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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jun 8, 2010 8:10:03 GMT -5
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Post by humbletigger on Jun 8, 2010 10:13:55 GMT -5
I absolutely L*O*V*E* your last paragraph, Kiery! I would go do cartwheels in the yard except I haven't done a cartwheel in 30 years and that last time I messed up my knee! ;D All the rest of your story makes me very sad. I was posting about the "bait and switch" of home school advocates on my blog recently. When we started out, it was to give our children courage to be different, confidence to do what others said could not be done, intelligence to come up with a plan and the diligence to carry it out. In your case, home schooling gave you exactly that! Kudos! The "switch" was that after a while home school speakers at conventions stopped talking about preparing students for life in the big wide world and switched over to protecting students from the big wide world. As one commenter put it, the seed was planted in a jar so it could get a good start, but then was never transplanted out of the jar. Forced to stay in the jar, it withers, barely surviving, or dies. But home school students are not plants, they're people! People with brains and feet and legal rights (as adults anyway)!!!! Congrats on escaping the jar! ;D ;D
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Post by hopewell on Jun 8, 2010 10:32:15 GMT -5
In a strange way, your parents should be proud--you learned to think for yourself, to follow God and to get on with life.
What I hear of your life--you doing the kid raising, etc, while Mama pops out another baby is the part people don't want to see with the Duggars. They'd never have had 19 kids if they had to do it all themselves.
I hope the next part of your story is about your independent life and that it is going well. Keep writing, please!
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Post by coleslaw on Jun 8, 2010 12:41:29 GMT -5
One thing I find curious.
I keep meeting a lot of pre-teens and teenagers who would not have the least bit of trouble saying, "Hey, it's your kid, you take care of it", or simply ignoring the younger sibling while not arguing at all about who should take care of it. Now, I am not saying these are the kinds of people one would want one's teen to be, or even ones you'd want to live next door to, but they do exist, and they aren't necessarily that way because they are being raised by ineffective or uncaring parents. So what happens when one of these youngsters is born into a QF home? Are there any examples known in the QF world, even if not widely talked about?
And of course I can understand why Kierry didn't do just that. It's normal to want to please your parents and to respect their authority when you are growing up, even though as parents we tend to be more aware of the small ways in which our kids defy or ignore our authority rather than the larger ways they respect it. It's normal to feel tender-hearted towards younger siblings, too. I'm not saying Kierry should or could have said, "Take care of your own damn kids", IOW. I'm saying that there are kids who would have done that, and I don't think they can all be born into non-QF families. Or do their parents just leave the QF path when they realize it won't work?
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Post by kiery on Jun 8, 2010 12:53:50 GMT -5
I think "those kids" are the ones that are pointed out to us as rebellious and their parents usually try to punish them or squelch it out of them - pulling parents/god/authority cards. If not then we usually avoid families with those "problems" and their children with "bad attitudes".
So I never really saw any families where the kid was like raise your own...it's like destroyed, not that it doesn't exist it's just other people avoid them until they're back in line and the kid is taken care of.
I really really did want to tell them to take care of their own kids but I was shot (and shut) down every time I got close.
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Post by humbletigger on Jun 8, 2010 16:07:37 GMT -5
I can't speak from experience as a QF daughter, but the total milleu control these QF families have over their children would prevent that kind of defiance ever happening. Especially if we're talking Pearl parents: they spank repeatedly, until a child's will is broken. They set out early on in discipline with the express goal of breaking their children's will.They withhold affection, isolate even from other family members, until the child does what is expected. Children have emotional needs. They are very dependent on their parents. In order to secure the love and acceptance they NEED, they learn to squelch their own needs and desires and subject themselves to what their parent's demand. The Pearls counsel to start this on infants. So do the Ezzos. There really is no choice but outward compliance. That's why the depression is so severe. I have read several young women's stories of suicidal thoughts, gestures and serious attempts. Angel is far from the only one. Outside the girls have been complying, but inside they know they don't want to be surrogate mom, house keeper, cook and laundress for their parents forever. Outwardly they do as they should, then squelch the anger and turn it inward where it shows as depression. They have no other choice, as long ago in early childhood they learned the total domination and rejection that comes from saying "no" to their parents. Now, I write all that to say that I understand how strong-willed teens in that situation simply cannot speak up for themselves. They speak up with suicide attempts, or they escape as soon as they drum up the courage. But I did know one patriarchal mom who had a daughter who just said "no". This family was atypical though. Mom was an unschooler who allowed her daughter to have her own mind in many other areas. And Dad was Mr. Easygoing, an atheist and was not about to make his daughter comply with mom's fantasy family agenda. In this family, mom eventually left the home schooling, the patriarchal thought and the faith. She had one more child, then allowed herself to actually use the Ring! I wish she were still a Christian (my personal bias) because she dumped all her Christian friends when she left the faith, me included. Though she needn't have dumped me. I had no intention of coercing her to believe anything. I just wanted to stay friends.
