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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Aug 10, 2010 10:47:59 GMT -5
NLQ FAQ: Which of Your Kids Would You Rather Had Never Been Born? by Vyckie nolongerquivering.com/2010/08/10/nlq-faq-which-of-your-kids-would-you-rather-had-never-been-born/As is the case with most of the FAQs, this one is written particularly to Christians. This one's a little different since it contains large portions of a letter which I wrote to my uncle at the beginning of our correspondence ~ I thought it would be a good way to recapture much of my own Christian thought patterns and what made sense to me at the time. Sorry if it is a bit confusing to follow. My hope is that it will be a convincing to Christian readers who cannot comprehend why we would criticize a belief system and lifestyle which lead us to have many wonderful children whom we dearly love.
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Post by usotsuki on Aug 10, 2010 10:52:13 GMT -5
It's almost like the old quip, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" And just as stupid, annoying and infuriating.
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Post by km on Aug 10, 2010 11:41:34 GMT -5
It's almost like the old quip, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" And just as stupid, annoying and infuriating. That's actually an old quip?
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valsa
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Post by valsa on Aug 10, 2010 12:10:28 GMT -5
I may be in the minority but I've never seen the problem with occasionally regretting having kids or having so many. Let’s face it- kids are hard work. And the more kids there are, the less resources are available for each one of them (think how much time and attention each child can get from a parent if there’s 3 of them. Now think how much less time and attention each kid will get if there’s 10 of them) or for the parent to keep for themselves (again, how easy is it for a mother of 1 or 2 to take an occasional “me day”, versus a mother of 8 or 9?)
I’m the kind of person who loves her sleep, her personal alone time, and her spending money. I also have a strong desire to have kids (in about 10 years) I know that when I have kids, I’m going to have to give up the things I enjoy and I don’t see a problem with occasionally realizing that “yes, sometimes I regret having kids (or having so many) because I miss when my life was easier and I could sleep in, go out whenever I wanted without either taking kids with me or finding a babysitter, and spend money on things I want, instead of after school sports and kids clothes and school fundraisers”.
To me, it’s okay to take honest stock of your (general “you”) life, especially the difficult parts (and kids are a huge stressor) and admit that you might have an easier (maybe even better) life if you’d never had kids. As long as you don’t dwell on that sentiment and you never, ever actually express it to your kids, I think it’s healthy.
What I don’t think is healthy is someone who feels they have to keep thinking “I’m so glad I had all these kids” when they’re at their wits end (I think all mothers know that feeling- the baby won’t sleep and won’t stop crying, the toddler is climbing all over you and demanding attention because s/he’s jealous of the baby, the older kids won’t stop screaming and fighting with each other, the washing machine just broke down for the 3rd time in as many weeks, you have a massive headache, your house is a disaster area, everyone is starving but you haven’t been able to even start dinner, etc) I can imagine myself in that situation a decade from now and I know that I’m going to regret having kids in that moment. But as long as I just think to myself “I wish I’d never had kids” and then let the thought go (instead of trying to repress it because it’s “unmotherly” or some such nonsense), I think it’s fine.
However, all this is a very general “I wish I’d never had kids”, instead of the “which kid do you wish you’d never had?” that people are (very rudely) asking.
