Converted and Cloistered Ages 5-7 (Part 2)

A bit of background

Either before they had gone to NTM Durham or shortly after they returned, my parents had been exposed to some very heavy quiverfull ideas and theology. One of the local pastors had been leading a young adult group and had been teaching quiverfull and Mennonite adjacent theology. My mom tells of how this pastor was raising money for a vasectomy so that he could have more children. This type of thing was extremely common in the quiverfull world if you had a vasectomy before you converted to quiverfull theology.¹ The parents of one of my closest childhood friends got heavily wrapped up in this theology (because of this group). He grew up in a family of twelve. His mom wore a head covering around the house and at church.² And his dad always kept a beard. While my parents didn’t accept the full extremes of this theology, these theological concepts did have a hand in shaping the way my parents thought about family planning.^{3 4}

This same church and pastor also encouraged children to be raised and taught only in Christian environments. And they were heavy proponents for corporal disciple. The “Growing Kids God’s Way” course that I’ve discussed in the past was sponsored and taught by members of this church.

Where We Left Off

In my last post I had reached about 4 years old, and I left off with my family moving back to the United States. When we moved back to the US we moved into my grandfather’s house. And grandpa moved back in with my grandmother.⁵ My mother recalls that when they moved back to the US she didn’t know if this would be a permanent thing, or if they would be returning to their initial goal of missionary work after sorting out their relationship.

I only have my mother’s version of the story as my dad really doesn’t talk about the past much. But from what I’ve gathered my dad felt like he and my mother had failed god’s “calling.” He refused to get counseling and dove right back into farming fulltime. My dad blamed my mother for much of this failure to enter the missions field, and my mom blamed my dad’s refusal to get counseling.

The church that my dad had pastored at was undergoing a split over theological differences. And my parents felt like the church was currently to influenced by Methodist theology. (From an outside perspective hearing the story it sounds like several of the older members of the church were trying to steer the church away from the heavy fundamentalist Baptist direction my family was a part of.) When it became clear the fundamentalists wouldn’t win, my parents moved back towards the founding church – Deckerville Bible Church.

My parents settled into a “normal” routine and worked to integrate themselves into their local faith community. From what I can gather, they actually had a bit of a social life during this time. Though it was only with “likeminded” Christians. They would visit others at their homes and other people would visit them. I can remember a few of these visits as sometimes I got to visit with my friends when their parents would visit. Think board games in the kitchen while the kids play together – social visits were always very tame and didn’t generally involve spending any money.⁶

My own social life completely revolved around the church that my parents attended (and the previously mentioned quiverfull family.) I honestly can’t remember hanging out with kids from the church at this point in time, I just remember my friend “Ken”⁷ and his family. I would definitely see other children, but it was very much centered around the times when we were all at church together. To give my parents credit they did send me to a Montessori Pre-K school that was run by one of the church members.

However, after that time my parents moved towards homeschooling me. I can honestly say I was homeschooled K-12. During this time, I will actually say my mom did a good job covering my education; and she did have the time and energy to engage with me. Though I will say my exposure to other kids, and the world as a whole was extremely limited at this time. Even this early on in my life my parents were fully against secular TV, books, music, and media.⁸ Instead my life was filled with Steve Green, Prayer Bear, and Patch the Pirate. (Samples of said Christian media lie below)

I feel like it’s relevant to point out that the roots of purity culture started while I was four to five years old. I have a very vivid memory of my mother gluing two red hearts together. She let the glue dry and then tried to take the hearts apart again. The hearts were ripped and torn with one of them looking quite ragged. Mom told me and my sister about how this was a metaphor for our hearts and souls. We need to make sure that we are not falling in love with the wrong person. Because when we fall in love with someone, we intertwine our hearts in inseparable ways. You wouldn’t want to marry someone with a ripped-up heart and just have small pieces of your heart to give to them. You want to be able to give your whole and unblemished heart to the person you would one day marry.⁹

I can’t honestly recall all of the discipline that took place during this time. But I do know my parent’s views on discipline were shaped by Gary Ezzo and James Dobson. I can remember that total obedience was expected at all times.¹⁰ And if we (me and my sister) didn’t obey¹¹ we would face corporal discipline. My parents tried positive enforcement for “good behavior” during this time as well. But that was a short-lived experiment and positive re-enforcement as a way to teach children to be “good” was quickly discarded. I know my parents were going through a lot emotionally, and I will give them that. But I do feel like they had less energy and time to devote to us as children as I got older. A lot of this (in my opinion) was because of our growing family.¹² The methods laid out by Ezzo and Dobson gave an easy way for a large busy family to make sure their children were compliant and didn’t need too much attention.

On my parent’s marriage front, I think they did attempt a few tries here and there to make it work. They went on a couple’s vacation and my dad did attempt some shows of affection here and there. ¹³ But they never did get therapy, and my dad kept burying himself in his work.¹⁴ So, yeah, no real hope for any mission’s work with NTM in their future.

Something I really haven’t unpacked all that much is my indoctrination and conversion around this time.¹⁵ Honestly, it’s not something I really recall. I know around this time; I would have 100% told others that I was saved. And from around this time onward I would consider myself Christian.¹⁶ I was attending Sunday school and junior church every week. With my parents also taking me to Wednesday night services aimed at young children as well. First grade would have started my time at Word of Life (WOL) at Deckerville Bible Church. I’ve posted several of the “quiet time” lessons from WOL sprinkled in my posts here. They are extremely harsh at times, and one day I need to sit down and devote a post just to them. From kindergarten onward, my homeschool lessons included heavy messages towards the Christian faith; and I was memorizing verses for my homeschool lessons that would be used to convince me of my depraved nature and need for salvation. My entire world was centered on me learning about Christianity and the need to convert and pledge my life to the lord. Of course, I believed it and wanted to become “saved.”

