The romance industry conflates finding love with looking a certain way, and it’s hard even for the strongest of us not to internalize messages about the way we look. And worse, these messages are normalized. Just think of things people say when they are getting ready to date someone: ‘He’s cute,’ ‘He’s short,’ ‘He’s kind of chubby,’ ‘He’s tall and fine.’ Or men: ‘I prefer slender girls,’ ‘I’m not really into fat girls,’ ‘I prefer Asian chicks,’ and on and on. It is completely acceptable to say the most appalling things about the way people look when it comes to dating, and if someone is called out for it, their opinion becomes a matter of ‘preference.’

What gets ignored in calling this level of categorization ‘just preference’ is a history and culture of mainstream advertising that impacts our psychology, causing us to actually want to respond to certain things over others. It’s hardly a coincidence that people are attracted to images of femininity that have been beaten into their psyches….We are taught to prefer certain things over others, and when we repeatedly see the same exaggerated images of femininity and masculinity, we internalize a specific standard of beauty and begin to strive for it unconsciously. Considering the exaggerated nature of these kinds of images, preference is not really a ‘preference’; it is more like a culturally sanctioned fetish.

–Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Outdated: Why Dating Is Ruining Your Love Life

(via Queering the Game of Life)

#booksthatneedtobeonmyreadinglist

Dear Friday, I feel like I say this every week, but I’m so glad that you’re here! I’ve been looking forward to you all week, and know I feel like it’s time to celebrate! Wahoo! Lots of fantastic plans for this weekend- movie night with my husband, possibly a furry, four legged friend, and lastly, but most importantly, a birthday celebration for my great-grandmother! 90 years old! So much to look forward to, and it wouldn’t be possible without you, Friday!

Dear Spring Weather, You finally decided to stick around! And you better believe we’ve been taking full advantage of this awesome weather- dining alfresco with our new patio furniture, grilling out, watching the little baby ducks across the street- this has been the most perfect spring week!

Dear Husband, We got so much done this week! It feels so good to make progress on those projects that have been in the back of our minds for so long! Such a rewarding feeling! Thanks for keeping me motivated throughout the whole painting process- you are incredible! I can’t wait to see the finished product! Hard to believe a basement is so exciting, but you’ve seen it, you know how fantastic it looks! But mostly, I just want to thank you. For believing in me. For believing in this blog. For having dreams as big as mine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You are the most incredible man I have ever known, and I am so beyond blessed to be your wife! I love, love, love you.

Dear Friends, Followers, and Faithful Readers, What a week! What a week! We keep growing, reaching new goals, and having a smashing good time! And it’s all thanks to you guys! I may dream big dreams, but you are the ones making those dreams a reality. You are the best readers this little blogger could ever want or need! I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! Enjoy the sunshine!

Sociologically, things that are sacred are “elements beyond everyday life that inspire respect, awe, and even fear” (Witt 192). Simply put, things that are sacred need to be taken seriously because they are holy. Sacred things, however, all depend on what religion you adhere to. Praying 5 times a day is sacred to Muslims, but not necessarily to Christians. Bread becomes sacred to Christians when taking communion, but to most people, bread is just bread. Most times, people interact with the sacred through rituals. Rituals are “practices required or expected of members of a faith” (Witt 195). Every religion has numerous rituals for many different things. Christians have the ritual of communion, water baptism, confession, prayer, and many others. Muslims have the ritual of prayer, different holidays, a hajj, and many more, I’m sure. Each group has sacred rituals that, essentially, make up their religion.

Each person defines what is sacred to them based on their religious beliefs. Religious beliefs are, “statements to which members of a particular religion adhere” (Witt 194). There are hundreds of religions around the world and each one has its own set of widely varying beliefs. Some believe in a God, some believe in no God, some believe in many Gods, and some even believe aliens will come and take us to our next lives. For many people, what religion you are depends on how you grew up as a child. Some religions are very strict about their beliefs. This refers to the term fundamentalism. It’s when people “rigidly adhere to core religious doctrines” (Witt 194). When I think of fundamentalists, I think of the people who never cut their hair and only eat certain things because they take what’s in the Bible literally. In the Bible, women weren’t supposed to cut their hair, so they adhere to that standard because they view it as sacred. It seems like a very legalistic approach to religion, but they only do these things because they believe it is sacred.

On the flip side of this coin are things defined as profane. The profane are simply things that are “ordinary and commonplace” (Witt 193). As with things that are sacred, things that are profane vary between religions as well. A menorah might be sacred to Jews, but to others it’s just a fancy candle holder. As we grow up we learn, through our parents, what things are sacred and what things are profane. I think we can apply these words, not only in religion, but in other situations as well. If parents believe than drinking is wrong and show that to their kids, their kids will pick up on that and believe it as well. The parents have, in a way, placed not drinking in the sacred category and told their kids they need to uphold these standards. This is just one example, but there are many different applications for things that are sacred or profane, even if you’re not religious.

I grew up in the Pentecostal church, so I understand Christianity better than other religions. In my experience, I’ve found that some things can transform from profane to sacred. For example, I think the order of service has become sacred to the church. No one told us this is the way a service is held; it’s just always been that way. If that, somehow, changes, people will get upset because we are messing with what they believe to be sacred. When you mess with things that are perceived as sacred, you better watch out. People guard what is sacred to them with everything they’ve got and don’t want to give it up. I think the church needs to evaluate what is truly sacred and what is, in actuality, profane. People in the church always seem to be arguing about the carpet color or how to run the nurseries, or something of the sort. Are these really things worth arguing about? Are these things truly sacred to the church, or are they just profane? These are the questions, I believe, the church needs to ask themselves.

Not only does the church need to ask these questions, but I think each person, individually, needs to ask these questions. People need to find out what things are truly worth fighting for and what things are inconsequential. Everyone seems to be fighting for every little detail of life, when they should be compromising on the little things and choosing their battles wisely. Don’t waver on what is truly sacred to you, but if something is profane, normal and not holy, allow the possibility that it could be changed. For example, I firmly believe that there is a God and that he loves me. I’m not going to let anyone tell me otherwise. I also believe that Captain Crunch is delicious. Captain Crunch is profane, while my belief in God is sacred to me. Just because I think that cereal is good doesn’t mean I’m going to put it on a pedestal and fight for it. This is a dramatic example, but the concept still applies. Don’t let all the profane things in life become more than they really are. Find for yourself what you truly believe to be sacred and fight for it.

Works Cited

Witt, Jon. Soc. Ed. Gina Boedeker. 2011th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2011. N. pag. Print.

*****

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

*****

“I didn’t know it yet, but it was the first day of the rest of my life.”

I got older and middle school went by and it was time for high school.  My freshmen year, I met a new set of friends. They were the goth kids and they were awesome. All fucked up, suicidal, death metal freaks, but they were still christians.

My parents hated these kids.

At one point in time, my mother accused them of turning me into a lesbian because I didn’t have boyfriends. Never mind that I was not allowed to date and every attempt had ended brutally at their hand. It didn’t matter these girls were straight. I was hanging out with these strange girls and they were making me a lesbian.

