My Life as a Daughter in the Christian Patriarchy Movement

[MountainLaurel]

Subtitled: How I Was Taught to Obey Men, Birth 8 Kids and Do Battle Against Secular America. Fascinating story, and not all that uncommon. We ignore and downplay these folks at our nation's peril.

Deep within America, beyond your typical evangelicals and run-of-the-mill fundamentalists, nurtured within the homeschool movement and growing by the day, are the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. This is where I grew up.

I learned that women are to be homemakers while men are to be protectors and providers. I was taught that a woman should not have a career, but should rather keep the home and raise the children and submit to her husband, who is her god-given head and authority. I learned that homeschooling is the only godly way to raise children, because to send them to public school is to turn a child over to the government and the secular humanists. I was taught that children must be trained up in the way they should go every minute of every day. I learned that a woman is always under male authority, first her father, then her husband, and perhaps, someday, her son. I was told that children are always a blessing, and that it was imperative to raise up quivers full of warriors for Christ, equipped to take back the culture and restore it to its Christian foundations.

Christian Patriarchy involves the patriarchal gender roles and hierarchical family structure, while Quiverfull refers to the belief that children are always a blessing and that big families are mandatory for those following God’s will (some eschew birth control altogether). While these two belief sets are generally held in common, they can technically exist separately. Now, not everyone who holds these beliefs actually claims the term “Christian Patriarchy” or “Quiverfull.” My parents certainly didn’t. In fact, I never heard those terms growing up. What matters is not the name that is claimed, but the beliefs outlined above.

My parents were originally fairly ordinary evangelicals. Like so many others --it's a common story -- it was homeschooling that brought them to Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull. They began homeschooling for secular reasons, and then, through homeschool friends, conferences and publications, they were drawn into the world of Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull. It starts slowly, one belief here, a book there. For those who are already fundamentalists or evangelicals, like my parents, the transition is smooth and almost natural. Suddenly, almost without realizing it, they are birthing their eighth or ninth child and pushing their daughters toward homemaking and away from any thought of a career.

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/152393/my_life_as_a_daughter_in_the_christian_patriarchy_movement_--_how_i_was_taught_to_obey_men%2C_birth_8_kids_and_do_battle_against_secular_america/

[JayceR]

1. ;_;

These people truly live in their own reality, wasting their one life to please some bullshit abusive deity. Those parents should burn in Hell, which doesn't exist unfortunately.

[RandomKoolzip]

2. Man is it ever gonna suck for these people when they die and find out

there's no afterlife. Pretty fuckin' sad. I feel so bad for ANY woman involved in this dumb shit.

[rug]

3. If there is no afterlife they won't find out.

[socialshockwave]

4. "dumb shit"

We all have our views on what is "dumb shit".

My view is men and women are equal - none are inherently "better"(as some militant feminists push, now) in God's eyes. Oh, no, I mentioned God - I must be a misogynistic supporter of child molestation, right?

[laconicsax]

5. Do you agree that the views of the Christian Patriarchy Movement are dumb shit?

Why or why not?

[socialshockwave]

6. Any oppression is wrong.

No matter who's doing it.

I'm against Christian Patriarchy as much as I'd be against a Christian Matriarchy that would do the same thing.

[laconicsax]

7. That's an artful dodge.

I'll put you down for, "The beliefs of the Christian Patriarchy Movement are dumb shit."

[socialshockwave]

8. How was I dodging? I agreed with you when I said it was dumb shit.

n/t

[laconicsax]

11. Please point out where you said that.

Your response to me reads:

Any oppression is wrong no matter who's doing it.

I'm against Christian Patriarchy as much as I'd be against a Christian Matriarchy that would do the same thing.

[socialshockwave]

12. Which means that I'm against Christian Patriarchy.

If you want exact words, fine; Christian Patriarchy is dumb shit.

[NMMNG]

9. Broodsows for Jesus

That's all women are to these people. :puke:

[socialshockwave]

10. ????

...I don't see women as just breeding stock. And neither do 90% of Christian men.

[laconicsax]

13. I'm 100% sure that "these people" refers to those in the OP, not you.

[NMMNG]

14. Did I say you did?

Are you a part of the Christian Patriarchy Movement? Why are you so bloody hypersensitive over this? Is there some reason you feel the need to defend the indefensible so stridently?

[socialshockwave]

15. Because I'm so used to people generalizing about Christianity that I'm in a hyper defensive mode.nt

[NMMNG]

16. I'm a lesbian atheist vegetarian

I've been the brunt of many generalizations.

[socialshockwave]

17. I'm a confused Christian non-vegetarian.

/hug

[TalkingDog]

18. Generally people generalize. It makes the world more manageable

If you want to have logically coherent, carefully hyper-specific discourse.... don't frequent a discussion board.

Or you can spend your time in fruitless discussions about who or who is not dissing your chosen belief system.

[deacon_sephiroth]

19. It is MUCH easier to indoctrinate children than convert adults

Breeding as a pyramid scheme to keep the lie alive. amen