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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Apr 20, 2009 19:12:57 GMT -5
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linnea
Junior Member
Posts: 80
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Post by linnea on Apr 20, 2009 22:20:53 GMT -5
Wow, sometimes the smallest things can have a profound effect. I'm curious: did Dale get deeper into the patriarchal thing as the marriage went on, or did he start out that way?
It's both funny and sad that it didn't occur to you to buy two different kinds of toothpaste. My mind just goes that way immediately - maybe to an extreme. Sometimes my husband gets annoyed when I suggest that, if he wants to do X and I want to do Y, we go our separate ways and each do what we want instead of figuring out something to do together.
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Post by jadehawk on Apr 20, 2009 23:38:26 GMT -5
it's weird how we can condition our minds to not even think certain things/have them occur to us, huh? I guess if you've trained yourself long enough that you're supposed to be ONE, then even such small things are done with the mindset of "one mind, two bodies".
I'm with linnea: when the boyfriend and I can't compromise on something, we just each end up doing our own thing. there's two of almost everything in our house (for a while, we even bought two types of bread). the only thing I wouldn't let him has his own version was laundry soap, because I'm allergic to the stuff he likes.
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Post by Kaderin on Apr 20, 2009 23:38:57 GMT -5
Wow, this reminds me of a description in a book called "The Caged Virgin" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Do you know her? I have a total crush on that woman... Anyway, in that book she talks about muslim women in abusive marriages and how that abuse is promoted by Islamic culture. There really are a lot of parallels here to the Christian patriarchy movement - I think you should definitly check her out The relevant passage is this... The Dutch Social Security system is not very well set up to the problems of muslims. This inadvertently contributes to perpetuating the situation and keeps everyone locked in the Virgin's Cage. Dutch psychologists are, quite rightly, used to treating their patients as individuals. In my interpreting days I witnessed how they also used this approach with Muslim women. An important question was always: "What would you like for yourself?" Many women simply did not know. They would sit, quiet as a mouse, and shrug their shoulders. "What my husband wants," they might say timidly, or "As Allah wishes." And there were even women who would answer: "Whatever you think is right." They had never learned to want anything for themselves. "What would you like for your children? What decision would you like to take for them?" They had not learned this either, so did not know how to answer. The social workers did not understand them; they were puzzled and frustrated. Eery, isn't it? But it's the logical conclusion of this "helpmeet" business - No desires of your own, only your husband's... *shudder*
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Post by kisekileia on Apr 21, 2009 1:17:37 GMT -5
I think it's pretty common for people to get into situations where they're being abused via what Laura aptly described as the "frog in the pot of hot water" path. You don't realize what's going on until you're too beaten down to get out. So it's not that surprising, to me, that Laura didn't really realize what was happening as it was happening when she got involved with Quiverfull.
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Post by justflyingin on Apr 21, 2009 2:11:17 GMT -5
Laura,
I went back and reread your first and second posts about "in the beginning" and "dresses and subsequently moving to NB", etc.
Sometime, when you have more time, can you go back in more detail about those early years? I realize that that part of your life was a big blur, but, in between your wedding and moving to Nebraska, must have been some major adjustments.
You mentioned not being allowed to wear pants, but not much more, theologically or church-wise.
There is a big difference between submitting to wearing dresses because your husband wants you to and then moving away from everyone, becoming homesteaders and removing yourself from society in general.
I'm sure it did happen in a progression, but can you talk about it? Why were you fascinated with the farming lifestyle? Is it the land? (it was cheaper there) Being on your own? Being away from everyone else? Feeling like pioneers? My husband is from AK and would have liked the feeling of independence (but he also likes the internet, so he'd want to be where we could get that!) but here we are just outside of Warsaw, Poland, a city of 2 million people with neighbors on all sides!
(I must say we wanted to get our own piece of property here in Poland because we didn't like our neighbors when we were in the city limits--we didn't know their names since we didn't know enough Polish to talk with them.
It bothered me to have "blue bikini" and "red bikini" just outside our fence which was only about 15 feet away. One of them did everything in her bikini, including ironing --she brought out the ironing board and did it outside-- and hanging out clothes--all summer long. Also our landlords, who lived on the same piece of land as we did, had a son, 5, who would go to the bathroom right in front of my daughter,3, while in the yard. I didn't like that!)