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Post by anatheist on Jun 8, 2010 16:25:41 GMT -5
One thing I find curious. I keep meeting a lot of pre-teens and teenagers who would not have the least bit of trouble saying, "Hey, it's your kid, you take care of it", or simply ignoring the younger sibling while not arguing at all about who should take care of it. Now, I am not saying these are the kinds of people one would want one's teen to be, or even ones you'd want to live next door to, but they do exist, and they aren't necessarily that way because they are being raised by ineffective or uncaring parents. So what happens when one of these youngsters is born into a QF home? Are there any examples known in the QF world, even if not widely talked about? I don't think that it has to be as rude as that. I have always known that I was childfree and have never had a desire to take care of babies or toddlers in any way. But although I don't have personal experience caring for younger siblings (my parents were infertile and I was an adoptee when they were somewhat older), I did all sorts of religious sh** that I hated because it was expected of me. And I kept my mouth shut about it because I knew I would get in trouble if I said anything. So I'm sure that if I had been born into a QF home with strict discipline, I'd have sucked it up and cared for the little children that I didn't want to be taking care of.
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Post by grandmalou on Jun 9, 2010 5:10:56 GMT -5
Kiery, thank you for this story! I am happy for you that you broke free, sad for you not being able to sit down and talk with your family. Happens all too often, doesn't it? (((HUGS)))
Humbletigger, this is such a true post, and sad! This so robs the children of individuality! I for one, am happy to see personalities emerge...yeah, I got 'spoiled' for awhile by them being such "good children" until I realized exactly what was happening! Now though I may gripe at times about them being a bit disrespectful or something, I am so glad to know they are not being forced to be like little tin soldiers!
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Post by humbletigger on Jun 9, 2010 16:03:57 GMT -5
Yes, someone needs to write a "Christian parenting" book about the joys of sass back, because it means your children have backbone! ;D
That really should be a thing to be celebrated, along with spunk, self-awareness and individual initiative- even if that individual initiative WAS making your face up like Alice Cooper for Wednesday service.
(Yes, my daughter actually did that once. I tolerated it but I was hardly celebrating. Recently she thanked me and told me she really respected me for allowing her the freedom to find herself even though it was not always pretty.)
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Post by coleslaw on Jun 9, 2010 16:41:50 GMT -5
One thing I find curious. I keep meeting a lot of pre-teens and teenagers who would not have the least bit of trouble saying, "Hey, it's your kid, you take care of it", or simply ignoring the younger sibling while not arguing at all about who should take care of it. Now, I am not saying these are the kinds of people one would want one's teen to be, or even ones you'd want to live next door to, but they do exist, and they aren't necessarily that way because they are being raised by ineffective or uncaring parents. So what happens when one of these youngsters is born into a QF home? Are there any examples known in the QF world, even if not widely talked about? I don't think that it has to be as rude as that. I have always known that I was childfree and have never had a desire to take care of babies or toddlers in any way. But although I don't have personal experience caring for younger siblings (my parents were infertile and I was an adoptee when they were somewhat older), I did all sorts of religious sh** that I hated because it was expected of me. And I kept my mouth shut about it because I knew I would get in trouble if I said anything. So I'm sure that if I had been born into a QF home with strict discipline, I'd have sucked it up and cared for the little children that I didn't want to be taking care of. Well, apparently it does have to be as rude as that because you just admitted you can't think of a polite way you could have said no to child rearing as a teen. It's hard enough for many adults to say "no" to imposing family members. I wouldn't expect a teen to be able to say politely, "Mom, Dad, when you choose the behavior of having more babies, you choose the consequences of sleepless nights and endless childcare. Now if you excuse me, I am going to take a bus into town to sign myself back up for high school." It would be nice, but it would also be nice if the teen came up with a solution for peace in the Middle East, too, and just about as likely. But take a teen with low levels of empathy, not none at all, but not enough to promote tolerating inconvenience, low impulse control, and poor ability to reason out a long chain of cause-effect behaviors, and you have a teen who may some day wind up with her picture on the Post Office wall. She will say "take care of your own damn baby" and simply ignore the brat if it's left in her care. Yeah, you can beat her and lock her in the prayer closet, but she won't be able to look out for a toddler