Tag: boundaries | Page 2 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

Child abuse prevention in the church is not big government

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on January 3, 2016.

Back in high school, I used to love Andrée Seu Peterson’s column. I read her pieces first when our copy of World magazine arrived in the mail every week. She always made me think because she was less conservative than my homeschool textbooks, and I admired her writing style.

I haven’t read World magazine since I moved out–the subscription is expensive and I’ve had too much reading for college. Last year, though, I read about her problematic column on bisexuality in posts from Libby Anne and Samantha Field.

But in her article “Houses Taken Over” in the Nov. 14, 2015 issue, Peterson argues government oversight like food safety guidelines and background checks for child care are intrusive. She even suggests following such protocol is equivalent to Nazi Germany’s laws against Jewish people. Here we go again with Godwin’s law.

It was not long ago that the state cracked down on church homemade desserts here in Pennsylvania. The year was 2009, and as an elderly parishioner of St. Cecilia’s began unwrapping wares baked by fellow church members, a state inspector on the premises noticed that they were not store-bought and forbade their sale. It was the end of Mary Pratte’s coconut cream pie, Louise Humbert’s raisin pie, and Marge Murtha’s “farm apple” pie, as well as a tradition as old as church socials.

We Christians are a good lot, by and large. We know Romans 13 and desire to be model citizens. Would we have been sad but obedient when the 1933 “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” barred people of Jewish descent from employment in government? Would we have had searchings of heart but complied with the 1935 “Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor” that interdicted marriage between Jew and German? Would we have sighed but acquiesced in 1938, when government contracts could no longer be awarded to Jewish businesses, and in October of that year when Jews were required to have a “J” stamped on their passports?

If the local church cannot be trusted to know its people well enough to decide who is fit for nursery duty, there is nothing much to say, except that we had better get back to a New Testament model where pastors knew their flock. If bakers of coconut cream pies are notoriously dangerous people, then we have brought these statist regulations on ourselves, and more’s the pity.

The woman sitting to my right at the ESL meeting said (not disapprovingly) that from now on if a junior high event takes place at someone’s house, a person must be present who has state clearance. I hazarded at that point that it looked like government intrusion, and no one said a word, as if I had passed gas and everyone pretended I had not. As if I were the kind of person who did not care about the children.

Peterson’s article fails to differentiate between Hitler’s laws, which discriminated against Jews based off propaganda, and laws to prevent child abuse, which only restrict people convicted of a heinous crime. She also sounds defensive, as if she finds regulations burdensome and cannot understand why no one else at her church agrees with her.

American Christianity protests the removal of religious symbols from public parks, but pleads for separation of church and state when any government regulation affects church functioning. This is hypocritical. This attitude also ignores the very real problem of child abuse in both Catholic and Protestant circles.

When I know that a church is following state and national guidelines, I feel safer being with that group of people. The church I recently joined requires a background check and a child protection training course for any volunteers, and I did not protest.

I actually told the nursery workers, “I’m really glad you do this.” childprotectiontraining1

The 12 page booklet provides extensive definitions and examples of sex offender patterns and contrasts it with cultural stereotypes, as well as defining what is and is not appropriate protocol when working with children. childprotectiontraining3

Peterson says in her column that background checks would mean less available childcare at her church.

The far-seeing ESL director realized the implications and judged that it would be prudent to scrap the baby-sitting: Fewer people would be willing to take the extra step of filling out the necessary forms. The resulting smaller pool of workers would mean that our ESL cadre would be in competition with the Women’s Bible Study ministry and the Sunday nursery ministry for manpower.

But the quiz at the end of my church’s child protection course is clear that the intent is not to prevent people from volunteering. Protecting children is the first priority.
childprotectiontraining2

Christians believe that Jesus said “If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6) If the church wants to follow this teaching, we need to be preventing child abuse through the best methods currently known.

Homeschool parents often argue that government involvement is a bad thing, and HSLDA actively encourages this. Slate magazine, the New York Times, and the Daily Beast have all reported on the lack of regulation. No accountability enables child abuse and educational neglect. This past Thanksgiving, KGOU’s article about homeschool regulation in Oklahoma was met with so much backlash from the homeschool lobby that an entire interview was withdrawn.