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Post by nikita on Aug 10, 2010 14:32:25 GMT -5
I may be in the minority but I've never seen the problem with occasionally regretting having kids or having so many. Let’s face it- kids are hard work. And the more kids there are, the less resources are available for each one of them (think how much time and attention each child can get from a parent if there’s 3 of them. Now think how much less time and attention each kid will get if there’s 10 of them) or for the parent to keep for themselves (again, how easy is it for a mother of 1 or 2 to take an occasional “me day”, versus a mother of 8 or 9?) I’m the kind of person who loves her sleep, her personal alone time, and her spending money. I also have a strong desire to have kids (in about 10 years) I know that when I have kids, I’m going to have to give up the things I enjoy and I don’t see a problem with occasionally realizing that “yes, sometimes I regret having kids (or having so many) because I miss when my life was easier and I could sleep in, go out whenever I wanted without either taking kids with me or finding a babysitter, and spend money on things I want, instead of after school sports and kids clothes and school fundraisers”. To me, it’s okay to take honest stock of your (general “you”) life, especially the difficult parts (and kids are a huge stressor) and admit that you might have an easier (maybe even better) life if you’d never had kids. As long as you don’t dwell on that sentiment and you never, ever actually express it to your kids, I think it’s healthy. What I don’t think is healthy is someone who feels they have to keep thinking “I’m so glad I had all these kids” when they’re at their wits end (I think all mothers know that feeling- the baby won’t sleep and won’t stop crying, the toddler is climbing all over you and demanding attention because s/he’s jealous of the baby, the older kids won’t stop screaming and fighting with each other, the washing machine just broke down for the 3rd time in as many weeks, you have a massive headache, your house is a disaster area, everyone is starving but you haven’t been able to even start dinner, etc) I can imagine myself in that situation a decade from now and I know that I’m going to regret having kids in that moment. But as long as I just think to myself “I wish I’d never had kids” and then let the thought go (instead of trying to repress it because it’s “unmotherly” or some such nonsense), I think it’s fine. However, all this is a very general “I wish I’d never had kids”, instead of the “which kid do you wish you’d never had?” that people are (very rudely) asking. See, to me this is one of those situations where the 'maturity is the ability to withstand contradictions' maxim comes to mind. And completely aside from maturity, even as a baby Christian such situations never were a problem for me. I don't even understand why it's a problem really. God takes you from wherever you are at any given point and you go on from there, the good, the bad, whatever. Of course I was in a hippie cult and pretty much everyone had done things they shouldn't have before conversion and the place was filled with out of wedlock babies and ex-cons and former junkies and it was just assumed that it was all of the past and the kids were cute and fun and there just was no disconnect there. So my own religious attitude was shaped by that environment. I was surrounded by people who regretted the bad decisions and hard things they had gone through but thanked God for the good that was given to them at the same time. As Romans says, it all works together for good. I just don't see any problem here. But apparently there is an entire Christian world out there that thinks it matters. I cannot understand why. As for the regretting having kids deal, yeah pretty much every mother has days she regrets having kids if she's honest. But for most people it's a fleeting thing borne of having a bad day (or week). And it is completely separate from the idea of regretting having any particular kid. The idea that something can be hard and frustrating at times and still be a blessing that you would never regret is pretty much a description of life itself. You choose X instead of Y and your whole life goes a different way, and each choice has it's own blessings and hardships, the good with the bad. That is just life and we flow along with it naturally. It's just so natural a feeling for mothers to wonder 'what was I thinking?!' at the same time that they love their children wildly that I am always shocked when Vyckie gets these 'which of your kids do you regret having?' barbs from hostile people. In fact, to me it is so unnatural to ask such a question that I think the idea is planted in their heads by others and does not occur to them spontaneously. Like, they read it in a book or heard it in a sermon, that they should think like that or ask such things of themselves or others. It is just not a natural thing to think or ask, it sounds manipulated to me. You know, like preachers or authors know that all mothers have bad days and this is their answer to meet those bad days, 'look at your beautiful babies and which ones would you kill to live a different ungodly life without fourteen kids?' as though that were even a question in a mother's heart. It's just not something that a mother would come up with on her own is what I'm saying. It sounds like a sermon that took root in their hearts unnaturally, planted there by a male preacher or a delusional woman (like Campbell, for instance). No one who is a mother (a psychologically healthy mother at any rate) would come up with that. I mean, the whole P/Q lifestyle is not a natural one for women. It requires women to go against their own self-interest in the name of an outside ideal to a degree that is really extreme. To get people to go against self-interest that way takes a lot of prep and maintenance work, constant input and reinforcement to keep that lifestyle going. And the 'which of your kids would you kill?' quandary sounds like it was placed in there as part of the maintenance propaganda, to keep a woman on that path and not in touch with how she really feels about what her life has become. If you start feeling like this is not right, that you are doing something that isn't making sense any more, just equate those bad contrary thoughts with the idea of killing your children and you will scurry back into right thought in horror at the suggestion. And if you decide to turn your back on the lifestyle, it will make you feel appropriately guilty for leaving us. Very manipulative.
