Isolation

Lori Wick, Christian Author Involved in Child Abuse Probe

March 24, 2011
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by Francesca T.

Lori Wick, the author of historical Christian novels has been tied to a 16 month child abuse investigation in the town of Black Earth Wisconsin (Dane County). The child abuse investigation and resulting charges surround the Aleitheia Bible Church which, Lori and her husband Bob financially support, to the tune of $500,000.

In the Dane County Sherrif’s Department press release dated 03/21/2011, there are twelve total counts of child abuse against the two elders of Aleitheia Bible Church: Philip B. Caminiti, who is the main pastor, and his brother John R. Caminiti.

Philip Caminiti’s charges are: Intentional Child Abuse-Bodily Harm; Conspiracy to Commit (8 counts).

John Caminiti’s charges are: PTAC of Mental Harm to a Child (4 counts); Intentional Child Abuse-Bodily Harm (4 counts); Mental Harm to a Child (4 counts). (Please note that in Wisconsin, a large burden of proof lays with the prosecution in the successful prosecution with charges of Mental Harm to a Child.)

Also accused are second generation Caminitis, Mathew and Alina, the Wick’s son Timothy, Andrea Wick, and finally, Maria and Timothy Stephenson. Please see the Sheriff’s press release, linked below, for the entire list of the additional charges.

In a criminal complaint Phil is quoted as saying “the scripture is never wrong” and “pain is a good way to teach children.”

The complaint says he also told them “if you spank early and it is done right then kids will be obedient”, adding he didn’t think bruises were telltale signs of something bad.

Church members say children and infants were punished for things such as being emotional, grumpy or crying, not sitting quietly through church, crying when being handed from a mother to another person or for potty training mistakes.

These members of the church are on record as saying that they believed a “one and a half month” old child is old enough to be spanked. They also go on to say that their preferred method of spanking is by the use of wooden spoon or a 12” – 18” wooden dowel with the diameter of a quarter. These implements were described to be used on the bare skin of young children, including infants as young as 2 months old. Every parent attested to the redness or bruising of the children’s skin after such a bout of (so called) spankings.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 7: Surviving Abuse

February 15, 2011
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Please note: The content contained herein does not necessarily reflect the values and opinions of the NLQ blog and its administrators.

by Chandra

For a brief while, the storms in my life had appeared to reach a kind of calm. While I still, at 17, remained friendless and lonely, at least Candi’s abusive and bullying behavior towards me took a backseat as I prepared for my last year of “high school.”
My education, all twelve years of it, had been a complete fraud. The closer I become to achieving my degree in Special Education, the more I am dumbfounded how one parent could let their child’s academic achievements become so neglected. Not only am I a soon to be educator, I am also a parent of three sons who are all in school. Honestly, it sickens me.

My best friend and I have since concurred, that even though the state of Missouri had laws on what we had to achieve in order to graduate school, we both knew that neither of our mothers had done a thing to help keep us up to date and within the bounds of one of the nation’s laxest homeschooling laws. We both understood that in order to graduate, we had to meet certain requirements within our high school transcripts. Though both of us pleaded for help, our mothers ignored our pleas. We took matters into our own hands (just to have freedom!) and forged our own transcripts. Not my proudest moment, and I am sure that I did myself no favors. However, to borrow a cliché’: Desperate times call for desperate measures. If every state had strict oversight of homeschooling families, and a social worker assigned to each family in order to catch neglect and abuse, then this would not be an issue.

I can say with a great amount of confidence that based on my preliminary research, nearly 80% of homeschooling graduates that I have spoken with never completed 100% of the requirements that were needed in their state in order to graduate (if that state had no oversight or accountability written into their laws). The only ones who have met these standards, within these lax states, were the ones whose parents either a) enrolled them in an on-line learning school or b) their parents’ had a higher degree (e.g. a Masters) and a great amount of emphasis was placed on academic achievement (not character achievement). Someone needs to intervene on behalf of these children, and something needs to be done to rework the current laws on homeschooling. Yet again another reason I write.

I was pretty lonely in my senior year, and really regretted the fact that when I spoke to my Grandmas they would frequently ask me if I ever wanted to attend a senior prom. Wanting to please my parents, and escape the brainwashing of my mom, I gave them the answer that my parents needed to hear. I was happy being homeschooled, and “saving” myself for that one special person. Dating in high school, I told them, was wrong. Deep down, I wished that my mom had been out of the range of hearing so that I could have a private conversation with one of them and tell them just how unhappy I was. Not only was I not allowed to tell them what was really going on in my life, I was never trusted to talk to them apart from my mom. I was deeply saddened that I was missing out on such a big part of high school. I would look at my cousins’ prom pictures and my heart would cry. I longed to have a formal gown, longed to dance, longed to just have fun. And more than anything, I longed to have a friend.

