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.

coffee in my brand new laptop

Saturday morning was pretty sweary. I destroyed my brand new laptop with a cup of coffee.

So....lost a couple of posts I was working on. And some uni assignment work. It's going to take me a while to catch up.

Bother.

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.

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.

the 'girl cell' in action

God bless her little heart.

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.

things i didn't know about school...and was too afraid to find out #3

School makes weekends wonderful again.


No doubt it isn't solely home schooling's fault but over the last few years weekends at our house had lost their gloss.

When we first started homeschooling using a fun, hands-on, discover-based learning program (Konos) our days were full of wonder and enjoyment. It look a fair bit of time and effort to plan and prepare for our school week but we all got so much out of it I didn't mind a bit.

But as our age range expanded it became harder to keep everyone engaged at a level that was interesting and challenging to them. We started looking at programs for different ages. 'School at home' was sneaking up on me and I didn't even spot it.

And then.....we were sucked into the Classical Homeschooling Vortex. I'm sure this is a neat fit for some families but it was not a happy place for us. It took me a couple of years to realise that the joy had been sucked out of our lives and that my enthusiasm gland was failing to produce enough juice to keep us all charged up.

Because I found it difficult to ask my kids to settle for a less-than-perfect education (sigh) I always tend to be fiddling with each program until I get it where I could love it. The workload of tweaking, planning, preparing and teaching was crippling. Finally I realised I was going down for the third time and didn't have the strength even to clutch for a rope.

I was so busy for way too many hours each day in home school related work so I had no time to keep my house the way I like it. Saturday was my only chance to try and get back on top before I was back on the treadmill again (Sunday of course being written off with church and subsequent activities which I found exhausting and a bit of a trial). The kids and I would do chores for hours but still found it difficult to keep our heads above water. I saw myself becoming one of those home school mums who cheerfuly sweep aside a pile of home school crud, hairbrushes and bread crusts so they can offer their visitors a place to lay their coffee mug. Only, I wasn't pulling off the cheerful part.

I found I looked forward to school holidays not because I could spend some free time with my kids but so I could finally get into the linen closet and sort out the mess. At the end of each holiday I'd still have a list of a dozen undone jobs that I knew would have to wait until the end of next term when we had 'holidays' again. It was depressing.

So now, I get almost all the housework done in an hour each day and can spend evenings, weekends and school holidays enjoying my kids. They love it too. Sometimes we chill, other times we hit the beach. go shopping or hang with friends...it's just so nice not to be worrying about the six hours of planning (I kid you not) I'd have to put in on Sunday night if I didn't want to start the home school week on the hop.

Several of my kids would still like to return to home schooling...and I wouldn't say I've shut that door totally. But if we tackle it again, we'll do it in some way that frees us up to enjoy life and each other again. I won't be giving that up for anything.

what she feared most came upon her

GUEST POST by L


“What you have feared over all those years has come upon you (divorce). You can wallow in it and become a sour and bitter old woman or you can do something about it.” …T


…imagine being 17 with a heart full of hope for the future; a heart that longs for love, a life-long love, embodying security, happiness and a bunch of kids; a happy, satisfying future with a man who would be your best friend, your soul-mate, your most loyal supporter; someone you felt completely safe and at-ease with; someone with whom to share your heart...Lay beside that hope a fearful heart; one scarred by the divorce of parents at the age of 12; one that lacked confidence; one that was certain in her deepest being that no man would ever love her enough to stay the distance in that hoped-for dream.

 This describes me as a just-17-year-old. I was a rather rebellious teen, dabbling in smoking, binge-drinking, some drug use and sneaking out at night. My mum sent me to live with my dad when she had had enough. This meant moving from a small country town where I knew almost everyone and had been at school with many of my friends since pre-school, to a city where I knew only my dad and his new wife and her young kids.
Looking back my dad did a good job, helping me get my first job, in a bank, and offering any support I needed. His wife actually tried hard too, although I’m pretty sure she would rather I wasn’t there.


After a few months I chucked my job and went on the dole, found the ‘pay’ too low, so found another one selling door-to-door. Enter my supervisor, T. He was attractive, confident and rather exotic to my small-town experience with a foreign accent and foreign ways. He asked me out on my first day and I moved in with him a week later, much to my dad’s disappointment and my step-mother’s rage.


