In another thread, I made a remark about how the Duggars were likely blaming their daughters for the molestation. I was asked for a cite, and all I could provide were cites of Gothard’s teachings, which do say that the woman would be blamed for sexual abuse.
In your opinion, do you think the Duggars would have blamed their daughters for the abuse?
Blame is such a hard word. Even the Gothardy stuff dances around the edges of actually saying flat out ‘this was your fault because of x,y, z.’
That said, the overall Modesty Culture pretty much means they don’t have to say anything about blame. The girls KNOW it’s their fault, because from earliest childhood, they have been taught that the sexual failings of the men around them are always the fault of the women he encounters.
So, I don’t think they’d sit the girls down and say: look what you made him do! They will be comforting and loving and ask the girls what spiritual lessons they’ve learned about being stumbling blocks. That’s so much worse.
Thank you. That makes complete sense.
I thought the internet had inured me against being shocked/saddened by human behavior, but that one got me, too.
Lasciel, when you bumped this thread I started rereading it and found I asked you some early questions, and I never thanked you for your honest, awesome, well-spoken answers. Thanks so much for the whole thread! Best to you!!
I’m glad it’s been informative and interesting. This sort of thing isn’t really the type of thing to share with co-workers and acquaintances, my family is either estranged or still enmeshed in fundamentalist Christianity, and I don’t like to remind my good friends of my background too much because I feel like it makes things weird.
On the other hand, I feel equally weird on places like patheos because I’m stridently anti-religious now, and it is difficult sometimes to hold my tongue. Free Jinger is weird too, because I still don’t remember my childhood as being traumatic or scarring (it was in a lot of ways, but they don’t FEEL that way) so I don’t feel like I have a voice around people with legit awful experiences.
So this is a nice place to be able to talk about things with intelligent people, without feeling like I’m pity-blogging or ranting to a therapist about code-switching and cognitive dissonance.
And we’re delighted to have you here!
The latest on the Duggar case(s). Ugh: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/06/03/3665989/jim-bob-duggar-repeatedly-minimizes-sexual-molestation-daughters/
What an awful man Jim-Bob is.
Hard to be a good person when literally no one in your life has the ability to second-guess or call you out on anything at all, and instead treats you as a living representative of their savior.
Great thread - I’m glad you made it out!
I’m curious if you could give any examples of existing effects on your psyche.
For example, I was brought up Catholic - and pretty much was an Athiest by the end of high school. Despite this change - deep down in my psyche I tend to view (on the gut level) nice Churches with stained glass as “real churches” and sort of internally mock those that aren’t what I grew up with. This is despite the fact that intellectually I view both as equally “valid” - I have to pass my gut reaction to come to this “realization”.
Do you still make at some level gut judgements on people/facts/ideas/whatever based on your upbringing that you intellectually know aren’t correct?
Not sure if I’m being clear enough, but find this thread interesting and thank you for sharing.
Thanks for starting this thread, Lasciel.
And a great question, DataX. Sometimes a prayer or chant resonates with my mind, and in such a case, I have similar thoughts and a momentary confusion (“I know that the prayer is some bs, so why does it sound so good?”). Things usually get clearer once again when the rational mind intervenes though.
Me neither. It explains why Quiverfull followers are so obedient. They’ve had the piss and vinegar and vim and vigor trampled out of them before they were even old enough to have a fighting chance.
Sorry for the delay - busy weekend offline.
Yes, there are lots. I don’t share your preference for church buildings, but I certainly understand it. My own ‘knee-jerk’ regarding churches is to question how anyone can be happy in these big congregations, let alone megachurches - having attended small home-based churches of a dozen or so families, smaller groups are obviously the only real way to fellowship. :smack:
Most of mine revolve around children and behavior. I was very sheltered, and the stories and attitudes I was indoctrinated into about the larger world or about adult relationships and situations are so very divorced from my current reality that I never have to think about those gut reactions, because the situations I was taught to fear or to manage never arise in the first place, either because my life is so different, or because real everyday secular society is nothing like we feared back then. (If you’d like me to talk about those, I certainly can, but this post is already hella long)
What I struggle with most is what I had the most experience with then: child-rearing and women’s behavior.
