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Sex abuse, identification abuse, social isolation, food deprivation – Is there a common denominator?
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A 21-yr old female has come forward with her personal story of abuse. At the age of 13, her mother died and she was sent to live with her mother’s cousin, Rob Johnson, and his wife, Marie. The young teen was told as a condition of remaining in the family, she must have sex with the couple. “She was told to call Rob “master,” investigators said in an arrest affidavit, and Marie Johnson pushed her against a wall and held her by her throat until the girl agreed to the sexual demands” (Source).
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If she didn’t follow their directions, she was beaten. If she didn’t complete her chores, she was beaten. For five years, she was sexually abused twice a week for five years, “all the while, Rob Johnson held Sunday school classes for his family at their home, invoking Old Testament passages to justify the actions, the arrest affidavit said” (Source).
Okay, and this is the part that I want to discuss:  this child, who lost her mother, and now was living in a horrific environment was also homeschooled and isolated. She was “not allowed to use the phone and forced to rehearse what to say to doctors if she was asked about sexual activity” (Source).
After she turned 18, she was finally able to leave home when her grandmother bought her a plane ticket to her home in Ohio.
Many homeschool parents would object to the wording in the above articles.
Why? Â Because they would claim this is an abuse story, not a homeschool story. Some parents would be livid that the word “homeschool” is even mentioned in this article because the choice of schooling is irrelevant. I’ve lost track on how many times I have seen this argument by homeschooling parents, including many of my long-time homeschool friends.
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This story is not isolated.  Last year I reported on the Jackson family. This is another conservative Christian homeschool family in which a young girl was raped by her brothers for many years. Her parents knew this was going on and turned a blind eye. You can read more here: Four of the Jackson Brothers Plead Guilty in Incest Rape Case.
Is homeschooling the real issue here, or sex abuse? Â
I think we can all agree that in this case, the type of education is not the real issue, sex is. However, when looking at the larger picture, we need to ask:
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Is homeschooling the vehicle by which abuse can be more easily facilitated?
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When parents or guardians claim they are homeschooling, this education designation affords them more freedoms than if their child were enrolled in school. In Virginia, if I notified my school district that I would be homeschooling and filing a “religious exemption,” the State’s hands would tied and would unable to have any oversight whatsoever. So, essentially, a parent could do whatever they wanted to educate their child – – or not educate their child. No one would know.
Some fringe Christians are anti-government, and they don’t bother notifying their school district that they are homeschooling
their kids. We’ve seen the case of Alecia Faith Pennington who moved from her parents’ home and had no birth certificate, no medical records, no driver’s license, no social security card, no way of obtaining a job, and no way of traveling without a VISA, which requires identification documents.
For over three decades, the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has indoctrinated parents to be fearful of the government, and so we have a whole generation of homeschool parents who don’t want any governmental oversight at all. They feel that any oversight usurps parental rights. As a former veteran homeschool mom (23 years), I used to be one of that crowd and probably even 6 years ago, I would have had it out with the new me today. I know the arguments. They are the same arguments homeschooling parents have said for years.
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Now I am seeing things through different lenses as I observe:
- identification abuse like the “Alecia Penningtons” without any legal identification to help them move forward as adults
- young ladies held in a patriarchal prison, forced to remain in their parents’ home long after they are legal adults, prevented from going to college, prevented from much engagement outside the circle of their “protected” and isolated homeschool and church community cocoon
- boys being taught in Patriarchy Movement that women are for their objectification
- girls being taught that they were created to “serve” men and in the process, they lose their own personhood
- parents using their children as work slaves
- parents withholding proper medical care/treatment:Â this link gives many stories of medical neglect
- parents forcing their children to live in horrific conditions
- sexual abuse hidden for years: Â link to many stories of sex abuse, the Josh Duggar sex abuse case
- children confined, isolated, imprisoned, socially isolated: Â link to many stories of imprisonment
- children deprived of basic needs of food: Â link to many accounts of food deprivation
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What is the solution?