When that tactic didn’t work, my mother tried to convince me that they were witches. She even had our pastor come visit and lecture me on the “appearance of evil.” They appeared evil. This didn’t work either, I was prepared with verses to counter his. When that failed, my parents decided they were going to put me in a girls’ reform boarding school. They wouldn’t take me. I had bad grades, but I was good kid. I didn’t smoke, I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t drink, I didn’t skip school, I wasn’t having sex. With the exception of my grades, I was a perfect teenager. I never once got in trouble at school.

I did not misbehave until the stress broke me.

The stress of all the pressure and the attempts to separate me from my only friends and still regular beatings with a belt, drove me to self harm. At the age of 15 I started cutting myself. My mother’s tactic for dealing with this was to hypothetically lecture me on how stupid it was to cut yourself, but she never actually acknowledged that I was doing it.

I cut myself for 3 years without anyone ever trying to stop me.

I made a couple more normal friends as well in high school and my senior year, I started attending church with them. It was there, a senior in highschool at the age of 18 that I met my future husband, but I didn’t know it yet. Honestly, the first time I met him, I thought he was giant ass. We had an argument on tithing in youth group. He believed there were legitimate financial reasons for not tithing. I did not

A month later, the church held a camp out. I had to beg and plead at the age of 18 to be allowed to attend a camping trip where boys would be present. Never mind that all of the adults were going too — there would be boys!

On that trip, my mother’s worst nightmare came true. I met a boy. An older boy.

We had our first date, he took me to a movie. I had to be home at 9 pm. She told me that she wouldn’t stop me, but that it was very inappropriate that Brian hadn’t come to ask my father for permission to date me. Before I could see him again, after this date, he would have to come meet my parents. So the next Saturday, I had him over for lunch. I had to show that I could be a good house wife. So I had to top to bottom clean the house and cook the entire meal by myself from scratch.

This wasn’t because of  Brian. He didn’t care.

My parents however, thought this was going to be a traditional Christian courtship and if I didn’t show off my womanly skills, he would find someone else.  Lunch went fine, and my partly tattooed 20 year old boyfriend showed up. Begrudgingly, my parents gave their consent, mostly because I was 18.

Sunday, after church Brian and his family invited me to go play miniature golf. I called my parents to ask permission and they gave it, even though they didn’t sound like they liked the idea. I stayed all day, had a wonderful time and made sure I was home by 9 pm.

When I got home, all hell broke loose. My parents hadn’t told me, but they had wanted to go grocery shopping that evening, but they would not leave the house while I was gone with my boyfriend. I had a 5 minute screaming match at the front door because I was home on time and they never mentioned I needed to be home sooner.

Sobbing, I walked to my bedroom and opened the door.

My bed had flipped upside down.

All of the clothes from my dresser had been pulled out and thrown on the floor the clothes were ripped from my closet and lying on the floor. My beside table drawers had been ripped out and dumped. My room was in shambles.

I turned around, walked out of my room to the kitchen, got a drink of water and my mother came in. She pointed to a pile of clothes on the floor and said, “You need to put these away and clean that awful mess in your room.”

I snapped and started screaming at her at the top of my lungs. My room had been spotless, I wasn’t putting away a damn thing (it may have been the first time I had ever sworn) and she needed to fix what she had done to my room because she had no right.

Then I heard the door knob.

Dad was home, I didn’t know dad was home.

For some perspective. I was 5 ft tall and weighed maybe 120 lbs. My father had almost a foot and more than 100 lbs on me. My stomach sank and I started running for the front door. He caught me and slammed me into the fridge. I pushed him off me and started running the down the hall to my room. He caught me again. I slapped him to try to get him off me. He swung me around and started choking me.

My mother screamed.

He let me go and I locked myself in my room. He told me through the door that I was no longer allowed to leave the house unless it was for school. No church, no extracurriculars, nothing. Then he hid the phones and went to bed. I couldn’t call the police, I couldn’t leave because they had set the alarm and even if I could get out, we lived almost 8 miles out of town and it was cold.  I sat on my bed holding my baseball bat all night waiting for my dad to come after me.

The next morning, after no sleep, I packed the $20 I had to my name and a couple changes of clothes into my backpack and got on the bus. I never went back home. I didn’t know it yet, but it was the first day of the rest of my life. It was only going to get better from here.

After school, my youth pastor picked me up and drove me to a battered woman’s shelter. The next day, the police tried to get my parents to release me the rest of my clothing. They refused and I declined to press charges. Between the church, my boyfriend and the shelter, they replaced everything I owned. I had never had new clothes before. All of my clothes came from goodwill and the dav. They looked awful, they were torn, and I only had two pairs of jeans and a couple shirts anyway. I ended up better off in that respect.

I endured several months of harassment. My parents tried to find the shelter I was staying at. Also had one very failed attempt at family counseling.

I ended up staying at my youth pastor’s house and dropping out of high school.  I couldn’t maintain a full time job, school, and my church duties — and, for the first time, a social life. About a year later, Brian and I  married. Now, almost 10 years later, my husband and I are happy, non-believing parents to three beautiful children.

Over the years, I have tried a couple times to form a relationship with my parents. However, it never worked out and I eventually ended up cutting them out of my life entirely. I am happy, healthy, and I have the family I never thought I could have.

My children are thriving in public school and the difference between them and myself at their age sometimes hits me like a brick wall. They are happy, they aren’t afraid me or my husband and they love it when daddy is home. They have friends and all three are such different people with distinct personalities. The monster in the closet isn’t a demon coming to possess or kill them. And when they do get scared, they come running to mommy instead of freezing in fear unable to move.

They are loved and can be themselves.

I think that is all any child ever really needs.

End of series.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I’m concerned about Bertie’s current worsening aggression towards other dogs and the fact he never gets to socialize.  The dog he gets along most with in the village is an 8 year old Jack Russell called Sydney.  If we’re passing Syd’s house, and he’s at the gate, Bertie will happily go over and sniff at him through the bars.  Of course, it’s a completely different kettle of fish if Syd happens to be passing our house, when Bert launches himself at the gate barking like a mentalist and scaring a bewildered Sydney half to death.  Sadly the dogs have never actually played together because it wasn’t considered safe for either dog to be on the other dog’s territory.   So I came up with the bright idea of getting them together in a nearby field to see if I could get them to do…….well, whatever it is that dogs do when they’re stuck in a field together!

So last Sunday I called in to see Anne & Frank, Syd’s owners, and asked if I could borrow their mutt for a bit of canine interaction.  They thought this was a fabulous idea, as Syd can be very barky at other dogs too and consequently doesn’t socialize much either, though I think we were all secretly petrified that the experiment would turn into a doggie bloodbath!