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Post by km on Aug 10, 2010 15:02:09 GMT -5
I think what Nikita says here makes a lot of sense. I too have felt a lot of shock on learning that Vyckie gets this question. Nor can I imagine anyone coming up with this kind of question. I wonder where it comes from? Kinda sounds to me like something Jonathan Lindvall would say... But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it's a soundbite throughout QF communities these days.
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Post by susan on Aug 10, 2010 15:06:50 GMT -5
Vyckie -- :hug What an excellent response!
I think QF/P people single you out for this kind of question because you are so seriously rocking their boat and shaking them out of their comfort zone.
I've noticed that most or all of the people who are attacking women like Vyckie for speaking out against the QF/P abuse movement, are attacking them by calling them anti-child. They're attacking them as mothers, because they know that this is one of the deepest ways to hurt a woman.
They want to shake Vyckie up enough to shut her up -- but she's stronger and more centered than they realize. Keep up the good work, Vyckie! And thanks for loving your kids enough to be willing to make a better world for them!
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valsa
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Post by valsa on Aug 10, 2010 16:15:36 GMT -5
If you start feeling like this is not right, that you are doing something that isn't making sense any more, just equate those bad contrary thoughts with the idea of killing your children and you will scurry back into right thought in horror at the suggestion. And if you decide to turn your back on the lifestyle, it will make you feel appropriately guilty for leaving us. I think you hit on something very important right here. I've read a lot from women who've left the QF/P and one of the things that comes up fairly regularly in what I’ve seen is that birth control is taught as not only preventing children from being born, it's actually tantamount to killing those potential future children. I think one woman (she actually may be a current, not "ex", QF/P follower) put it like this- God already has your family planned out. He already has all your children up in heaven waiting to come down to you. If you use birth control to prevent the conception of one of the children God already created for you, then you're basically murdering that child. I think convincing women of things like this and what you mentioned above is a very real form of thought control. If a woman is horribly overwhelmed with her current children and/or would be physically endangered by carrying another child, she may think about using birth control (if only just NFP) Considering how much the Bible is open to interpretation, she may even be able to find a church that supports exceptions to the “open womb, all the time” line of thinking, so she might be able to use BC without of feeling like she’s disobeying God. However, you tell most women that using BC is the same as murdering their potential children, and you can pretty much completely shut down that line of thinking. Like you said- it’s just too horrible of a thought. Same goes with thinking “Wow, what did I get myself into?” about having kids, or so many kids. Once you start telling a woman that thinking things like that are basically the same as wanting to kill her children or hating them or any of the other ridiculous things they say, you’re conditioning that woman to refrain from taking a good, honest look at her life and the problems having so many children can cause.
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Post by nikita on Aug 10, 2010 17:04:14 GMT -5
And you have to have the 'killing your not-yet-conceived children' part to make the QF thing work. It won't work if the only requirement is not using birth control. Birth control is very new (reliable birth control of any kind really), and for centuries if couples didn't want to have more children or having a child would be life threatening or whatever, they just shut down having sex. No sex = no birth control necessary = no 'sin'. If the sin involved was simply using birth control...
But QF preachers don't want to shut off sex for any reason, they want to force childbearing regardless of whether the individual woman's health or life may be harmed by continuing to become pregnant. And from what I've gleaned here and there they seem to be kind of hedonistic where sex is concerned, they want men to have what they want when they want it. That in itself is unusual in the history of legalistic Christian teaching, usually there is more emphasis on self-control and taming natural urges. From what I'm reading women are being told to cater to mens' sexual desires, not 'tame' them.
This is a system that is really strange when you think about it: always be sexually available to your husband and never ever prevent pregnancy for any reason and always always have a sweet and cheerful countenance and attitude about it all...or you are in rebellion and sin. I cannot think of another worldview that took all three of these and combined them in this exact formula the way QF does. For example, in my cult days it was expected that you would be sexually available to each other and try to please, but birth control was a given so unexpected pregnancies weren't on the table. And women weren't commanded to be cheerful all the time. So we had one of the three. In my Catholic faith the official line is never use artificial birth control although NFP is okay, but again there is no commandment to be sexually available all the time nor are you required to be cheerful constantly, nor are you commanded to see how many kids you can mass produce in one family. The 'lots of kids' is a side effect and not an actual goal. Particular families may wish to be large, but it's not looked upon as a failing if you don't have many children.
