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Post by rosa on May 31, 2010 10:05:56 GMT -5
Spouses have one power minor children don't have: they can leave.
More and more I think that's why these churches teach that divorce is the worst thing ever. It takes away the one and only power the spouse really has.
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Post by rosa on May 30, 2010 13:09:30 GMT -5
Okay, I'll play the game too: 1) 1-2 children. My mom had 2 children because she felt that was the ideal family size. I would have liked to have 2, but my partner convinced me that risking my life in pregnancy a second time would be selfish because it would be putting him & our son in the position of suffering for MY choice (whether I died or only had another difficult bed rest pregnancy).
2) My mom put me in public school because as a public school teacher and the child of public school teachers, she felt it was the best thing for me. On top of her reasoning (excellent education & opportunity to reach out past the boundaries of family) I am putting my son in public school because I expect him to thrive and excel there, AND I think the public schools are a cohesive force in my community and a pillar of democracy. I also have been a political delegate to the School Board nominating convention and have the opportunity to affect curricula, funding, and other school issues by voting and being active in the PTA.
3) I went back to work earlier than planned at the request of my partner; the anxiety of being our sole wage earner was killing him and causing us to fight.
4) I was not indulged as a child and neither is my son. He is respected, treated as a mostly-reasonable being, and listened to - but not indulged.
5) My mom was a stay at home mom; she went back to teaching when she went back to work, so we were never in daycare. My son actually loves daycare and putting him in daycare and me back to work relieved a lot of stress and strife in our family, which I think is good for all of us.
6) I was raised on all homemade and mostly home-grown food; my mom still tells the story of how, after years of cooking and baking for us my little brother asked her, please, please, please could he just have some Oreos and not homemade cookies? We go out to eat about once a week, with friends.
7) I do use the electronic babysitter, but not to read porn - to sleep in, read NLQ, or deal with a rainy day.
8) I watched other women shamed and degraded in their marriages, while I was having fun dating and being independent. Unlike these sanctimonious judges, I don't assume that EVERY woman who marries young is taken for granted and used by her husband.
9) On the contrary - feminists and "worldly" fathers understand that danger comes, not from how a young woman dresses or how she looks or where she goes, but from the ill intent of some of those around her. Nothing can protect anyone from serious ill-intent, but healthy self-esteem, a wide safety net, and a trust in her own judgement and instincts are a better bet than long skirts and being trapped at home.
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Post by rosa on May 29, 2010 16:23:32 GMT -5
I do worry about this one, though:
"4) Worldly parents indulge their kids and refuse to train them to be “instantly, joyously obedient” and to honor their fathers because they are guilt-ridden for not caring enough about their kids to spend a quantity of quality time with them."
I know women with young children who I see getting sucked into - not QF, but definitely a spare the rod/quit your job/have a lot of children ideal, and I feel like my son - who is not at all instantly obedient - just convinces them further.
I actually talked to my mom about this recently. I don't know if you have ever heard the phrase "behaves like he's been beat" but I have cousins whose dad beat the crap out of them all the time. Nobody knew at the time, but my mom spent years feeling like she couldn't live up to her mousy, helpful, soft-spoken stepsister with perfectly-behaved children. She feels like our teen and adult years really justified her to her stepmother, but it caused her a lot of angst.
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Post by rosa on May 29, 2010 16:19:29 GMT -5
The other thing about that whole statement is that the choices are whore, or slave. There's no "furthering her own interests" or even "furthering the interests of her family (including herself & her children) - it's all about serving *some* man somewhere.
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Post by rosa on May 28, 2010 11:27:08 GMT -5
This is an awesome point:
"If there's anything I've learned from reading Vyckie's blog, getting sucked into these extreme religious movements happens gradually. And it's high pressure sales on steroids. I think the important message of this post is that it discusses the psychological and community pressure used to keep people (men and women) in line. "
And I do think seeing it from a non-patriarchalist husband's point of view is important. Especially if Brad (and maybe other husbands and ex-husbands) can get the space to talk about how they tried to cope, and what went wrong, and maybe what they could have tried.
I know from the outside it's easy to speculate on this stuff - so if her husband says take off the headcovering, what does she do to "properly submit"? So it's fascinating to see one experience of that.
