Step Forward and Call for Change

I can't believe that I finally got a guest post done for Homeschoolers Anonymous, I was beginning to think that it couldn't happen. I got so bogged down, and I had a great deal of writers block. It's an odd conundrum  being a former fundamentalist blogger, everyone wants your story, but it's hard to bring back all those memories, and it's hard to find a way to keep from repeating yourself over and over.

Anyway, I decided instead of doing a more biographical post like I have done in the past for blogs like Leaving Fundamentalism and The Wartburg Watch, I decided to go more with a topic instead. The guest post has to do with the issue of socialization in homeschooling. Here's an excerpt from the guest post,

I spent about a year at a well known Southern Baptist university, and some of the people there were homeschool alumni. They use to make jokes about the “awkward homeschool kid” stereotype, and many of them were even members of a Facebook group that was built around such jokes. 

HSLDA: We Would Rather Stand Behind Abusers Than Their Victims

If you are not familiar with what HSLDA (the Homeschool Legal Defense Association) is, you need to know who they are, and how they stand in the way of child abuse investigations, and condone abuse.

Libby Anne of the Patheos blog Love Joy Feminism recently had a great post series on the disgusting tactics that this group uses, supposedly in order to protect homeschooling families (read all her posts related to them here).

Here is some of the more disturbing ways of how they end up supporting child abusers in the process, in their campaign to supposedly protect the homeschooling rights of member families:

If HSLDA had their way, anonymous tips to social services agencies would become history:

In a report to Congress, HSLDA lawyer Christopher Klicka stated that he wanted federal law to be amended to prohibit anonymous tips to state social services agencies:

Anonymous Tips: As a condition of receiving federal funds, CAPTA should be amended to mandate states to require all reporters of child abuse to give their names, addresses and phone numbers. This will curtail false reporting and end harassment using anonymous tips. CAPTA should be amended by adding subsection 42 U.S.C. 5106a(b)(2)(A)(xiv): provisions and procedures to assure that no reports shall be investigated unless the person making such a report provides such person’s name, address and telephone number and that the information is independently verified.

This would all but end reporting of abuse cases to social services. Think about it, if you knew that a neighbor was beating their children, how likely would you be to report it if not only did you have to state name, address, and your phone number to the social services worker, but that the neighbor's lawyer could insist that this information be provided to them (and therefore their client as well). Wouldn't you likely be afraid for your life in a situation like this?

HSLDA opposes mandatory reporting laws:

HSLDA believes that laws requiring adults to report evidence of abuse to social services, local police or prosecutors will create a 'police state", here's what they had to say about a proposed federal law that would have made state mandatory reporting laws a nationwide norm:

S. 1879 will require every single person to be a mandatory reporter of suspected child abuse. States will lose certain federal funds if they do not create mandatory reporter laws that encompass every single person in the state. This will create a massive “police state” system that forces people to report on family members and neighbors even if they only suspect child abuse, or they will face a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in jail.

Guest Post: Breaking Free from Fundamentalism

Today's post is a guest post from Lana of the blog Wide Open Ground. She successfully broke free from her fundamentalist family, who were followers of IFB cult leader Bill Gothard.

She is now a liberal Christian, (a self-described Christian universalist), and a missionary in Southeast Asia.

She writes about her childhood and experiences now in her blog, Wide Open Ground, and she is also now a contributing writer to the wildly successful blog project, Homeschoolers Anonymous, which is a collaborative project where former fundamentalists like us are given a chance to talk about our homeschooling past.

I had asked her recently if she would like to talk about what her advice would be for young adults who are trying to break free from a fundamentalist background, which is something that has been on my mind lately, since I will be coming out to the people around me sometime in the near future. This is her story, and her advice. She said that she wrote this young adults in mind, people who are just starting out their adult lives. If someone is a teen, well of course, this wouldn't work. Short of there being physical/sexual abuse in the home, where local authorities can get involved, there's not much a teen could do if stuck in a fundamentalist home. (Sometimes, it does occur in fundamentalist households).

I came from a fundamental Christian background. I was homeschooled for 12 years, and my family was members of ATI, a fundamentalist group led by Bill Gothard. I grew up in a vacuum, believing that public schools were synagogues of Satan and the teachers were its priests. After elementary school I had only a couple of friends, none of which were from public schools. I wore mostly dresses, never watched TV and never listened to any kind of contemporary Christian music.

Today I’m out of it all and overall thriving. If you are leaving fundamentalism, let me encourage you that it does get better. Here are a few little tips on leaving, and then you can comment and add to the list.
First, admit that fundamentalism damaged you. Oddly, this has been hard for me. See my family was also dysfunctional, so at first I thought my struggles were only a result of childhood hurts. It’s true that my family was dysfunctional, and it’s true my parents hurt me, but let’s not underestimate the kind of damage that social isolation and a gendered childhood did to me as well. If you are leaving fundamentalism, be prepared for everyone to tell you your problem is either in your head, or it’s just your family. Ignore them. 

Guest Post at Homeschoolers Anonymous

I have the honor of having a guest post republished at Homeschoolers Anonymous. HA is a great new blog where people raised in fundamentalist homeschooling families (like me) can tell their stories.

 The site has only been around for a little over a month, and already it has debuted to great fanfare, there was even a article written about it on the liberal site The Daily Best recently.

I'm happy to have the honor of being published there, my guest post is a republication of a post I wrote several months ago for the blog Reason Being, it was originally posted in December. Check out my post, Looking Back at My Fundamentalist Homeschooling Past, and also read the other personal stories at Homeschoolers Anonymous. I will also be writing an original guest post for them sometime in the near future, it will be announced when published.