Examples:
Children: I have ‘taught’ a weekly storytime for infants and toddlers for 8 years now. When a child is disruptive, or an infant cries, for a brief moment I STILL expect that their older sibling will intervene to help teach the younger child to behave.
I expect that ALL the children will be compliant, self-controlled, obedient, and to look for adult direction or permission before acting, even as very young toddlers.
I question the parenting of these mommies who only have one or two children, but those children are energetic or strong-willed. Surely with so few kids, she has enough time to train them properly?
I am still personally offended by any sort of childish defiant backtalking and I am horrified by tantrums.
I still catch myself thinking negatively that ‘she is so willful’ or ‘he is so defiant’ about feisty TWO-YEAR-OLDS.
Tweens and Teens: oh god, where even to start. Defiance? Getting grounded? Wearing clothes or getting body-mods that they know parents wouldn’t approve of? Having a clothing budget and going shopping alone? Having SEX? The funny thing is, by 16, I was totally out of quiverful, but I was still deep into fundamentalist Christian life - I never had a ‘teenage phase’ until my last year of college, and even that was embarassingly mild. I have real trouble understanding how these kids of secular/laid-back christian parents feel such a strong need to rebel against their (in my eyes) totally permissive homelife.
Women’s behavior: I don’t naturally look men in the eye. While I can do it, it makes me supremely uncomfortable: I feel like I’m being terribly rude and aggressive. Watching women behave aggressively (sports events, or even just very outspoken or aggressive personalities) makes my heart beat fast, I get tense and jittery. It’s just WRONG.
I judge women all the time for their clothing and appearance, but rarely ever notice what men are wearing. Partly (obviously) I’m judgy about ‘slutty’ revealing clothes, but less obviously for how they wear clothes and present themselves. Are their bra straps showing? Are they wearing wrinkled or rumpled clothes? Are they wearing things very obviously too small or too large? Are they bare-faced, or their hair is dirty or unstyled? Are they shuffling or slouching, or wearing flipflops or heels that smack or clatter against the floor when they walk? Being a ‘modest’ woman meant that you blended into the background, and matched the ideals set by men as perfectly and unobtrusively as possible. All of the faults listed above are equally sinful because they’re all ways that women are ‘eye-trapping’ the men around them by being noticeable or drawing attention. I still get a lovely frisson of rebellious feeling every time I get my hair cut short, or when I dye it strange colors. 
Couples/adult relationships:
I’m constantly horrified by how much people badmouth their significant other or spouse to other family and friends (and coworkers). That is just so utterly wrong on so many levels. Likewise, people bitch about their parents or their siblings, or about their children, and every time I feel like I have this terrible unwanted intimacy. If things are going poorly, you’re supposed to seek God’s counsel through prayer and studying His word, and if that doesn’t fix it, through discreet help from the church. To just out and flat TELL people that your husband has a gambling problem or that you can’t stand the fact that your dad doesn’t put his dirty socks in the hamper, or that your mom gets her home-cooked meals from a stouffer box? That’s just a blatant spiritual treason against their god-given authority, and a bad witness to the people you’ve now burdened with your indescretion about your problems.
I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones I notice most regularly. It’s been almost 15 years away. I begin to worry that I’ll fight these unhealthy expectations my whole life.
This has actually come up a lot for me in this thread, and in the current Pit thread: explaining the crazytalk and fucked-up behavior choices to other people makes it worrisomely clear how ‘logical’ it all still seems to me, despite the fact that it’s all utter horseshit.
I believed it without reservation for so long, I still clearly remember how everything was explained, how it built on a foundation, and how each individual part was so obvious and true and right, and the whole thing was proof that we were special and doing God’s work. It’s insidious.
