Before I go any farther, Id like to talk about 2 things which, given my experience, you might expect me to be against. In fact, plenty of people who have been thru some of the things I have been thru have ended up both of these things completely: church, and home schooling.
church
My experiences in the cult-churches were bad enough to turn anybody off church forever. I know people who have said, “If this is what church/Christianity/God is, I don’t want anything to do with it.” Certainly, if those people and organizations really represented what God was about, I would want no part in it either.Fortunately, in with the bad experiences, I had some good ones. There is one church in particular which my family attended immediately after our first cult experience - while it realize it was ultimately the grace of God which stepped in, it was those people He used to show my family that there was true community and true Godly love out there. Certainly both the church as an organization, and the people, had their own issues. They were willing to accept us - broken as we were - and walk beside us, and that helped keep me on the path of following Jesus.
I also give credit to my parents, who have always had a heart to follow after God. They didn’t always make the best choices in whose teachings they would follow, but they consistently read their Bibles, prayed every day - and did their utmost to pass that love and hunger on to us kids.
Ultimately, tho, it has been a personal choice - made first when I was 9 years old, and then confirmed at various points on my journey - to follow God. I have decided to accept love and goodness where I find it as expressions of His heart, and reject abuses as ungodly, even when they are made in His name.
home schooling
For me, home schooling was an excellent educational experience. I even hope that, if I have my own kids someday, I am able to teach them at home for at least a few years. Even as I say this, tho, I am aware that my home schooling experience was not necessarily a common one. The issues I hear most with home schooling are these two:
1. quality of education
One main reason parents (like mine) choose home schooling is to pass on their religious values. Another reason, tho, is to provide a personalized education. My parents did an excellent job with this. Both of my parents have college degrees (my dad even has a post-grad degree.)While they used a unit study program, they supplemented all the core subjects with the same textbooks that the local private/Christian schools were using. From the beginning, my siblings and I scored well above average on standardized achievement tests, and the way my parents taught us allowed us to maximize our potential, rather than learning at the average pace of a classroom.
We were also fortunate enough to be in an area with many other home school families and support groups, so there was an abundance of classes and activities available. My parents preferred to teach at home as much as possible, but also took advantage of opportunities that we didn’t have at home. For example, in high school, I took my science classes with a group at the local private school, in their labs, with one of their professors, after-hours. My brothers played sports in competitive home school leagues.
There is a home school joke that goes like this: “Well, we baked a cake today, that used fractions, so that was math class.” That sort of thing didn’t fly with my parents! Sadly, tho, I know its too close to the truth for many people. Many parents lack the educational background, resources, organization or skills to give their own kids even a decent education. Particularly moms, overwhelmed by popping out kids year after year and trying to live the “simple life” on very little money, are not equipped to teach on top of everything else.
2. “socialization”
When people ask home schoolers, “What about socialization??” they usually mean a social life. All those home school groups provided plenty of opportunities for us to be with kids our own age (and who had values at least similar to ours.) We also usually attended church at least twice a week - often with the same people who were in our home school groups.
Of course, in movement from church to church, there were times when I was unhappy in a particular group. I struggled with being the new kid and adjusting to different variations in church culture. But I don’t think at all that attending a public or private school would have prevented that.
From an anthropological standpoint, tho, “socialization” is more than just a social life. It refers to educating a generation in the values of their culture. I understand that my parents feel the values of this current culture are pretty much diametrically opposed to their own, and home schooling was a way for them to raise us with their values. People say, “Well, your parents sheltered you” but Im ok with that. I think too many kids are exposed too young to things they are in no way ready to handle. Even as a teen, I was grateful not to be exposed to some of the things that have plagued my generation, like sex, drug use, and school shootings. Being ignorant of pop music and TV shows seemed like a fair trade-off to me.
Of course I don’t think that home schooling is the only way for parents to pass their values on to their kids. Plenty of kids went to public school, stayed out of trouble, and grew up as solid Christians. On the flip-side, I know plenty of kids who were raised in very conservative home schooling families who got involved in all kinds of trouble as soon as possible.
Id also like to say, here, that some who grew up in home schooling were done such a great disservice that they feel it should be illegal. Let me explain why I disagree. The sort of people who are determined to home school will not be dissuaded by legal measures because they will just see themselves as martyrs for a cause. By keeping home schooling legal, tho, it can be regulated. The state in which I grew up had fairly strict requirements with which home schooling parents had to comply. It didn’t guarantee a good education for everyone, by a long shot, but it drew some basic lines.
Part of my faith is that I still believe Jesus is the only way, truth, and life.
I don’t feel that way about home schooling, tho. In my case, the way my parents did it provided me with some incredible advantages. I hope that I could provide the same advantages to kids I might have in the future. But I understand that every family is different, and private or public school is a better option for some of them.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
without charity
I grew up in a cult.
It has taken me years to even be able to say those words. Even now I rush to qualify, "Well, mostly a cult. A quasi-cult. And not my whole life. Well, most of my life, but in 2 different cults." I have thought over and over about going into counseling to discuss this very issue, but so far I cant bring myself to admit that I need it.
Instead, Im going to turn to my old stand-by therapy, writing. If it doesnt eleminate the need for counseling - well, at least my thoughts will be nicely ordered by the time I get there.
In both the cults where I spent my growing up years, the KJV Bible was believed to be the only true holy translation of God's Word. In that translation, the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13 read:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."
Those verses aptly describe the experience of my years in cults that lacked a true understanding of Christian charity/love.