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Post by rosa on May 26, 2010 15:56:01 GMT -5
The thing is that there's a pretty good tolerance of Christians who talk as if their God exists (though not for the sanctimonious or vindictive), I assume just because it's a familiar style to most of us here. Angelia Sparrow got criticized for that as well as for lumping all Christians together, which I don't think is fair since we don't usually criticize others for it.
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Post by rosa on May 25, 2010 9:50:33 GMT -5
I think the post didn't phase me (any more than the Christians who post about the version of God they believe in) because I've met a number of formerly-Christian pagans who believe the same thing - it's not that they don't believe in the God of the Old Testament, they just choose to worship others. They take a lot of the same arguments that some atheists make about the nature of that god in the documents Christians take as their main texts, but instead of taking them as reasons not to believe, they take them as reasons not to worship.
Personally, i think it's generally divisive and rude to talk about the Christian God as if he exists...but I'm definitely in the minority on that, and it's not in the rules here.
On the other hand, it is definitely rude to talk about "Christians" as if only fundamentalist and evangelical Christians are the only ones, and I'm pretty sure we have a consensus against that.
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Post by rosa on May 13, 2010 12:32:23 GMT -5
Because I've watched them interact with their children? I don't get the need to extend them the benefit of the doubt. We have a lot of evidence *they* put out there, about how they live. Why not trust it?
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Post by rosa on May 13, 2010 9:49:46 GMT -5
Madame, it's really doubtful the girls are getting paid. In the US we have laws about child actors, but they don't apply to children on reality TV with their parents, so these kids have no legal protections. We have the laws because there were so many cases of parents taking all the money from their underage actor children and leaving them young adults with no education, no money, and not started any transition into adult acting roles - which as far as we know is exactly what has happened with the older Duggar children, except the oldest son who has a business.
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Post by rosa on May 12, 2010 21:55:11 GMT -5
She was considered liberal...in the '50s, when she started writing. I love Cleary, we've read probably 8 of her chapter books to Mica. But they were progressive when she started writing them, in 1950 (that's the original pub date for the first one, Henry Huggins.)
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Post by rosa on May 12, 2010 12:04:19 GMT -5
Humbletigger, that makes sense (the fear that reading books by Wiccan authors would make you Wiccan...though I seek out those books and there are not very many) - since many Christians think that consuming Christian media (books, TV, music, movies) will make their kids Christian. Or more Christian?
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Post by rosa on May 11, 2010 11:24:00 GMT -5
Sierra, there's definitely a time when kids can tell you what's real or not real, but they are busy experimenting with the world to see how what they learn applies, so they mix the not-real stuff up with the real in practice. My son is still in it, he's almost 5. I don't know when/if it ends. But for instance, there was a time when he was maybe 3 when he watched too much Word World and made himself a rocketship out of pillows and was just obviously disappointed when it wouldn't launch. He kept trying different things - I know! I forgot my helmet! I will put on my helmet and try again. Oh, no. Maybe it needs a steering wheel to work!
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Post by rosa on May 10, 2010 11:12:14 GMT -5
Erika, you demonstrate such strength of character all through these stories. I love that the librarian was part of your little rebellion, too.
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Post by rosa on May 4, 2010 14:24:21 GMT -5
The way you were pressured to not just give up that friendship, but "choose sides" is so cold - your friend's mom was overt in making you give up the friendship, but the kids obviously had internalized the rules too.
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Post by rosa on May 4, 2010 9:02:02 GMT -5
Anne2, I only have intermittent access to cable TV, but I read the recaps and discussions at Televisions Without Pity and have for years, and watch the specials when I can. Michelle Duggar takes care of her current youngest child for the first six months, nursing on demand, etc. She has help - another child usually helps with nonbreastfeeding child care - but she is the primary person. Then at 6 months, or when the child self-weans (one self-weaned when Mrs. Duggar got pregnant again, for sure - I am not sure about the others) an older child is assigned to be the baby's "buddy" and becomes primarily responsible for them. After that point Mrs. Duggar seems to have a supervisory role, not a hands-on parenting one. She goes back to her public mommy role, being on TV and giving interviews and speaking at events, and the girls at home (the oldest are adults - I think the oldest unmarried daughter is almost 20) take care of the smaller children, including their schooling.
To me, in her public appearances Michelle Duggar often looks dissociated. But I'm not a psychiatrist and I've never met her in person.