Does anyone know if there is an exact parallel anywhere in Christian belief systems? I can't think of any. Mormon fundamentalism probably comes closest but my impression from what I've read is that LDS or fundamentalist Mormons don't force the issue in quite the same way as QF does.
I know I'm kind of rambling but the subject fascinates me and I wonder about it.
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Post by tapati on Aug 10, 2010 18:03:19 GMT -5
Hmmm, if those children are in heaven waiting to come down, and then if the whole point of this godly lifestyle is for them to go to heaven, why not cut out the unpleasant time on earth and leave them there? The whole question of regretting having the kids also implies that having kids is ALL QF is about. We know that's not true! Vyckie can object to other things about that lifestyle and philosophy without saying to others: you should never have lots of kids. In fact she doesn't say that to people. Having kids, whether few or lots, is not the main point. The point is HOW you are running the household and the family's life, under what ideology. Are you limiting the lives and choices of those children? Is that healthy for them? How are they going to make their way through life when they grow up? There are so many questions that are more important than how many kids one is going to have. I think they'd rather keep the discussion on that narrow ground to deflect from the deeper questions about their lifestyle, how those kids of theirs are being treated, what they have to look forward to as adults, and so on.
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valsa
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Post by valsa on Aug 10, 2010 21:59:16 GMT -5
Oh nikita. You and your silly notions about women actually wanting sex. Don't you know a Godly woman is just supposed to just lay back and think of Jesus (or babies), while her God-appointed husband mounts her to sate his manly urges? And make babies. Babies. Babies. Babies. /crazy fundy Anyway, you're completely correct that QF/P is pretty unique in how overly restrictive they are towards women. If you're a woman, you can't use BC. You can't not have sex. You can't even think (even just to yourself) that you're overwhelmed and unhappy. It’s Stepford Wives turned up to 11. Frankly, I'm surprised more QF/P women haven't just snapped (I suppose they do, in a way. Their destructiveness is just usually aimed inward at themselves, instead of outward) Granted, the same thing could be said about abortion, which they also consider murder. At least they get points for consistency, if nothing else. See, this is kinda a weird thing. I think having kids IS basically what QF is all about (I mean, it’s what the whole name is based off of and everything) However, being QF is not what having kids is all about, if that makes sense. You can have lots of kids without being QF. However, I think QF is inherently tangled up in fertility and childbearing (note: I said “bearing”, not “rearing”) Which may be what you were saying. It’s just late and my reading comprehension isn’t so good when I’m sleepy
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Post by nikita on Aug 10, 2010 23:00:47 GMT -5
Oh nikita. You and your silly notions about women actually wanting sex. Don't you know a Godly woman is just supposed to just lay back and think of Jesus (or babies), while her God-appointed husband mounts her to sate his manly urges? And make babies. Babies. Babies. Babies. /crazy fundy Yep, that was just goofy thinkin'. And I do want to say that although the preachers and teachers might espouse those beliefs it doesn't mean that the followers all fall into line with it. I am sure there are not a few modern women in QF/P families who aren't just in it for the babies. However being exhausted and knowing that you're probably going to wind up pregnant again would put a serious damper on my enthusiasm I have to say. And that's the other thing. Where having lots of kids is concerned my impression is that men worry about being able to provide for them all and that helps temper their enthusiasm a bit. But from the stories I hear the men seem to have a disconnect between having the children and actually supporting and raising them so perhaps that isn't even a consideration for a certain type of QF/P man. I've read the same disconnect in memoirs from former FLDS, LeBaron, and other prominent Mormon fundamentalist women as well - the men they write about seem to like having the children but figuring out how to raise and support them isn't really their problem; some of them don't seem to have any compunction about just leaving the women and children to fend for themselves. It is a very strange attitude for men to take in a strong family-oriented belief system. They seem to want the 'glory' without any of the day to day financial responsibility. These are of course observations and not representative of all QF/P men (or fundamentalist Mormon men). But the theme comes up a lot in the stories women tell of their lives, so it makes me wonder about it, what the rationale is there.
