Woho, looky here – the opposition looks at Vision Forum.
A former stay-at-home-daughter and now stay-at-home wife and mommy says she wishes she’d gone to college.
All of these books taught that the world was a very dangerous place for a woman. God had designed her to be at home, creating a peaceful haven for her husband and children. The books said that any girl who left her father’s protection and went out into the world to get an education or job would end up sad and alone, because she was not living the life God willed for her.
God wanted us to dare to live differently. His plan for women involved getting back to the family principles the home was founded on. Girls needed to be brought up knowing instinctively how to care for babies and keep house. They needed to be taught to be quiet, submissive, and modest and pure. The only way to do this, was to keep separate from the world. So my parent homeschooled and kept me from doing much of anything outside of our family circle, so that I would never get used to experiences outside the home, and I would learn to be content in my homemaking role.
It sounded so romantic when I was ages 10-13. I was going to be amazing someday! My husband was going to be pleased that I was so good at caring for children and keeping house. I was practicing submission to my father, taking it very seriously whenever he pointed out some behaviour of mine that “would infuriate my husband someday.” He knew what God wanted, and what men wanted. If I wanted to be successful and happy someday, I had to start by pleasing my Daddy.
In other words…….it’s just what it always sounded like: a scheme for making men happy. (It seems like a radically flawed scheme, to me, because the price of all that obedience and submission is living with an idiot. I would think an adult companion, however independent, would be immeasurably better than a kind of animated doll. But the patriarchs don’t seem to see it that way.)
So it’s a scheme for making men happy by training girls to be slaves to the men they marry. It’s a sick little system for obliterating women so that men can use them in any way they feel like.
Sometimes I wished that I had the chance to study more than just cooking, cleaning and sewing, and I did ask my parents if I could take some classes while living at home, but I was reminded that it would only be a waste of time and money to go to college when none of that education would apply in the home. A college atmosphere could take my focus off the Lord, and fill my head with thoughts of career and rebellion. After some begging on my part, Dad said he would permit me to take a few online courses from a very conservative school if I insisted, but it was clear that this was not what he felt was wise. He also said that I had to finish all my high school material first, and that my school work could in no way interfere with my household duties. I was so overwhelmed at the thought of trying to keep both my father and a school happy, that I gave up on the idea of further education.
“Dad” would be a credit to the Taliban.
You know what’s funny? I was raised in a mostly secular home and had never heard the terms “quiverfull” or “stay at home daughter” until maybe a year or two ago and yet I still heard things similar to this from my dad.
Not the “this will infuriate your future husband” bit, but the “no man will look at you if you go out dressed like that,” “that’s not ladylike,” and “when you start dating guys will be turned off if you do that” comments. It drove me nuts and I eventually started saying “well, I just won’t date someone who doesn’t like that” or “I don’t like men who think that way anyway.”
But this shit is a thousand times worse.
Fathers say things like that because it is the father’s duty to say things like that. And it’s the daughters’ duty to say things like, “Oh Dad, get a life”. Or it was in my family.
Yeah, like ideas worked out so well for Lot’s daughters, not to mention his wife….
stepford robots.
I find it inconceivable that anyone would want to live with an ignorant, submissive companion. If you’re going to spend that much time with another person, wouldn’t you want someone to talk to?
Well, my mom raised me to be a feminist, so it pissed me off! No one ever said that to my brother…
I sympathise, GH. My father used to be like that too, and like yours he is not religious. I was brought up to feel that everything that went wrong was my fault and that he was always right, and for no other reason than that he is a selfish control freak. Religious patriarchy just provides an excuse for this type of crap, and a thin one at that.
Well, it is a ‘duty’ I plan to default on if ever I have a daughter. Depending on the circumstances, that’s either slut shaming, or at best, it’s putting down your child’s taste by asserting that what men want her to wear is more important than what she wants to wear.
I think the type of men that want this are the ones who respond well to jokes about men not listening to their wives. Women, in their view, are for sex, and for feeding them, and for raising children; other men, in the outside world, are for talking.
This is the bit that alays strikes me when I see these types of stories. How insecure do you have to be to find the idea of living with some personality-free automaton even remotely appealing?
I know. I just do not get it.
I find it a little (ok, a lot) unsettling how whenever I ask new parents what’s so great about having children their response is always some variant of ‘They’re like little future mes.’ Usually expressed in some milder way (‘They suck up everything I say to them!’) but it’s always there. Has anyway else noticed this or shared the feeling themselves?
Wow – it would never in a million years have occurred to me to say anything even remotely like that. My children are definitely not little versions of me and already have the credo of challenging authority. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that my daughter has some kind of world record for the most “Why?”s in a single minute (she is 3).
I would find such sentiments similarly unsettling. Children are people, but apparently that view is not as common as I thought.
I came from something bordering on this sort of life, and as a result my parents are in a constant state of irritation at how much my attitudes towards parenting differ from their own.
Seriously, if I didn’t hear complaints about my daughter’s “unladylike” behavior or lack of default submission to authority I’d feel like a failure as a parent.
One of the critiques of the Quiverfull/ATI/Vision Forum movement linked to on that site links to this “advice” column from one Debi Pearl:
http://www.nogreaterjoy.org/articles/general-view/archive/1999/september/01/abusive-husband/
Truly, truly awful. The worst part is the feel-good imagery at the top of the page and the “training up children in the way they should go” bit. I can’t imagine anything more contrary to that purpose.
Funny, the only criticism I ever heard from my dad was “Stop walking like a farmer” and “Always make sure the saw blade has stopped moving before you put it down”
Ew. Thanks for that Moewicus. I can read only a little…it’s too tooth-grinding.
How the hell does Debi Pearl know that? She doesn’t say.
Ah, but the price of having an adult companion is that they may not always agree with you, and might even want you to do things their way once in awhile. Much too high a price.
I know. Clearly that is the tradeoff. But I still don’t get it – because the boredom seems so much worse than disagreement. But maybe I just have a low tolerance for boredom.
Ha!
Luckily my dad supports questioning authority. He just has antiquated gender norms…