properly even if she wants to, especially not after being given a model of abusive behavior to follow in obtaining compliance. So maybe she'll agree to take care of Sis and not even notice when Sis falls out of a tree or in the lake. Her response to reproof will be "It's not my fault. I told her to stay away from there." Any parent with an IQ over that of a wilted carrot can see the writing on the wall: when Sis gets rushed to the emergency room, who are the ER personnel going to blame really? And I can't believe these kids don't get born into QF families, and while abusive child-rearing techniques may teach them to restrain their impulses, it won't teach good problem solving behavior. What parents are most likely to abuse their children anyway? Parents with low levels of empathy,low impulse control, and poor ability to reason out a long chain of cause-effect behaviors. The odds seem pretty good to me that at least some of them are having kids like that.
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Post by kiery on Jun 9, 2010 17:14:20 GMT -5
I have no doubt that there are kids like that being born into it, I think most QF people just avoid them or they're more sequestered to keep from passing it on to others. Like a QF version of a quarantine or psych ward. I mean, as far as exposure goes I think the families try to keep imperfection well hidden, and the families who know about it stay away to keep their kids from getting "influenced". I know we avoided families with "bratty", "worldly", or "rebellious" children as much as possible.
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Post by km on Jun 9, 2010 21:07:08 GMT -5
But take a teen with low levels of empathy , not none at all, but not enough to promote tolerating inconvenience, low impulse control, and poor ability to reason out a long chain of cause-effect behaviors, and you have a teen who may some day wind up with her picture on the Post Office wall. She will say "take care of your own damn baby" and simply ignore the brat if it's left in her care. Yeah, you can beat her and lock her in the prayer closet, but she won't be able to look out for a toddler properly even if she wants to, especially not after being given a model of abusive behavior to follow in obtaining compliance. So maybe she'll agree to take care of Sis and not even notice when Sis falls out of a tree or in the lake. Her response to reproof will be "It's not my fault. I told her to stay away from there." Any parent with an IQ over that of a wilted carrot can see the writing on the wall: when Sis gets rushed to the emergency room, who are the ER personnel going to blame really? And I can't believe these kids don't get born into QF families, and while abusive child-rearing techniques may teach them to restrain their impulses, it won't teach good problem solving behavior. What parents are most likely to abuse their children anyway? Parents with low levels of empathy,low impulse control, and poor ability to reason out a long chain of cause-effect behaviors. The odds seem pretty good to me that at least some of them are having kids like that. I'm not sure that kids are...born this way. You're describing antisocial personalities, which arise through conditioning and deep trauma.
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Post by coleslaw on Jun 9, 2010 21:39:04 GMT -5
But take a teen with low levels of empathy , not none at all, but not enough to promote tolerating inconvenience, low impulse control, and poor ability to reason out a long chain of cause-effect behaviors, and you have a teen who may some day wind up with her picture on the Post Office wall. She will say "take care of your own damn baby" and simply ignore the brat if it's left in her care. Yeah, you can beat her and lock her in the prayer closet, but she won't be able to look out for a toddler properly even if she wants to, especially not after being given a model of abusive behavior to follow in obtaining compliance. So maybe she'll agree to take care of Sis and not even notice when Sis falls out of a tree or in the lake. Her response to reproof will be "It's not my fault. I told her to stay away from there." Any parent with an IQ over that of a wilted carrot can see the writing on the wall: when Sis gets rushed to the emergency room, who are the ER personnel going to blame really? And I can't believe these kids don't get born into QF families, and while abusive child-rearing techniques may teach them to restrain their impulses, it won't teach good problem solving behavior. What parents are most likely to abuse their children anyway? Parents with low levels of empathy,low impulse control, and poor ability to reason out a long chain of cause-effect behaviors. The odds seem pretty good to me that at least some of them are having kids like that. I'm not sure that kids are...born this way. You're describing antisocial personalities, which arise through conditioning and deep trauma. Nobody is "born with" complex behavior. Nobody is born knowing how to read or do math, but people are born with varying abilities to learn to read or do math. Nobody is born with the ability to make complex calculations involving the risks and benefits of various courses of behavior in difficult situations, but people are born with variations in neurological functioning that affect impulse control and social learning.
