This whole post was succinct and beautiful, especially that last line. Thanks for starting this thread.
My mother wanted to, my dad tended to not care about spiritual/religious matters, so we joined up. Yes she did want nothing more in life than to stay home, popping out babies, and teaching them at home while gardening and canning and sewing clothes. She’d be a perfect Amish-woman if she didn’t like driving so much, and she’s currently happily married to a farmer.
I think that I was 6, but my mother was never very organized at the best of times, and I have a hazy time-sense. I know that I was in public kindergarten, and that I started 1st grade in a private Christian school, but I think that mom pulled me out after Christmas to homeschool at the urging of the group. It may also have been halfway through 2nd grade, but I have only a few hazy memories that could have been 2nd grade, and no school pictures from that year so I tend to think it was earlier.
It’s hard to judge when the people involved don’t have any meaningful understanding of any alternatives. If you asked them that question, what they hear you asking is “Are you happier here safe with your family and church in the arms of the Lord, or would you be happier on Pinnochio’s pleasure island where you might have brief carnal pleasure, or you might instead get persecuted and tormented mercilessly for your beliefs, and will most certainly corrupt your soul and suffer for eternity because of your foolishness?”
It’s also hard to judge when you are constantly being informed that your emotional state isn’t actually a valid marker of your true feelings. We were told that for women especially, Satan used our emotional state to try and subvert God’s will in our lives. So, if we were unhappy, it wasn’t because anything was wrong (because if you were acting in accordance with God’s will and being subservient to your father/husband, everything has to be right) so your bad feelings had to be because Satan was messing with your head. So you had to ‘choose your joy’ by ignoring what you felt, and ‘keep sweet’ in your behavior regardless of your actual feelings, to prevent the forces of darkness from contaminating your household.
So really, it’s not a question I could answer in general.
I will say that I didn’t enjoy public high school at all. There were too many people, and I was totally naive and uncultured. I was like chum in the water for sharks. That said, I adored my college years.
There were no runaways from our group before we were kicked out. There were two families that just vanished, so I think they ran away en-masse. I would never ever ever have thought of running away, and I doubt many other kids would either. The outside world was solely ravening wolves and pedophiles and pimps and bullies waiting for us sweet innocent children to ravish and abuse and corrupt. No matter how hard it was at home, it would be thousands of times worse out there, and out there you would be fallen from grace so even God wouldn’t help you if you couldn’t get back home to repent first.
As far as I know, Downs children were looked upon like they are in most Christian communities, as a special sweet gift of God to be treasured and protected. Autism, like other mental ailments, was (at least in our group) considered proof of spiritual attack, and would be “treated” through prayer and focused spiritual housecleaning, up to and including exorcism.
Oh yes, and is that ‘Gospel’ ever a heaping serving of guilt. Essentially every bad thing in your life is either your fault for not ‘naming and claiming’ your blessing, or is proof of your godliness through satan testing you like he did Job in the bible. If the bad thing ends, then you passed. If the bad thing is more than you can handle, then you’re a failure as a christian or you’re faking it to get attention, because the bible promises that god won’t test you further than you can bear. Hateful hateful philosophy.
In fairness, I will say that the Prosperity Gospel is not an intrinsic feature of quiverfull beliefs. However, it does show up an awful lot hand-in-hand.
Gah. That’s such a forced choice mindset; it’s impressive anyone manages to disentangle themselves at all. From the outside as an adult, it looks hilarious and weak but as a child, I’m sure I wouldn’t have had the ability to deconstruct it appropriately.
I hope your life post-quivering has been happier if not as communal.
I think you’re right; most of what I have ever heard of the Quiverfull movement comes from reading the No Longer Quivering blog on www.patheos.com, which is written by ex-Quiverfullers such as your good self.
I join with everyone else in thanking you for this thread.
I think it’s all of the above and more.
First, I think that biblical literalism is a hateful, judgemental creed.
Second, I think that Patriarchy in general, entirely apart from religious trappings, is a terribly damaging philosophy for women in particular, but for men also.
Third, I think that a lot of really well-intentioned, good-hearted people just want to raise their kids and worship their God in an environment safe from the chaos and horrible events of modern life. That they have chosen a philosophy and religion I think are negative and damaging doesn’t negate their goodness, but acting out those roles over time causes them to internalize those perspectives and beliefs.
Fourthly, I think that a lot of men who are misogynistic or who have control issues, and women who are overwhelmed with life or who are indecisive find this a very appealing structure to protect them from needing to face and overcome their individual psychological issues.