I understand that parents do not want to lose their rights to homeschool.
I understand that parents do not want big brother looking over their shoulders.
But what about these innocent children who are slipping through the cracks?
Do they not deserve better?
How can we  help to protect the children who are being harmed when deviant parents use “homeschooling” as their umbrella of protection to abuse?
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Related links:
Coalition for Responsible Home Education: “OUR MISSION is to raise awareness of the need for homeschooling reform, provide public policy guidance, and advocate for responsible home education practices.”
Homeschooling’s Invisible Children: “Homeschooling’s Invisible Children (HIC) shines a light on the dark side of homeschooling, where a lack of outside protections for homeschooled children has led to some horrifying consequences. Homeschooling can be a useful educational tool in the hands of the right parents, but when it falls into the hands of the wrong parents the results can be disastrous, and it is the children who suffer.”
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Spiritual Sounding Board 
According to RawStory: The Old Testament law Rob and Marie Johnson believed in was regarding marriage, under which a man can have many wives who are ultimately his property.
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“Some parents would be livid that the word “homeschool” is even mentioned in this article because the choice of schooling is irrelevant.”
These are usually the same parents who condemn the entire public school system whenever another teacher is caught having an inappropriate relationship with a student. What’s sauce for the goose . . .
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The headline of the particular piece represents an extreme reach and defies logic. Homeschooling is not the culprit here, and as a former (successful) home-schooling parent-teacher, I take strong offense at the inference.
The issue here is not home-schooling, but abuse. Abusers are not merely parents or adoptive parents. As we well know, they can also be teachers and coaches and choir leaders and pastors.
All forms of abuse share several related factors which will likely include authority, fear, guilt, shame, and secrecy. An abuse victim is brainwashed into believing that the abuser is the ultimate authority. It is he (or she) who asserts that the treatment to which the victim is being subject is either right, natural and/or deserved. The victim suffers from the guilt that they are somehow deserving of the terrible treatment they receive. They are ashamed of what they have allowed to happen to them and keep their secret to protect themselves from being exposed. Then there is the fear of what might happen to the victim should the offenses be revealed. What will happen to the offender (who professes to love the victim) and what will happen to the victim who may be left all alone – or end up in a worse situation? Victims generally conclude that it is better to keep their secrets and hope that their lives improve, that they might find a way to get their abuser to be nice to them.
But inferring that home-schooling parents are more prone to molest their children is a terrible stretch. Abuse of every form can be found in virtually every possible venue. Attempting to cast home-schooling parents who truly care about the education of children in a such a poor light is just plain wrong.
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Cindy, I’m a former homeschool mom, too. As I said in the article, deviant parents can hide under the homeschool umbrella in order to more easily abuse. Homeschooling is not the issue, but it provides the vehicle. I also did not make a generalization that homeschooling parents are more prone to molest.
Do you see how easy it is for abusive parents to continue their abuse because they are homeschooling? They know they don’t have to worry about their kid going to school and telling anyone. They know they don’t have to answer to teachers, counselors, the state. It’s a perfect setup.
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My daughter , son in law and 8 grandchildren ( ages 6-23). Have been slowly working their way out of a religious cultlike experience for the last 14 months. Part of this cultlike experience has been homeschooling and the isolation that has gone along with it. These kids don’t have a clue. And really, neither do their well-educated parents. There are so many things wrong. There is no discernment and certainly no critical thinking. Emotional problems abound and unfortunately none of these kids have what it takes to make it in the workforce. They are very hard workers and are not stupid. Just ignorant because of their parents’ choices.
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Can I make the same argument about public school whenever I read about a teacher or coach abusing a child? Your article doesn’t given me any logical reason for why I couldn’t.
You could say that the particular isolation of homeschooling makes it easier to hide this, but then I could argue that the time out of the home and time spent with non-family does the same in the other case.
Any situation where you have a successful child abuser would pass your “do you see how easy it was for…” test.
Your imaginary interlocutor was right: this is about sex and not schooling.