(theres also some irony involved, because one of those cults happened to be named "Charity." more on that later.)
my family
I am opting not to name the members of my family. This is going to be my best shot at an honest recount of some very painful experiences, and I dont feel its fair or necessary to identify my family members to the whole world here. On the other hand, Im not changing anyones gender, age or birth order to hide their identity either. If you know my family in real life, you'll know who Im talking about.
I am the oldest of 8 childern (more on that later, too) and here's our birth order:
myself
Brother 1
Brother 2
Brother 3
Brother 4
Sister 1
Sister 2
Brother 5
my parents
Im sure there will be many, many more posts about my relationship with my parents. One of the questions I struggle with is: Were they victims of the abuse in the cults? Or were they enablers for it?
Let me say first of all I do believe my parents absolutely made the choices they did with good intentions. I believe they genuniely love their children and wanted us to grow up in the best environment possible. I know they made financial sacrifices to raise us the way they wanted. I dont take that for granted.
I know they were deeply hurt by some of the things that went down in both of the cults. They were lied to and manipulated just like we kids were.
On the other hand, I believe in both cases, they stayed in the situations after they were aware of the problems. They failed to protect their kids from the emotional, physical and spiritual abuses of corrupt leadership. After escaping from 1 cult-church, they wound up very shortly more involved in another one, and actually would have gotten into a third (had it not imploded at just about the time they showed up.)
To this day I have not heard my parents acknowledge that the organizations they were involved in qualify as cults. I do understand how that can be debated (thats another post.) They have said they were "cult-like" or that outsiders may have viewed them as cults. I can understand how it might be difficult to acknowledges the degree to which those places were messed up. To admit that those places were cults would be to admit how misguided they were in becoming involved, and that would take a great deal of humility. After all, I have a hard time say it, and I wasnt even responsible for being there!
There will probably be posts where I am angry at my parents, and others I have sympathy for them. Our relationship to this day is very complicated. I do think some of those issues stem from our family's time in the cults. I am hoping that one of the things to come out of this writing will be an untangling of some of those threads, or at least uncovering their root so I can deal directly with them.
Ive opted to leave off a traditional introduction of myself because I think most of what I would say will become apparent as I blog. For now let me say I am a woman in my mid-20s, a college graduate, and married. When you look at me I generally appear normal. Even when I talk about my childhood you would not know how unusual it was. I have figured out ways to talk about it so some of the more difficult subjects dont come up. Sure, it comes out pretty quickly that I have a lot of siblings and didnt watch much TV, but only people that have known me for a long time could tell you about some of the other stuff.
It has taken me years to even be able to say those words. Even now I rush to qualify, "Well, mostly a cult. A quasi-cult. And not my whole life. Well, most of my life, but in 2 different cults." I have thought over and over about going into counseling to discuss this very issue, but so far I cant bring myself to admit that I need it.
Instead, Im going to turn to my old stand-by therapy, writing. If it doesnt eleminate the need for counseling - well, at least my thoughts will be nicely ordered by the time I get there.
In both the cults where I spent my growing up years, the KJV Bible was believed to be the only true holy translation of God's Word. In that translation, the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13 read:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."
Those verses aptly describe the experience of my years in cults that lacked a true understanding of Christian charity/love.
(theres also some irony involved, because one of those cults happened to be named "Charity." more on that later.)
my family
I am opting not to name the members of my family. This is going to be my best shot at an honest recount of some very painful experiences, and I dont feel its fair or necessary to identify my family members to the whole world here. On the other hand, Im not changing anyones gender, age or birth order to hide their identity either. If you know my family in real life, you'll know who Im talking about.
I am the oldest of 8 childern (more on that later, too) and here's our birth order:
myself
Brother 1
Brother 2
Brother 3
Brother 4
Sister 1
Sister 2
Brother 5
my parents
Im sure there will be many, many more posts about my relationship with my parents. One of the questions I struggle with is: Were they victims of the abuse in the cults? Or were they enablers for it?
Let me say first of all I do believe my parents absolutely made the choices they did with good intentions. I believe they genuniely love their children and wanted us to grow up in the best environment possible. I know they made financial sacrifices to raise us the way they wanted. I dont take that for granted.
I know they were deeply hurt by some of the things that went down in both of the cults. They were lied to and manipulated just like we kids were.
On the other hand, I believe in both cases, they stayed in the situations after they were aware of the problems. They failed to protect their kids from the emotional, physical and spiritual abuses of corrupt leadership. After escaping from 1 cult-church, they wound up very shortly more involved in another one, and actually would have gotten into a third (had it not imploded at just about the time they showed up.)
To this day I have not heard my parents acknowledge that the organizations they were involved in qualify as cults. I do understand how that can be debated (thats another post.) They have said they were "cult-like" or that outsiders may have viewed them as cults. I can understand how it might be difficult to acknowledges the degree to which those places were messed up. To admit that those places were cults would be to admit how misguided they were in becoming involved, and that would take a great deal of humility. After all, I have a hard time say it, and I wasnt even responsible for being there!
There will probably be posts where I am angry at my parents, and others I have sympathy for them. Our relationship to this day is very complicated. I do think some of those issues stem from our family's time in the cults. I am hoping that one of the things to come out of this writing will be an untangling of some of those threads, or at least uncovering their root so I can deal directly with them.
Ive opted to leave off a traditional introduction of myself because I think most of what I would say will become apparent as I blog. For now let me say I am a woman in my mid-20s, a college graduate, and married. When you look at me I generally appear normal. Even when I talk about my childhood you would not know how unusual it was. I have figured out ways to talk about it so some of the more difficult subjects dont come up. Sure, it comes out pretty quickly that I have a lot of siblings and didnt watch much TV, but only people that have known me for a long time could tell you about some of the other stuff.
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