Not a whole lot. I was ‘worldly’ compared to my peers. I played with Barbies and cast-off G.I. Joes from my cousins, and watched Looney Tunes. In my family, we were more specifically protected from anything that had a possible reliigous or demonic aspect (so, Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark was fine, whereas Temple of Doom was most certainly not. I did know that I wasn’t to talk to the other kids about what I watched. Most of the other kids did not have access to TV at all. My reading was initially much more restricted, but my mom came to trust my judgement, and I simply didn’t volunteer what I read while I was in the library, and only brought the acceptable stuff home.
I think so, but it was more on specific issues like abortion or contraceptives or religious freedom. I know we picketed planned parenthood clinics (not proud of that memory) and volunteered in a Christian clinic that tried to get women to give their kids up for adoption. I also remember working in what was probably some political campaign or other, dialing telephones and stamping/stuffing envelopes.
Not directly, more in comments like “people need to be with their own kind” in discussing a mixed-race family that was interested in the group. They were very much “other” and I didn’t have any interactions with black people until I was in public high school. Not real proud of that either.
Well, I do want my doctorate in Library Science so I can retire into a professorship, but I promised I’d take a break from school for a few years first. 
Not that I was aware of as a girl child, but with the whole conservative politics and Prosperity Gospel thing going on, I would be very shocked. I do know that using ‘greenbax stamps’ and rewards systems, stopping by food banks and soup kitchens and using thrift stores/castoffs, even up to dumpster diving (strangely, am kindof proud of the dumpster diving memories) was considered as “good stewardship” and encouraged.
Looking back, it seems like it was ok for a woman or child to humiliate themselves to be clothed and fed, but not for a man to be officially humiliated by announcing that he needed public assistance.
I have a similar one credited to the Baptists: we have to have sex with the lights off, otherwise people might think we’re dancing.
I left before they were a thing, but from what I can tell, most people who comment online are proud of them for milking even more money from the Whore of Babylon to support Godly children and perhaps bring more people into the fold.
Now, privately? There are probably many thoughts and a few catty comments about Jezebel spirits and “outward shows” of faith, but they do seem to be consistently fairly well regarded in the movement. They distanced themaelves from the Gothardites pdq after that shit hit the fan, but I don’t think many people blame them for trying to save their TV show and reputation.
Yay, I caught up!
Anyone else?
Very interesting thread, thank you for you for being so open in your answers.
Looking back, in your opinion do you feel the men in your group were genuinely good people, if a little odd in their beliefs? Or over-the-top mysogynists that do great harm by living the way they live? Somewhere in between?
Can’t come up with questions, but admire your thoughtful comments about how patriarchy is damaging to men, as well as women. That’s a side of it that is easy to ignore.
One of the dads was a little tin tyrant, making and changing silly petty rules to catch their kids up, and to keep them off-guard, and making sneaky asshole comments about womens’ work and our mental capacity, and one or two of the older boys was drunk on potentially being in charge of a woman once they were married, but overall the group seemed to be generally good people living the way they thought God wanted them to. I watched their kids, was watched by their wives, kidded around with the dads and brothers when I was little, and fellowshipped with them for years. They were mostly devout and prayerful about their lives, and dedicated to protecting and guarding their families from harm.
All my questions have been asked and answered but I’d like to agree that this is a great thread. Thanks!
Have you ever heard of the writer who goes by the username RazingRuth?
Interesting question…
First, speaking as the one who requested this, thanks for starting this thread and thanks for your time and answers.
I see that you did not grow up in one of the large families, but did you get a sense of whether the wives feel they are given enough money by their husbands to adequately feed and take care of the household needs ( laundry, shampoo, etc ) of a family of twenty? Or is there a sense that they are given a totally inadequate amount of money and expected to trust in God and pray to make it enough?
Did all the men own businesses or work in Quiverful owned businesses? Did any of them work for large mainstream businesses or would that be considered a corrupting influence?
What about entertainment? Did your family have a TV set - if so, how much were you allowed to watch? Did you go to movies? Were you allowed to read books that weren’t vetted by your family or church?
Just saw this and it reminded me of another question.
Was there any ideological driven abuse of the welfare and public assistance systems? I know that is huge in the FLDS and they call it “Bleeding the Beast” instead of “Milking the Whore of Babylon” 
Of course, in polygamist communities it’s probably easier since if a man has 20 wives then 19 of them are technically single mothers.
I have nothing against people that need the social safety nets using them, but I wonder if you saw any deliberate abuses based on ideology rather than actual need,
I think she’s one of the No Longer Quivering posters, and if I’m remembering the right person, there was a big stink about how it was discovered that she was essentially faking traumatic history with quiverfull for attention and money there and at other places under other names. I may be misremembering the user name tho.
Sadly, I didn’t have a traumatic experience - well, until they kicked us out, and that turned out better in the end after all - and I’m pretty sure board rules prohibit asking for handouts, even though I’m sure I could use it for cat treats or something totally legit.