Societies have rules, at least in theory, so that their people can live in peace and be treated justly. Every community needs to protect the children and disadvantaged.

How ‘The Village’ illustrates isolated, fear-based homeschooling

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on December 13, 2015.

I grew up in the Village.

The first time I watched M. Night Shyamalan’s 2004 film, my head hurt and one of my roommates asked me if I was okay. I didn’t have words. Sometimes I find those books, those films that resonate so strongly with my own experience, that the bittersweet rush of knowing takes my breath away.

The Village became the movie that I showed all of my friends who’d been affected by a cult environment. As they started to question their high control group, I’d find a way to sneak a movie night with them.

It became our movie, something that we refer to when discussing our past.

There’s a few reasons for this:

1.) The whole thing was manufactured like a utopia to protect innocence.

Many of our parents chose homeschooling to create a new generation, protected from negative influences and intellectually superior to the rest of the world. But our parents grew up attending public schools, something we never experienced.

The elders in the Village came from the Towns, but none of their children can remember the outside world. This is the only life they know. Ivy Walker’s father says in a moment of crisis, “What was the purpose of our leaving? Let us not forget it was out of hope, of something good and right.”

When I was young, my dad told me his middle school classmates used to throw small knifes at each other in the playground and my mom remembers hash being passed around in bags around her Houston high school in the 70s. They and others who grew up in the 60s counterculture movement wanted a better life for their children and believed that removing them from the public schools was the answer.

Just like our parents often told us they’d done things they regretted growing up and we had a unique opportunity to be different, the elders in the Village keep a black box of memories, “so the evil of my past can be kept close and not forgotten.”

Mrs. Clark’s sister, Mrs. Hunt’s husband, and Mr. Walker’s father all died through violence and tragedy. Edward Walker tells his daughter Ivy, “It is a darkness I wished you would never know. There is not one person in this town who has not been so shaken that they questioned the value of living at all.” Ivy says, “I am sad for you, Papa, and for the other elders.”

2.) They sought protection from evil in the ways of the past.

In The Village, a history professor decides to take a group of people and recreate 1840s pioneer America. In the 90s conservative Christian homeschooling movement, our moms taught us to sew our own clothes and we all wore homemade skirts and dresses.

We watched movies like Sheffey about itinerant preachers in the last century produced by Bob Jones University Films and read reprints of Victorian literature like Elsie Dinsmore and A Basket of Flowers from Lamplighter Press and Vision Forum.

I wore one of my pioneer dresses nearly every day when I was 12-14 and pretended that I lived in the colonial era. I checked out and devoured every historical book on the colonial period and Civil War that my mom would allow from the local library.

A friend once said, “I get why they wanted this life for you guys, they meant well. But it turned out to be the Little House on the Prairie fan convention from hell.”

3.) They used euphemisms and emotional repression to ward off what they most feared.

Growing up homeschooled, we didn’t get sex education. Purity culture often adopted a “see no sexy things, hear no sexy things, speak no sexy things” approach. One of my friends never heard the words penis and vagina until college. I was told that dancing was basically “a vertical expression of a horizontal desire,” something to be avoided.

This kind of approach extended to anything considered “evil” or a “bad influence,” including peers, extended family members, and movies or TV shows with magic or profanities. Often, the avoidance became obsessive over time. The circle of safety was ever narrowing.

The settlers in The Village use phrases like “Those We Don’t Speak Of” to refer to the creatures in Covington Woods, or “The Old Shed That is Not To Be Used” for a shack on the edge of town. Red is the bad color, yellow is the safe color. In the opening scenes, two girls sweeping on a porch run out to the yard to uproot and bury a red flower.

Later, Ivy tells Noah, a young man with a mental disability, “This color attracts Those We Don’t Speak Of. You ought not to pick that color berry anymore.” When the villagers find skinned carcasses of livestock, the schoolchildren assume, “Those We Don’t Speak Of did it.”

The light as well as the darkness in humanity becomes repressed, and this affects romantic attraction. Ivy knows Lucius cares deeply for her but won’t act on it. She tells him, “Sometimes we don’t do things we want to do so that others won’t know we want to do them.”