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Post by rosa on Apr 28, 2010 14:11:48 GMT -5
Just a minute. Jemand was rude (but truthful) but calling her names in response isn't helpful, either. It's no more or less rude to call JaneDoe out on her own statements than it is for her to claim to leave (because of our persecution and, what, complicity with the patriarchy?) and then come back for another screed in the style several people have said feels like an attack.
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Post by rosa on Apr 27, 2010 22:54:18 GMT -5
Nikita, that conditional love - that if your beliefs evolved, or you did not follow all the rules, the warm friendships and love would be withdrawn (including God's love, it sounds like) is just terrible. I'm so sorry. One of the things that Hillary said really strikes me:
That's part of what makes everything so hard to unravel - birth control = abortion, love = obedience, happiness = working on showing a happy face, friendship = conditional approval, "personal conviction only for me" = what God wants everyone to do but only Saved people know it, equality = separate but equal, modesty = standing out in the crowd. I'm sure there are a bunch more I can't think of right now. But it makes it really hard even to have a discussion with someone, because you have to go back to the beginning and define the words you're using (and usually argue about that.)
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Post by rosa on Apr 21, 2010 12:14:09 GMT -5
I think one of the places to draw the line for reasonability is that, at the point where your family responsibilities are just too much to handle without overloading your older kids, it's responsible to take a break from having babies for a while. You can't foresee everything - bad things happen to everyone, and that can push anybody temporarily over the edge - but you can react by not adding any more responsibilities when you're overwhelmed. Which is something people can't go back in time and do, when they are trying to leave the oppressive parts behind, and that makes the balance harder to figure out. But it's something that folks like the Duggars actively try to teach people not to do - the whole "don't give up, God will provide!" is a useful way to deal with what you already have, but it's bad advice to someone who is already overstretched and thinking "should I take on another kid/a second job/another ministry"
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Post by rosa on Apr 21, 2010 9:28:25 GMT -5
Yeah, the jump from babies to EUTHANASIA OF THE ELDERLY (by, what, offering health care to younger people also?) would be funny if it weren't so influential.
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Post by rosa on Apr 16, 2010 10:38:14 GMT -5
MusicMom, this whole story is making me so sad. It sounds like your mom gave up the "chains" but kept the emotional over-investment in her kids, and played favorites to boot.
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Post by rosa on Apr 14, 2010 21:19:16 GMT -5
I sort of thought that. It seemed like, with the people for whom Ruth's story didn't ring true (on the Free Jinger board) it was partly that they had a similar religious background but without the hyper-controlling abusive parent, so their experiences were a lot different. Where for a person coming out of an abusive or addictive family, I think a lot of it would look very familiar (and a lot of what you've shared, and a lot of what Journey has shared) and it's just that the language that was used is unfamiliar, and sometimes that the religious rules made the abused spouse feel even more stuck.
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Post by rosa on Apr 14, 2010 10:02:13 GMT -5
Arietty, having to live in fear and loneliness like that is so sad.
I've been thinking about this a lot because of the "is Razing Ruth real" discussion over at Freejinger - is it even possible to tease out which was part of the abuse, and which the religion? Some of the control/isolation techniques are just like any other abusive family situation - isolation, fear of discovery, kids taking responsibility for their parents feelings and spouses taking responsibilities for their spouses feelings...
Do you think the combo of your relationship with your husband and the size of your family would have caused the same isolation no matter what? Or do you think if you'd hooked into the secular homeschooler network instead of the religious one, things would have been a lot better?
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Post by rosa on Apr 13, 2010 15:11:35 GMT -5
It's beautiful, KR.
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Post by rosa on Apr 12, 2010 9:52:25 GMT -5
Is suicide considered a sin, or talked about, in these groups? I know in the churches I grew up in, it was just considered a tragedy, like an accidental death.
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Post by rosa on Apr 12, 2010 9:51:33 GMT -5
So it's a combination of practical (who will help you?) with community pressure (shunning - did you all see divorced women shunned, before you got divorced yourselves?) and then Scripture on top of it. Or I guess fake Scripture - that "this is a sin you can't commit" thing isn't in the Bible, is it?
It's an amazingly effective bludgeon. I wonder what it's building on - I think KR's linking of it to growing up with alcoholism in the family is a really interesting link (and of course you get that same factor in Vyckie's story), but abuse/addiction can't be the only thing that makes people vulnerable, because it's not universal in these stories.
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