Thread by @AlethiaWrites

Digging deeper into parenting ideas exposed in #shinyhappypeople & came across old transcript of Mother's Panel talk given at IBLP Knoxville conf.

I want to spotlight the horrible ideology that supports IBLP abuse & is a kernel of broader Xian parenting teaching in long🧵⬇️

CW: abuse
You can access the full transcript here, about halfway down, after an interesting discussion about ways Gothard's "Character First" curricula was taught at public schools & implemented via "Cities of Character" program by Sarah Palin & others. democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboar…

Things to note: panel includes four women & one man who describe their large families: 9 children, 6 children, 8 children & 5 + *we work w/a lot of other children*

Unsurprisingly, all panelists are exhorters/prophets, a spiritualized term enabling them to tell others what to do

Ppl want to know: How can [kids] be service-oriented in their free time w/out constant supervision?

The question itself reveals priorities: Large family logistics + detached parenting necessitates well-trained children who must bend to benefit parents & leave them alone.

A service-oriented focus reveals the spiritualized JOY (Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last) teaching & ignores a child's personhood & space for individual interests. The answers underscore this:

"Why don't we have enough work? LOL"

"A mother's real work force is b/w ages of 6 & 13 so our children are working very hard in our home in those ages."

"We have found that our children are more joyful when they are serving & working." Invest in younger siblings. Have older ones design projects to do w/youngers.

Other tips come in from the moms: Memorizing chapters of the Bible in free time. One mom explains that she realized she would get "irritable & grouchy from working too much" & so trained her 4YO to clean the kitchen.

"We need to fight the world's mindset that we must have playtime for our children. Our 7 & 11YO have about an hour to play in the afternoon. During that hour they do have to watch the little ones & play with them also."

Everything about high control parenting is narcissistic, but we see here that the children's primary function orbits around the parents: they exist to help the family & care for younger siblings. Their activities are oriented around passing on the indoctrination.

Please also note the spiritualized lang. Labeling things "the world's mindset" can be justification for anything a parent doesn't like.

Consider young ages of these children. All children are vulnerable, utterly at the mercy of parental response to child development & needs.

I don't know why these panelists were drawn to Gothard's teaching, but the way in which he appointed himself as a *parenting* expert & 1000Xs followed him should give us all pause.

What are the credentials behind the parenting resources we consume & recommend?

What are they based on?

B/c a lot of the time there are collective myths from Christian culture or bizarre extremes - playtime is worldly, work is better, incorporating religious instruction in everything is Christian, etc.

Back to transcript: Lots of tips on forced Scripture memory. (TBH I'm surprised anyone who grew up in these communities can bear to look at a Bible.)

Play is rigidly monitored. One woman says they did a "play fast" for 2 wks & then adopted a play-on-Saturday-afternoon-only rule.

Another says she has her children working in the daytime w/permitted after supper play: "a bike ride for 30 minutes or shoot baskets."

In one family, the children enjoyed educational Math software too much; it cultivated too much self-interest & self-focus so it was eliminated.

"God calls us to choose the best."

Here's the scrupulous core of these insidious teachings. Prosperity-Gospel-parenting requires leader/authority to fill in what God's Best is for the family. These women think a starry-eyed understanding of colonial work is God's Best.

They think *no* or *very limited* play is God's Best for children.

I wonder why that is? It's speculative, but I think legalism & high control robs everyone of joy. The adults live by God's Best, a surrender to Hard Things & so must children.

They also cultivate detachment.

Lori, woman from ⬇️clip, talks about joy of spanking babies. "If we started when they were babies, they were so much more obedient...to sit quietly for 2 hours on Sun AM...I have learned that just one whack on a baby's bottom is not enough, it is 5 or 6."

https://twitter.com/AlethiaWrites/status/1666148036295421952?s=20

In entire transcript there is one moment of humanity. Someone asks about bedtime & a mom suggests chocolate chips, though w/a LOL so I don't know if she was serious.

The others chime in with "training" that includes switching 6MO through the crib if they pop their heads up.

"I would try to give them the sense of my omnipresence by sneaking away..."