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valsa
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Post by valsa on Aug 10, 2010 23:56:39 GMT -5
These are of course observations and not representative of all QF/P men (or fundamentalist Mormon men). But the theme comes up a lot in the stories women tell of their lives, so it makes me wonder about it, what the rationale is there. I’m thinking it has something to do with believing that God will provide for the family, no matter how big it is (or, if the money doesn’t come in, that God just wants the family to do without) I think that line of thinking parallels the seemingly common QF woman’s belief that if it’s really be too dangerous for her to give birth again, God will just make it so that she doesn’t get pregnant (or, if she does die/get seriously messed up during childbirth, that it was just God’s plan) I think that, for many QF people, accepting all the kids God “blesses” you with is a sign of faith. A QF woman isn’t allowed to prevent a pregnancy due to being overwhelmed or her health being at risk, because that’s not trusting in God. Likewise, I don’t think a QF man is allowed to prevent a pregnancy due to not thinking he can afford any more kids, because that’s also not trusting in God.
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Post by nikita on Aug 11, 2010 0:36:08 GMT -5
These are of course observations and not representative of all QF/P men (or fundamentalist Mormon men). But the theme comes up a lot in the stories women tell of their lives, so it makes me wonder about it, what the rationale is there. I’m thinking it has something to do with believing that God will provide for the family, no matter how big it is (or, if the money doesn’t come in, that God just wants the family to do without) I think that line of thinking parallels the seemingly common QF woman’s belief that if it’s really be too dangerous for her to give birth again, God will just make it so that she doesn’t get pregnant (or, if she does die/get seriously messed up during childbirth, that it was just God’s plan) I think that, for many QF people, accepting all the kids God “blesses” you with is a sign of faith. A QF woman isn’t allowed to prevent a pregnancy due to being overwhelmed or her health being at risk, because that’s not trusting in God. Likewise, I don’t think a QF man is allowed to prevent a pregnancy due to not thinking he can afford any more kids, because that’s also not trusting in God. See, I totally believe that for men who actually try to help their families. But I'm talking about men who seem to just 'check out' mentally and physically from the entire operation. That's not trusting God, that's just dumping responsibility on their wives to make do with nothing and severe hardships, no accountability for seeing to it their families have enough or are cared for. I hear that story over and over again here and in memoirs of FLDS ex wives or LeBaron ex wives, in some of the old friends I had in my cult days too - the men like the idea of having a family and lots of kids but don't feel any real need to support them adequately at even a subsistence level. It's really odd to me. But it's not all QF/P men at all, and it's not like that's the idea going into it or anything. I just wonder if there is something in particular that causes the disconnect for men in these kinds of belief systems where women are relegated to strict gender roles and lots of children are expected and born. Do these men start out this way or is it something in the teachings or lifestyle that brings this kind of reluctance to be responsible out of them? Irresponsible men in general tend to dump their families. These men don't necessarily leave, they just don't offer the kind of care and emotional and physical support that you would expect of someone who was actively pursuing a godly life with a strong family component. The kind of man who would let their wife and children shiver in the cold and be hungry while they attended a religious conference, that kind of thing. It just makes no sense to me.