Jim Bob and Michelle say their daughter Jana was very “strong-willed” as a young child. She has been sent to Journey To The Heart several times. The reprogramming seems to have done the trick, she is now devoid of all personality. She stills smiles, because she is required to “keep sweet”, but you can see such an underlying sadness in her that it breaks my heart.
I’ve been watching the Duggar’s shows since the early specials. The last several years have turned to hate-watching. I have been hoping that eventually people would begin to see through their bullshit. I never wanted it to happen this way though.
There’s that, and more importantly, there is the fact that they never have free time or mental energy to actually think about anything before they’re tied down by responsibility.
Older boys are ‘interning’ with relatives or other church families full time by 14 or 15, and working full-time for pay as soon as it’s legal. They have to work and save scrupulously to build up enough of a savings to support a dependent wife and (9 months later) an infant child - and they have to have that in place before they are worth considering as husband material. That’s in addition to obviously toeing the party line religiously; having multiple bible passages memorized and being able to clearly state and defend the faith, being obviously and heavily involved in church and ministry, being ‘spiritual’ in the preferred way…
Women are equally occupied, and even earlier. Girls as young as 5 are assigned a baby sibling to ‘help’ mommy with, and once you’re about 10, you’re ‘running’ the school nursery with the other tweens. Hit 14-15 and you’re teaching kindergarten or first grade, and your ability to keep the kids calm and quiet and focused is being noted by mothers and church elders. You don’t get out of the spiritual aspects either: you may never be allowed to speak in church, but you’re taught to defend the faith to unbelievers. Your ‘ministry’ is praying for the unfortunate, leading ‘children’s church’ during church services, and/or providing lunch/dinner to churchgoers. Remember, all of this is while providing full-time care to your younger sibling(s).
There’s no time or mental energy left to think, and not much (if any) inclination to question or to defy the status quo. Then you’re suddenly married and an adult, and the kids are your own. The first 4 or so are a nightmare time, before any older siblings are old enough to draft - men do NOT care for children. After that, try to imagine leaving your whole world, even perhaps your spouse, with that many kids, and no skills and not knowing anyone or anything about the outside other than nightmare stories of depravity and hate?
I’m actually shocked that so many do eventually leave.
:smack:
Thanks for the detailed reply - and I agree that complaining about dirty socks not being put in the hamper is treason 
Very interesting stuff - I have “faith” that you’ll make it!
Question–are you (unconsciously/automatically) judging them for wearing makeup or for not wearing it? I guess I assumed that wearing makeup would be a no-no for Quiverfull women…seems…ungodly I suppose.
How do you feel about dirty underwear on the floor?
Freudian Slit, evidently Lasciel will have her own answer, but I’ve known people who reckoned that a woman should wear their hair and display attitudes barely short of Violet in The Incredibles. The actual “curtain of hair and barely look up” might be a little bit too much - might.
Some of the things described would be normal if they were done in moderation. For example, elder children being somewhat responsible for younger ones is considered normal in many if not most cultures - the “somewhat” varies, and what’s described here is extreme. Children learning that they aren’t the center of everybody’s universe is an important part of development and socialization - but damnit, not while they’re barely mobile! That’s one of the issues with situations like these: until you get those details, a lot of it is… normal.
One common term that is used to describe this is “defraud”, a perversion (pun intended) of the legal concepts of fraudulent conduct and bad-faith transactions. When girls engage in conduct that they know, or should know (recklessness), causes inappropriate sexual urges in males, they bear a significant amount of the moral culpability for the result. Since “sin is sin” according to the Bible and even minor sins nailed Jesus to the cross, even being 5% responsible for a sexual sin makes you as guilty as you can ever be. So the idea is that if a girl, by her behavior, tempts a boy into molesting her, then she is responsible since she “defrauded” the boy. That boy wouldn’t have molested you if you had just worn longer skirts, why did you bring down so much sin on yourself and him?
Yes, there are people who really believe in this logic.