by LivingForEternity The other day my husband came to me and confessed that sharing our story was just very painful for him to the point of tears. Out of love and respect for him I am submitting by not continuing to tell what we have been through. He did not ask me not to, but the last thing I want to do is hurt someone that I love so much. However, I would like to share where we are now, as how we got here really doesn’t matter. We choose to live from today and not Full post …
Tag: Family Man
Family Man, Family Leader: Created to be His Help Meet – Help I’ve Created a Monster. Part 2 The Balance Shifts
We had two children nineteen months apart. We wanted a larger family than just two. At that time we had never heard of patriarchy. We just loved kids, and we loved making them. However, after that I did not have any more. Of course I was disappointed, but we were alright with that at the time. As they approached school age I began to fret. I loved being with my kids and I did not want to send them away. I had met a family one time that educated their children at home. I was still working part time, but we decided that I would stay home with the children and teach them myself.
If that is all that I would have done it would have been great, but of course I had to join a support group. That is were the trouble began. It was full of very fundamental families with many children. And of course none of the other mothers worked outside of the home. Their kids always seemed to be so well behaved. One thing I should have noticed is that there were very few families with teenagers. Since I did not have any I did not notice. I have come to realize a lot of these beliefs cannot make it through teenage years. Many of these moms were so “helpful”. They began to give me all sorts of advice, and that included Created to Be His Helpmeet and To Train Up a Child.
At that time I was questioned about how many children I planned to have. We were not trying to prevent pregnancy, so I shared that. Many mothers determined that God must be trying to teach me something, like maybe I was not being submissive enough to my husband and on and on. I began to feel like something had to be wrong with me, so I began to try to be the perfect, Godly wife. The only problem: I wasn’t reading the scripture, I was relying on Michael Pearl, Bill Gothard, Little Bear Wheeler, and eventually satan himself – Doug Phillips.
So, instead of being my husband’s capable helpmeet, I now became a meek, submissive, and unable to make any decision on her own little wife. He was also being counseled by men who were into ATI (Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute) and finally followers in a very big way of Doug Phillips. I still am not ready to reveal how closely we are associated with Phillips. But it is very close through friends of ours.
My husband was now becoming the “leader” of his home. He stopped helping me with chores around the house. If he needed something done I was expected to drop everything to meet his needs. I never went anywhere that he did not want me to go. I even missed a going away party for a dear friend of mine. She was very hurt by this and our relationship has never been restored. He wanted me home to be at his beck and call.
Family Man, Family Leader: Created to be His Help Meet – Help I’ve Created a Monster. Part 1
My husband and I met at work. We were both recovering from failed marriages, and were friends for a long time before we started dating. After having a failed marriage we were both determined not to let another one fail.
We had two kids within nineteen months. That was fine as we wanted several children. He worked a lot of hours so I was a very capable manager of our home. I could feed babies and fix water leaks. I did not find it necessary to ask him about every single thing I did. If something needed fixing or doing I took care of it if he wasn’t able to. We were partners. However, as the children began to approach school age I began to question whether I wanted them to go away every day. I had quit work by this time, and really loved my kids.
It was decided that I would home educate them. Both of us are college educated, and we felt confident that this would be possible. I was not into a whole bunch of character stuff. I just liked my kids and wanted to be with them. As I began to get involved in a local home school group I was introduced to some ideas I had never heard of before. I met a lot of women who were very different from me. They seemed to be so calm with their many children. They had never worked and many were not college educated.
As I said before I was very independent. I was in no way co-dependent on my husband. I was a very capable person who could take care of most anything I had to. My new “friends” saw this and sought to “help” me. One of those helps was Created to Be His Help Meet.
Family Man, Family Leader: To Train a Child – What a Train Wreck
It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
These are the words that my oldest daughter had printed on her graduations invitation. I am amazed at this, considering how she was raised for several years. It all started about two years after I had begun to home school my kids. A fellow mom gave me a copy of To Train a Child. She insisted it was the best help she ever had with raising her children. Since she had about eight at the time, I figured she must have known what she was talking about. Took the poison home and swallowed it.
The whole premise of the book is if your children are not obedient to you, their earthly parents, then how they will ever learn to be obedient to their heavenly Father. So their very eternity depends on whether or not you can get them to be obedient. What I didn’t understand was that it was an outward obedience.
Family Man, Family Leader: The father-god in Lamb’s Wool
My parents were luke-warm to the idea of their grandchildren being home schooled. Desperate for their approval I convinced my mom to attend a state home school convention with me. I had been to one previously and was so impressed with what the people had to say. Like a fool I had bought the books. I had not had time to study them thoroughly, but no matter I had them.
The speakers at that year’s convention were the Denton Family. The mother and father would speak at the general sessions and the breakout ones. Their many children would be in charge of a children’s session. There had to be at least 200 – 300 children attending. There were other teenage helpers, but not many. When I dropped my kids off I thought how in the world will this work. There are so many kids. It worked with only one hiccup that I knew about. Some kid pulled the fire alarm. Want to guess whose it was? Yep it was one of mine.
At the final session all of the children filed quietly on stage and sang several songs. I can still see my angels standing still and singing their little hearts out. All of the kids were so well-behaved. This program was achieved in only one day. I was impressed and so was my mom. Wow, finally my mom’s heart was going in the same direction as mine. I had her approval.
Michelle says, Never enough babies!