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Post by arietty on Aug 11, 2010 1:43:25 GMT -5
But it's not all QF/P men at all, and it's not like that's the idea going into it or anything. I just wonder if there is something in particular that causes the disconnect for men in these kinds of belief systems where women are relegated to strict gender roles and lots of children are expected and born. Do these men start out this way or is it something in the teachings or lifestyle that brings this kind of reluctance to be responsible out of them? Irresponsible men in general tend to dump their families. These men don't necessarily leave, they just don't offer the kind of care and emotional and physical support that you would expect of someone who was actively pursuing a godly life with a strong family component. The kind of man who would let their wife and children shiver in the cold and be hungry while they attended a religious conference, that kind of thing. It just makes no sense to me. Some of it comes directly from the woman trying to be as submissive as possible which results in these men being treated like insanely spoiled children. No one ever asks, makes or cajoles them to sacrifice any bit of themselves to take care of their families. I think they just do the selfish thing one day instead of putting their families first, there is not a single protest and it makes it easier to do it the next time. Soon their time is completely their own and if they want to go away on mission while the family lives in a tent they can not only do so but they will be praised by their wife and possibly peers for it. If the wife voices discontent she will be rebuked and encouraged to treat her man as a leader in order that he may lead--which means letting him do whatever he likes with no complaints and plenty of praise. Mature men will take responsibility for their family even if no one is asking them to do so. Immature men are utterly spoiled by patriarchy into thinking the world revolves around their whims (*cough* Godly Callings). I think plenty of men could go either way and may have stepped up to the plate and allowed marriage and family life to mature them into responsible people, but because the wife is not allowed to voice her needs and wants they take the easiest path of laziness. In a healthy relationship both people adapt themselves to meet the needs of the other but if one person believes that she has no needs and that her husband's needs are paramount you end up with something very imbalanced. There is also the element that the men get burned out too. How do you admit you are in way over your head with your crumbling or half built home when you got so much praise for hearing that God has called you to build it? How do you admit that the responsibility of working hard to feed more and more people overwhelms you? I've never heard or read a man admit any of these things yet have seen that it is clearly the case at times.
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Post by cindy on Aug 11, 2010 2:02:31 GMT -5
This seemed like a good opportunity to go through and point out the informal logical fallacies that are interwoven into this stupid question. undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2010/08/deciphering-and-responding-to-loaded.htmlIt actually capitalizes on several different fallacies. I started listening to the CDs from Vision Forum's baby conference, and essentially everything these folks say have about two or three fallacies interwoven it every paragraph -- sometimes every sentence. But there is so much wrong with so much of what they say, I don't know what to start with and don't know if it's worth my time on some of it. So this felt good to chew on -- and I just took one sentence and wrote five pages in MS Word! I think it's a good day if I get to use the word "Screed" or "spurious" or "duplicitous" and when I can work Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure into a blog post! heh, heh, heh!
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Post by debrabaker on Aug 11, 2010 9:53:30 GMT -5
The question just sucks the breath out of me.
You can guess this isn't the first time I have heard this one.
If you could go back in time......
But you can't. Even if I did, I doubt the children would be the same so one must ask did we conceive the wrong set of children and who didn't get to come into existance?
This is when I lean on the belief that God is out there and much wiser than she who would ask such questions.
That being said, I did a hell of a lot of work to raise eight kiddos and now I wouldn't trade any one of them in for any alternative. Sorry everyone else, I have the best children on the face of the earth even if I highly doubt I could do it all over again.
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Aug 11, 2010 10:39:08 GMT -5
Thanks for this, Cindy. I have incorporated your link into the FAQ ~ naturally, I linked it to my question: Where is the logic to this sort of thinking? LOL Seriously, when I first heard this question coming from QFers, I recognized it as a loaded question and chose to blow it off because it was so utterly ridiculous. BUT ~ it keeps coming up! I hear it over and over ~ and so it finally occurred to me that it needs to be added to the NLQ FAQs. It was tempting to respond to the question by saying something along the lines of "Are you nuts? Go away and leave me alone!" ~ but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had that same way of thinking stuck in my head FOR YEARS over Angel ~ and as a Christian, I just puzzled and puzzled ~ I felt so wicked for secretly being glad that I'd had an affair which resulted in my lovely little baby girl. When I wrote all that to Uncle Ron ~ his response was something polite like, "I can never really relate to true believers' religious testimonies ~ but I appreciate the effort you've put into trying to explain it to me." I'm pretty sure he thought I was crazy ~ and when I read it now, I think, "Wow ~ why was a simple answer not obvious to me?" It's ironic because the more fundamentalist I became in my thinking, the more black and white ~ and simplistic ~ my thought patterns became ~ and yet, simple logic utterly escaped me so often. Which is why I decided to give a thoughtful response to the question rather than the mockery and scorn which the question deserves. Several of the women who have asked me this are/were my friends. Since I actually could relate to their dilemma ~ not being able to figure out how I could denouce Quiverfull without also wishing I'd never had my children ~ I am kind of hopeful that my response, rather than shutting down their thought processes and reinforcing their crazy logic ~ will actually mean something to them. Arietty has pointed out that it is so hard for QFers who are so invested in the ideals ~ they honestly believe they were called by God to this lifestyle ~ to all the sudden stop short and say, "Hey, I'm over my head ~ this isn't working!" Instead, they keep digging ~ deeper and deeper. As I was writing, I was hoping that maybe I'd give them biblical reasons to reevaluate what they're doing and whether it really is pleasing to God. I have more to say ~ about confirmation bias ~ but I'm going to put that into a quick blog post ~ hopefully soon ~ I have a bunch of kid stuff on tap for today.