We moved to another city and our first few months seemed ideal. I was well on my path to future happiness. A little brusqueness now and then didn’t dampen my zeal; I just determined to be the nicest I could be. The brusqueness eventually exploded into a 2 hour angry rant about my untidiness, etc. I objected, hating conflict, which led to more arguments and the conclusion that we needed help if this relationship was going to work.
T’s mother had just visited from overseas and she was a ‘born-again’ Christian and, even though they didn’t speak English in their conversations I could tell she was a huge influence on his thinking. We decided to ‘try’ church and, after seeing a newspaper article about a local surfing minister we visited that church and were in hook, line and sinker.


Our church/faith journey was probably typical of the times. We started in a fairly liberal church, got swept up in the charismatic movement, went to Bible College and moved on to a Pentecostal church. Next came Mary Pride and the search for a church/denomination that ‘actually practiced what the Bible taught’, like head-coverings and women not speaking in church. This led us, of course to the Plain churches, and we females were promptly uglified and our heads covered. This journey was over a period of about 13 years. Along with this, of course came wifely submission and, as I had come to the conclusion that being a better wife and trying harder in everything I did would hold T’s anger at bay, an attitude of submission to the head of the home seemed an essential component of my survival.


By this stage we had 6 children. T’s role seemed to be to make sure everyone did what he wanted, how he wanted and when he wanted (with the right attitude of course), and to make sure he was disturbed as little as possible. So I tried harder. I was home-schooling, home-baking, home-haircutting, producing home-made clothes and penny-pinching to the nth degree. T was working a few hours a week and read books the rest of the time.


Having children didn’t disturb T’s lifestyle unduly. He didn’t play with them, fix their bikes or do anything much of what they wanted, but he did enjoy displaying well-behaved and hospitable children to guests. He very rarely attended to a baby at night and on the few occasions he did the baby and I regretted it. He was very impatient and expected babies to sleep at night. Any sports and family outings were things of his choosing. If things didn’t go his way he would sulk, chuck tantrums, boycott situations or humiliate people. I was always the mediator and the one who smoothed things over.


He was a master of manipulation, such that I always thought any trouble was caused by me and my incompetence. Behind closed doors he criticized most things I did, saying I he could do it better. In front of others he praised me as the perfect wife. The problem was that he was nice often enough for me to convince myself that the good times were frequent and the bad minimal, when actually it was the other way around. I clung to the hope that things would get better and made excuses for him to the children. We all walked on eggshells and I tried even harder.


I was so entrenched in the idea that marriage was for life; that I needed to be faithful. It never crossed my mind that there was an alternative to the way I was living. It was my job to make this work. The problem was that I was enabling his abuse by co-operating with it. His bad behavior always had the desired effect and I would usually apologise for whatever had set him off. I thought I was being obedient to God and that all the suffering would cause inner growth. I am sure it was God that gave me the inner strength to endure his behavior without going crazy.


His specialty was still the long, angry lectures, so much so that I feared getting in the car with him because then there was no way to escape. He would keep me up at night until the ‘problem’ was solved to his satisfaction even if I was sick or had been up to babies or toddlers a few times. Now he had begun to extend his tantrum chucking to ‘leaving’ me. He would pack his bags, sit the children down and tell them that he and I didn’t get on so he was going to live somewhere else. He was aware of my fear of being abandoned, of being a single parent just like my mother. He would leave for a few hours and then come back. This, of course was very painful and confusing for the children.


It was also the beginning of T’s downfall. When I turned 40 something began to stir inside of me. I couldn’t have named it then, but I know that is when it started. An embryonic self-assurance was conceived. Funnily enough it was T himself that watered it. He had become very interested in self-improvement books and loved to ‘share’ his latest read. Also he had come to rely on me heavily for all sorts of practical things (managing a house of 10 home-schooled kids and helping to run a business). I slowly became aware of my competence.


He started a university course, mainly so he didn’t have to work and because of his difficulties with written English I would edit his assignments and discuss them with him. He would go away at times for a week long course and I realized I liked it when he wasn’t there. We all relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. This made me feel a bit guilty and I tried to squash the thought but it welled up, seemingly of its own accord.