There was high excitement as we set off in a tangle of arms and leads as the dogs circled each other warily and then simultaneously tried to shove their noses up each other’s bum, but within a few minutes we’d reached the field and I nervously let both dogs loose praying they’d be nice and not try to kill each other.  Syd raced off like a bullet, exploring the field and running in circles like a loony-toons, while Bert promptly ignored him and sat in-front of me waiting for his ball (we go to the field fairly regularly for a game which goes something like this: Mum throws the ball.  Bert chases the ball.  Bert worries the ball like it’s a rabbit.  Bert never brings the ball back – he loves this game).  So I throw the ball, then have a heart attack as both Bert and Syd make a dash for it.  Shit!  Bert’s gonna kill Sydney if he gets there first!  Luckily Bert has 4 years on Sydney and manages to grab the ball and whisk it out of harms way.  Syd looks gutted and trots after him in the vain hope he’ll drop the prize and it can be stolen.  No such luck.  Poor Syd has to make do with a stick which, as an added bonus, he also gets to eat .

15 minutes of ball throwing and stick chewing later and the boys have managed to completely ignore each other.  Not a glance in each other’s direction or a single sign of canine play (I constantly read about dog’s play-bowing and other appeasement behaviours, but Bert wouldn’t know a play-bow if it came up and bit him on the nose!).  So we decide to call it a day, thankful at least there’d been no fisticuffs and that both dogs had spent time in each other’s vicinity, if not each other’s company .

I cut Bert’s nails about every 4 weeks and have it down to a fine art.  Apart from one of his back dew claws.  Every time I go near it Bertie yelps and I keep putting off trimming it.  But it’s currently so long it’s about to dig into his paw pad, so it desperately needs doing.  I know I just have to bite the bullet and cut it, whether it hurts Bert or not, but the sound of him crying makes me feel physically ill and I’m still putting it off.  I’m even considering taking him to the vets and getting the nurse to do it, but I’d feel a complete numpty having to take Bertie to the vet for something so trivial and which I should be able to do myself.  I really must make a decision and do something about the situation, I’m just not quite sure what!

Not too long ago, I went to a seminar held at my college which had a large number of booths talking about both child and domestic violence. A very worthy cause, if you ask me. However, there was one booth that both caught my eye and unleashed more then a little fury in me. No, not because it was talking about a bad subject, but because the subject it was covering was outrageous. It was making a lot of claims, but it all came down to (and said on the handout they gave me) that “media is a form of child abuse.” Word for word, that is exactly what the hand out says. I even have it right next to me as I write this article. It is my goal then, in this little blog, to voice why I believe that Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, the man behind a different seminar where he spoke about this, doesn’t know what he’s talking about (at least according to this hand out).

Because the worksheet I was given by this booth was poorly formatted, I might be jumping around some so please forgive the haphazard order these will be coming in.

First, let’s start with the claims against media this booth was making. The booth claimed that violent TV shows, movies, video games, and music leads an increase in violence, bullying, and obesity. He claims that brain scan research conclusively proves that kids with violence exposure in games, TV, and movies also prove that media increases violence. The claim is also made that media can lead to sleep deprivation. The worksheet I received even goes so far as to claim that iPods are negative and should be banned in schools without citing a single source. He even makes the claim that simply reducing the amount of time a kid spends watching TV will increase their math grades and their verbal skills (by 15% and 18% respectively). Finally, I come to the claim that hit me right where it hurts. According to the worksheet, video games create sleeping disorders, creates depression, and, finally, increase suicide. I am a huge gamer and have been ever since I was a little kid. I am even planning on going into the gaming industry as a programmer once I get more experience under my belt. I have long been keeping a close eye on video game violence, as well as the laws and research made around it. However, those three claims are truly three of the most outrageous claims I have heard on the subject. Well, they were before he also made the claim that “adults [are] not effected due to mentally preparedness. Violent visual imagery okay with adults, not kids.” For such a high ranking U.S. Army veteran, it astonishes me that he’d make the claim that adults seeing violent imagery has no effect on them.

Alright, I’ve ranted enough about what’s on the actual paper. Now let me do my best to explain why these claims are either false or unjustified. Any claims made here that media causes an increase in violence and bullying, as of the writing of this article, does not have much ground. Not because there have been no studies that prove that statement correct. There have been quite a few. But because there have also been a lot of studies that say otherwise. Most studies done on the subject, most of all on video games, were either done by a partisan group (hence making them biased and working towards an intended result) or did not take all variables into account. And, more specifically, trying to connect video games to violence these days is nearly impossible. There are so many households that have a video game console and at least one violent video game that you might as well be trying to see if Crest toothpaste causes violence. It has become so common that making the connection has become nearly impossible. And of course playing a violent game will make your brain light up in sections that show violence. Just like your brain would likely light up in sections that show fear when you watch a horror movie. Simulations are just that. Simulations. Just because the brain lights up to show your brain is showing violent activity does not mean a healthy mind will do violent acts.

I don’t even think I need to justify why the claim that iPods are negative and should be banned from schools needs to be justified. They’re iPods. You know, music players. The only difference between an iPod and a CD player is that the music is stored digitally instead of on a disk. Banning them from schools just creates another thing for school faculty to police. My high school just dropped the whole ban and simply said “don’t listen to music during class lectures”. Seems that option has worked much better in the school’s favor. An increase in grades should also be expected if parents aren’t making sure their kids aren’t goofing off instead of doing homework. Just like any hobby, media related activities take up time and are often fun to do. More fun then homework, obviously. So if a child is cut off from goofing off, of course their grades are likely to go up.

Finally, I come to the last few big ones. Video games increasing depression and even suicide. These claims are so foreign to me that I sent an email to Grossman requesting his sources. I have heard that bullying causes depression and suicide, but he couldn’t possibly be saying that video games create bullying so they also increase suicide. That would be like saying drinking causes drunk driving which can lead to people dying which can then lead to children losing parents which means that drinking creates orphans. Or saying that guns can cause property damage which could make someone homeless so guns can make people homeless. And even the two examples I gave have some basis in proven fact. As I stated, any connection between violence and video games is still being debated and tested.

But the last claim is something I’d really like to examine. Adults are not effected by violent imagery. This coming from someone who was once in the United States Army is appalling. Of course adults can be effected by violent imagery. I’m wondering if you’ve heard of something called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, better known as PTSD. It is often caused when a person experiences something, as the condition suggests, extremely traumatic which can result in constantly reliving the event, avoidance (emotional numbing, feeling detached, showing less of your moods, etc), or arousal (difficulty concentrating, startling easily, feeling irritable or having outbursts of anger, etc). The reason I bring this up is because, in case you haven’t figured it out already, PTSD is a serious problem for veterans of war. Ironically enough, video games are actually being used to help veterans recover from PTSD by giving virtual simulations of going to a mall or attending a kid’s parent teacher conference. If this isn’t evidence that adults can be effected by violent imagery, I don’t know what is.