What is the "progression" here? What kind of church was Dale in before you were married (can you give us the denomination)?
Were there others in your church that helped influence Dale and you in this direction? You mentioned hating dresses all the time but you got used to it. I got the impression if someone would have asked you personally what you thought (at that time), you would have told them you preferred pants. Is that true? Were you already so submissive that you would give the "politically correct answer" of "My husband wants me to..." without ever answering the question of what YOU thought.
I had to laugh about the toothpaste. Since I always buy the cheapest (in the states), we have everything including generic to expensive stuff. My husband has expressed a desire for an expensive kind so I try to keep him in some, but due to my desire to keep things "cheap', I try to use a cheaper kind. My kids have a different bathroom, so they have other kinds yet. Having only one tube of toothpaste for the whole family is as foreign of an idea to me as your having more than one. I wouldn't have even considered that it was something "anyone would do".
(And I'm a Christian woman who tries to be submissive. it does show our different thinking, though. I've been married over 20 years now.)
About canning....There is something natural about having pride in your work! I don't think it was wrong to be proud of doing that much canning (as long as it wasn't the kind of pride that says "we're more spiritual than you are", but rather pride of ownership of a job well done).
Most people who do that kind of thing are proud of it, whether it is canning or quilting or photography. They like looking at what they've done and like sharing it with others.
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Post by tapati on Apr 21, 2009 4:05:45 GMT -5
I think early on in the relationship there are choices...and in particular, one turning point that we can see, looking back, where our intuition was actually telling us that there was something wrong with this path or with this person, but we were "in love" or "converted" and we told that inner voice to shut up or used some line of propaganda to silence it. That process got easier and easier until the voice was so small we could no longer hear it--at least not until things got so bad that the voice became a scream!
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aimai
Full Member
Posts: 172
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Post by aimai on Apr 21, 2009 7:56:49 GMT -5
Laura, This is such a heartbreaking vignette. To me it shows the danger of asking a person, any person, to renounce any part of their moral or sensual being for another person, or to turn their moral sense over to another person. Over and over again people on the blog have talked about the concept of “boundaries” and this seems to me to be another such “boundary” issue. First Dale, and his religion, told you that you weren't a full partner in god's moral universe but a junior partner. Then everything you did was seen as a lens through which your holiness was evaluated. And every act and choice was also evaluated and understood primarily as to whether it was in sync with Dale's, or in opposition to it. Nothing was outside this paranoid construction. In a healthy marriage, or adult life, there are things that we must do, and things that we want to do, and things that we like doing. They aren't all the same thing. My husband's taste in socks or ice cream aren't holy—and they don't become symbols of holiness if I force myself to pair his socks or eat the ice cream he likes just because he likes it that way. We aren't in an ascetic, punitive religion—and neither was Dale, apparently. There are lots of such religions but Dale wasn't actually wearing a hair shirt, or piercing his tongue, or sleeping on a bed of nails to prove his love for god. Only you were doing that. Its why I've said before that the notion that women should submit to their fathers or husbands is idolatrous in its classic sense. No man “stands in” for god any more than the idols in the midrash about Abraham could stand in for god.
aimai
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Post by jemand on Apr 21, 2009 8:06:08 GMT -5
This reminds me of something happening in my cousin (an only child's) family. She and her grandma were in the store and they see a brand of dish soap. "Oh, that's the soap daddy tells mommy to buy"
Of course she does. And he doesn't even DO the dishes!
To be honest I think they can isolate and control their one child far more effectively than the Duggar's do theirs, for example.
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Post by rosa on Apr 21, 2009 8:28:46 GMT -5
My parents weren't deliberately patriarchal, but my dad was capable of having a temper tantrum about pretty much anything. He doesn't eat onions and he only eats vanilla ice cream. I remember how I learned that many of our family recipes were supposed to have onions (everything from sloppy joes to seven layer salad) and how gleeful my mom was to go to the grocery store and get flavored ice cream. Sometimes more than one kind! They had been married for 22 years. There's something about accepting all those small restrictions that makes the big ones seem more reasonable, isn't there? Just like you said, the frog in the pot of water.
