Many people like me who were raised in controlling environments tend to not get along with authority outside that context, breeding difficulties in maintaining employment and interacting within society.
But the older generations often discount why we’d react this way.
“You’re just a rebel. Someday you’ll grow up.”
“I guess your parents didn’t beat you enough. Nobody ever taught you respect.”
They don’t recognize that 20 somethings like us have negative experiences with authority figures.
What about children who were beaten by their parents, teenagers molested by youth group leaders? What about those of us convinced early on that we must kill any strong desires as worldly and evil and focus obsessively on self-sacrifice in preparation for our eventual martyrdom?
We’re not deviant just because. Usually we were wounded by someone who misused their power.
I’m able to balance my rebellion through boycotting video cards and candy bars. I find harmless, unusual outlets in which to be deviant. But society views my friends who deviate in larger ways as dysfunctional.
I’m not that different from them. I just happen to have a job and they don’t. But we feel the same way about authority.
Here’s some ways I think authority figures can be fair and ethical in dealing with people like us:
1.) Don’t make excessive rules or rules with discrepancies.
This is just asking for rebellion.
Like the student handbooks at Bob Jones University or Pensacola Christian College. They’re so exacting.
If you’re going to have policies like this:
“BJU takes a conservative approach to music. While students are at the University, our goal is to teach them to appreciate music that is spiritually edifying and culturally valuable. For the BJU student this precludes most of the music of our popular culture including rock, rap, jazz and country, as well as religious music that borrows from these styles. It also precludes any music that uses a discernible rock beat regardless of the style. In order to develop their spiritual and aesthetic discernment, BJU encourages students to listen to classical and light classical music and traditional sacred music. There is also a spectrum of music that falls outside light classical and traditional sacred music that is acceptable to listen to.” (p. 29)
Of course you’re also going to have to enforce them like this:
“BJU students are to listen to and bring to campus only music that meets our community standards. In addition, each member of the BJU family should carefully monitor music in movies, computer games, television programs, commercials, Internet sites, cell phone ringers, etc. To ensure personal accountability, students are not to listen to music with headphones. Students may use headphones in the residence hall study lounge for academic purposes, and resident supervisors may approve individual requests to use headphones for independent learning courses.” (pp. 29-30, 2011-2012 version)
BJU also bans several other extremely specific offenses like wearing Abercrombie & Fitch or Hollister clothing, because of the brands’ “unusual degree of antagonism to Biblical morality,” (p. 33), and necklines lower than four finger widths below your collarbone, for modesty reasons (p. 32).
Similar themes surface in The Student Voice’s satirical Things You Won’t Do at PCC, which lists arbitrary items such as “own a fish” and “play a harmonica.”
Peter Gage, who published the Student Voice, the “underground” newsletter that sought to expose PCC’s flaws in the early 2000s, was sued by PCC for cybersquatting in 2013.
Because we grew up in home environments with their own specific rules, we used the rules to protect ourselves. That’s why discrepancies bother us, because then the authority becomes unpredictable. It’s survival instincts.
One company I worked for intentionally hid dress codes so the HR department could fire employees violating rules that were never properly explained.
When guidelines in the workplace are contradictory, I get panicky, waiting for unexpected punishment.
2.) Don’t invent punishments intended to harm. Consequences should seem natural.
Many fundamentalist parents will say, “I make my kid pull their jeans down, because if I spank them through their pants, it doesn’t hurt enough.” Or “The diaper is too much padding. They won’t remember what they did wrong unless it stings.” Or “My child talked back, so they lost their favorite doll / book. I had to find some way to get their attention.”
This strange idea circulates that the consequences have to be harsh, and it should hurt the child. I thought society frowned on cruel and unusual punishments. Also, the rest of the world doesn’t operate this way, as we found after childhood. But it still feels like it does.
After my last post, my friend Kathleen asked me how I thought parents should raise children.
I’d say they shouldn’t invent punishments that crush the child’s spirit, either physically or emotionally. Consequences should be preparation for adult responsibility, not calculated to inflict pain.
Children learn by doing.
You can tell them to pick up their toys so the dog doesn’t destroy them, but if they don’t listen and the dog shreds them, you don’t punish the child or the dog. And you can remind them not to walk in front of swings, but, unfortunately, they may have to get bonked in the head a couple of times.
I don’t think sheltering kids from these experiences is the answer. It’s just inhibiting their individual growth. The parents, seeking to protect the child from scraped knees, inflicts different wounds.
If I get to be a mom, I want to be their healer and guide, not their aggressor.
3) Allow for communication about the rules and how power is exercised.
My friend Shelby, who is a sociology grad student, developed a scale for my paranoia.
Source: fs.usda.gov
“1 = Everything’s cool; not liking the cameras at work, but otherwise cool; using video card freely; perhaps reading or beading between calls; browsing Internet sometimes; training the dictation program profile intermittently; still using instant messenger.