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Post by cindy on Aug 11, 2010 22:08:28 GMT -5
Vyckie,
I look forward to read what you have to say about confirmation bias.
Confirmation bias is essentially the wishful thinking that people delude themselves with in order to cope with things that don’t make sense. As Morpheus says in the Matrix, it is the wool that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. It’s the stuff that’s true, but you cannot see it because it doesn’t fit into how you understand the world.
We choose to pay attention to only the information that confirms what we already believe. People think that the amazing thing about the brain is its ability to realize stuff, but I repeat it like a broken record: the true amazing ability of the mind is its ability to deny and ignore what it does not like and does not want to face.
When people say cruel things like “which kid would you kill,” they are fighting with everything they have to hold on to their confirmation bias. They will play dirty because they are fighting against the terror they feel and the great pain that they know they will feel when they look squarely into the truth. They don’t want you to hurt them. And who wants to hurt?
Breaking through QF thinking requires truth to somehow break through that bias. It is a terrifying prospect, and those who do are the most courageous. It leveled me, and it made me consider that everything I believed may have been a lie. It didn’t all turn out to be lies, but it took courage and determination to sift through the rubble of what was left. I remember watching the video of an earthquake soon before we actually left our abusive church, and I thought of that picture many times as I sorted through my beliefs to see what was mine and what was someone else’s. I had to make new choices, too. I thought of this watching video of people trying to reclaim their homes on the Gulf Coast after Katrina.
If you can somehow look beyond the comments that people make and see what they say as coming from their terror, you can have empathy for them. Chances are, you said something to someone that you hoped would shield you from your own fear at some point during your journey into unavoidable truth. I don’t know if it makes such statements any less painful, but it can help you not take things as personally.
On another level, it tells you that your message and your witness has been effective. People who react to you in anger are reacting to something. This means that the truth about what you’re saying or doing is challenging to the people who lash out at you. If you can love them with a compassionate heart, with the love that you’ve learned to show yourself through your own process of healing, it becomes easier to see. It is actually a positive sign that you’re getting through the barrier somehow. If you’ve forgiven yourself for your own shortfalls through your own process of healing, it becomes easier. I don’t think it is ever very easy altogether.
Generally, these kinds of things used to take me three days to process. As I continue to heal, that three day period has become shorter and gets shorter all the time. I get slower to wrath and quicker to show compassion.
I often think, as I’m processing this kind of thing, of the old Shadow radio program. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” But I know, too. I really was no different in my own right. I was just as afraid and fought just as hard against the truths I wanted to ignore, though I may have done it in my own unique way.
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Post by nikita on Aug 11, 2010 22:25:43 GMT -5
The human mind protects itself because it needs to do so, and people will realize things when they are ready psychologically to do so. All we can do is speak the truth and let the hearer do with it what they will. If they are ready they will respond, and if they are not they will not. We are not responsible for their reaction to our 'truth' nor can we or should we hurry them along. They have to come in their own time.
And I say 'truth' in quotes because no one has a lock on it, we all have our own delusions and blindnesses and partial truths we hold onto. None of us can see anything purely without reservation and preconception. We can be glad we no longer follow certain leaders and belief systems and hope to help others who are still within them, but we should not deceive ourselves that we are somehow more evolved or see better than they do in other areas.