Overall, it’s obvious this guy is trying to tackle something he doesn’t quite understand. Yes, everything he claims does have some basis in fact. I will freely admit that video games and other violent media can act as a catalyst to violence. But never as the cause. Never in a healthy, mentally sound mind. And I will admit that video games can result in sleep deprivation in kids. But only if you actually stay up late playing video games. The only reason video games can cause sleep deprivation without playing late is through mental stimulation. And if that’s really a problem, then maybe you should stop playing so close to bed time. In the end, the media, violent or otherwise, will only effect someone as much as they let it. Parents, you can’t hide your children from the media. These days, it is everywhere. Instead of putting a blindfold over your children, actually try and explain it. Perhaps if children have the correct context for the violence that’s on the screen, the violence wont act as a catalyst towards other things.

SOURCES:

Board, A.D.A.M. 2013.  Editorial. “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.” Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Jan. 0001. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.

Veteran Journal.  2013.  “Play Therapy for PTSD | Veteranjournal.com.” Veteran Journal. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Phoebe” is a pseudonym.

It was awkwardly quiet in the car as my words settled. They echoed in my own brain, I could only imagine what Michael was thinking.

“I have the highest respect for you, but I don’t think we can keep dating. I feel like I need to find someone who is more like-minded.”

The problem was, Michael was not a homeschooler and did not come from an evangelical background like I did, just the opposite in fact. His family was laid back about spirituality and never addressed it with structured religious custom. Pressure from my homeschooling family and friends and internal guilt had brought me to this point. I was sitting in the car with him having this awkward conversation because I felt there was no other option. I had grown up in a cloistered, homogenous community and I needed to find someone who would help me create the same kind of community for my own future children. This had been made clear to me when my family found out what kind of man I was dating.

When he graciously hugged me despite his confusion and left the car without looking back, I felt the old loneliness unpacking its bags and moving back into my heart.

For me, the story of being homeschooled was a story of being told to sit down and shut up. “An ideal woman is quiet and submissive,” I was told time and time again. As a weird, geeky, slightly tomboyish girl, I certainly didn’t fit that description at all. I ran around in the woods for hours at a time, I loved competitive debate, Cheese-Its and oversized cargo pants. My stubborn, goofy personality did not fit well in the sheltered, pressure-cooker that is the homeschooling culture.

My family followed the Quiverfull doctrine, which meant I was told that I was an arrow in my parent’s quiver, to be shot out into the world for God’s glory. As time went on, I began to realize that girl arrows get a much narrower, more specific target than boy arrows. They are to become wives and mothers or celibate missionaries. End of story.

At the local homeschooling meetups, it was hard for me to find a place in the circles of thin, whispy girls who were being groomed to be homeschooling mothers and wives. The pressure to be quiet, mousy and seemingly perfect was very high. I tried. I wore dresses and grew my hair out long. I read and quoted books about meekness and godly womanhood, and did my best to avoid hugging boys.

Ultimately, I wasn’t happy. I would hear the adults debate about how women were to be silent in the church. I would hear my dad yelling at my mother, telling her she was not a submissive wife. I would hear girls and mothers gossip about each other and use nasty words for whoever wasn’t ladylike enough. I saw the thousand mile stare and deadpan look on my mom’s face when she opted yet again to check-out, bottle up everything she was thinking and let her bitterness grow. I watched as other homeschooling mothers picked our family apart, criticizing us and pushing my mom around, spreading lies and rumors about each of us that my mother refused to refute. After years spent in this oppressively judgmental and chauvinistic environment, I listened to what I was told. I shut up just to avoid attention and judgment. I hoped to go unnoticed so no one would point out how inadequate I was. The silence and submission I was pushed into was ultimately a place of loneliness, bitterness and almost crippling insecurity. I wanted to get out, but I didn’t know how.

I went to the local college despite my parent’s discouragement. College (especially for women) is clearly contrary to the beliefs of many very zealous home-educators. In class, I met women who spoke up when they had something to say (sometimes even when they didn’t) without anyone thinking anything of it. Women who taught and led classes with passion and a certain touch of oddness that was all their own. They didn’t fit the submissive woman cookie-cutter shape I had grown up with. They were themselves. They were more feminine with their pant suits, unkempt hair and unabashed geek-out sessions than anyone else I had met. I wholeheartedly believe this is true because didn’t feel judged by them and I didn’t feel like less of a woman myself when I was around them. In my mind, that is a huge part of being truly feminine, letting other women feel comfortable being themselves around you. I cut my hair short, I got clothes that fit and I raised my hand in class.

Then I met Michael and we started dating. Michael is goofy, he is curious, he asks questions. He drew me out of my shell, took my hand and encouraged me to stand up and say something. We got into debates and he never once told me to shut up or submit. He was one of the first men I met who didn’t feel like women were solely meant to be homemakers; he helped me build a new confidence in the possibilities that were ahead of me.

Things got rough for Michael and I when my family and friends in the homeschooled circles realized what was going on. I was encouraged to dump him. I was told the path I was going down was dangerous. I was told our future children would go to hell, for sure. Michael was aggressively witnessed to by my family and friends almost constantly. He and I began to argue about religion and conservative beliefs almost every time we went out. I desperately wanted him to sit down with me, to shut up with me, so we could just quietly carry on and go unnoticed and free from judgment. Maybe if he would just nod his head in public and let the judgment pass us by.

He wouldn’t have any of that, so I tearfully dumped him. I decided in that moment that I would rather be comfortable, miserable and silent than be with the man I loved.

It took time, but we stayed in touch and slowly our friendship grew again. It became obvious that he was the man I wanted to be with and that the homogenous, fear-based homeschooling environment I had lived in for so long was holding me back from the life I now knew I really wanted. I wanted to be part of a family that could be open and honest and be married to a man who treated me as a true partner and an equal and respected my thoughts and goals. Two years later, on a pleasantly chilly day, we were married. My family and friends are still unhappy that this arrow went off target, but slowly they are learning to accept my husband and I for what we are and I am learning to stand up for myself around them.

With time I came to understand that my purpose on earth is not determined by my parents or the judgments of the homeschooling community. It can be hard to think and decide for yourself when you grow up without any autonomy, stuck at home with all your life decisions and friends carefully picked out for you. Sometimes, I get overwhelmed and slip back into passivity or dysfunction. I know this is frustrating for my husband to see, but he encourages me to step out of it.  Slowly, I am discovering how to communicate and take charge of my own life.

I am grateful to be away from an environment where women are told to sit down and shut up. Michael and I are slowly building a new family culture from the ground up, one that’s founded on mutual respect, openness and love. I hope if we ever have children, they will never feel like powerless arrows that their parents just shoot at set targets. I hope they will know that they are free to choose their own future, and that they will be prepared to take responsibility for doing so.

After homeschooling, this next phase of my life has become more than just a love story. It is about breaking the silence and learning to speak out for myself.