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lectio
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Post by lectio on Apr 21, 2009 10:28:55 GMT -5
Over and over again people on the blog have talked about the concept of “boundaries” and this seems to me to be another such “boundary” issue. First Dale, and his religion, told you that you weren't a full partner in god's moral universe but a junior partner. Then everything you did was seen as a lens through which your holiness was evaluated. And every act and choice was also evaluated and understood primarily as to whether it was in sync with Dale's, or in opposition to it. Ah, this was SO my life. And I was SO the frog in the pot. Oh my goodness... Just plain Ew. One of the first "big life-changing" books I read coming out of this was the Boundaries book. I knew all that stuff in my head, which in a way was part of the problem...I didn't know just how badly I didn't know, in that I knew the concept of "boundaries", but I had NO IDEA that I wasn't practicing it, if that makes any sense. In actual real life, I had *no* boundaries that my husband was not allowed to cross, so in reality, I had no boundaries. Not even my body was mine. Nothing was mine, except what he said I could have. The concept of boundaries is such a fundamental issue. You simply CANNOT respect or love another human being unless you recognize them as a seperate person----as a being with personal boundaries that you must respect. I ordered the Boundaries in Marriage book on audio a while back but have only made it halfway through the book. It is just too painful sometimes, you know, to hear about what a good marriage looks like...it just hurts.
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Post by krwordgazer on Apr 21, 2009 13:02:20 GMT -5
*big hug for Lectio*
On this toothpaste thing, Laura-- given what you have told us about Dale, I'm kind of surprised he didn't make you buy an expensive toothpaste for him but insist that you make homemade toothpaste for yourself and the kids. ;D
But seriously-- do you think he would have let you buy a different brand for yourself? Or would he have seen that as "rebellion"?
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Post by arietty on Apr 21, 2009 19:32:13 GMT -5
The Dutch Social Security system is not very well set up to the problems of muslims. This inadvertently contributes to perpetuating the situation and keeps everyone locked in the Virgin's Cage. Dutch psychologists are, quite rightly, used to treating their patients as individuals. In my interpreting days I witnessed how they also used this approach with Muslim women. An important question was always: "What would you like for yourself?" Many women simply did not know. They would sit, quiet as a mouse, and shrug their shoulders. "What my husband wants," they might say timidly, or "As Allah wishes." And there were even women who would answer: "Whatever you think is right." They had never learned to want anything for themselves. "What would you like for your children? What decision would you like to take for them?" They had not learned this either, so did not know how to answer. The social workers did not understand them; they were puzzled and frustrated. After I left my abusive husband I often came smack up against not knowing what my preference for something was, not knowing or remembering what I liked, being kind of stumped at simple decisions. This stage didn't last very long, once I recognized what was going on I threw myself wholeheartedly into exploring what my interests and preferences had been in the past, before I had squelched them. A lot of my forgetting was in order to protect those things that had once been precious to me.. because my ex would see anything that was mine (an interest that he did not have) as a threat and he would attack and ridicule it. It was weird in some ways because after I was free I just took up with interests I had not been able to pursue since I was 20. 15+ years had gone by.. and in some cases I had a lot of catching up to do. It was like having been in a coma for all that time and waking up and trying to take up my life again. I wonder sometimes what it would have been like if I had pursued those interests all those years, whether they would have born fruit or whether they would have run their course after a time. I literally felt like I was time traveling back to my youth and listening to my old music, watching my old shows, reading my old books and rediscovering them all with joy. I think a lot of people coming out of years in religious cults would have this experience too.
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Post by kisekileia on Apr 21, 2009 19:56:54 GMT -5
My parents weren't deliberately patriarchal, but my dad was capable of having a temper tantrum about pretty much anything. He doesn't eat onions and he only eats vanilla ice cream. Rosa, I just want to mention that there are people, particularly those with autism spectrum disorders and some with ADHD as well, who have sensory processing problems that can make things like certain food ingredients extremely important for their comfort and well-being. It's possible that your dad really does need his food to not have onions and his ice cream to only be vanilla. That being said, he shouldn't force the rest of the family to eat that way when it doesn't keep him from having food that works for him.
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lectio
Full Member
growing...
