Parentification of Children

I Am So Much More Than a Maiden of Virtue! Part 4 ~ Little Things

February 22, 2011
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by WanderingOne

I am a nail-biter. I don’t bite them because I’m nervous or scared or anything like that. I just…chew. My nails are ugly and jagged; short and stumpy. I hate the way they look.

Growing up my parents tried to discipline me out of the habit. It showed a lack of self-control, an inadequate ability for self-restraint. I tried to stop. I hated disappointing them. I was afraid of punishment. And yet, I never could shake the habit. I bit and chewed—perhaps it was a form of unconscious resistance: this small imperfection, this awful habit, was a small way of ensuring that my parents’ authority was not absolute. Maybe it was just a bad habit I could never kick.

In any case, my parents’ authority no longer absolute, I decided that this year was it. 2011 was going to be the year that I would quit biting my nails. Towards this end, a friend suggested that I try painting my nails. Perhaps, if they were pretty, I would be less inclined to put my hands in my mouth. It seemed like a good suggestion. I had never painted my nails before—despite having been “out” for around two years, maybe closer to two and a half, depending on how I dated it. I danced, drank alcohol, wore pants and shorts and all matter of immodest clothing, but never in my life had I painted my nails.

I opened an internet browser, and googled “how to paint your nails,” at myself for doing so. Equipped with information from the ever-reliable internet, I went to target and bought a pale shade of pink; something that would not be too noticeable, but hopefully “there” enough to keep me from biting. I returned home, put on some music by an artist whose name I would never even have known a few years ago and began the task of painting my nails.

After I finished, I looked down at my hands to scrutinize the result. Something I never expected would happen, happened. I, the girl who could dance and drink and cut her hair, stared down at my hands to find myself feeling guilty. “Who paints their nails? What sort of person have I become? Jezebel. Slut. Vain, foolish, woman. What am I doing? Jezebel. How could I do this? Why would I ever do this? I’m becoming an awful person.” My brain could not stop. I could not turn off the guilt. I tried to reason with myself “Lots of normal people who are not sluts or whores or Jezebels paint their nails. I did nothing wrong. Anyway, you’ve done way worse than painting your nails. This is a silly, stupid thing to feel guilty over.”

It didn’t work. After talking with an ex-fundamentalist friend, I decided to sleep on it and hope I felt better in the morning.

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 4: Acknowledgement & Apologies

December 12, 2010
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[Note: this series is dedicated to Quivering Daughters by the former-Quiverfull moms at No Longer Quivering.]
In this part of our series, the ex-QF moms of NLQ are speaking directly to our own Quivering Daughters ~ though we’ve already said our apologies in person, we want to acknowledge the abuse we inflicted on our children publicly for their sake, though we’re doing it anonymously out of respect for their privacy.

Trigger warning: As painful it has been for us to write these confessions down ~ it may be even tougher for the Quivering Daughters who were on the receiving end of our neglect and abuse to read.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

My children were everything to me. I remember the feelings I had when I gave birth to my first child, emotions that surprised me with their ferocity. I’d spent my entire life focusing on me, more than anyone else, and yet now, after a few hours of the most horrible pain I’d ever experienced in my entire life (so much for the pain-free birthing books I’d read and committed to memory), this bloody squalling thing suddenly became the Most Important Thing On Earth.

I looked in shock at my husband, holding that baby that, up until then, I’d never even seen with my physical eyes, and, my gaze wide with amazement at the power of the raw protective urge coursing through my body, said, “I’d do anything for her. I don’t care if it is a Mack Truck on the highway—I’d willingly let it run over me if it would save her life.”

I was absolutely, totally and emphatically in love.

So when a woman from church gave me an innocent looking white book with an Amish-style family on the front cover, telling me it was the best book on raising children she’d ever read, I was interested. Two pages into it, I was hooked. Here was a man telling me that there was a sure-fire way that I could raise my child and guarantee that she would grow up to love and serve the Lord. As a devout evangelical conservative Christian, there was nothing more important to me than that. As bad as a Mack Truck accident might be, there was no “accident” or situation worse than the thought of my child not growing up to follow Christ—because that would mean an entire eternity of Hell. A Mack Truck can’t begin to compare.

So with my mother-love highly aroused and my fears fully engaged, I read, page by page, all about the way to ensure that your children are properly trained so that they will grow up to love and serve God.

If I could sum up the message that this book spoke to a young mother who deeply loved her baby, it was this:

“Momma, your baby is a sinner. He/she will try to manipulate you. Things like a child not liking a diaper change and squirming to be free are an example of a sinful will attempting to dominate you. You may think this is a little thing, but it’s huge. Why? Because if you let the child dominate you, the child will win. If the child wins, the child will learn that rebellion pays. The child will then grow up to probably reject God and go to Hell, because a rebellious heart will not want to follow God. So, Momma, never ever let your child win. Your child’s exertion of will [which includes anything you deem unacceptable---grumpiness, for example] is an act of war, and parenting is about the parent winning any and all battles of wills.”

I loved my baby. How grateful, absolutely grateful I felt, that someone was there to show me the way. Now, at last, there was hope! My baby would get the joy of growing up in a home where things were done right. She wouldn’t have to go through the things I went through! No, she was going to have a godly home where she would be trained properly, and she would grow up happy and obedient and full of love towards God. It was so exciting.