As I’ve improved my skills at both I’ve found that my skill in partnering allows me to do a lot more of my own dancing. I don’t have to concentrate quite so hard on what my partner is asking me to do, which frees up a lot of energy and time to work in my own variations, or body movements, or do things just to match the music. I feel like these things still let me dance with my partner. The most amazing follows that I’ve lead do very similar. They do their own interpretations of the ideas that I start us out with. Sometimes it’s jaw dropping levels of amazing how someone can mold and shape their ideas while keeping true to our dance. I’ve danced with the opposite. Follows who cared very much about what their dance was, and didn’t pay close attention to partnering. Where I felt I had to be very firm to get their attention at all, taking any subtlety out of my leading (not that I’m super subtle to start).

However there is one type of person that will ruin both my partnering and my dancing. The person who will lead me into others on the dance floor. For a good dance, especially when I am following, I need to be able to trust the person I’m dancing with. To partner well I need to know that they aren’t sending me into danger. Otherwise I spend the dance worrying about looking after myself. This introduces anxiety and with the anxiety I become tense and that washes my dancing down the drain.

Happy May!  It’s so hard to believe that we’re starting the fifth month of 2013!!!

It’s almost 9 and the kids are just waking up!   We’re trying to get in as much outside time as possible before it starts to get hot!

Yesterday one of my dearest friends came to visit.

One of the first things she said was how friendly and bright my kids are.

I’m sure every. single. homeschool. parent. with a blog has blogged about the perception that our children are “weird homeschool kids”.  They aren’t socialized.   How on Earth will they relate to their peers?  Will they be able to function in society?

I want to climb to the top of the tree fort and shout, “YES!!!  They are normal kids!!!”

At age 5 the biggest thing I’ve noticed is Katie’s lack of “must have” items.  She doesn’t need a certain pair of shoes/pants/doll baby to feel cool or popular.  I love that.  I was in first grade during the “Great Cabbage Patch Craze”.    I really wanted one, but they were sold out everywhere.  I wound up with a homemade doll.  I took it to school and was immediately exiled from the other girls because mine wasn’t the real deal.  I don’t want my kids to learn that the stuff we own defines who we are.

My sister’s kindergartner came home from school all upset because one of his friends told him he couldn’t be friends with him anymore if he kept playing with the little Mexican boy in class.  I don’t want my kids to learn racism from their peers.  We’re all one human race.

I want my kids to learn:
to help others when they can …………. not to judge others when they are down and out

to love and care for our community

to always be on the lookout for new friends  and so much more.

I’m so privileged to be their mom!

I swear, Maggie’s tail is only tucked in a few of these pictures because of the camera.  She was a total rock star at the event.  It is absolutely amazing to look back on the first event and compare it to this one.  It’s like she’s a whole new girl.  Go Moo girl, go!

It’s not as though I don’t enjoy socialising in person, but it’s a lot of effort, and my mind is always preoccupied with thoughts of “why are these people even listening to me, instead of telling me to go die and rot in a hole?”

At work, when someone leaves the company, they often send around an email providing everyone with their personal email address. I can’t recall once ever feeling like I should save the email to contact them in the future because they would want to hear from me. Waah, poor me. The same applied to people I went to school with – some would add me on facebook, but for the most part, I’d have no feeling that there were people I should be in contact with. I wasn’t the sort of person that stayed in contact with friends for years after school or uni. I’d make an effort for a while, but if I stopped, that was the last of it until Facebook.

With that little corner of the internet, suddenly I had people I hadn’t spoken to years connected to me. Wouldn’t you know it though? I rarely spoke to them there at all. The few times I attempted to talk to some, there’d be little to no response. Consistently so. So I started dropping people off. Occasionally they’d notice, and one guy thought it was because he’d been a jerk – but it really came down to life. If I saw this person on the street, did I expect that they’d stop to say hi, or that they’d even recognise me?

No.

I actually get most interaction with other people from Twitter, but the interactions are always so short – and prone to misinterpreting.

Here and there make a nice change. I interact with people I generally don’t know, and more or less feel like they’re doing it because they want to. I know if I suddenly stopped having a presence in either space, it would go unnoticed. I’m a realist in that sense. Or pessimist, maybe. It does provide some source of joy, though – there’s quite a few people that I occassionally interact with on the internet that I’d love to talk about writing or games or movies or society or… lots, over a coffee or wine or whatever.

But hey, realist. Those things aren’t going to happen.

But we still have the comments and the tweets.

*****

In this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

*****

I showed up for school with my back pack on, my lunch packed, my patent leather white dress shoes and my frilliest pink dress.  I marched straight up to the first girl my age, stuck out my hand and said “Hi, my name is Jessica and I think we’re just going to be the best of friends.” She laughed at me, and walked away talking about me to her friends.

I was completely socially inept.

I had never been around other children. The only other child that I had been around regularly was my older brother, so I acted like my autistic older brother.  Every time I spoke, I would compulsively say what I had just said again under my breath to listen myself say it. Literally every sentence. Until the other children started making fun of me for it, I had never realized that other people didn’t do that.  It took me over two years to break that habit and I still do it in my head to make sure what I just said didn’t sound stupid. No one played with me and no one spoke to me except the teachers.

That was just the social aspect. I was capable of all the grade level work the other children were doing, except the math.

However, I had never been in a class room.

When I did my work at home, I would sit at the table, read my books, do my work sheets or tests and then I was done for the day.  It usually took 2-3 hours. I knew nothing about school. My first day, I got in trouble for answering the questions when the teacher asked them. After a couple questions, I realized that the other children were raising their hands and being called on. However, it was too late. I lost my recess and had to write “I will not speak unless spoken to” 150 times. My hand ached and I didn’t speak in class again for weeks.

After the first 9 weeks, I found out that I was failing school. I aced all of my tests but I wasn’t doing any of the assignments I didn’t have the attention span to pay attention in class. I had never had to pay attention for that long before, so I didn’t hear any of the instructions. I didn’t understand, I was doing everything I was asked at school. As much as I heard before I involuntarily spaced out. What I didn’t realize is that I wasn’t done when the day was over. I was supposed to be doing work at home too. I was beaten  for flunking, but no one told me what I was supposed to do to change it. My mom had checked out of our education as soon as the homeschooling was over.

Finally, after failing my 2^nd nine weeks, my teacher started paying attention and realized what was wrong. I didn’t know how to be in school. She kept me in at recess (I didn’t play at recess anyway) every day for a week and taught me how school worked. She explained homework, she moved me to the front row so she could work on keeping my attention. She explained why everything was the way it was and I finally started catching on.

Socially however, was another story. I had no friends. No one would speak to me.

It became even worse after I tried to start a conversation about demons at the lunch table.

My grades came up the first half of the 2^nd semester and after that, I could no longer make myself care. I didn’t belong at home, I didn’t belong at school, the kids were afraid of me, my parents hated me. I had no reason to exist. I stopped doing anything that I did not want to do. I was never going to measure up to the expectations of my family or my peers, so trying was useless.

At the end of the year, my teacher informed my parents that I was not ready to progress to middle school and I was held back to repeat my 5^th grade year. This of course was an abject failure. I had humiliated my parents.  What would the other people in town think? This was always very important. My mother cared deeply about how she appeared to the other people in our small, entirely too nosy town. I went back to school the next year and did nothing at all. I did what I had to do in class so the teacher wouldn’t yell at me and got beatings at home for the straight D’s and F’s on my report card. I didn’t care. They passed me anyway.