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Of course children slip through the cracks at school; however, if they are caught, they can be arrested for failure to report because all teachers are mandatory reporters.
But how many adults will a child run into at school? their teacher, librarian, music teacher, school nurse, adults in the cafeteria, at recess, office staff. A student won’t run into all of those adults each day, but during a week, they have the opportunity to connect with most of them. What adult does a homeschool child have a chance to interact with – – especially if the parent is an abusing parent and socially isolates the child? It is just not the same.
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Unfortunately abusing a child seems to be so easy. Whether in public school, private school or home school. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and many abuse cases have been discovered in the past few years. I do not know the answer . I do know my isolated homeschooled grandchildren gave been taught to submit to authority. Being a child must be very scary.
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Abuse can happen in any type of family situation. Far more public schooled children are abused than homeschooled children so is the common denominator for them being public schooled? What about foster children, is the common denominator for them being in foster homes? As a former pediatric RN the most common risk factor for abuse I saw were homes with single moms with live-in boyfriends. So are all boyfriends of single moms suspect?
In the article you posted on Facebook, Boz T quotes a statistic that eighty-eight percent of child sex abuse is never reported. Just because a child sees multiple adults in the course of a day doesn’t mean they will tell anyone. What about the eight year old boy in my city who was being horrifically abused by his mom and her boyfriend and who told his teacher and his social worker that he was trying to kill himself because of his suffering and he was left in the home and was murdered? Multiple mandatory reporters knew his situation and he still fell through the cracks.
The common denominator is the abuse. Do you think there should be some special requirements that homeschooling parents have to follow to prove they are not abusive? What about all the abused children who aren’t homeschooled? Shouldn’t their parents have to prove their parenting skills too? At least seven of the ten things you cited above can happen in any family or schooling situation. Any solution you propose to monitor homeschooling parents would have to be equally applied to non-homeschooling parents as well.
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Mom of two:
Schools take precautions to protect children. They are legally obligated to report to authorities if they suspect any kind of abuse. Can you outline precautions that homeschooling parents take to protect their children? I’ve been a homeschool mom in five different states. Not one of those five states had any policy for me as a homeschooling parent on abuse issues.
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The Coalition for Responsible Homeschooling’s recommendation for requiring annual visits with mandatory reporters seems like a good start. It wouldn’t really affect good parents because they already take their kids to the doctor. But it may be enough to catch some of these severely isolated children. Ultimately the best defense against abuse is to teach kids to recognize it and whom to report it to. Unfortunately when the abuser is the parent there is no one to teach these things.
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Wow, some homeschool folks are so quick to self identify with the negative aspects of the “homeschool movement” , get offended and then defend it even though NO one is claiming that homeschooling in and of itself is a negative. That seems like an almost cultlike mentality of having to defend the movement regardless of what you are seeing. The point is the isolation of homeschooling when combined with a unhealthy church environment and frankly wacko parents lends itself to abuse. That is a undeniable and irrefutable fact regardless of who it makes uncomfortable.
There are many fine, healthy homeschool families that are well balance and not part of this extreme end of the homeschool movement. You folks have zip to apologize for and are a positive in the Christian community. Just don’t make the mistake of lumping yourselves together with the end of the movement Julie Anne is addressing by feeling you have to defend it. Enough people already make that generalization.
You are your homeschool family, NOT a movement.
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“Wow, some homeschool folks are so quick to self identify with the negative aspects of the “homeschool movement” , get offended and then defend it even though NO one is claiming that homeschooling in and of itself is a negative.”
I know. Reminds me of this.
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Exactly, Scott. The mantra is this: “don’t you dare mess with the freedoms homeschooled parents have fought so hard to obtain. And, why should we all have to suffer and pay for the crimes of someone else who is irresponsible and abusive? That’s not right. You are presuming guilt for all homeschoolers when in reality, this its only a very small percentage who are affected.”