Parental omnipresence and absolute authority is a reality from infancy. From earliest days it is uncontested & will remain so. That is the point & the isolation of these families means no one will see.

I've written before that growing up we had family friends who stayed w/us while they attended Knoxville conf.

Like so many "outside" friends of IBLP fams, we knew they were strict, but we didn't know they had been abused from infancy into compliance 💔

https://twitter.com/AlethiaWrites/status/1647412722659885056?s=20

One woman writes about caring for "delinquent boys, liars" (possibly foster children or at a training camp?)

She writes that they "couldn't even spank them all" so they served them breakfasts of dried oats w/water as a consequence instead.

Food control is prevalent. One mom explains her 4YO was distracted w/his take-out-the-trash chore. She "was encouraged by [he that will not work shall not eat] Scripture to take way his meal...& the result was excellent." Another child didn't like soup & had no more food that day

"This really sweetened his spirit. We started w/the older ones & gradually worked our way down. Now they have hearts that are open & want to be instructed."

Detachment & abuse leads to dissociation. These parents believe compliance=open hearts.

These horrifying examples are merely the extreme of any parenting philosophy that sees behavior modification as the goal, that prizes overpowering the "strong willed child."

This is a recurrent aim of mainstream Christian parenting teaching & we must reckon w/that.

Lori talks more about the gift of blanket training. She describes overwhelm at inability to homeschool older children w/infants & toddlers underfoot.

One female adult as primary caregiver, home educator & overseeing domestic work necessitates blanket training & parentification.

"Everyone's spirit is so free & so happy b/c there is order. When Mommy is upset & fretful that is much worse."

I don't doubt it, but note that there is no way to cope w/circumstantial hardship, unpleasant emotions, or boundarylessness but to shut down & control everything.

Parental narcissism is a core ingredient, but there is also situational narcissism. Families are trapped in an ideology that requires they operate beyond realistic limits.

Broader Christian teaching in general has left us ill equipped to deal w/limitations & difficult emotions.

Interestingly, one mom talks about a required amends process for the children: "they have to write a written letter of character praise...go & ask forgiveness...do chores for the other child."

I wonder if any of these parents have attempted apology or amends w/adult children.

There is a brief discussion of what to do when teens want to be w/peers over family. The recommendation is further isolation, family-only as playmates, seasons where the children didn't do things w/friends.

Enmeshed families cannot tolerate individuation.

"Now my oldest girls will tell me that I'm their best friend & that is b/c we didn't compromise." "We are training our children that their best friends are in the home."

This element spotlights how survivors from these communities face a Herculean task of individuation.

Children are such extensions of parents, their non-autonomy so prized & spiritualized such that one mom says "Now my daughter who has never had many friends is more prepared to depend on the Lord."

The panel closes w/a heart-breakingly revealing question: How can I overcome the irritation I have against my children?

The moms offer diff insights: Asking for forgiveness before continuing to discipline. Self examination. Gaslighting themselves w/Godspeak.

"I wasn't caring about their disobedience as much as my irritation. God showed me that the most important thing was helping my children to obey & not what I wanted to do."

I wonder what this mom wanted to do. Maybe she wanted not to spank her infant or was mad her kids had needs

The dehumanization of children is evident throughout the panel discussion, but it is stunningly stated in the conclusion: "If we are irritated, we have trained our children to be an irritant."

Children are not human in these communities.

It's worth asking if broader Christian teaching gives space for them to be human either. Is the emphasis on behavior modification (even if a more palatable form than we see here?) or on the well being of a child?

Is it focused on the parent or the child?

Christian biblicists tellingly often ignore the only NT commands to parents:
Col 3:21-Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged
Eph 6:4-Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord

It's almost as though Paul was keen to remind us that this will be the pitfall parents may fall into which isn't surprising given the human lust for power & continual marginalization of the most vulnerable.

Do you think the children in these homes were embittered?

Christian parents, is contemplating whether the children in your home are embittered even a part of your parenting framework?

I hope we can sit with the uncomfortable emotions seeing glimpses of common parenting approaches in these abusive practices.

Those feelings can invite us to choose a different way.

https://twitter.com/AlethiaWrites/status/1665776152680488972?s=20

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