In Middle School, the social aspect of school started to become easier. I made some friends, yes they were the other weird kids, but they were my friends. The age of 12 brought new difficulties with it. I was starting to be interested in boys and this was unacceptable. I was allowed to go to school, but I was not allowed to go to any school social events. Dances were immoral and there was no reason to be pursuing boys until at least the age of 16 if not 18. Sports were a frivolous waste of time, so I did not need to go to those events. Still, they had to let me do something, so middle school began my years of church lock ins and Bible camp.

I will come back to church events.  First I would like to tackle the ideas of privacy and sexuality.  In the sixth grade, I had my first “boyfriend”.  It was completely innocent and consisted note writing, sneaking phone calls and holding hands in the hallway.  It was in stark contrast to what I had been taught.  I was taught that boys were only after sex and that dating was unnecessary and immoral.  So even this completely innocent venture into crush land got me in more trouble than I had been in my entire life.  I had been writing a diary, but I had kept it secret.  I was not allowed to have secrets from my parents.  I accidentally left my diary in room one day and my mother found it.  She went through my room on a near weekly basis.  Something she never did to the boys. I was the one that had to be kept pure. My life went on like this until I left when I was 18.  I would try to have some semblance of self or privacy and it was be swiftly and harshly be stomped out as soon as it was discovered. My thoughts were not my own. I was not allowed to be different, I had to fully give myself to Jesus and my parents.

Church events were the only time I could really be a kid. At the age of 7, I was “saved” at our little baptist church.  However, I didn’t have an emotional coming to Jesus moment. I was sitting in the children’s section. The alter call started and I had never paid attention before. The pastor asked if there was anyone in the room that had never accepted Jesus. I hadn’t done that. So I put up my hand.

Now I have express the sheer lack of emotion in this experience — I had no idea what I was doing. The pastor asked if we had done something and I hadn’t. He was a man and spiritual leader, so I had to do what he said. I would have had the same response if he had asked me if I had brushed my teeth that morning. I went down, I repeated the prayer the lady had me say, and I was done. I did what I was told and then I tried to go sit back down. They wouldn’t let me.

I had to stand in front of the church.

Everyone was cheering, my mom was crying.  I had no idea why. The next Sunday I had to get baptized. At some point in time, I realized that I was supposed to have had an emotional response to this event, so I faked one and played along because for once, people were proud of me.

In middle school, I went to my first church camp. It was wonderful, all the kids were just like me and we got along wonderfully. I didn’t realize until many years later that the reason we got along was because they were all just as socially inept and weird as I was. Still, it was a release. Everything was great, except worship service on the 3^rd day.  We had been having Bible studies, music and praise, but they didn’t have the first alter call until day 3.  We had a long lesson on hell and suffering. Then they outlined the steps of salvation. I had an emotional break down along with about 30 other children. I hadn’t been saved, not properly. I was going to burn in hell. I crawled, sobbing down the isle to the front and terrified, I accepted Jesus. Properly this time. I had such a sense of peace.

I was on fire for Jesus for the rest of the week.

Unfortunately, the assurance wore off and a new sense of terror joined the terror I had about demons and the 2 am hour when my father came home from work. I still wasn’t saved. I had doubts and I was told Jesus would take all my doubts away when I became saved. I must broken, why can’t I get properly saved? The scenario of tearfully crawling my way up to the stage repeated its self at nearly every youth event I attended until I stopped attending youth events at 18.

It never worked.

I never felt saved and it was a constant torment.

To be continued.

Also amusing: a class mate of mine came through nodded at me and said “nice”
“sometimes I need something to obsess on”
“best sort of thing to obsess on”

I love being in a physically based career.

Is it just me, or does time seem to slip away even faster these days? I can’t believe that tomorrow will be May! We’ve just been super busy here at joyosphere and would like to take a moment and rewind to some of our favorite memories…

Most likely to make an entrance: Our little hallway bench that started out life as an upper kitchen cabinet, only to have some legs slapped on for a brand new life in our entryway (which you can read about here). By far one of my favorite pieces in the house- how can you not love something that has been re-purposed for a new lease on life!?

Most likely to be a late bloomer: This one goes to our dear little flower bed out front. While everyone else’s tulips were budding and blooming, ours were just starting to poke through the ground. However, now we have a flower bed just full of different colored tulips and we just love how they look!

Most Mature: That’s right, we signed up for the paper… or at least the Sunday paper… We’re twenty-somethings, how many twenty-something’s do you know who read, let alone subscribe to the newspaper? Don’t get us wrong, we love our Google News, but it’s one of my favorite things to come downstairs on Sunday morning to see Josh sitting in the kitchen with his newspaper (…I still only read the comics…)…

Spring-iest: These flowers. Nothing says “Spring” quite like some fresh flowers. I call them our “just because flowers”, because that’s just what they are. And they came from our favorite flower shop! Got to love early morning errands and the little indulgences in life!

Cutest couple: Okay. I might be just a little bit biased, but come on! Nothing like a night out with some awesome people (who don’t mind taking you picture…. Thanks!) and playing hostess for the weekend! We love showing off our city! But seriously guys, this picture? Cute.

How was your April? What did you guys accomplish last month? Or more importantly, what didn’t you finish this month? We’ve got a few projects on that list… hopefully we’ll get around to those soon!

Psst… you can see February and March’s posts here and here!

You might remember last year when Otie came to visit me at Paws in the Park, and this year my mama was generous enough to bring Johnnie (foster dad was supposed to come too but he was sick, poor guy). I’d been wrestling a lot with the decision of whether or not to have her bring J to this event because there usually hundreds of dogs in attendance. Hundreds, literally. A few weeks ago I was very “noooo way!” to the thought of bringing her, but as Mark and I talked it out, I started to change my mind.  I wanted to give her the chance to have positive new experiences. But Johnnie Cash can be sort of hot and cold with other dogs - which isn’t unusual for a dog, I just didn’t want to set her up to fail by throwing her into an event with a TON of other dogs.

But luckily we had a couple things going for us: it’s an extremely open venue so we wouldn’t get caught in tight quarters which stresses her out, and, for the most part, the other dogs at the event are pretty social too. It’s when another dog reacts towards her that she’s especially prone to a melt down. Also, to be honest, it was probably good that my mom was the one to handle her for the most part. Unfortunately I have become quite the worrier, and I know Johnnie can feel that stress on my end! My mom promised that she’d only stay for as long as J could handle the event, even if it was only five minutes.

So the ultimate result of Johnnie’s trip to Paws in the Park was an exciting, positive experience! I was so, so happy and relieved when she met face to face with a few other dogs and wanted to play, and when she walked by the other attendees without batting an eyelash for the most part. We even tried some agili-dogging! And, no surprise here, she ROCKED it! She’s so confident in trying new things that she thought walking up a skinny beam just for a treat was the best thing ever. Whoever adopts her should really consider agility as a form of exercise and bonding!

