Fundamentalists teach their children lies, beat their children for seeing through the lies, and then have the audacity to insist that they're good and virtuous people.
If they want to know where demons are hiding in their households, they ought to check the mirror.
It always amazes me, in a bad way, how the christofascists want to call everything they don't like indoctrination. They're literally hiding things from their own children. I get wanting to protect your children, but IMO, that's not the way to do it.
They function like a cult. You can't have any beliefs outside of theirs, you can't go against the grain, you are disowned if you leave, etc. You're not an individual human being with your own thoughts, wants, needs, and rights, you're just another number in their christofascist member log. They constantly spout things that been proven false for decades like they're 100% real.
I saw something the other day that seemed to indicate that these types of beliefs are more engrained with boomers and silents and less so with younger folks. I hope that is the case and we can get away from this nonsense. Yet more things boomers and silents are doing to try to ruin the world before they die.
And FWIW, I've read the Bible cover to cover, unlike most of them, and a vast majority of the bullshit they spout isn't even in the Bible. They're making it up and using "religion" as a cover/excuse.
Silents are right before boomers. People born from 1928 to 1945. So people born right in the middle of pre-World War II and during the war itself. I would guess their children are mostly the younger boomers and older Gen X. Boomers' kids are generally Gen X and some older millennials.
Good article. It really is kind of tragic that these people had to grow up in this kind of life. It really is chilling how someone born in the late 80s could have grown up to believe that they were essentially only there to give birth to lots of children to out populate them minorities and never work outside the home. To think that there are children in these kinds of home school situations today.
Even when done with good intentions and not as a means of indoctrinating their children it is a lot to school a child and more than the average parent can chew.
Raised in this kind of environment, I am so happy to see families break away from this kind of generational abuse.
Kids need to be around other people who have different cultures, viewpoints, and experiences in order to become a person with a well-rounded mindset and social skills.
Homeschooling has been a shield for abuse and control for so many years. I believe there are legit reasons for it, but religion uses it it such an awful way.
I was as well, though my family weren't in deep. A friend from my co-op is estranged from her IBLP family due to abuse, though, and many more of my co-op classmates just failed to launch after graduation because they were book-smart but had no idea how to navigate a world that wasn't completely managed and controlled by their parents.
Wonderful article. For anyone who wants to know more, I absolutely recommend the Shiny Happy People documentary, which tells more about it and talks to a lot of survivors of fundamentalism.
As someone with not a ton of exposure to this topic, it's heartbreaking to hear about the environment that these people grow up in, and how life they are robbed of by an institution of fear and control. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to break free of the cycle when everything and everyone you've ever known is working against you do hard. I'm glad that their children are thriving in school and showing them that all that effort and grief was for a reason.