Confirmation bias applies to us all, not just to those in damaging belief systems.
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Post by cindy on Aug 12, 2010 9:26:34 GMT -5
I'm sorry if I may have been unclear about confirmation bias. It is also not something that should be thought of in terms of black and white. I apologize if I inadvertently gave the impression that it was some horrible thing that only people with a rigid religious mindset struggled with. I guess that I'm kind of shocked that I'm perceived that way, particularly when I continue to repeat how strongly I identify with this very human factor. It can be our greatest strength, but it is also often our greatest weakness. The imbalance and overzealousness in the QF mindset or any other ideology that we can "get carried away with" exploit it.
Part of understanding spiritual abuse involves knowing one's own human nature and understanding how it works. Cognitive bias gives us the ability to function, but we must use it with wisdom which helps us strike a balance between despair and hope. Balance helps us find the optimal place between healthy optimism and dysfunctional fantasy or wishful thinking. Wishful thinking alone is how children begin to learn, and as we mature as adults, we learn to cope with the unpleasant realities that a child tends to ignore.
It isn't cognitive bias itself that is somehow inherently evil or something, but rather the perfect storm that our human limitations (call that the sin nature if you want, or call it the id) when mixed with lack of mature balance and an ideological system that spins out of control. Advertising operates this same way which is why they don't use photos of grubby old drunks holding bottles in paper bags while lying in the gutter to sell booze.
Cognitive bias serves a good purpose in many instances. Within it rests the key to hope. It is how people who are told that they'll never walk again find the strength to learn to walk, despite the odds. It's how people get through surgery and find the strength to overcome their fears. It can be a beautiful gift.
People turn to all sorts of things to help them get through the pains of life and the disappointment we all feel because we are essentially just imperfect people in an imperfect world. Some people strive for perfection and tolerate nothing less, but this can be done with a healthy balance so that it does not consume all other areas and aspects of a person's life and personality. Some people go out and have fun on a Saturday doing something they love because it makes them feel better, but Monday morning always rolls around. You can't have Saturday every day of the week.
Some people use things like QF to help them cope with the disappointment of being human, very human like everyone else. It is different than setting healthy personal goals and following them optimistically. It gives the illusion that the human condition can be transcended, but it does so through imbalance and human means instead of optimistically trusting God to be faithful. It passes off human effort as the Holy Spirit. And people end up using it like an addict uses a substance to try to kick and fight against the inevitable realization that we are all flawed people in a flawed world. Rather than looking to Christianity to heal, in QF and many other religions, people use it to run from who they are.
Confirmation bias is not evil and not something that only certain people struggle with. Every person uses it in some fashion every single day. In learning how to tolerate uncomfortable emotion and the other pitfalls of being human, we can learn balance and self-control. I attribute that ability to God's grace and mercy toward me as I hopefully learn to be more like He wants me to be, a little more every day. He lets me see what I'd like to hide from. Some people call it self-actualization. Some people attribute things like that to the universe or karma.
Understanding confirmation bias is all part of knowing yourself and choosing, practicing and hopefully working toward some mastery of maturity of character. If we understand how it works, we can have a little more ability to resist the pitfalls it can pose and use it to build healthy optimism. Proverbs and Psalms are full of helpful statements about how to do that, if you can actually read what is written and can resist the reading them through the grid of someone else's conferred confirmation bias.
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Post by krwordgazer on Aug 14, 2010 0:42:41 GMT -5
This discussion is very interesting, and I really like Vyckie's FAQ!
It was especially interesting to read your letter to your uncle Ron, Vyckie, when you wrote this:
That’s the Love which frees us from superstitious fear of divine retribution and neurotic self-punishment.
I suppose it's an example of confirmation bias that at this point you didn't really see that Q/F teachings are full of superstitious fear of divine retrubution (if you use birth control or don't home-school, God will be against you) and also self-punishment (in the form of "dying to self" as a reason to enable abusive behavior in Warren).
You did say you were beginning to question and think, though, and that writing to Ron helped. Did your words there make you think at all about Q/F's spiritually abusive teachings? Or did that start later?
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