So exciting that I bought ten of those books and passed them out to my friends so that they could all join in the delight of knowing we could raise our children in a way that would ensure both their happiness now and their eternal future in Heaven.

I didn’t know. If I could go back now and re-do the way I parented that little baby, I would. Out of all the things in my life that I deeply regret, that is the most painful, the most difficult, the most horrific set of memories to revisit. Because the thing is, I love my children no less now than I did then. It’s still a ferocious mother-bear kind of love. It’s still so powerful it is palpable.

But seeing your children as enemies in a war creates a fundamental crack in the parent-child relationship. Even if there is the most powerful love in the universe on the other side of the crack, the divide is still there…including the distortion of communication it causes. I entered into a performance-based parenting model out of love for my child. But that model does not feed love, or nurture love, or engage 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.

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!”

I Am So Much More Than a Maiden of Virtue! Part 3 ~ Biblical Chastisement

November 23, 2010
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by WanderingOne

At this point, I think it’s necessary to write something about how things changed after my sister was born. It’s hard to know what to say here—I do not want to tell my sister’s story for her, nor could I presume to do so. But it would be disingenuous to attempt to write about my life without explaining how and why things changed. My little sister was, in so many ways, my opposite. Where I was shy, quiet, reserved and even timid, she was outgoing, bold, adventurous, and confident. I went to her Sunday School class rather than my own; I followed her lead in so many things, even though I was the older of the two of us. This didn’t always work very well, given that I was supposed to watch her and keep her out of trouble.

My parents saw that and while they were glad that my sister was drawing me out of my shell a little bit, they were also very concerned. My sister, they decided, was stubborn, compulsive, and strong-willed—and she was going to influence me to be the same way. Whereas I mostly demurred to my parents and obeyed cheerfully, my sister always wanted to know “why”? She was determined to do things her own way sometimes, like any normal child. Looking back, I really don’t think my little sister was particularly strong-willed or stubborn. She was a normal girl, with a bright, vibrant personality—who was, from a very young age remarkably self-assured and comfortable speaking her mind. But my sister’s strong will had disastrous results.

My parents decided that what they had done with me would not work with my sister—a new method was needed. And so, they read James Dobson’s book about the strong-willed child, and then discovered Michael and Debi Pearl’s book To Train up a Child. Pearl advocates what he refers to as “Biblical Chastisement,” that is punishing children through the use of a rod, quoting Proverbs 13: 24 as a prooftext: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” (KJV) Pearl encourages parents to “chastise” (not punish—as if there is some enormous difference!) using a “rod.” He suggests using 1/4 inch plumber’s supply line, to administer the chastisement. And suggests that parents discipline children for everything from crying as infants (an attempt to manipulate parents) to grabbing for something placed within their reach without first receiving permission to normal childhood disobediences. My parents had always employed spanking to discipline us, but what the Pearls advocated went far beyond that. But going beyond normal discipline and spanking, they decided, was exactly what my sister needed.

Visionary daughters quiz

November 21, 2010
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Over on the NLQ forum, we’ve all been taking Visionary Daughter’s “Are You A Fool?” quiz ~ it’s annoyingly hilarious ~ and I thought No Longer Quivering readers who aren’t on the forum might like the chance to join in on the fun.

Here’s question #1:

How do you respond when criticized/corrected?

1) I hate it! I get angry and defensive.

2) I usually laugh it off. (Sometimes I roll my eyes.)

3) If I get criticized for the same thing enough times, I usually start to take it seriously..

4) I’m thankful for the smallest hint of reproof and take it very seriously.

Take the Quiz!!

What do you think?

I Am So Much More Than a Maiden of Virtue! Part 2 ~ Cousins

November 17, 2010
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by WanderingOne

When I was four years old my cousin Aaron was born to my mom’s sister. The next year, my sister, and three other cousins were born on my mom’s side. After that, every year, two or three or sometimes all four of my mom’s sisters were pregnant.  By the time I was eight, I had thirteen cousins on that side of my family. When my sister and I were added in, that meant there were there were fifteen of us, and I was the only one not the age of five.   More often than not (we lived relatively near one another), my mother would take my sister and I over to one of her sisters’ houses to do our schoolwork, or to help out with housework.  And we might not be the only cousins over that day; other times, our cousins would come to our house and we’d all do homeschooling together. So, despite the fact that I only had one younger sister,  I was frequently charged with several of the younger children.

I watched them play, kept them out of trouble, helped them pick up their toys, nursed their wounds, settled their arguments, and, when they got old enough to start school, helped them with their homework. I had to make sure they obeyed—when they didn’t, I bore partial responsibility for their errors. But I had to be patient with them and not bossy when they didn’t do what I had asked. If someone did something wrong, I got in trouble for tattling if I told. If I didn’t tell, I was in trouble for helping conceal their sin. I loved my family and wanted to help take care of my cousins and to please my mother and aunts, but I wasn’t sure that I could do it. Some things were easy enough to handle. I could fix scrapes and bruises, wash faces and hands, explain schoolwork, and take care of a sick child. But other things—like settling arguments and disputes and keeping everyone out of trouble—seemed like an impossible task. There was only one of me, and I was only a child.