As you saw yesterday, she also made a friend with MCHS mascot Henry. She thought he was a big stuffed toy to play with!

I was so proud of her for doing so well. There were many moments when I asked her for her attention by saying, “Hey Johhhhniieeee” in my fun voice, and she checked right in even though there were other dogs around. She is really learning how to focus!

A big thank you to my mama who made this fun break possible during my chaos of running the event. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to bring J and deal with my micromanaging! You are the absolute best Foster G a dog and daughter could ask for.

Since Johnnie came in, made doggy friends and rocked agility, all with no problems, I told my mom they had to leave :-) I was thrilled (and wanted to make sure) to end on such a good note! So in addition to the fact that the humane society raised a ton of money, this event was also a big success for our foster family. Now I have two things to celebrate!

To adopt Johnnie Cash and enjoy fun learning experiences like this one, check out her Adopt Me page.

Recently, I was being interviewed, and the interviewer asked me this:

Why do women have such a difficult time with criticism?”

There’s a hint of a blaming tone in the question, so first things first, let’s set that aside. But then, can we look with curiosity* at why criticism – or the fear of criticism – seems to hold back so many brilliant women?

In the interview, I shared my usual responses about how women are distinctly affected by criticism:

1. Many women value and are deeply attuned to relational harmony and connection, so criticism feels particularly troubling to them. If your life is centered on positive connection and finding common ground with others, criticism hits you differently.

2. Women have been socialized – whether by family, peers, school, or the general culture – to not rock the boat. To be likable and always nice. Doing things that bring criticism is the opposite of that! It challenges our deeply ingrained conditioning. Being criticized also puts us in a tough spot because it’s difficult to stand up for one’s own ideas in the face of criticism, while also maintaining the respectful “nice girl” persona the whole time.

3. Third, research* suggests that women read facial expressions and negative body language with greater precision than men, which means at all times women are literally getting more information about how people are reacting to us. This can be a strategic advantage, but it can also distract us from persevering with a project or idea when others are uncomfortable, resistant, or just not fans.

In the interview, I gave those answers, but then I realized I felt like I hadn’t gotten to the heart of the matter yet.

There was something else there, something I don’t normally talk about, and I wanted to try. So I said this:

“On an even deeper level, my sense is that women cope with living in a highly patriarchal world by trying to find safety and legitimacy through their own competence, through doing everything right.

Criticism can feel like a gash in the middle of something very important we are building – something that will shelter us and keep us safe.”

I know that’s been true for me. Let competence and hard work and doing what the teacher says be my ticket in. Let it be my island of safety too.

I’m feeling my way through this idea. What is that thing we are doing? That I am doing?

It feels to me like always being in scurrying mode, always hiding a little like it’s duck and cover time, and hiding by studying super hard, working super hard, getting it right. Doing it right. Producing work of the highest quality. Yes, because we are smart and competent and we can but also: to be safe. To be on solid ground.

And my sense is that this behavior in me and in other women around me has something to do with trying to find refuge, legitimacy, that ticket in – in a world that has been shaped by a masculine perspective and values.

I want to know how this resonates for you, even if you, like me, don’t quite have a clean or crisp way of articulating what exactly is going on there yet.

Thank you for reading and being on this journey with me.

Love to you,

Tara

My Notes:

• While this is true for most women, it’s even more true for women and I think even male partners of narcissists. I do not know too much about male co-narcissists but do wonder about this. To all the men who are finding value in this blog, I would love to hear what your experiences are.
• I personally have found great learning, growth and expansion of my awareness of my own power from shifting my perspective in ways that no longer are shaken by criticism from anyone.
• I am doing incredible ‘inner critic’ work and it is certainly an investment that brings great healing and emotional freedom.
• The socialization, learning, and brainwashing process can be retrained and rehabilitated.
• There are certain beliefs that give our power away to the inner and other critics. The inner critic is internalized narcissists, psychopaths and other such gremlins. You have in your misguided sense of duty allowed them to live rent-free in your inner world. Give them the boot!… in the nicest and most authentic way possible. It’s not like we are talking exorcism, it’s just a simple transformation of beliefs that limit us and block our growth and ability to contribute to the world.
• I have started valuing inner harmony and connection first and foremost.
• My favorite game is to dispute the criticism by asking “20 questions” of it.
• I had this habit of taking everything, well criticisms and N discrediting my integrity personally. I am learning and with remarkable success not to take things personally – this includes opinions, judgments, insults, whatever – even if they are meant to be a personal attack.
• In other blog posts, I wish to share my insights about approval seeking, asking permission, being perfect, pleasing others, and so much more that is relevant to this topic.
• *My motto is curiosity not judgment, though I don’t waste my curiosity on the N.
• I don’t search for or pursue validation from others.
• I am also learning to focus on progress not perfection.

This article could very well read:” Why do Co-Narcissists have such a hard time with Criticism?”

To read more, visit Tara’s blog here…

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “PhilosophicalPerspectives” is the author’s chosen pseudonym.

*****

In this series: Part One — We Need Advocates | Part Two — A Tool In Someone Else’s Culture War

***** 

The stories shared so far on HA are rough.  Whenever another story pops up on my blogroll, I take a deep breath before reading – and sometimes I have to cut myself off.  There’s only so much trauma I can read in a day, especially when so much of it triggers my own.

Part of growing up in the homeschool community in the 80′s and 90′s was living defensively.  Our parents felt like they were culture warriors, and everyone and everything in the world was against them and their choice to homeschool. We, their children, were the proof they offered to the world (and each other) that they weren’t screwing up. Not only was it vital that we act like little adults on all occasions, but we had to be well-spoken, articulate, and ourselves advocates for homeschooling. I remember many conversations with my mother at the age of 8, where I agreed with her disapproval of *that* family whose children just couldn’t sit still and be quiet, or walk through a museum and respectful read all the placards. We, on the other hand, were excellent at it – and this meant that we were “good children”.

We visited well-respected leaders in government and business, we politely and persuasively argued the case for our political agenda, all while going through puberty. We were nowhere near normal, but that’s why we appealed to powerful people. Who has ever heard of a 15 year old who argues persuasively in front of the state legislature, instead of hanging out at the mall with her friends? No one.

Except homeschoolers. We sure churn out a lot of teenage spokespeople.

I always cringe when I hear stories like Sarah Merkle’s, because I was one of the kids who spoke before legislatures and guest-lectured in local high schools. I was a tool in someone else’s culture war. I was remarkable for my non-normalcy, and I was praised for it.

My reality check came later. I don’t know Sarah, but when I was in her shoes, I didn’t actually have my own, well researched, well-formed and nuanced thoughts on gun control or any other topic – I had my parents’ thoughts, or my pastor’s thoughts, or the thoughts of another influential adult who told me what the “good arguments” were on the topic in question. I was smart, so I didn’t just take talking points from my handlers – I accumulated a lot of other people’s ideas, and even a couple of dissenting opinions, and synthesized them all so that I could speak from “my own” perspective. The thing is, it didn’t require me to seriously wrestle with dissent, or the complications of policy ideas, it just required me to adopt, reformulate, and regurgitate what I’d heard. What’s worse – I was never really allowed to ask questions about the assumptions that were passed on to me. It wasn’t until I got to college that I was actually free to think and ponder and explore, intellectually as well as personally.

