“Today I decided to write bluntly about how to enjoy sex as a woman, particularly as a woman raised in the Quiverfull/Christian patriarchy homeschooling movement.”
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“A plural of narratives does not add up to empirical data. But it does add up to a plethora of narratives. As more survivors come forward and share their narrative, it will become harder and harder to reject each narrative as an anomaly. Denial of abusive homeschooling survivorship is a serious issue, and becoming elitist and selective about sharing stories contributes to the denial.”
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“While I want solid arguments and good data as much as the next person, even more than that I want people to feel free to tell their own story and share where they see it fitting into the whole. After all, it is because a growing group of people are telling their first-person stories that we are even discussing the need for data in the first place.”
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“The reason most parents do the authoritarian parenting thing in the first place is because they believe it will result in model children and successful adults. They see children from these other homeschooling families that seem ‘perfectly well-behaved’ and who do ‘first time obedience’ and many understandably want that sort of awesomeness for themselves. What they do not understand is that this ‘model homeschooler’ or ‘model child’ image often comes at a steep price.”
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“The more adults I talk to or learn from who are walkaways from the Quiverfull and Christian patriarchy stuff, or even ostensible leaders or former leaders within it, the more I see them as not abusers and power-grabbers per se, but also victims. They often had harsh upbringings filled with authoritarianism and loss or were constantly uprooted, never knowing what to expect next.”
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“I find the debate about whether homeschool or public school is inherently better to be the educational equivalent of arguing whether Coke or orange soda is better. It’s utter foolishness when people act like their personal preference is the only one that counts. Overall I believe that human beings are resilient and adaptable creatures, capable of learning in many different environments if given the opportunity and some quality mentoring.”
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“The red stick had started out as a handle to a child-size broom and then when the broom broke 25 years ago, it became a toy (a walking stick, a bat, a pretend sword) left in the yard until my Dad picked it up off the patio one day, tapped it against his palm a few times and said, ‘This would make a real good spankin’ stick.'”
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“Recently my Mom told me something that shook me to my core. She said, ‘Your father said if you disciplined a child according to the bible, they would not die.’ Then she told me she recognized the Pearls’ book ‘To Train Up A Child.'”
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“As I was growing up, I got very used to hearing remarks and jokes about how many children we ourselves would have when we grew up. Some people would sit down and start doing the ‘if all 8 of you have 8 children’ equations. Then they would start joking about what family reunions would look like.”
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“One day, when I was fourteen years old, I remember asking my mother if she had ever wanted more children than just me and my sister. Her response was an automatic ‘of course.’ And she cried for the rest of the afternoon. That was the first time I heard the word barren.”
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Homeschoolers Anonymous 