But I can buy bread really cheaply here (Poland), so I rarely bake bread. If anything it is cinnamon rolls about 1x a year and/or cinnamon raisin bread in the bread machine I was thrilled to find in Germany! But, to confuse “back to nature” with being a good Christian is really mixing things up. Sigh.

I do make pizza though, and pumpkin bread. My freezer still has a lot of pumpkin in it so I’m desperately trying to use it up so I don’t waste. Last summer I didn’t have room for the pumpkins I did grow…ended up throwing them in the compost heap.

People have different talents, abilities and natural bents. Every woman doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of the next one. How boring would life be if it were so! It is so wonderful to not have to be in competition somewhere for the “most spiritual” woman around. Being a “down home country woman” and a godly woman aren’t equal. I’m sorry your group seemed to preach that.

I didn’t see your article on Salon or anywhere, but I was/am curious about the group. I’ve bookmarked your blog, so I’ll keep coming back from time to time.

What would be helpful to those of us who don’t know you would be to label yourselves in main picture (where you are sitting next to each other on the bench) as Vyckie and Laura. It can get confusing when we don’t know who is who. Thanks for at least considering it. I’m trying to remember now..Vyckie, blond, Laura, brown hair…

Don’t you think some families are out to be “better” than all the other ones? Including mama’s martyrdom!

Former mom of the movement…

I’m really surprised that the traffic here has not slowed down much. I expected that after our story was no longer on the front page of salon.com, the readers would dwindle down to just a dedicated few ~ but so far, readers keep coming back. Wow!

Yeah ~ one of these days I’m going to take up baking again. I still sometimes make banana bread or muffins ~ but I use a mix because now I have Bernard’s permission to cheat. LOL

Best wishes for the journey ahead, and I wish to add, I hope that some day you can get to the point where you enjoy baking again – just for the fun of it!
-dml

I found the appeal of “death to self” overwhelming. I already had no access to self, selfishness, self interests, self fulfillment.. because I was in a very abusive marriage. So being told that death to self was my divine calling was the ultimate gilding of the cage. A lot of stuff has still clung to me from my time in the movement but death to self has not. There is such a huge difference to caring for people freely out of love, and even obligation than caring for people from this intense martyrdom.

My kids and house are no longer perfect either and we even eat white bread sometimes!! LOL.. and they are much much happier. My older children each thanked me for leaving their abusive father and they often reflect on all the stuff they were not allowed to do.. they have reveled in their freedoms. Our whole life looks different now. We are still rather eccentric as a family as we are quick to disregard any social expectations that we can’t be bothered with, we’ve been there done that in such an intense way that we resist anything that smacks of it now.

At the end of my abusive marriage I was so worn out and depressed and exhausted from all the work, abuse, martyrdom, homeschooling.. well I was extremely depressed. I actually started wishing that I would get cancer and die. This seemed like an excellent thing to me, I figured 6 months from diagnosis to death would give me enough time to make arrangements for the kids and to say goodbye. Then I could die and go to heaven, I would not have done the unthinkable (leaving) which I was so afraid I would end up doing as of course this would destroy my children and I would go to hell. My kids would be cherished by the church because their mother had died and I would be free.

Of course this didn’t happen. I left the abusive marriage and the quiverfull movement and every form of fundamentalism. The kids were NOT cherished by the church because their mom was a very bad person. The only one who got cherished was the abusive ex, poor poor man LOL. All the church’s energies went into comforting him.

Yes it’s quite a journey. Enjoy your freedoms ladies!!

Since I left the movement (and left off the idea that I had to obey my perfectionist husband or I’d be in danger of hellfire), my home is no longer perfect and neither are my kids. But…the weird thing is that I actually enjoy keeping the house clean (clean, not perfect) now. Because…*I* want to do it, for *me,* and for reasons *I* have.

I have had a few close friends (still in the movement) comment on how I’ve gone downhill, in that I no longer have perfect kids or a perfect house with home-ground wheat bread, etc, etc, etc… What htey didn’t see was the woman who had to go to the doctor for Chronic Fatigue (gee, I wonder WHY I had CF???), the woman who felt like she was doing all these things while her real self was somewhere deep down inside of her slowly dying, etc…

Ah, performance. I’m so glad to be FREE from that sick sick world.

I recently read a QF “Titus 2″ woman’s blog where she was berating young moms for being “selfish” if they took time for themselves. The worst part was reading all the comments from young moms THANKING her for setting them straight!!! It is all so horribly sad.

Loved the words of wisdom from the wise monk!

Even Jesus slept when HE was tired. I’m not sure why I didn’t think I was allowed to be be human, to be weak and needy at times? You are right, its a recipe for burnout (and not the legacy I want to leave my children).