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Post by anatheist on Jun 9, 2010 22:38:43 GMT -5
Well, apparently it does have to be as rude as that because you just admitted you can't think of a polite way you could have said no to child rearing as a teen. In the context of a QF (or fundamentalist) family, the children can't say no to anything, whether it's rude or not. I don't consider it rude that I do not go to church, but I was incapable of politely declining as a teenager. It's a matter of autonomy, not rudeness. If I were asked by my family now to babysit my cousin's almost newborn baby, barring a true emergency, I would have no qualms about politely saying "I don't do well with babies and I'd rather not". *** I believe that for many people, being childfree is an inborn impulse. I would not neglect a baby left in my care because I have responsibility as a learned behavior, but my desire would be to ignore the baby or get away from it. I don't consider myself antisocial because I have awareness that I feel this way about babies and can make the choice not to have one or be a caretaker for one.
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Post by coleslaw on Jun 9, 2010 23:48:27 GMT -5
Well, apparently it does have to be as rude as that because you just admitted you can't think of a polite way you could have said no to child rearing as a teen. In the context of a QF (or fundamentalist) family, the children can't say no to anything, whether it's rude or not. I don't consider it rude that I do not go to church, but I was incapable of politely declining as a teenager. It's a matter of autonomy, not rudeness. If I were asked by my family now to babysit my cousin's almost newborn baby, barring a true emergency, I would have no qualms about politely saying "I don't do well with babies and I'd rather not". *** I believe that for many people, being childfree is an inborn impulse. I would not neglect a baby left in my care because I have responsibility as a learned behavior, but my desire would be to ignore the baby or get away from it. I don't consider myself antisocial because I have awareness that I feel this way about babies and can make the choice not to have one or be a caretaker for one. I don't think anyone considers you antisocial. I don't know whether being childfree is an inborn impulse or not, but it wasn't the subject of my posts, either.
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Post by journey on Jun 10, 2010 0:42:06 GMT -5
I'm not sure that kids are...born this way. You're describing antisocial personalities, which arise through conditioning and deep trauma. Just as an FYI, there are some that seem to come through environment and some that seem to come through genetics (the old nature vs. nurture debate)... There is no conclusive evidence that *prove* it is always soley genetics or soley environment. In many cases, it's probably a mixture of both, to varying degrees depending on the particular case, and sometimes soley one or the other. For example, there are solid cases of "born sociopaths" that are birthed into wonderful caring homes, who begin sticking needles into animals at an early age (or their baby sister, etc), much to the parents bewilderment and horror...
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Post by km on Jun 10, 2010 6:55:03 GMT -5
I don't consider myself antisocial because I have awareness that I feel this way about babies and can make the choice not to have one or be a caretaker for one. Well, no, I wasn't talking about you or childfree people or anyone here. I was talking about the characteristics that coleslaw delineated (e.g. lack of empathy, poor impulse control, etc. Characteristics that are associated with antisocial personality disorder.).
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Post by freefromtyranny on Jun 10, 2010 7:17:53 GMT -5
I think you all are forgetting that we are talking about real people here. Real people have empathy and compassion and they care when people they love are suffering. So, ya, the reason why these kids don't tell their parents to go jump in a lake is because they know their parents are overworked and overwhelmed. They want to help as much as they can because they are empathetic. They don't have the life experiences to understand that life with 2 kids is different than life with 8. Plus, they are taught that children are a blessing. I know in my house we truly do enjoy babies and we love to ooh and aah over every little thing they do. As an adult I understand all the responsibility that goes along with the chubby cheeks and fat thighs but kids don't get that connection until they are much older. They just know they feel stressed out and unable to meet the high expectations. Don't forget, QF families are people too. The parents really do love their kids and the kids really love their parents and their siblings. Is it so odd to imagine the dynamic that everyone is trying to help everyone but the work gets redistributed unfairly? That's what happens. There is no sinister intent. It just gets messy and people's needs go unmet.