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Post by lectio on Apr 21, 2009 21:05:54 GMT -5
It was like having been in a coma for all that time and waking up and trying to take up my life again. I wonder sometimes what it would have been like if I had pursued those interests all those years, whether they would have born fruit or whether they would have run their course after a time. I literally felt like I was time traveling back to my youth and listening to my old music, watching my old shows, reading my old books and rediscovering them all with joy. EXACTLY. I so relate to people coming out of cults. I feel like I am 21 again, right before I got married in so many ways...like the person I was then got "shut off," and just recently got "turned on" again. It was scary at first...just weird... but now that I'm starting to get used to it, wow. How wonderful it is out in this big wide world.
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Post by rosa on Apr 22, 2009 10:07:39 GMT -5
Kise, that's a good point. It probably wasn't as trivial to him as it seems.
The real issue, though, is how he got his way *every* time because you never knew what was going to set him off with shouting and breaking things and threatening us.
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Post by titus2woman on Apr 23, 2009 4:50:54 GMT -5
I friend shared your blog addy with me, and I have read with great interest and even a little frustration. When my darling and I decided to trust God to plan the size of our family, we had never heard the term "Quiver Full" or knew of any kind of "movement". I did do some things in the beginning that could have sent me down this same path, but I must honestly share that under the guise of patriarchy it was led me ME! LOL! I wonder how many women get such a ball rolling themselves and then are unhappy later? My problem was doing what some woman said I needed to do in order to please God rather than read the Bible for myself. For us it's always been about TRUST~whether that means we had no children, one child, eight, or whatever.
It frustrates me now that we have been lumped in with the QF movement, because it really gives people a bad name. We don't subscribe to even HALF of the doctrines that people assume we must! I am not covered, dresses only, my darling totally respects me, if my girlie ends up liking to fix motorcycles then COOL, do NOT agree with some of the freaky patriarchy practices (like Daddy shaving) goin' around, and we want to raise well-rounded children who read the Bible for themselves and have their own relationship with the LORD that will guide their decisions in life. Our goal is for them to be responsible in making their own decisions~we have no expectations of what their lives will look like, though of course we'd rather they continue in faith. They each have their own natural bent that comes with a unique set of strengths and weaknesses.
I have many more thoughts that I don't know how to express. Just please know that there ARE people out there who strive for balance (and spouses that love and respect each other) that are also in the category of possibly having more than the "normal" number of children. (((((HUGS))))) sandi
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Post by arietty on Apr 23, 2009 18:10:35 GMT -5
Hey titus2woman I understand why it upsets you to think you will be lumped into a package deal you don't follow. I have known quite a few big families who are not remotely patriarchal, some are not practicing christians. One culture I've come across it seems to be not uncommon for a woman to have kids with a series of partners, pretty much each man she is involved with. I have known a few of these women who are the matriarchs of large sprawling families and who LOVE children. I have known many catholic families who have 5 or 6 children, have never heard the term quiverfull and would be bewildered by all this stuff.
But it is a movement with it's own teachings and teachers, books and ideas and offshoots. In my own walk through this I have experienced and observed that a family starts out with one idea and gradually embraces more and more of them. Life can be difficult with a large family and when you step deeper into these varying teachings you access a community of like minded believers. Since many large families get little support from mainstream churches this community is very appealing. This is one way folks end up progressing from wanting lots of kids to buying chin to ankle bathing suits, LOL.
Even now I feel the regret of leaving behind the community I felt with other large families. I have 2 pre-schoolers and I am 46. I love the women in my local, mainstream church but I have little contact with them as my peers all work full time or have gone back to school to study. Their children are all getting married or in their last years of high school. The young moms there don't really warm to me, I am sometimes 20 years older than them! And I am in the weirdo category with my 8 kids. It was nice not to be a weirdo when I was a QF fundy.. and even more it was thrilling to be doing this incredible brave death-to-self mission for God's kingdom.
Anyway.. believe me I know there are plenty of big families out there, even no birth-control families that don't swallow the whole patriocentric control thing.
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Post by charis on Apr 27, 2009 10:04:28 GMT -5
I have 2 pre-schoolers and I am 46. I love the women in my local, mainstream church but I have little contact with them as my peers all work full time or have gone back to school to study. Their children are all getting married or in their last years of high school. The young moms there don't really warm to me, I am sometimes 20 years older than them! And I am in the weirdo category with my 8 kids. I resemble that! Going in to school for my 6yo's events is a head trip. The other mom's are about the age of my oldest daughter (I could be their mother ) I was far too strapped timewise to get out much, and now that they are all in school (and the oldest 3- out of the nest), I am too depleted to put much effort into undoing the isolation. I'm stretched about to the limit keeping up with the housework, cooking, laundry, chauffering, being their listening ear and cheerleader, and 6 hours a week of p/t work. It can be a lonely lifestyle.
