Originally a comment by Anna Y on The good Christian family aura.
That last quote is so mind-bogglingly blind I just can’t find the words…
Yes, Josh Duggar abused his sisters (and, according to other sources, also other girl(s) he wasn’t related to). This came to light just now and all of internet is in an uproar. The fact that the entire 19-and-counting show is basically a documentary about the non-stop, 24-7 abuse of every one of those 19 kids apparently doesn’t seem to penetrate anyone’s consciousness. No, I’m not implying that all 19 kids are/were being diddled — there are other kinds of abuse. Being stuck in a panopticon (as a bonus, this particular one is even televised) and raised to conform with a warped standard of Godliness(tm) that is completely unrelated (and mostly contrary) to what’s known about how a young individual of species Homo Sapiens grows and develops (both physically and mentally) is abuse.
I’m not going to pull a Dawkins and rank which abuse is worse here, but I’m willing to bet this kind is pretty horrific too. I guess some people are naturally creeped out by how chipper and perky the Duggar kids are, but apparently no one (or not enough people, not vocally enough) is asking what’s being done to them to make them act this way — after all, that’s not how normal kids normally act.
From infancy they are being put into a virtual pressure-cooker where they are “trained” not only to do as they are told but to do it with a smile and their compliance is evaluated through constant surveillance from both parents and siblings. This family’s response to any “sinful” thoughts and actions as well as a recipe for keeping those at bay is hard work and ignorance and prayer (and all manner of Christian ideological indoctrination that doesn’t quite fit under the label of prayer). It’s basically a police state in miniature.
If some scientists decided to take some babies and experiment on them to see if they could create a “successful” 1984 scenario, they would be branded as monsters. But when it’s parents who are birthing themselves some babies to turn into their idea of model Christians everyone apparently thinks it’s cute and quaint and wholesome and there’s even a TV show about it. Wow.
The problem, to me, is that we claim that people “have a right” to raise their kids their way. I used to agree with this, and nod knowingly when it was put out there. I didn’t stop to think what it means. But it is a relic of the idea that parents actually own their children. They are PROPERTY. We don’t own our children, and we have no right to raise them to be little copies of ourselves. Our children are individual people, and we have a responsibility to them. We have a responsibility to raise them in such a way that they are able to achieve whatever they are capable of based on their own desires (well, with limits – not if their own desires are murder and cannibalism, or pedophilia and rape). Ownership of children is part of the whole religious thing, but it’s deeper than that, I think. I think it’s part of our desire to have ultimate control over what our children become, to get them to fulfill our own unfulfilled dreams, and to not feel guilty later at what they’ve become.
iknklast (#1) –
I can identify with all of that, plus one more.
A lot of is rooted in selfish fear instilled by the cult. My parents believed what they were told: “If your children don’t grow up catholic, you’ll go to hell.” After learning I was an atheist never stopped moaning and wailing about their own well being. They were also big on pushing me into what they wanted (e.g. demanding I become a priest or join the military among others) regardless of my own desires or well being. Those were among the reasons I cut off all contact with them. My siblings (both mid 30s at the time) were still firmly under their control the last I heard from them. And that’s just catholicism, not rabid fundy christianity.