Notice all of these show concern about self, not others. That sure seems contrary to behavior of a Christian who should be looking out for those in need or in harm’s way. Additionally, if homeschoolers want to present themselves to the world as above board and that they have nothing to hide, it seems they would be willing to take steps to help ensure that.
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Leslie,
You are right to be concerned for your grandchildren. I wish someone would have been more concerned for my husband and his brothers while they were growing up in similar circumstances. I wish someone would have been aware of the Michael Pearl style beatings. (When he brought that up to his parents a week ago, his mother just started quoting scriptures at him. Beating a kid black and blue is Biblical™.) I wish someone had been concerned that he only received a 7th grade home education. I wish someone had been concerned that the “church” was making certain he was only fit to function within their insular little bubble And when they were finished ruining him, they tossed him out into a world he had no experience in dealing with.
I still homeschool my kids. My 14-year-old already has more math education than her father received. They have hopes and dreams for their futures. We don’t beat anybody, and our home still functions relatively peacefully. I wish ALL kids, whether homeschooled or public/private schooled, could be safe, loved, and educated to face the world and take care of themselves.
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So, what is the solution? Is being in public school a guarantee that child abuse will be noticed and stopped? If it is, the schools in my metropolitan area are doing a terrible job. What about the child who is being sexually abused and is too scared to tell anyone? Do you think they will speak up to a doctor they see a few times a year if they won’t tell anyone they are really close to?
What about children who are too young for school? Who protects them? What precautions are their parents required to take to prevent abuse? What about teenagers who have dropped out of school? How do we keep them from slipping through the cracks? What about the severely disabled children who can’t tell anyone?
So, what is the solution? I have heard plenty of people say this is a problem yet no one offers a workable solution.
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Preferably before the Kyle’s Moms (i.e. Social Activists) discover Homeschool Abuse as their next Righteous Cause and force their standard solution (i.e. Get the Government to outlaw Homeschooling completely) down everyone’s throats. Especially because it has a built-in “For The Children!” angle.
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Julie Anne,
I noticed within five comments the “HOMESCHOOL GOOD! GUBMINT BAAAAAAAAD!! HOMESCHOOL GOOD!!! GUBMINT BAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!” Defenders of the Faith/Movement started in.
Like the Late Cold War Intellectuals whose immediate comeback to alerts about the atrocities of Pol Pot & North Korea was “Ah, but do you realize just how much power Rupert Murdoch has?”
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Homeschooling is a great educational option for many different reasons. Public schools and private schools offer great learning opportunities as well.Child abuse happens among all three educational options that are available to the American public. No one is denying that.
Does homeschooling offer an easier way to hide child abuse? I would have to say yes. Although, I do know that it is easy for kids in public and private schools to hide child abuse, however, there are greater chances for the abuse to be found out only because kids are exposed to more adults who are trained to recognize child abuse and are mandated to report it.
When I was homeschooling, I loved our state’s homeschooling laws. One needs to register an intent to homeschool by the child’s compulsory age (age 7) then test in 3rd, 5th, 8th and 10th grades. The educational service district never reviews these test scores (but they may request seeing them) and never checks in with the family during their homeschooling time. With this alone, I now see how children can (and do) easily fall through the cracks with educational neglect or other types of abuse.
Do children fall through the cracks in public schools? Of course they do. They especially do if parents are not involved in their child’s education. However, there are some safeguards set in place through public school to make sure that kids are getting to school. Is it perfect? No, and no one is suggesting that it is. But it is hard to deny that children may be easily hidden in a homeschool setting, especially when laws are lax.
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We’ve homeschooled for almost two decades and have a huge family. But we are not against public education per se; our oldest attends a public university, I’m a full time educator at a public university (as was my wife before she unilaterally decided to teach our children at home). Both of us were educated primarily in public schools. We’ve seen both sides of it.