Adventures in Recovery ~ Hi Ho Trigger!

January 25, 2011
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by Calulu

I’m not talking about Roy Roger’s stuffed horse that rests in the Smithsonian either. I’m talking about those emotional triggers that stun us, slap us upside of the head when we least expect it, pulling us right back into the powerlessness of the moment. Unfortunately for most of us that moment is usually negative, bordering on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

For at least four years after I left the toxic environment of my old church it wouldn’t take much to trigger me, a snub by a former friend in the dressing room of the local gym or at the grocery store, certain hymns or songs, or places. One minute I’d be pulled together, moving and grooving and the next I’d be shaking, trying not to vomit or a weepy mess.

It got so bad about a year after I left that church it’s a miracle I didn’t take my life. I remember a ride home in the dark from work the night before Thanksgiving listening to the local Christian radio station. I started crying hard, that type of crying that you feel like you cannot catch your breath and you just know you have huge unattractive snot bubbles forming around your nose. Crazy crying.

Turns out that many of the same people that had tried their hardest to torment me because I dared leave were calling in to say what they were thankful for. Sure, others did too, but it seemed like the overwhelming majority were people I knew all too well from my old church and the other like-minded local churches. Hearing those sanctimonious people with pompous piety spouting out how grateful they were for some pretty self serving things. Lies upon lies tumbling out. I wanted to die but restrained myself to beating on the dashboard and shrieking. Thankfully there was little traffic that night because I’m sure I was driving like a maniac.

I shook, stewed and fumed for days. This radio broadcast triggered me so severely it was sort of like being victimized all over again. It robbed me of the joy you usually have gathering friends and family together for the holidays. Thanksgiving was glum and the Christmas season was headed that way before I did two things that finally broke the spell of the trigger.

First I went into therapy with a very empathetic caring psychologist who helped me own my feelings, who told me they were wrong to treat me that way. She helped me start to heal and move past some of what I was experiencing. We talked a great deal about triggers. I would recommend treatment to anyone having troubles dealing with the triggers of walking away from toxic religion of any type. It does make a difference.

The second thing I did was kind of nutty. But it helped me. During December this particular radio station had a special evening drive time listener thing where you could request three songs to be played during the evening commute. For weeks I heard people write in with some of the same sanctimonious language that triggered me so badly at Thanksgiving. But the rancid cherry on the ice cream sundae of fakery was that they all started signing it cutesy, like Mary Christmas or Jenny Jingle Belle. Gag.

I wrote in as if I were the Grinch, pointing out a few things that were making my heart grow three sizes too small and if they didn’t want me to arrive in my sleigh with my little dog Max they should heed me. I signed it Barb Humbug.

Daughter of the Patriarchy: The Shift

December 22, 2010
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by Sierra

Clear morning light filtered in the empty door of the bakery. I was alone behind the storefront, a wall of bagel baskets hanging like a curtain between me and the rest of the world. My mother busied herself in the front of the store, wiping counters and making coffee as I methodically drew and cut the clear plastic wrap in its long rolls. I wrapped another sponge cake, applied the golden bakery label, and set the finished product on a tray to be stored and sold for the Jewish holidays. It was normally one of the busiest weeks in the store: the owner was Jewish and had many connections with the synagogues in northern New Jersey. We were a hotspot for holiday feasts.

The street outside was still. Taking a moment’s break, I wandered to the front windows and peeked out. A few police cars were gathered at one end of the road, their officers bundled together talking. It was too far away to see their expressions. I tried to swallow the creeping sense of unease mounting beneath the silence of the morning. The television had been abuzz when we left for work, though no one knew what was going on. My grandparents urged us to listen to the radio at work and see if we could find out, but the news was no more conclusive in the shop.

At length a trembling woman in work attire bustled into our shop, her face white and drawn. She had come in for coffee, but she carried a more valuable commodity: information. “They’re saying a plane hit the World Trade Center,” she told my mother. “They’re grounding all flights. They don’t know how many were hijacked. They don’t know how big this is, but they think there’s at least one headed for the Pentagon. We’re under attack.” My mother blanched.

Searching their faces and finding fear, I felt my mouth go dry and a chill overtake my body. I had never heard of the World Trade Center before, much less noticed the buildings on the single occasion I’d been to New York, but this was not the time to admit that. I hastily fumbled with the radio for more details, hiding myself again behind the bagels and sponge cakes as my mother probed the woman for more details. A sober but breathless journalist murmured over the radio that the southern tower had collapsed. Imagining a fiery building toppling ablaze into the Hudson River, I carried the radio to my mother and mechanically told her the news. Our guest stood frozen. She’d clearly left work to visit us, but there seemed little point in returning now. Dazedly, she turned and stepped away, deciding that others needed to be told.

