make developing normal relationships difficult. And often they are competent conversing with adults but just don't know how to do small talk with kids their age. These are crippling disabilities for a young adult.
• I'm saddened to hear that more than one of the girls has suffered from eating disorders as my own daughter K has. The lovely young woman I spoke with today told me that restricting her eating was her way of gaining control in a life that was micro-managed by her mother, and in which she suffered dreadful abuse at the hand of her father. When my daughter was being treated for her ED in an adolescent mental health unit, she commented that Pentecostal kids were significantly over-represented on the ward. I'd be interested in looking into that further.
• These girls who have fled fundamentalism with its strict modesty regulations seem to take a very special delight in girly things like glam shoes and pretty dresses. On so many levels patriarchal fundamentalism tells children that the things they think and feel are wrong and must be suppressed. It's a joy, but a little bit sad too, to see these gorgeous gals enjoying indulging their tastes without guilt.
• Growing up is hard anytime you do it but it's extra tough on kids who were kept 'young' and so had to make the journey in late adolescence - and often in a time of significant family upheaval. It's a testament to their resilience that they are growing into such lovely young adults. One young man told me that when he and his family left fundamentalism, they all threw a lot of babies out with the bathwater. He told me that, over time, he realised that he wanted to dust off some of those values and add them to the growing entity that is the adult he is choosing to become. He agreed with me that being a grown up and feeling equipped to make those kinds of decisions all by yourself is a very nice thing to be.

So that's some thoughts on the kids. But growing up is also hard - perhaps harder in some ways - for the middle-aged women who leave marriages and controlling church situations unused to navigating the myriad options available to them once rules are not a given. Some of us enjoy a brief revisiting of our teenage rebellious years. I suppose it's only natural to take some time to try out new freedoms and practice making discriminating choices.

One of the themes I've noted when hearing stories of child survivors of fundamentalism is that not every woman leaves in search of Integrity. I've heard about mothers who have ended their marriages and made moves to build new lives but who haven't really left behind a lot of the fundy baggage that caused them and their kids so much harm. Sadly, I've learned that more than one mother persistently refuses to canvas the possibility that they may be in some ways culpable for their children's suffering. They don't want to discuss it or they argue that things were not the way their child remembers. This causes their children a great deal of grief.

I empathise with the sorrow of those women but I am not able to sympathetise with their self-protective self-centredness. I understand that it is a frightening and distressing prospect to face the dreadful truth that some of your efforts to show your kids you love them more than breathing were misguided and have left them with scars. But our kids' recovery and growth seems to be linked to our own willingness to honestly accept that which is ours to own.

In my view, our children need us to be absolutely truthful in this regard. They need us to do some thinking about our mistakes, to approach them unbidden, to tell them they we understand how our beliefs and actions have harmed them, and to ask their forgiveness. More than once. And we need to be open to our kids approaching us with another bucketful of hurt, and another, and another. They need to know that we love them and we get it and that we are sad too. We need to let them tell the truth about how angry they have been, that even though they love us such a lot, they feel a need to say just how hurt they were by our mistakes.

I don't mean that we all move in to a perpetual Beat Up Mum Camp - we also need to know what is *not* ours to own. And as one of the young men I spoke to told me, 'I'm an adult now. My past has defined me to this point...but now I'm making decisions for myself, growing myself into the person I want to be.' At some point kids need to take responsibility for making the best of what they've been given. I just think that a mother's persistent refusal to allow them to revisit the past or to ask us to validate their feelings about it may actually inhibit their progress toward adulthood. And we don't have the right to do that, no matter how deeply it hurts to revisit our culpability in their suffering.

We mothers need to man up and hear what our kids need us to hear. I sincerely believe that every time we refuse to face a truth, every time we stick our fingers in our ears or manipulate our children into feeling that they should consider our sorrow ahead of their need to address issues from the past, we say 'No'  to growth. And that is a very dangerous thing to do. I believe we shrink a little bit each time we refuse the opportunity to take another baby step toward Integrity. I believe we need to embrace the pain that honesty brings us, to learn to love the agony of growth, to value Truth above all things.

There is no excuse for going easy on ourselves in this. Our children's healthy futures may depend on our opening our hearts to share in the truth as they see it. And the big payout is: every time we squeak open the door to those dark places, a shard of light rushes in and frightens away one of our own demons. And we find that we were wrong: the worst thing that can happen today is *not* that someone will confront us with something dreadful we may have done, but that, when that moment came, we didn't grab it with both hands.

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 quiverfull fundamentalism harms its children - # 2

 
The Little House on the Prairie Fashion Club
 

Our family wasn't particulary extreme regarding dress standards but we did insist on longish dresses and plaits for the girls for several years.This morning my 17 year old daughter K reminded me how damaged she had felt by that over-emphasis on feminine modesty. She tells me that in her view it had three significant effects. First, she grew to have a lasting disrespect for men and boys who obviously couldn't keep their minds away from her private parts. K says she felt disgusted at male weakness and their apparent obsession with all things sexual. I know she still struggles even to imagine enjoying a healthy partnership with a man.

In addition, dressing like weirdos served, conveniently, both to keep a distance between us and 'the world' and also helped us spot like-minded families in a crowd. K tells me that, even though she's glad she's at school now, she feels 16 years behind the eight ball when she's with her peers. Dress and other conservative choices we made kept my kids from engaging with their own culture. In an effort to follow the advice of patriarchal teachers such as Jonathan Lindvall we 'dared to shelter' our kids from many things that would help them function in a 21st world.

Finally, and perhaps most disturbing is that K says she grew up believing that there was something very wrong with her body. Having to hide herself away under a veritable mountain of denim and promptly being admonished when any bits weren't properly covered left her confused and, she says, appalled at her own foulness. She tells me that, before she even came to the dreadful realisation that God planned a very limited range of life choices for her, she knew she hated it that he had made her a girl.

How incredibly sad is that? I am heartbroken that I participated in crushing the self-worth of such a beautiful, intelligent and energetic young woman. And I feel very lucky indeed that she loves me still and allows me to walk beside her to build her up and help her realise her full potential.

It has been several years since I stopped enforcing the dress code in our home. Really, as soon as our girls reached their teen years the foolishness of such a position became clear to me. The fact that my two oldest girls came to me threatening mutiny helped a lot :) I dropped over-the-top modesty like a hot potato when I realised it was hurting my girls - and probably my boys - and damaging my relationship with them. Thank God my desire to keep the love and respect of my children overruled my foolish legalism.

I can imagine a flood of  'if anyone loves father, mother....more than me' tut-tutting from some former churchmates as I write. I understand the fear of hell but I have chosen to love my kids regardless. I praise the day I realised I loved my children too much to stand on silly, man-made principle. Whatever happens and whoever my kids decide to be, the only mother they've got in the world is going to stand beside them cheering them on. No matter what it costs me.

Addendum:

I just got in from collecting K from her part-time job. On the way home in the car I told her about this post. This is what she said:

"Now I love being a woman. I feel powerful, strong and capable of doing anything I want to do."

A little joybird just nested in my heart.