I don’t believe that either homeschooling or public schooling is inherently bad. Both of us had to deal with some abuse in the public schools, I dealt with some severe bullying (and still deal with the aftermath, a hatred of bullies that I sometimes struggle to reconcile with my faith), and my wife often had to navigate around rampant drug abuse at a major metro public school. She reached a point in junior high where she was afraid to use the school’s restroom and would often hold things until she could get home. At a public school in our town multiple faculty members and the principal were recently arrested for widespread sexual abuse of students and the attempted cover up thereof (I understand one could claim “At least it was discovered and dealt with”, but this was only so after particularly widespread abuse had occurred over a period of time–and of course, the same could be said of Mr. and Ms Johnson, the abusers highlighted in this article).
Public school is, in my experience, no day at the park. We’ve had some terrible experiences in the homeschooling movement. Some of the strangest, most disturbed and vicious people we’ve met were homeschool families with angelic smiles for public consumption. There’s an insular, pharisaical, paranoid air among many. Some can be downright slanderous and cruel; my college-age daughter is still reeling from the almost unimaginable slander that was spread about her by “nice” homeschool girls in her group. This is why we left the homeschool movement and no longer associate with any families who homeschool except for one.
I understand your point, JA, and I agree with it, homeschoolers who set themselves up as smug and isolated can both breed monsters and attract monsters to their movement. We want nothing to do with it anymore, and our children, both adult and minor, associate with a wide range of people, including those who are from public schools, but we still choose to homeschool and I don’t see that changing. In any event. there’s nothing about smug isolation that seems Christian anyway, so for many of them, I have to wonder if the scripture “having the form of godliness, but denying the power” doesn’t fit.
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Mom of Two, that is the problem–we don’t know what the answer is. The discussion of the issue is how we continue toward finding a solution.
Julie Anne, I think it’s also important to consider who does the public school answer to? It’s a government agency–that answers to who? All the testing, all their standards, all their codes of conduct–who are they answering to? One might argue that they are accountable to the public/community for the tax dollars that they are spending. There are regulations and checks on the money. But, when a child is mistreated at school, who is their advocate? It’s the parents.
So, when the parents take back the responsibility for education. Who should they answer to? They don’t take public money…so why should they have to answer for the public/community for the education? Should they then have to answer to the school for conduct or standards? It’s a question of who is the authority.
In public schools, there are more individuals who the abuse victim could reach out for help from an abusive home situation. But, abusers wield a lot of control–and there are still far too many kids who are going thru public schools without ever reporting their abuser. It’s not necessary for abusers to hide in homeschooling. They hide in plain sight–and someone they know could report them to the current authorities.
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“Both of us had to deal with some abuse in the public schools,”
Same here, Truth Detector. I was an overweight, acneic (thank you, PCOS), geeky, honor-roll student. Combine that with a dysfunctional family, third culture kid issues, and, probably other things I’m not yet aware of, and it’s no surprise I was so vulnerable to love bombing.
HUG makes a very important point above. I hope the homeschooling community will take initiative to find some guidelines for protecting kids, or someone will step in and approach it with a much heavier hand. I don’t want to see that happen. I also don’t want to read more stories like the one at the beginning of this post.
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“It’s not necessary for abusers to hide in homeschooling. They hide in plain sight–and someone they know could report them to the current authorities.”
The problem with the homeschool community is that people don’t/won’t report abuse. Instead, it seems we shoot our wounded. When Alecia Pennington’s plight made headlines, I read comment after comment decrying the “liberal media’s” attack on homeschooling/Christian values. Poor Alecia! She was not only treated like yesterday’s trash by her family, but some homeschoolers rubbed salt in her wounds. You can guess how that looks to the rest of the general populace.
Perhaps a good first step would be to stop reacting to every story of abuse in the homeschooling community as if it’s a personal attack against us. Start condemning the abuse and support the victims. When a non-homeschooling abuse story makes the news. commenters universally condemn the abuse. Not so with homeschoolers. It’s embarrassing.
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Exactly! Homeschool parents don’t even realize how foolish and uncaring that makes them look. The world can see it plainly, but homeschool parents do whatever they can do to shoot any messenger who mentions “homeschool” as a connection with abuse. If it bugs you that much, then do what you can do to make homeschooling safe for all children, even those outside of your home.
