by Erika
During that first year of homeschooling, my sister took Driver’s Ed at the public school. I would go with her in the hopes of being able to spend some time outside the school hanging out with some of my friends. Because my sister had taken to wearing really frumpy jumpers that looked like something out of Little House on the Prairie, some of the guys had started calling her the “Virgin Mary.”
A conversation started outside after Driver’s Ed about Jesus and Mary. Someone asked how it could be possible that Jesus was born to a virgin. I made the mistake of saying, right in front of my sister, “Perhaps Mary was artificially inseminated.” As soon as it came out of my mouth, I knew I’d be in big trouble at home as soon as my sister told my parents what I’d said. Everyone laughed but my sister. I didn’t realize it was as funny as everyone thought it was. My sister and I walked home in silence but the first thing she did when she walked in the door was squeal on me to my parents first about who I had been hanging out with and secondly, what I had said. If there was anything I could count on from my sister back then, it was that anything I said and did, if she was in earshot and eyesight, it would make its way back to my parents. There were times when I was watchful of what I did and said around her, but other times, I just thought, “To hell with it.” And those were the times that I just didn’t care what the consequences would be.
Sure enough, there were consequences to what I’d said about the virgin Mary. My father pulled me aside and gave me a stern lecture that lasted around a half hour. I was told how bad the company was that I was hanging out with and how blasphemous I was. My punishment was to do a 6 page essay on the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ, complete with scripture verses to back it all up.
Continue reading »
by Erika
My friend was waiting for me to convince her to help me run away.
As my freshman year of high school plodded on, things at home became more and more constrictive and conservative. My friends from school started to drift away as my parents pulled the reigns in at home tighter and tighter. The few friends that stuck around were the ones that were known mostly as the “outsiders” at the public school, so they were of a rebellious and non-conformist attitude anyway.
I always felt that my other friends had moved on from me, but I’ve found out recently that it wasn’t that they moved on from me, but they had felt that my parents had pushed them away and that they were no longer welcome around my family. Just this past year, I was able to reconnect with a couple of girls that I was friends with in school and when I asked them about their perspective on what was going on at my house, I was really surprised to find out that they hadn’t forgotten me but felt just as confused as I did.
During the NLQ Carnival Days, I shared a note that I had gotten from a school friend, but I also have another one that I didn’t share. Below are the two emails that I got…I think it speaks volumes as to how the “outside world” processed what was going on in our family.
“I was upset with your parents for you (because I didn’t understand) for making you give up your “wants” – basketball, friends, school. I could not understand then how they could change so much so very quickly. I thought that church ‘up on the hill’ must be a very strange place indeed. I don’t think I even knew you went to a mission somewhere – or, if I did I have forgotten.
“I remember Kerri’s birthday parties or get togethers at your house before everything changed and we had such fun. The next thing I knew, you [and Kerri] were no longer attending school but you could still play ball with us. I enjoyed that. Then I remember the day you came to tell us you were not allowed to do that anymore either. That was a very disheartening day – I could not understand (it was before we had had the opportunity to learn about oppression, to read about it and truly discuss it and emotionally, I am not sure I was truly ready to understand it). I considered myself an intelligent person and I could not wrap my head or heart around it. I also considered your dad and mom to be intelligent persons, so how could they make such a decision? Continue reading »
by Erika
My sister and I in the winter of 1991-1992, the year we started homeschooling
It wasn’t long before my parents got really frustrated with the church in town and wanted something different. My father told the pastor that we would be going down to the church in Bellows Falls (run by John Thompson) but would still come to services here and there at the church in town. The pastor felt frustrated at the time, too, so he gave my parents his blessing to attend this other church.
I remember when the people at church found out that we wouldn’t be attending regularly there anymore. Many were upset and felt offended. Quite a few voiced accusations that my parents only stayed long enough for everyone to help support my missions trip to Africa and then chose to leave. This was entirely untrue and my parents were afraid that this might have been the case with some people’s thinking, but there really wasn’t anything they could say or do to have those people believe otherwise. Many felt hurt and confused by the very open and public stance that my parents took with the church.
As a teenager, I loved the church we were part of and it crushed me to leave. It felt like family there. In my mind, you didn’t just walk away from family, you worked through things. The only thing that I understood from all of this was that my parents were slowly changing over to a strict, conservative mindset and the church didn’t fit within that mindset. Since the church wasn’t going to change for my parents, they decided to change churches to something that fit within their mindset. Or was it that my parents were changing to fit into someone else’s mindset? In any case, the changes were all becoming to be too much for a 14 year old to handle. Especially one that had only entered puberty the year before.
All in the course of 4 months, I had been told that I wasn’t going back to the public school for my sophomore year, I was told that I was going to be homeschooled, I went on a 2 month missions trip where I tasted independence and freedom, I was told that we were changing churches…..
But the changes that happened in those 4 months were only the beginning. Continue reading »
by Erika
Here in the US, we celebrated our nation’s independence and freedom this past Saturday, the 4th of July. This particular holiday always makes me think of my own Independence Day.
We had a BBQ with family and friends this past Saturday and while we were sitting inside to stay out of the rain, I was telling my friends about the jumper that my sister had made for herself back when she was 18. I had recently posted the picture of our family on my Facebook account and one of my friends asked, “Does your sister really have a cow on her jumper?”
Yes, she did.
In fact, she had the whole farm SCENE. The field, the red barn, the fruit trees, the cows, etc. My mom, sisters and I all worked together in our custom sewing business. We made modest apparel for other ultra-conservative families. The farm fabric was bought in a huge bolt so that we could make little dresses, pinafores and aprons for young girls, but at 18 years old, my sister made herself a jumper out of the fabric. By choice. Her white head covering and hair in a bun completed the look. I took the album out so that I could prove to my friends that we really DID wear the frumpy “modest” clothing, along with the horrible head coverings. Continue reading »