There’s a parallel scene when Lucius tells his mother that Mr. Walker is in love with her.

“He hides, too. He hides his true feelings for you.”
“What makes you think he has feelings for me?”
“He never touches you.”

When Ivy chooses to travel through the woods in spite of the creatures, the other young men sent to protect her are too afraid to go against the rules. “Why have we not heard of these rocks before, why is it that you wear the cloak of the safe color? I cannot go with you, it is forbidden.”

We homeschoolers also had arbitrary rules and standards, always shifting according to the preferences of our authority figures. We were taught to “abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thess 5:22) and that “it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret” (Eph 5:12).

Just like in many homeschool communities, Noah’s mental illness is dealt with by only natural remedies. Noah dies a monster, which seems to enable stigmatization of mental illness.

Noah becomes the example of what not to be for the other villagers. He becomes the creature, one of Those We Don’t Speak Of. He embodies the darkness that they sought to eliminate from their little world.

“Your son has made our stories real. Noah has given us a chance to continue this place if that is something we still wish for.”

But the one line that echoes in my mind when I think of how I grew up is this:

“I tell you this so you will see some of the reasons for our actions. Forgive us for our silly lies, Ivy, they were not meant to harm.”

No, it was not meant to harm. But it did.

I can’t save my siblings

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on September 1, 2015.

Growing up homeschooled means you get a lot more time with your siblings than other kids. As an older sibling, it also means you have much more responsibility for them.

My parents told me I didn’t need friends, I had my siblings. They also told me I was the example for them, the prototype.

This set the pattern for some unhealthy dynamics. My first counselor after moving out said my dad’s insisting our only friends being immediate family members was incredibly codependent. Libby Anne writes about being an older child instructed to spank her younger siblings.

Parents expecting more of older siblings is typical in secular culture, but not usually with the same connotations like in fundamentalist homeschooling. As the oldest in my family, I heard things like:

A good older sibling sets the example for their younger brothers and sisters. Even if you don’t think they look up to you, they do. They watch your every move, and often, they’ll try to walk in your footsteps. So it’s important that you behave in ways that set a good example for them. Just like we look to Jesus to be our example, that we look to live how he lived and behave like he behaved, our younger siblings often look to us that way, too. — Taken from Christian Teen About

Statements like this put an excessive amount of pressure on older children.

We’re not just expected to protect younger siblings from danger, we’re responsible for their eternal salvation. And fundamentalist parents often manipulate this idea to check rebellion. To squash any behavior they didn’t like.

I couldn’t get angry if Dad was controlling and demanding, because that wasn’t having a meek and quiet spirit. Suffering without complaint was more like Christ, I was told, and a better example.

If I wore a fitted sweater, I was not being an example of modesty to my sister.

When I asked to have a curfew of midnight instead of 7:30 p.m. in college, I was not demonstrating submission to authority for my siblings.

My mom often said: “What will your little brother and sister think? They are always watching you. You know what Jesus said about those who lead little children astray. It would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck.”

So when Dad said things that hurt, when the house felt like a cage, when I thought of running away in the middle of the night, I didn’t. Because of my siblings. I was responsible for them.

When I thought my parents punished my brother and sister unfairly, I’d try to anger them into spanking me instead.

Junior year of college, I moved out because my parents said the alternative would be transferring to Bob Jones University. I went back and forth, uncertain what my decision would mean for my brother and sister. I’d be the first to leave home.

I told my professors that I wanted to be a good example for my siblings, that I didn’t want to run away or rebel if it would hurt them, that I’d go to Bob Jones if I had to, even if it killed me.

They told me that I could be a good example by moving out, that I could show my siblings that freedom was possible.

But I worried. I knew I couldn’t live at home anymore, but I still wanted to be a good big sister. That fall, I struggled to set limits as my parents barraged me with visits and phone calls, begging me to reconsider.

A couple of classmates, both named Cynthia, asked me what was wrong after one of our Saturday writers’ group meetings.