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I homeschooled for over 20 years and remember the fear instilled in me about Child Protective Services (CPS) and government intrusion. I was naive and thought that every homeschooling parent was on the same page as me. If there was any reason to suspect abuse, I don’t think I would have said anything because I had more fear that the government wouldn’t do the right thing. It would have felt like a betrayal to the family and I would have been just another whistle blower. Unfortunately, I would have given the family the benefit of the doubt and not got involved. I’ve since reframed so many of my beliefs due mostly to the internet. There is so much information available now than 5, even 10 years ago. You can’t hide your head in the sand.
I know that the majority of homeschooling families don’t fall into this category of abuse. Most are doing a great job. But the movement needs to recognize the real potential for abuse and not make excuses or point out all the problems in the public school system. Of course there are problems in the public school, but the homeschool movement set itself up (prided itself) with giving parents and children a better option, not avoiding parental responsibilities. The movement should be more than ready and willing to rethink and discuss abuse issues and adopt some kind of protective measures. I don’t have answers either, but like others have said, the discussion needs to take place.
Also, I think the kind of teaching, “training” the Pearl’s promote (spank until you break the child’s will, first time obedience, etc) just enforces the parent against child idea. The child needs to learn and get in line with the parental authority. Somewhere in there the child can lose their unique identity and it gets blurred with the “family” or the “movement”. When we started out so many years ago it seemed so counter cultural and you did feel like you were part of something bigger than ever. God was blessing the movement, etc. Scandals like Gothard/Phillips has been a humbling experience for these leaders.
Maybe more teaching/discussion on healthy boundaries would help? I’m happy to see alternatives to Pearls type of discipline becoming more available (gentle parenting).
BTW: In some of my past circles homeschooling was considered the only option if you were a “serious” Christian otherwise you’d lose your kids to the “world” , more fear mongering. I’ve also heard so many times that we need to get rid of public school. What an irresponsible attitude. There are so many children that benefit from it.
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I remember the early 80’s well. The fear mongering that went on. We Christuan parents were made to be so afraid that the state would swoop in and take our kids. Several examples were given to us about Godly parents having their kids removed . I remember my 3 year old daughter having a bruise on her leg and I was paranoid to take her to her swimming lesson lest I be reported for child abuse.
I remember having some of this reading ( brainwashing) material about when my brother in a visited. He basically said “this is paranoia at it’s worst”
This paranoia went on for 10 more years. I even went to a seminar in the Bay Area on child abuse somewhere in the mid to late 80’s just to see what they were plotting against us.I’m sure I stuck out like a sore thumb and I was very uncomfortable. One attendee said she was there to share that her father was a pillar of the community, a leader in his church, yet he beat his children. I parented using ‘dare to Discipline” and “The strong willed child”. After hearing this woman speak, I was confused. Although we didn’t homeschool( I didn’t have the temperament or the patience). We did send the kids to a very fundamental Christian School. After terrible things happening among the staff( affairs, suicudes, gun threats). We moved 39 miles away to start over. We decided things could not possibly be any worse at the public schools. We had a terrific experience. All the stupid rules were gone. Our kids were so much more mentally and emotionally stable at the public school. Our daughter had a Christian teacher for junior English. My daughter was able to present before the class why abortion was wrong . Several students approached her later and said they had never heard that side of the debate.
I know this is long and maybe somewhat off topic, but I saw more abuse in the Christian Community than I did in the public schools.
As a side note to my earlier comment, our middle daughter did go through the fundamental Christian school until she graduated, she and her husband and 8 kids are now struggling to get out of a cult situation. Their health is bad and they live in poverty. And they still homeschool.
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I wonder how many of these abuse cases happened in the fundy, patriarchical branch of homeschooling? Homeschoolers are very diverse.