I looked again at the police outside and was gripped with the sudden realization that the final prophecies were surely coming true. My stomach contracted. I felt cold, weak, unable to stand. What had I done with my fifteen years of life? Had I ever really imagined what the end of the world felt like? Did I have the Holy Spirit, or was this the last hour I’d spend on earth with my mother? I looked at her. She hadn’t been raptured yet, but it had to be soon.

Steadfast Daughters in a Quivering World ~ Part 6: Soul-Binding

December 17, 2010
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[Note: this series is dedicated to Quivering Daughtersby the former-Quiverfull moms at No Longer Quivering.]
by Daisy

My name is Daisy.

I am a good person…but I was a bad parent.

Tragically, by choosing QF/patriarchal fundamentalist methodology as the pattern for my home, believing that it would provide the very best insurance against messing up with parenthood, I messed up. I messed up badly. I hurt my kids and, worse, I silenced them when they tried to tell me about it. Criticizing your parents is, of course, disrespectful and therefore opening a dangerous door that may lead a child ultimately to rebelling against God – and as I believed that put my child in danger of hellfire, of course, I conscientiously nipped dissent in the bud at every opportunity.

As it happens, my eyes were just opening to the dreadful truth that QF had sold me a bill of goods when my oldest child found her voice. I was on the way out of QF teaching, patriarchal Christianity and my marriage when that beautiful daughter tried to describe her pain to me by starving herself almost to death. Shortly after she began her lengthy treatment for anorexia, another of my children found a way to tell me that her soul was in agony. A razor blade and a veritable hill of pills were her loud-hailer.

If you, like me, raised your children in QF until at least their early teens, you may have already had to endure the sorrow of watching your children rise up and call you Monster, or at least, Failure. If you haven’t yet, it is my opinion that, you probably will. And, believe it or not, this is a good, good thing. I do hope your child does not need to resort to the dramatic acts my oldest two did in order to gain your attention, in fact, I would plead with you to listen to them well before that becomes necessary. But I want to encourage you with this:

As parents we should not be afraid of the volume or power or ugliness of the moment – or indeed the many moments – when our child finds her young adult voice. What we really should be afraid of is her silence. That compliant 25-year-old looks and sounds like an adult, but she has a 12-year-old soul. Like the tiny feet of Chinese girls crushed and tightly bound in rags by well-intentioned parents to prevent their healthy growth, that child may be the victim of a sort of a ‘soul-binding’. This disastrous mistake may have doomed her to endure both a crippling emotional agony and an ongoing rage that her mother could dare to insist that such a violent and abusive act was perpetrated because of love.

Steadfast Daughters in a Quivering World ~ Part 3: Perception

December 9, 2010
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[Note: this series is dedicated to Quivering Daughters by the former-Quiverfull moms at No Longer Quivering.]
by Vyckie

So what is “abuse” and who gets to define it? Steadfast Daughters devotes a considerable amount of time and mental energy to this question. The trouble with making definitions central to the discussion is this: there’s no way to do it without being condescending, petty and dismissive of Quivering Daughters who are reporting their highly personal, and necessarily highly subjective experiences of emotional and spiritual abuse.

There is no objective way of defining and quantifying “abuse” ~ no way. Sorry. Try it if you must ~ but you will lose.

Too many factors affect our perception and judgment. We all perceive the same experiences differently ~ it can’t be helped since no two people are all alike. It is even possible for the same individual to perceive the exact same experience differently depending on mood, health, energy-level, etc. One day the dish water is too hot and scalds our hands ~ next day, same temperature ~ but we’re freezing and this time it feels good. We have different levels of pain tolerance, our focus and ideals change making once appreciated behavior suddenly intolerable, memories fade, memories emerge … there’s really no way to predict ~ and there is no way to control.

Quiverfull moms want their daughters to feel secure ~ unaware, perhaps, that to the daughters, “security” is associated with prisons and confinement. Daddy wants to protect his girls ~ his daughters feel controlled and possessed. QF parents enforce standards of modesty ~ thinking this will affirm their daughters’ worth and instill a sense of value and self-respect ~ instead, their daughters feel like freaks and just want to be normal ~ rather than feeling modest, they feel that they are drawing unwanted attention to themselves because they cannot blend in with a crowd.

Consider too, that the majority of first-generation Quiverfull Believers were saved out of horrific backgrounds ~ their childhood was often SO outrageously dysfunctional that as children they longed for and would have been exceedingly grateful for the sort of lifestye which they’re providing for their own families. Let me explain.