I gave my fears a voice. I didn’t understand taking care of yourself before helping other people. Fundamentalism taught me the reverse: don’t be selfish, sacrifice everything for others. Shouldn’t I just put up with my parents’ behavior for the sake of my siblings?

One of the Cynthias looked at me and the other Cynthia. She said, “Are you familiar with New Life Church’s teaching about confronting lies that you’ve believed? You identify the lie, you replace it with truth, and you pray against the power of the lie. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for your siblings. You’re free to make your own choices.”

They each laid hands on me, praying with me that I’d heal and live in freedom.

I can’t save my siblings. All I can do is be a good human.

My little sister is going to BJU, and my little brother is a serious, quiet teenage boy. I lost contact with them for two years after leaving, so I can’t just speak my truth to them openly.

All I can do is be there and listen.

Are you sure you aren’t exaggerating? | How we respond to homeschool abuse victims

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on February 16, 2015.

You just decided you had a terrible childhood after attending a liberal college, right? You got influenced by the Secular Humanism.

Actually…no.

I kept journals growing up.

Eleven of them, to be exact. Some were diaries, some were prayer journals.

Diary 1: August 1998 to December 2000
Diary 2: December 2000 to December 2010
Diary 3: June 2011 to September 2013
Prayer journal 1: December 2004 to November 2005
Prayer journal 2: November 2005 to April 2011
Prayer journal 3: April 2011 to August 2013

The other notebooks are a dream journal, a list of favorite Bible verses, a roster of people to pray for, and a journal filled with quotes and notes from family and friends.

Many times I was happy, or at least trying to be happy. I loved my family. Many times, I was not. And I wrote about it.

Here’s some excerpts.

October 31, 2002: “I feel like I’m always in trouble. I can’t seem to do anything right. I try my best. [….] I cry a lot at night because I have bottled up feelings all day and I need to let it out.”

November 1, 2002: “I feel like everyone’s pasttime is to make fun of me. [….] I can’t do anything right.”

January 4, 2003: “Will Mom ever understand how much her words hurt me? [….] Mom wasn’t any comfort. I wanted her to be, but she was harsh and unfeeling.”

After a spanking with the belt. I was 13.

January 20, 2003: “I am in trouble every day, or so it seems. My mom and dad are pleased every time I show them a good test grade […] but the pleasure doesn’t seem to last long. I am crying and I don’t know exactly why.”

September 30, 2004: “I wish Dad wanted to visit with people more. Oh, well. He does provide for us very well. I hope God will change Dad’s heart.”

A few years later, the entries get more detailed.

April 22, 2010: “I don’t understand why my family has so much emotional pain in it. I don’t feel like I can please Mom and Dad, [sister] doesn’t feel like she can please Mom and Dad, etc. Mom and Dad are so busy and so stressed that they are often not very loving towards us either. [Sister] feels like there is a lot of hurt in our family and hides up in her room all the time. I don’t understand why we all aren’t nicer to each other and more understanding. There’s a lot of pain beneath the surface. Everyone suffers their own pain and can’t see everyone else’s. And no one helps anyone else. And Mom just gets angry and takes it the wrong way if I try to point out how she has hurt me or [sister]. No one is willing to help things change. I don’t understand. I have prayed about it for so long now. It never seems to get any better permanently. We just go through cycles of more and more pain. I am beginning to think God must be letting things go on like this for a reason. But then I wish it was just me who always had hidden hurt. [Sister] and [brother] are so young and malleable and hurt can affect the rest of their lives. Sometimes I feel like running away not coming back. But I feel like [sister] and [brother] need me, especially [sister]. I know she has a lot of pain inside, and I don’t know how to help her.”

May 20, 2010: “Still having a lot of the same issues. I realize that in some ways, I create my own problems, but there are other things beyond my control. I feel like Mom and Dad take me for granted. Since I did well my first semester, they sort of assume I will do well and don’t appreciate the work that goes into it. I am having very dark thoughts tonight. I often wish for death to end all the pain I have inside, but I know [sister] really needs me and that really keeps me going. I have vowed to Jesus that I will never commit suicide, and I mean by His grace to keep that vow. Life just hurts so much sometimes. I can’t stop crying right now. […] All my emotions get all bottled up in me these days.”