“2 = Not so cool; really avoiding cameras at work; may use video card, but does so reluctantly and wants to hide it from supervisors; more likely to read/bead between calls than browse Internet; training dictation profile more frequently (such as reading from book); still using instant messenger.
“3 = Much less cool; definitely suspicious of cameras at work; may use video card, but does so reluctantly and wants to hide it from supervisors (more likely to train dictation profile using the video as well); much more likely to read/bead between calls than to browse Internet; training profile exuberantly; still using instant messenger.
“4 = Definitely not cool; very suspicious of cameras at work; not using video card; may read/bead between calls, but only if also training dictation profile; not using Internet for anything unrelated to work; training profile vigorously; still using instant messenger.
“5 = Very anxious and jumpy; not using Internet for anything unrelated to work; not using instant messenger for anything unrelated to work; training dictation profile obsessively between calls.
It’s useful, because she can ask me how anxious I am on any given day, and I can give her a number, like 3.5.
I can report my paranoia like the local news reports the daily fire danger during the summer. This helps me communicate how I feel, how rational I am that day. It’s amusing, but I also become more self-aware.
Also, if authority figures are open to negotiation about the rules, I feel safer.
Homeschool alumni blogger Libby Anne wrote last month about how she’s more flexible with her children than her parents were. She explains:
“Growing up, my parents were very firm that “no” meant “no.” If we begged or tried to get them to change their minds, we would get in trouble. That was disobedience. More than that, they thought that if they were to “give in” to begging after already saying no, they would be allowing us children to rule them and would lose control of the family. So not only were we not allowed to beg, they also didn’t allow themselves to change their minds. That would have been showing weakness.“
And she points out that treating children this way isn’t a good model for adult relationships, with several examples, and concludes:
“My children and I exist in relationship with each other…. Yes, my children are young and in need of guidance and teaching. But part of that guidance and teaching is helping them learn to master things like compromise and negotiation.”
I relax and begin to trust authority again when they consider what I want and need, and are open to compromise.
We won’t remain rebels if we feel we are treated fairly.
Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on December 8, 2014.
Maybe I’ll try church again.
Two years ago, I’d been exiled from my church home four months before.
One Sunday, I went to a service at a local megachurch, hiding myself in the crowd. And I asked God why I hadn’t found a spiritual home yet, if I ever would.
And in the dimmed light and slow guitar chords trickling over me like creek water, I thought maybe he answered.
You won’t find a home. Not yet. You’re a hobo for right now. But I am going to show you all the different kinds of people who are part of me, part of my body.
So out I went. New Life Church became my soup kitchen, but I visited the LGBT affirming church, my friend’s mother’s Catholic church in Boulder, the Apostolic Pentecostal church.
I saw chanting and wailing, people speaking in tongues, people reciting the Apostle’s Creed and the sprinkling of holy water. I saw transgender women bustling around a church kitchen, brewing coffee.
And everywhere, I found someone whose heart seemed alive, people who sought Jesus.
For years, I’d been told that our church was part of a remnant holding to sound doctrine, that other churches were to be analyzed and mistrusted.
According to the Barna group, I’m not alone in being spiritually homeless. Their surveys say my generation tends to fall into three groups: nomad (Christian, but not involved in the church), prodigal (once Christian but no longer identifying as Christian), or exile (Christian, lost between the culture and the church).
I’ve written before that something that keeps me from leaving completely, something hopes I can still find light in Christian belief. Stuck somewhere between nomad and exile.
My friend Cynthia B. and I went to see Handel’s Messiah at Village Seven Presbyterian Church last weekend. Poor college students are always up for a free concert.
Churches feel awkward to me now. I don’t feel like I belong, because I’m not hiding my problems anymore. Cynthia and I sat in one of the back rows.
I was skeptical.
But the choir joined with the lead singer the first time, and I was four or five years old again. I know it sounds cliche.
But I forgot the beauty and the light I once found in music and church performances.
Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on September 23, 2014.
“We’re talking about anger here, Fraser, a human emotion.
Are you human? Because if you are, human beings feel things, okay?
They feel anger, they feel love, they feel lust and fear, and sometimes,
and I know you don’t want to hear this, sometimes they even cry.”
– Ray, Due South (2.17), “Red, White, or Blue”
My wall shattered one morning.
I was merging onto I-25 early on a gray Monday in January 2012 to head to campus.
The weekend before, my family had been out of town and I’d watched some brand-new Faith Lessons by Ray VanderLaan, a Biblical archaeological DVD series, and sobbed for the first time in months at the idea of radical love, acceptance even when I failed to measure up. That I was worth love simply because I was alive.