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Post by arietty on Apr 27, 2009 19:10:18 GMT -5
I've met a few mom's my age now Charis, with children the age of my young ones.. but these are their first (and only, lol) kids. When they hear I have kids in their 20's they kind of take a few steps back, lol.
I've always had trouble with isolation, part of it is my personality but a lot of it is just not fitting conveniently into social slots. I felt I was making some headway doing some volunteer work at one point (at a food bank), really loved the older women there and we had wonderful in depth conversations.. but that was before my two pre-schoolers. I was quite incapacitated during those pregnancies and could not keep up any of these social connections I had worked so hard on. I felt like it was 2 steps forward, 10 steps back.
The majority of my socializing is with my adult children! Which is great and we do have many many common interests but of course I'm still being the mom and there are many things I wouldn't talk about with them.
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Post by arietty on Apr 27, 2009 19:15:05 GMT -5
Oh and Charis, LOL on the 6 year old's school events. I have been going to playgroup with my little ones and it is quite a generation gap at times. I sit there and listen to earnest discussions women in their early 20's have about "what age is it okay for a child to have sugar for the first time" and "how do you stop them from pretending sticks are guns when guns aren't allowed" and long debates about television. Yes I was there a loooooooooooong time ago but I am so over ideology and child raising. I suppose I seem very slack to them, LOL. Telling them, "well my 20 year old daughter gave the baby chocolate when she was 8 months old so that's when she had sugar.." is a bit of an eye-popper for them.
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Post by charis on Apr 27, 2009 21:11:16 GMT -5
About that lightening up, Arietty, my oldest kids often complain that I'm "too easy" on the little ones. OTH they also say I was "too hard" on them. My reply, "well, I'm comfortable with how I'm doing it now, but I'll be looking forward to seeing which tack you take when you have your own children"
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Post by themomma on Apr 29, 2009 13:48:40 GMT -5
My oldest is 16 and my youngest is almost 1...I don't quite have the gap some of you do but I can really identify.
My 16 gets really embarassed sometimes because people mistake the 2 younger ones to be hers...
In some ways I am more strict (foodwise since now I know we have allergies and issues with sugar). In a one way I am stricter with my little ones, I address issues more quickly on the other hand when my older ones did the same thing I would overreact like they were "bad" not just going through normal child developmental things. I don't get as overwhelmed with the younger ones as I did with the older ones. I can let them be kids without thinking they are "naughty"...
I don't find in lonely at all because I meet so many people through the activities my kids are involved in...just tons of people.
I read on another thread someone was saying something along the lines of the mother was staying at home and "sacrificing" the best years of her life. I don't see it as a sacrifice at all. I am willing to "sacrifice" new clothes, cars, "stuff" to have the priviledge to spend this awesome time with my kids.
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Post by titus2woman on Apr 30, 2009 3:51:36 GMT -5
Arietty, I appreciate your perspective. I do realize that some of these ideas are coming from one or two camps that I know of, and I understand that many times as the husband steps out of line in pretty bad ways the woman is blamed by leadership for not being submissive enough, etc. This burdens my heart, as we are ALL to grow in our journey towards holiness, and that leadership would not take that man under their wing for counselling or rebuke and is allowed to continue on in such behavior really gets my goat! How in good conscience before God? (((((HUGS))))) sandi~yes, often I feel like a freak... LOL!
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Post by themomma on Apr 30, 2009 9:34:06 GMT -5
Arietty, I appreciate your perspective. I do realize that some of these ideas are coming from one or two camps that I know of, and I understand that many times as the husband steps out of line in pretty bad ways the woman is blamed by leadership for not being submissive enough, etc. This burdens my heart, as we are ALL to grow in our journey towards holiness, and that leadership would not take that man under their wing for counselling or rebuke and is allowed to continue on in such behavior really gets my goat! How in good conscience before God? (((((HUGS))))) sandi~yes, often I feel like a freak... LOL! What do you think a healthy church would do if there was a family that really needed help. You know, parental issues?
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