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 6: Growing Pains

December 9, 2010
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Please note: The content contained herein does not necessarily reflect the values and opinions of the NLQ blog and its administrators.

by Chandra

For the last six months, I dreamt of living in Texas and of being free. I knew that I didn’t know Gabe, but just the thought of getting out of the hell that I was currently in was all that I cared about. Everything else paled in comparison to the nightmare that I was living. My optimism still kept me going, and I was confident that even though I had been keeping an enormous secret from my parents, and that I didn’t know who this guy was, I would still find love and freedom. Two things I desperately wanted.

I began to use the babysitting and housecleaning money that I would receive weekly from our neighbors, to buy wedding magazines and collect things for my hope chest. I was truly convinced that the right way of doing things was to go through a betrothal process that would eventually end in a tightly monitored engagement period. I was determined to win the favor of this family by being the perfect example of a good homeschooled girl. My heart, for those six months, sang.

Maybe part of the reason why I am not so enamored with springtime as the majority of the populace is because nothing ever good came out of the months of February, March, and April for me. Our homeschooling conference was to be held in June, and by the time that April had made her entrance, mom and Candi were furiously working around the clock trying to finalize all of the many details that went into planning such a major event. This meant frequent phone conversations with one another that would last for well over six hours in a given day and also numerous phone calls to the speakers and vendors.

I knew from having been raised in this movement, that Candi would be speaking with Gabe’s dad, Mr. New, about his hotel arrangements and the sessions that he would be presenting to the flock. Candi and my mom took very seriously their role as leader, or “Shepard” as they referred to themselves. Much care and endless hours were spent with each convention speaker ensuring that the material they were presenting was exactly what they wanted “their people” to hear. Rather than being a facilitator of information, they felt they had been called by God to teach these “precious families” the way that God wanted them to live: in fear. We lived in fear of government, fear of extended family, fear of neighbors, fear of culture, and fear of the world and these fears dictated our belief system. Our homeschooling group had become an isolationist cult and it was led by two very powerful women: Candi and my mother.

Sometime in April, my mother began to carry around an air of hatred towards me again and I could tell that it was something that I had done, or failed to do. I knew to ask her what the problem was would be asking for unwarranted trouble so I kept my distance from her. I hid in my room to escape my toxic family and listened to Christian cassette tapes that I had bought covertly. My mom was adamantly opposed to Steven Curtis Chapman (too worldly), Michael W. Smith (too worldly), Newsboys (rock music was not Christian music), DC Talk (Christian rappers were wolves in sheep’s clothing), Amy Grant (she had an affair), Sandi Patty (she had an affair too), Rebecca St. James (not only did God hate rock music, Ms. St. James was not a “true homeschooler” and “not one of the flock”)…and of course every CD that I owned in my collection were from these artists. They lifted me up on the wings of hope and helped my heart to feel close to Christ. But I couldn’t sing along with them and I had to hide the tapes well.

Steadfast Daughters in a Quivering World ~ Part 2: Expectations

December 8, 2010
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[Note: this series is dedicated to Quivering Daughters by the former-Quiverfull moms at No Longer Quivering.]
by Vyckie

Proverbs 22:6 says: Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Damn ~ I really hate that verse. Let me tell you why.

1) It is from this proverb that we Quiverfull moms got the idea that through diligent training we could ensure our children would become mature Christians firmly grounded in the Lord and His word. Of course, we all know that God has no grandchildren ~ our sons and daughters must come to their own faith in Christ ~ still, there is a promise implied in Proverbs 22:6 which leads QF parents to believe that by our intimate involvement in their day-to-day lives, we can influence our children for righteousness.

So we try.

2) It is from this same verse that our children get the idea that their adult future is our responsibility. I don’t think we ever blatantly taught our daughters that their marriage, their career (or lack thereof), their walk with God, their ultimate happiness ~ all are inseparably dependent upon their upbringing ~ but we did teach them the principle of authority … and with authority comes responsibility. If Quiverfull parents are going to claim the authority to guide and direct our daughters’ education, training, choice of a mate, career path (or lack thereof), and even their daily devotions and quiet time ~ then are we shocked when these same daughters blame the parents when things don’t work out and they are struggling?

In other words ~ we can’t say, “Mom & Dad are to be the primary influence over our children’s education” unless we’re also willing to be fully accountable when those children are in some ways unprepared for higher education, the marketplace or domestic duties due to gaps in their learning. We can’t spend years teaching our daughters to trust and expect their parents’ intimate involvement in their choice for a life mate, and later, when as young women, they are in relationships which are necessarily messy and imperfect, say, “Don’t blame me because you are unhappy!”