And then Switchfoot’s song “Dare You to Move” came on 103.1 WAY-FM. I lost it.
I’d made a pact against crying around the age of 8 or 9. Crying showed vulnerability and weakness, neither of which I felt safe exposing around my family or church members. I prided myself on my refusal to cry at Passion Plays or sad movies. My mom would recount the entire Easter story with A Beka Bible flashcards, depicting the scourging in graphic detail. She cried. Not me.
I could hold it in when no one else could. I told myself over and over: “I am ice. Ice does not melt.”
Well. Then I couldn’t cry at all. Even in private.
Most of my teen years were spent reversing the choke hold I’d imposed on my tears. And halfway through college, the rest was crumbling. “All the walls you built up / Are just glass on the outside / So let ’em fall down / There’s freedom waiting in the sound.” (Tenth Avenue North)
I described the experience to my friend Elraen later that cold wintry week on chat during one of our all-nighters.
I said, “I wasn’t really expecting it. It was one of those times when Jesus really gets your attention, and you realize just how much He really loves you, and you cry your eyes out. Somehow…I’d had two experiences like this in high school…but nothing quite like that since late 2005.”
“I guess I thought maybe experiences like that were over in my life.”
Elraen knew what I meant. She responded, “I hope that more and more God can bring moments like that into your life, breaking through the walls that have been put up to shield yourself from hurt […] I hope that healing comes and drives deeper and deeper into your life. Because He DOES love you. So, so much, no matter what [people] say about you or accuse you of — His love does not ever change.”
My soul was reawakening, but I’d have to fight my tendency to lock up. Numbness felt like being a ghost in my own existence, but at least it kept pain at bay.
The next few months, I felt like this little bubble of hope protected me, which I needed for the “coming of age” phase of my life story.
I still questioned the wisdom of feeling over the next two years. Doesn’t it take more energy than necessary? In late high school, when I read through all four Gospels twice, one detail stuck with me.
Jesus is about to be crucified. He is offered a drugged wine to dull the pain. He refuses.
“And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of the Skull), they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he had tasted it, he would not drink it.” (Matthew 27:33-34, ESV)
My Nelson study bible explained that “Jesus refused it; He wanted to drink His cup of suffering fully aware of all that was happening.”
From a logical perspective, this seems incredibly stupid, like refusing anesthesia before surgery. But often love isn’t logical.
If you wanted to identify with someone else completely, to live in their skin, you’d choose the full emotional and physical repercussions. Not out of cold obligation. With fire in your chest.
I know. Because I chose this once. I wanted to know the everyday struggles of my friend in a wheelchair. So I didn’t take the gloves she handed me or the foam seat cushion. I wanted noodly arms and a sore butt at the end of the day, because it would be a more honest reflection of her experience.
And this is how I realized that really choosing to live, embracing love and peace, grief and pain without censorship, requires a bravery I was still discovering.
Can You meet me in my room? A place where I feel safe Where I don’t have to run away Where I can just be me. – TFK, In My Room
I was like a kid on an adventure the first night in the new apartment.
The second or third night, I called Cynthia B. crying and homesick. She said it was normal and part of growing up.
Until 2012, I never spent a night away from home without my parents. Then I stayed at a friend’s house one weekend in June before leaving.
And I had no idea how to cook.
My first roommate taught me how to make ramen in the microwave.
Dad always worried I’d burn myself on the stove or slice open my finger. Or spill something. I begged them to teach me throughout my teen years. I even planned a dinner when I was 14 and brought Mom the recipes, but Dad didn’t let me.
I started seeing through the cracks, saw how much fear had controlled all of our lives.
I biked to school and rode the bus for the first three months. Then my parents gave me back part of the money so I could buy a car in November 2012.
My second roommate taught me how to live paycheck to paycheck, how to find cheap, gluten-free food when I discovered I was allergic like her.
In April 2013, I found Spiritual Abuse Survivors blog network through a friend and soon after, Homeschoolers Anonymous.
Through reading blogs and talking to friends, I learned it’s not normal to spank your children until they stop crying because crying is “rebellious” and leaving bruises and teaching your child to cover them is also considered abuse.
Most people, even those who grew up in church like me, weren’t spanked until they were 14 and threatened with a belt until age 18.
A school counselor helped me through the first year, and my Christian counselor later came out of retirement briefly and my parents and I went to group counseling summer 2013.
Because… my parents did not back down because I left.
The first Sunday after leaving, I went down the street to visit a new church.
My family drove by while I was walking down the sidewalk, rolled down the car windows, and shouted, “Just remember, Bob Jones is still available!”
My dad sent me advertisements for cars he would buy for me if I went to Bob Jones. And a deluge of letters and text messages and emails and phone calls pleading for me to reconsider the first year I was away. My parents dropped by the Science Center on campus while I was tutoring, bringing gifts and asking me to come back.