How much does the whole Reconstructionist beliefs come into play? Unbeknownst to me, I was being fed all kinds of this theology through the speakers and curriculum pushed. We had to “take back the country for God”. Family, nationalism, and the lifestyle were becoming the idols. I heard that children were important to indoctrinate to carry out this plan. So if they rebelled, well they were falling into the world and the family was seen as failures. How sick is that? Sounds so cult now when I think back on those talks.
I think it was on the Rethinking Vision Forum website where they showed the VF’s purpose. Not one mention of Jesus. That said alot.
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@Monique:
Monique, your family was nothing more than a spawning pit below Isengard; you were no more than a womb, breeding Uruk-Hai for the Great Culture War. With Christ cast in the role of Sauron and Pastor as Saruman (or the Mouth of Sauron).
‘We had to “take back the country for God”. ‘
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I have known two families who homeschooled. Both were sane.
One of my writing partners homeschooled because the only public school in his area was among the WORST in the state and he couldn’t afford any sort of private school.
The father/breadwinner of the other had a job which required frequent moves around the country; homeschooling was more stable for his kids than having to uproot and replant every couple years to few months.
I consider both of these legitimate reasons.
Hiding yourself from the Big Bad HEATHEN World or control-freak abuse is NOT legit.
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I have no issue with homeschooling in general. But, the fundy segment of the population do scare me. Friends and family members who are part of this movement are fanatical about the importance of authority and obedience. These children have not been given the opportunities to practice discernment. One of my brothers, frustrated by an exchange student’s habitual tardiness, responded to the situation saying, “How will she succeed in life if she doesn’t learn to obey??!!”
If a child is not given the chance to practice decision making, they are set up to abdicate their adult lives to any authority figure. Even when the fundementalist homeschooling family is non-abusive, they are setting their kids up to be manipulated and possibly abused as adults by malignant narcissists.
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The biggest problem is how you tell the difference between parents who have their children’s best interest at heart, and those that are using homeschooling as a tool for isolation and abuse?
I’m married to a public school teacher-so I know first hand some of the challenges and deficiencies in the public realm. That said, there are many checks and balances and protections for children who are being abused (whether at home or school).
What checks and balances are in place for home schooled children?
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There are also the parents who homeschool because they have been brainwashed into believing it is the only godly way . They have been guilt tripped and shamed if they question those who they believe are their “Authority”.
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I was raised in homeschool and was abused.
My head of the family father decided we did not need education after eighth grade, we skipped grades to save him “HIS” money.
When I use to read articles about the catholic churches sexual abuse mean Catholics would come on and try to change the subject from priest raping little boys to Hollywood raping children. Homeschoolers are the same way, lets not talk about what we do wrong lets talk about what public school does wrong.
Think how it would sound if Hollywood did that, the catholic church rapes kids more then we do. People would say this article isn’t about the catholic church, it is about you. You think because you are Hollywood you should get away with child abuse? Get over yourself.
Kids talk. In public school a little girl being raped by her misogynistic bible quoting father could hear by another little girl how evil little girl rape is. Growing up in conservative home school I never heard how evil little girl raping men were, but I heard much about how evil rape victims are for hating rapist men. I was taught to hate myself and worship men.
As someone raised in conservative Christian home school I believe homeschooling is the preferred method of education for girls by creepy Christian fathers trying to create trapped female slaves for themselves and other loser sexually sadistic men.
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“I have no issue with homeschooling in general. But, the fundy segment of the population do scare me. Friends and family members who are part of this movement are fanatical about the importance of authority and obedience. These children have not been given the opportunities to practice discernment.”
I totally agree. Honestly, I don’t know the answer, but I do know that something HAS to be done, or the right to homeschool is going to disappear.
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Julie Anne, I have not been able to post here for sometime. Since I finally got here 🙂 , could I ask you if you would check at your end to see what the problem may be??
Thanks!!
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zooey111, can you please describe the problem you’ve been having? I don’t know that there’s anything on my side that I can do, but if you let me know, then I can pass it along to the Word Press folks. Thank you!
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