August 8, 2010: “I feel like I push myself really hard about school and all, but I never seem to do enough to meet Mom and Dad’s expectations. I don’t have very much time at all to do something fun, or just relax, which I think is kind of unhealthy. [….] It’s not wrong to rest – Jesus even called the disciples aside to rest. I sort of think maybe my family doesn’t know how to rest.”

My prayer journals are less honest, but I was always praying to be less prideful and depressed and more submissive, better able to accept unfairness in life, because Jesus suffered more than I ever could.

It’s painful to revisit, like a giant headache.

And this is another reason why I left fundamentalism.

I was always writing and scrapbooking, trying to capture my life. I don’t know why. Maybe I knew I’d need it later.

But as Shaney Lee argued this past week on Ryan Stollar’s blog, please believe us when we tell you our past still hurts. Not everyone documents their pain. But that doesn’t make it less real.

When your parents stalk you

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 2, 2015.

Stalking is usually applied to a romantic relationship gone bad.

This is why people hesitate to believe me when I say I’ve been stalked by my parents.

After I moved out, my parents showed up unannounced at work or on campus, asking me to reconsider and go to Bob Jones University. The first time it happened, I was walking down the sidewalk to visit a new church since I had no car. A car drove up behind me honking, my family rolled down the windows, shouting, “Just remember, Bob Jones is still available!”

They often bring gifts: sandwiches, keychains, homemade soup. They seem to think this proves they are good parents. They say this is how they show me they love me. The professor who was my supervisor when I tutored on campus saw them do this. He said their behavior was abnormal, intended to wear me down and make me give in.

I’m not the only one. Other homeschool alum have had parents drop off identifying documents at work without asking, another told me her mom found her between classes and gave her a gift card and sent a sheet and towel to her apartment. She hadn’t told her mom her class schedule or her address.

I don’t know what their motivation is.

Maybe it’s guilt. Maybe they think I’ll be brought back into the fold with organic baked goods.

This is how my parents demonstrate that they love me.

My first apartment was unfortunately near the church that shunned me. My parents drove by often to look for my car, texting me “did you sleep at your apartment last night?” I explained my roommate and her boyfriend invited me for a movie night and I slept there. My mom told me it was inappropriate to sleep at a single guy’s place. Never mind that we had a couple of drinks during the movie and I wasn’t safe to drive.

Being honest and open about my decisions only provoked criticism. And they wondered why I stopped telling them things.

In summer 2013, my dad parked outside the nearest stop sign when he knew I would get off work. When I drove by, he jumped out in front of my car so I had to stop. He wanted to change the air filter in my car. He didn’t understand I was startled and angry, that I was afraid I could have hit him.

My parents barged into the middle of a staff meeting for the student newspaper in fall 2013, handing me a parking permit. My dad didn’t wait for me to buy one myself.

I told them I thought their actions were inappropriate in group counseling.

I wrote, “If anyone else who I wasn’t related to followed me around the way you guys do (leaving me random sermon CDs in my bicycle bag when I’m in class, etc), it would be considered really creepy and stalking. Think about it.”

My mom replied, “I do not think it is creepy if we are coming by UCCS from a doctor’s appt., and leave a gift for you in your bicycle sidebag. Sorry you took it that way. We are not checking up on you.”

Last October, my dad showed up at my apartment around 7:30 am, calling me over and over during an exam. He was upset that I didn’t answer right away. He wanted to trade out cars because he was afraid I wouldn’t get maintenance done, even though I’d asked him to let me learn how to take care of my car myself.

And they showed up at my work again last weekend, asked a coworker on his smoke break to bring me a package.

They don’t understand acting like this makes me feel incapacitated.

Fundamentalism doesn’t teach consent, it teaches you to respect authority. Control is normal, so you should be grateful for what they do, even if they don’t respect your wishes.

I don’t feel like an adult when my parents do this. I start to feel like a powerless small child whose parents are always going to check up on her, like all my independence has been taken away from me.

They think this is how to show me that they love me, but I just feel the walls close in.

And I don’t think this is love.