My anxiety issues spiraled, but my professors understood, giving me extensions.
Heart and brain argued on where to draw the line. I loved my parents, but I wasn’t a child anymore. I didn’t want to have to choose between my family and my adulthood.
Which is why I identified with Tirzah’s story on Homeschoolers Anonymous last week: “Only in my mom’s sad world of jumbled theology would moving out be akin to losing one’s family.”
Everyone told me that my freedom would have a price.
But some days, I ache, wishing my family understood me. Understood my heart.
Understood that I don’t write to condemn them, I write because I’m in pain. I write because I want our relationship to change and heal. I write, pleading with other homeschool parents, “Please, don’t do this to your kids.”
I’m told that blogs are biased, I’m accused of not showing both sides.
So I’m including three open letters between me and my parents and one of the more impersonal ones my sister sent. Quotes can be taken out of context, so here is the entire conversation.
Letter from my parents 11-12-2012
(After the 2012 election. I had voted to legalize marijuana in Colorado after researching studies on the chemical effects of THC.)
Letter from sister 10-27-2013 (Mostly an essay arguing that my actions require the church discipline in Matthew 18.)
Right now, my relationship with my family is inconsistent. We talk sometimes. They help in a pinch, but I fear control creeping in again.
But I know they don’t accept me or approve of me. Nothing seems to count now. Not being self-sufficient, not holding steady jobs, not graduating college this spring. Not my passion for journalism or theater.
It’s like my leaving was an earthquake, and now a canyon lies between us.
But I found others on this side of the canyon, too.
Friends who later asked me to help them escape their own boxes. Professors who encouraged my independence, who had life phase changes of their own in college. My pastor friend in Texas who listened to my story and made me want to try church again.
In July 2013, I told Lissi on G-chat:
You know what?
I realized something yesterday.
I don’t think my family is my family anymore.
I mean, I will always love them, and they are blood.
They are my kin.
But they are not the family I grew up with anymore. That is now changed forever.
My “family” now emotionally is more like Ducky [my second roommate], you, the two Cynthias, other close friends, and my professors.
You all treat me more like family and support me more than my own family does.
I think this realization makes me more okay with emotionally separating from my family, too.
Because at least I have you all. <3
She replied, “Ahhh… the ChosenFamilyrealization.”
Yes, the fight was worth it. Now I am free. Free indeed.
I’m a country girl from way back. Rumor has it my family is related to Daniel Boone, the man who continuously moved west, opening new territory because he needed “elbow room” and because, so the story goes, he felt that if he could see the smoke from his neighbor’s chimney, they were just too close.
Whether we were related or not, I can empathize with “Old Boone”. Driving down the highway, I tense if a car is closer than three car lengths ahead or behind me. I hug the shoulder, especially when being passed- being less than a car width away from another driver is just uncomfortable to me.
Walking or standing, there is an imaginary buffer zone we keep around us, called personal space. Some people don’t need much. Others need a lot. I’m one of the ‘a lot’ people. I can understand if someone reaches out to shake my hand. But I’ll meet them half way. The cashier who hands me cash and casually brushes my hand in the exchange disturbs me, because she unwittingly entered my space. Warn me about those frontal hugs, please. I much prefer shoulder to shoulder hugs. Even then, I need to mentally prepare for a few seconds before contact.
In the malls and on the streets, and especially at church, people constantly invade my space. I’ve watched others pile together like puppies, and I laugh at their antics. But I prefer to stay on the outskirts of such activities. Fun? Oh, yes. But put me in the middle and I’ll act like a cat over a bucket of water.
Friends begin to realize that my personal space zone is pretty broad. They are careful to stay out of this space, or to give fair warning before entering it. I’m grateful and much more comfortable for their understanding.
Spiritually, I need space too. Room to grow and react in. Space to be myself, to live up to my potential and to realize my dreams. Too many rules, and I begin to feel stifled. It isn’t that the rules are bad. I can even enjoy them at times, and I understand why others might need or enjoy them. But I need to be given the opportunity to decide which I will follow, and to grow into them on my own.
Having people to be accountable can also be great, but again, people need to warn me before they step in my spiritual space. I don’t care to be watched and hovered over. I need people to trust me and allow me some independence. Perhaps I’m like the teenager who never questioned parental authority. Still, if the parents don’t give me a chance to grow up, I will find a way to grow around the restrictions and overcome them, even if it means distancing myself from them. Like the tree next to a barbed wire fence, I’ll either move the fence or I’ll make the fence a part of me, but I will grow, whether the fence or the farmer want me to or not.
We need boundaries to grow, but we also need space. The amount of space we need can change through the years. But we all need some amount. The sooner we recognize and respect our space and others’ the sooner we can become what we are meant to be.
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I described the experience to my friend 