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Post by coleslaw on Jun 10, 2010 7:46:59 GMT -5
I think you all are forgetting that we are talking about real people here. Real people have empathy and compassion and they care when people they love are suffering. So, ya, the reason why these kids don't tell their parents to go jump in a lake is because they know their parents are overworked and overwhelmed. They want to help as much as they can because they are empathetic. They don't have the life experiences to understand that life with 2 kids is different than life with 8. Plus, they are taught that children are a blessing. I know in my house we truly do enjoy babies and we love to ooh and aah over every little thing they do. As an adult I understand all the responsibility that goes along with the chubby cheeks and fat thighs but kids don't get that connection until they are much older. They just know they feel stressed out and unable to meet the high expectations. Don't forget, QF families are people too. The parents really do love their kids and the kids really love their parents and their siblings. Is it so odd to imagine the dynamic that everyone is trying to help everyone but the work gets redistributed unfairly? That's what happens. There is no sinister intent. It just gets messy and people's needs go unmet. from my first post above: People who are out at the extremes in terms of social behavior are just as real as the ones who are bunched in the middle. I don't see anything wrong with my wondering what happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object. Having said that, I think my questioned was answered as best as anyone can answer it, and we can all go back to telling Kiery that she did the right thing, waiting until she was of legal age to leave home and start her own life. It must be very painful that her parents can't see that as a success on their part.
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Post by arietty on Jun 10, 2010 21:17:42 GMT -5
I think you all are forgetting that we are talking about real people here. Real people have empathy and compassion and they care when people they love are suffering. So, ya, the reason why these kids don't tell their parents to go jump in a lake is because they know their parents are overworked and overwhelmed. They want to help as much as they can because they are empathetic. They don't have the life experiences to understand that life with 2 kids is different than life with 8. Plus, they are taught that children are a blessing. I know in my house we truly do enjoy babies and we love to ooh and aah over every little thing they do. As an adult I understand all the responsibility that goes along with the chubby cheeks and fat thighs but kids don't get that connection until they are much older. They just know they feel stressed out and unable to meet the high expectations. Don't forget, QF families are people too. The parents really do love their kids and the kids really love their parents and their siblings. Is it so odd to imagine the dynamic that everyone is trying to help everyone but the work gets redistributed unfairly? That's what happens. There is no sinister intent. It just gets messy and people's needs go unmet. QUOTED FOR GREATNESS. And some families are happy families, just stressed and unbalanced in some ways.
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Post by Ex-Adriel on Jun 10, 2010 23:11:13 GMT -5
I think that the "extreme" kids are the ones who either run away young, or who go into total shut-down mode. There was a family at one of my mother's crazy churches where the two older girls were essentially zombies. They never talked after church (other than please and thank you and short answers to direct statements made to them, and always with their eyes on their parents), they never smiled with their eyes, they just sat like bumps on logs, did what they were told, held the babies on each hip, and followed their parents around with dead faces in this permanent 'pleasant' expression.
I think maybe they weren't into the super foster-parent sibling thing, and simply got beaten down emotionally or physically until they just crawled up inside their heads and shut down. Back then, I simply thought they were boring girls. Every other woman in the church praised them constantly, however, specifically for their Godly behavior and their child-rearing skills.
If you can't physically escape, you'll go somewhere else mentally - I personally think that happens a lot.
Also, the 'tools' for constructive defiance aren't something you encounter in super-fundie families, so even if you are a more defiant or individual personality, the most you can do with no outside guidance is essentially a temper tantrum. That's not going to get you anywhere, especially in an environment that really pushes 'maturity' onto you in a quick hurry.
I don't really know how I feel about that - on the one hand, pliant, easy-going kids probably don't take the control and overbearing responsibility as hard as the 'individualistic' kids. So the actual experience is likely not quite as awful for them.
On the other hand, the ones who are more defiant and persistent about their personhood, partly because they are defiant, but also because it is more terrible for them to experience that level of control and domination, those kids are the ones who are more likely to actually make it out of that horrible environment.
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