For some obscure reason T suggested I do a uni course, too. I was suspicious that he thought it would make him look good – a wife with all the above-mentioned skills AND working on a uni degree. It goes without saying that he strongly influenced the course I chose. He had no idea where this would lead to eventually. I jumped at the chance with excitement and was amazed that I could do it, and get good marks. Being flung into the world of uni students was an eye-opener after being closeted away for 15 years, but I enjoyed their company and was fascinated by their outlandish topics of conversation.


As my confidence in myself grew so did the murmurings of the older kids at home. Dad was difficult, unfair, unkind, mean to little kids, he expected everyone to always agree with his point of view. I found I now had to start to face up to this and agree that it was true. We started to use the word ‘abusive’ out of his hearing, which was a very scary thing to verbalise. We knew what effect it would have on him if he even heard a whisper of it. I carefully approached him about some of our complaints. He didn’t like it, of course and I think he began to see he was losing his grip on us. He said he would be nicer; his behavior got worse.


Things went on like this for about 2 years. I got braver and he got more cunning and more determined in his manipulation. My staunch friend, Dragonfly, was an amazing support through all this. Kind and strong and always sensible, I know I would have crumbled without her support. T ‘left’ me a couple more times not realizing that his threat was a bit like a child threatening to tidy his room if his mum didn’t let him have his way. “Yes!” I would say on the inside, “And don’t come back!”


The next step was like a miracle unfolding before my eyes. The day of our long-planned family holiday arrived. He chucked a tantrum on the first morning and it was the final straw for me. He threatened to leave and go home and I made no effort to talk him out of it. I was sorely tempted, but something inside me said, “No, enough.” The kids and I relaxed and stayed out the week without him, happy campers at last. I lay awake at night planning my next move, but not sure if I could pull it off.


When we got home I told him I was too tired to talk (totally out of character as I would give in to what he wanted ALWAYS) and went to bed. The next morning I told him my plans. He spent the whole day stomping around the house, packing his things and every now and then trying to talk me into changing my mind. It was like a switch had flipped inside me and I refused to be drawn in. I spent most of the day ignoring him.


By the evening he had been drinking and getting angrier and angrier. He phoned the adult children and said ‘goodbye’, then set about staging a suicide attempt. Two of the adult kids called the police who took him away for the night. It was the chance I needed, so the next day I refused to let him come back.


We are now living out my plan. The kids and I packed the house up, had a huge garage sale, found a house and moved 6 hours drive away from him. The kids are in school, I am doing a teaching degree at uni and we are learning to be normal. He has tried many times to talk me into reconciliation both nicely and nastily, but I take the advice of one of my girls, “Don’t go and talk to him, Mum. He always changes your mind.”


When difficult things happen I am tempted to fall apart, and I usually have a cry. But these tears have gone from 4 hour, heart wrenching sobs down to half our weeps. There is a surge of positive energy, like a fountain, inside of me that urges me on and reminds me to keep on going. Give it a name if you like. It could be the Girl Cell, it could be Jesus-in-me, it could be just my own inner strength, but one thing I am certain of…


…what I feared most has come upon me….and I embrace it with joy and excitement!

throwing the baby out - 'fundamentalism' is way overdue for an unceremonious tipping on the vegie patch

I had a lovely phonecall this morning with a dear friend. She's one of my real-world homies that I invited to view my blog - one I was a little worried I may have already offended in previous posts. Even though she said she is enjoying reading and has not yet been offended, it started us talking about the term fundamentalism such as I've been using it here. My friend is a firm believer in what are generally considered the most important tenets of orthodox Protestant Christianity and in no way is she dangerously nutty as are some of the folk I've been describing. So I wanted to have another crack at defining fundamentalism and explaining why I think it's a term best tossed out with the bathwater.