Positive memories

As cheesy as it sounds, I do remember my dad singing to us before we went to sleep. They were all Christian Sunday school songs of course, but I remember this time quite well. Probably because I didn’t have a lot of time with my dad so I would cherish the times I did see him. I remember time spent with my friend Ken building Legos and making forts outside. Memories of the Montessori pre-k and being so damn proud of my show and tell toys. Making homemade toys out of paper boxes with my sister. Playing with the couch cushions and making little forts out of them.

Retrospective Thoughts

I feel like my parents had a major choice to sort out their lives when they came back home. The church that they had poured their hearts and soul into was falling apart due to infighting about difference in belief. Their marriage was rocky and needed some outside help. And they had yet to fully settle into a specific view on how to raise and teach their children.

I’m not 100% sure I can understand the why behind their behavior. But I can only look back with sadness and anger at the choices my parents made when they were confronted with their problems. Both of my parents were struggling with the grief and loss of their calling (to be missionaries) and life goal. My dad pushed that shit down deep and let it fester with anger occasionally boiling up towards my mom. Spaced with long periods of silence and stonewalling. My mom, I don’t know exactly how she handled it; but I know she was confused, depressed, and overwhelmed.

Instead of taking time to look back and see the ways that fundamentalism had failed them, they doubled down and pushed further into that worldview. Counseling wasn’t the answer – finding the right beliefs and doctrine was the issue. Problems raising four young children weren’t caused by how close in age we were or by my parent’s poor mental health, but because they hadn’t found the correct way to discipline and correct their children. They saw the problems but turned to their church and to Christian fundamentalism to help them solve these problems. Even though fundamentalism was the root cause of many of these struggles.

1. I believe Bill Gothard was a very clear example of this. ATI / IBLP would having vasectomy reversal choirs made up of “reversal babies.” ↩︎
2. I’ve explained some of this in my post about the “gospel hall.” Several Christian denominations argue that women need to keep their hair covered as a sign of submission to their husband and to god. ↩︎
3. After this, my mom would never use any type of contraceptive other than barrier style contraceptives. They would take a one-year break or so in-between children and then start trying to have kids again. My parents also never stopped trying to have kids. And family size was limited only by my mother’s physical limitations regarding fertility. ↩︎
4. My mom also read a bit of Nancy Campbell, and I definitely remember seeing “Above Rubies” magazines around the house. IYKYK (She was a popular quiverfull author.) ↩︎
5. Unknown to my parents at the time, my grandfather (dad’s side) had separated from his wife. And they had been living separately for multiple years now. Divorce wasn’t really on the table due to deeply rooted religious convictions against divorce. So separation was the next best thing. 20+ years later and they still live like this. Thirty minutes apart but technically not divorced. ↩︎
6. My parents were and always have been dirt poor. But during this time they were trying to put together enough money to purchase a house. Keep in mind that all of their savings would have just gone towards paying for bible college. Hence why we were living at my grandfather’s house. ↩︎
7. Real name not used for his privacy. I don’t have contact with him at this point in my life, so I don’t exactly have way to get permission to use his name. ↩︎
8. My dad never really theologically opposed the TV part, but he backed up my mom in her convictions here. ↩︎
9. I have no idea why my mom thought it was appropriate for kindergartners to be taught this concept. I hadn’t even figured out what marriage and love were at that age. Yet, I was being cautioned not to fall in love with someone I liked. Without worrying about some type of unbreakable connection, that would possibly cause me to love my future spouse less. (I believe this concept is called “soul ties.” And it’s completely bunk science, but apparently my mother believed in it.) ↩︎
10. Just listen to the linked Patch the pirate song. ↩︎
11. We would be disciplined if we obeyed but had a “bad attitude” about. Or even if we had to be told multiple times to obey. Also, we could face discipline if we had a delayed response to our parent’s commands. ↩︎
12. YAY for quiverfull theology. (FUCK OFF NANCY CAMPBELL) ↩︎
13. Yeah, the bar is in hell isn’t it. I’ll also point out that this vacation was the last time they ever went on vacation (just the two of them) together. At least as of 2024. ↩︎
14. Heya welcome to the “absent father club” please seat yourself in any of the empty chairs and we will get to your daddy issues shorty. ↩︎
15. It’s something I’ve tried to discuss with my mom. During this conversation she denied strongly that she or anyone else in my community pushed religion on us. As my mother tells it, she never pushed us towards salvation or one specific religious view. In her eyes, I voluntarily and without pressure chose this faith and belief. (It’s a rewrite of what I know has happened in my childhood, and this answer has a heavy dose of individualism sprinkled in as well. You, the individual, made this choice. All other factors need not be discussed or considered.) ↩︎
16. It’s extremely hard to unpack religious indoctrination that occurred before you even have formed memories of it. From the time I was an infant onward I would be actively and passively receiving messages of how I was a “dirty rotten” sinner in need of salvation. (I’ve heard my parents vocalize these same messages about my infant children in front of them). I attended church from infancy onward. During my parent’s time in Durham, I would have been daily receiving bible lessons right along with learning my colors and shapes. ↩︎