Past Tense, Present Progressive

Sometimes it hard to admit to yourself that you don't identify with your identity anymore. For as long as I've had an identity, it has been wrapped up in the word "Christian", specifically the fundamentalist variety.  I wanted my relationship with Jesus to completely consume me and leave me with no other identity and no errant belief.  My entire life would be spent in gratitude to God for saving me from the hell I deserved.  It was my responsibility to try to love others the way God loved me: by hoping for them to start to follow Jesus too, so that God and I could accept them into our spiritual family. Then slowly, one by one, my fundamentalist beliefs started shifting , starting first with my beliefs about evolution, then my beliefs about homosexuality, then my beliefs about the inspiration of the Bible, then my beliefs about sexual purity, then my beliefs about salvation only through Christ, then my beliefs about hell.  For about five years, my identity bec...

Much to my surprise, I'm finding motherhood to be incredibly therapeutic. Part of it is certainly that I have felt far more socially connected since my son's birth than at any other time in my life.  Ironic, I know, but true.  I feel incredibly supported by my friendships with other parents, accepted for who I am, and inspired to grow.  Finally experiencing the social connection that I desperately craved for my entire childhood has increased my self-esteem and has decreased my issues with depression, which in turn helps me feel like a better mother. But more specifically, as a mother, I feel like all the kindness and love that I pour into my son's life is somehow healing my own childhood wounds.  I see him learning the lessons that I wish I had learned myself as a child, and I feel at peace. He is learning, right from the start, that his feelings are important .  As a toddler, he has so many feelings, which often appear suddenly and catch both of us off gu...

Perhaps at one point, the homeschooling movement was so fragile that it couldn't deal with any scrutiny, but that is no longer the case.  It has now become a thriving educational option with a lot to offer.  And, as one of many educational options--like public school, Christian school, Catholic school, Montessori school, etc--it is time to allow a balanced approach to the discussion that shows the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Along with the great success stories of homeschooling, there are many other stories of pain, neglect, and abuse that were enabled or exacerbated by homeschooling. That is why I'm so excited to partner with a new website called  Homeschoolers Anonymous .  Although it's not even a month old, already so many former homeschoolers have found their way there to share their stories.  As many of those former homeschoolers know, it is difficult to decide to share these stories.  Within fundamentalist Christian homeschooling, we were tra...

I absolutely adore my sweet, sensitive little boy.  He melts my heart with the hugs and kisses he shares even with his toys, the way he beams "Mommy! Mommy! Here go!" as he brings me bowls of pretend food,  the way he belly laughs when we play chase, the way he loudly tells himself, "No, no!" when breaking a house rule, and the way his lower lip sticks out when he is about to burst into heart-felt sobs. Looking into his adorable little face, I just can't imagine ever hitting him, no matter what his mood or what he has just done.  I know that being hit by his parents would break his sensitive little heart, not to mention my own.  Although I can't say with certainty that spanking is always wrong for everyone, I absolutely know that it is wrong for my son, wrong for me, wrong for my family . And luckily for me, it seems that research backs up the results of parenting without the dynamic of strong p unishment.  In his bestselling book " Influence: The ...

Yes, February 15, 2012 was the date of my very first blog post. I started blogging for several reasons.  First, I've always enjoyed writing and wanted to prevent my writing skills from getting rusty from disuse.  Second, as a new mom, I was very afraid of repeating many of the mistakes I experienced in my childhood, so I decided to use writing to help me better organize my thoughts and better understand myself and my experiences.  Finally, I wanted to connect with an online community on the topic of spiritual abuse and add my voice to the discussion that had helped me so much; I hoped that perhaps my story might help other children of fundamentalism to process their experiences and help other parents to avoid making the types of mistakes that I experienced. You, my readers, mean so much to me, and I appreciate the time and thought that goes into each comment even when we disagree.  Thank you for reading, thank you for sharing your opinions, thank you for sharing ...

"How was your Christmas?" the guy working at the fish counter at my local grocery store asked. "It was a good Christmas....how was yours?" I responded, moving my cart as my toddler tried to smack his slobbery hands on the display window. "Oh actually, I celebrate Hanukkah.  My family is Jewish," he volunteered. And from there, we somehow chatted our way into the story of his first Christmas experience--last year, with his girlfriend's extremely Christian family.  "We just sat around singing songs about Baby Jesus," he said incredulously, "and anytime I made a joke to lighten the mood, I could tell it offended them, especially her aunt." "That is soooo awkward and no fun at all!" I said, secretly wondering how similar my past self was to his girlfriend's aunt.  "What did your girlfriend think of the whole situation?" "Well, that's the problem; she's not religious anymore herself, but she...

I am thankful that I was able to leave the terrible and repressive aspects of Christian culture that I grew up in, to get out of the suffocatingly small box that it put me in, and to discover my real personality and identity. There is far more good in the world and in the people around me than I ever imagined when I was growing up afraid and  isolated .  There is far more good in me than I ever realized when I was immersed in a culture of unhealthy standards, guilt, shame, and control . I am thankful for the good friendships I have today, for the people who accept me the way I am, include me in their lives, drink with me, laugh with me, help me when I'm in trouble, celebrate and commiserate with me, really know how to listen, and trust me enough to share their own stories and needs as well. I am thankful, although it can be painful, that I am able to distance myself from relationships when necessary .  I no longer feel compelled to be a doormat to controlli...