Most people who have been exposed to Christianity would be aware that many relatively moderate Christians gladly own the term 'fundamentalist'. These adherents take the term to refer simply to those who are believers in the fundamentals of their faith. Although the term is applied to many non-Christian religious sects and even secular political branches, so far as many Christians are concerned, 'fundamentalism' simply means believing in the inerrancy and historicity of the Bible including accepting a six-day creation, the virgin birth, the miracles of Christ and his atoning death and resurrection. But sometimes a term which was formerly worn as a badge of honour loses it's gloss as it increasingly attracts negative connotations that cannot be wished away. Ultimately, even though purists persist in using the term and insisting on its original or preferred definition, it may have become irrevocably tarnished whatever they say.

In my view, 'Christian fundamentalist' is a term that has well and truly exceeded its useful life so far as any but the most extreme wings of Christian belief and practice are concerned. I understand perfectly what Bible-believing Christians mean by fundamentalism and why many remain proud owners of the term. Indeed, if we accept that it means 'believing what we think God believes and trying to live it' how could any sincere follower of Christ reject the notion that accepting those fundamental tenets of faith is a good thing? However, I think the time has past in which that particular term can be redeemed. 'Fundamentalism' and 'fundamentalist' have been irreversibly contaminated and are in need of replacement.

Wikipedia defines fundamentalism as  

..."a belief in a strict adherence to a set of basic principles (often religious in nature), sometimes as a reaction to perceived doctrinal compromises with modern social and political life."

Wiki further notes that the term did not appear in the Oxford Dictionary before 1950. The article states that the rise of fundamental Protestant sects was a response to perceived liberalism within the broader school of US protestant Christian belief as well in general society.

"The movement's purpose was to reaffirm orthodox Protestant Christianity and zealously defend it against the challenges of liberal theology, German higher criticism, Darwinism and other movements which regarded it as harmful to Christianity."

Fundamentalism thus defined is a way for the conservative orthodoxy to draw a line in the sand. Alienated and under attack in a society less and less inclined to be ruled by formerly widely-accepted guidelines of their faith, they 'go back to the Bible' in an effort to redefine and revitalise a religion whose power to influence is waning. Hunkering down in churches and home groups these beleaguered possessors of a truer understanding of the Book challenge the converted to attain greater heights of 'biblical' correctness. Failing to tempt their neighbours away from the cinema or the evils of rock music, they pursue political avenues to regain their grip on a world sliding to hell.

The political aims of fundamentalist groups are often the most disturbing aspect of their dogma for non-believers. Fundamentalists as defined here cross the line from personal belief and practice of a stricter version of a mainstream religion to seeking to influence the State to impose penalties for contravention of the moral laws they value. History has shown this to be a mistake. Wherever Christianity has been imposed on the unconverted masses, the true church has been weakened and it is doubtful whether any genuine new converts were added to the fold. This is because, in my view, Christianity is at its core an intimate spiritual and relational encounter with one's God. Belief, that is faith, is the foundation of religious practice and must be the root and cause of moral adherence. Imposing legalistic stricture on moral issues at a civic level may tidy things up in the short term but applied with the aim of converting hearts it is futile and attacks the underpinnings of the religion itself.

Outside of conservative Christian circles, the term 'fundamentalism' is almost always perjorative. This is true in part because of the inescapable connection between Islamic fundamentalism and images of  bearded and white-robed terrorists but also because it is tainted by association with groups such as US racist organisation the Ku Klux Klan. Interestingly, KKK members themselves reject the notion that their beliefs place them in the fundamentalist fold saying they draw their membership from a broad cross-section of protestant Christianity. Regardless, in all of these cases, it is only the fundamentalists themselves who do not apply the term in a negative sense.

In persisting in identifying as fundamentalists, Christians are forced to isolate themselves from shared community understanding of the term unless they really do assent to the excesses it now conjures up for the majority. Like it or not 'fundamentalist' is now synonymous with brainless religious nutjob and surely few would choose to own to that. I feel it is likely high time Christians of good will and common sense relinquish rights to the term 'fundamentalism' although what they might replace it with I cannot imagine. 'Born again' and 'evangelical' have been thoroughly sullied by exposes of immoral tele-evangelists and documentaries mocking pentecostal practices such as ecstatic fainting. It may not be fair but Christian believers in Bible basics need to admit the necessity of ditching a stinking fish, redefining themselves and attempting to win a more credible position in the Western secular cultural psyche than the one they currently own.