I didn’t have my own thoughts at 15 – they weren’t allowed. As others have noted here, debate is seen as a vital skill for homeschooled offspring – after all, “God’s Harvard” prides itself on the quality of their moot court team (as well as, apparently, soccer…). Debate is important, not because it teaches kids to think, but because it gives us the skill to package propaganda in a convenient, Bill O’Reilly-friendly segment, and makes us appealing politicians and lawyers, ready to be the next generation of culture warriors.

For all our debating, dissent wasn’t allowed. I remember losing debate rounds because an argument that I made sounded something remotely like it could be related to a philosophical principle advocated by Marx. I’m not kidding.

Wait, let me rephrase. Dissent was fine, within a prescribed sphere.

The following topics were open for discussion:

• Infant vs. Adult Baptism

• Predestination vs. Free Will

• The moral weight of a vote for a republican (compared, of course, to a vote for the constitution party)

• The US Farm Bill.

• The failings of other religions and how to prove Christianity was right

• Whether or not it’s morally acceptable to wear a sleeveless dress on your wedding day (the answer: no)

• And, my favorite — the real reasons for the Civil War (slavery or states’ rights?!)

Anyway, the real point — we’ve been parroting a Republican platform and the great things about homeschooling since we were toddlers. Any negative or critical commentary was marked as “rebellious”, and unacceptable, especially when it was directed at homeschooling itself. The options were, repent, or get out. I carried my parents’ defensiveness about the homeschooling movement with me into college, where I had many conversations that started off, “yes, there are some downsides to homeschooling, but…”

It’s taken me a long time away from the homeschooling movement to detox, and come to terms with the pain it inflicted. After eight years away from the movement, I started realizing that I wasn’t just a disobedient, sinful, and rebellious teen. I began naming the things I suffered, and the perpetrators who inflicted them.

I felt totally alone.

None of my non-homeschooled friends had any categories to begin to understand what I was talking about. I was lucky if they’d ever even heard of Josh Harris, and they’d certainly never had personal interaction with his family. They had no concept of a world where it was acceptable for a father to deny a daughter her driver’s license, because her husband might not want her to have that freedom (a position I heard advocated at a young age, at a homeschool conference in my home state). Any time I began a conversation about my own experiences, I ended up answering the same questions. “Did you, like, have a desk in your living room?” “Did you go to school in your pajamas?” “Did you get to sleep in until 10?” Sometimes, we’d get to the real crap, but they were so shocked by the extremes of the movement that they didn’t believe they were real, or that something so blatantly ridiculous had actually impacted my life. I never got to process the things that really changed me.  I never had space to talk about how the patriarchal narrative that reigns uncontested within the homeschooling movement affected my identity as a woman, or how purity and courtship teachings twisted my view of cross-gender relationships, whether platonic or romantic. Two examples spring to mind.

1. I remember telling a prominent female homeschooling leader during my senior year of high school how excited I was to go to the prestigious college to which I’d been accepted. She responded with concern, asking me “whether or not I was planning to pursue a career.”  I think I told her that I didn’t really know, but I was looking forward to all the new opportunities to learn.  The next time I saw her, she gave me a graduation present with a note reading, “with prayers that God will reveal his word and will clearly to you that you might joyfully embrace His ways.” For those not adept at reading between homeschooler lines – my pursuit of a secular education, and potentially a career, she was telling me, was at best based on ignorance of the Word of God, and at worst, on disobedience and rebellion.

With a few swift words and a terrible present, she not only undermined my accomplishments, skills, and personality (I was too ‘leaderly’ for a woman), she questioned my obedience to the God I claimed to follow. I’ve noticed that the thoughts that this woman reinforced (they’d been planted much earlier) have haunted me as I’ve applied for fellowships, talked to recruiters, and pursued career paths.  Despite my (objectively) impressive resume, I find myself wrestling with a toxic combination of shame, insecurity, and guilt whenever I pursue or am offered a prestigious position or set an ambitious goal. Mental accusations of pride, selfishness, or narcissism rush to the forefront. I’m just now learning how to fend them off.

2. I recently came across an Instant Message conversation with the guy I sort of dated in high school (culture notes, for the uninitiated – AIM was a primary source of social interaction for many of us.  I say “sort of dated” because the attraction we felt was taboo, and therefore secret).  It was the conversation where we decided that we “had romantic feelings for each other”.  I was 18 at the time. The exchange went something like this:

Me – “I need to pray about what to tell my parents.”

Him – “What kind of commitment do we have to each other?”

Me – “well, we’re not dating… we can’t”

Him – “just because we haven’t verbalized it doesn’t mean we don’t have one.  I think our commitment should be to prayerfully and cautiously court nine months from now, when you go to college.”

Me – “That sounds great.”

Him – “Shall we state our commitment?”

Me – “I commit to begin a relationship with you for the purpose of exploring a deeper commitment, while bathed in prayer”

Him – “I commit to prayerfully begin a relationship for the purpose of exploring the possibility of a more permanent and concrete commitment, to begin approximately nine months from now.  I intend to ask your father’s blessing when we begin the next phase”.

When I found this conversation, I couldn’t help but laugh. Such contractual language was the model we had for beginning a mature, and godly relationship – and it gave us both the warm fuzzies (I’ll spare you the rest of the conversation). All of this, mind you, was undertaken under much secrecy, because our parents would have objected in a million unimaginable ways.  This doesn’t even begin to cover the number of problematic things about that relationship – but it strikes me how deep courtship culture influenced me.  I saw myself as an object to be negotiated for, between me, my “beau” (as my mom always calls them), my father, and God.  I was “progressive” in that I was willing to strike a deal on my own, at least in the short term.  Thus, this dry, non-salacious exchange between people who were legally adults, via computer, across thousands of miles, was considered both the height of “romance” (because of the bargain we struck) and the height of rebellion (because my dad wasn’t at the negotiating table).

To get back to the point. As I look back at experiences like these, which are far less intense than many others shared on this blog, I realize that I have never had a chance to actually dig into the underlying values I imbibed, and process the pain, anger, and embarrassment that I experienced. I need space to write, and to read, and to be reassured I’m not crazy or alone when I tell stories like mine.

That’s why Homeschoolers Anonymous is so important. We’ve been isolated from each other from a long time. We’ve never had anywhere to share our stories with each other and the world. This is a space for recounting the past and healing from the damage it has done. Trust me, we know the good bits of homeschooling, and we know the ways it’s benefitted us – we’ve been talking about it since we could talk.  What we need now is space to voice the bad.

To be continued.

Gender isn’t a part of us. Gender is a thing we do to each other. — Stephan Sweet