Originally Posted by some traitor writing on reddit.com

I've been waiting for this thread my entire life.

I grew up involved with the Quiverfull movement, a type of Christian Fundamentalism that involves having a bunch of children, home education, extremely modest dress including headcoverings, the practise of "courting" and "bethrothals" (basically semi-arranged marriages taking place as soon as the girl was old enough to marry), and something called "Christian patriarchy", wherein the father is viewed as a sort of mini god.

I grew up attending a small Christian school run by the local Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church, where every student was Quiverfull. We were required to wear extremely modest clothing (ankle length skirts, hemlines that covered the base of our necks, etc. We had wardrobe checks multiple times each day.)

Each morning we pledged allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Bible. It's been years, but I can still recite both pledges by heart. Then we recited the chapters of the Bible we were working on. Yes, I did say chapters. We memorized several books of the Bible (Jonah, all of Paul's epistles, most of Genesis, Daniel, a decent amount of Leviticus and I think the Gospel of Mark.)

Our schoolwork was primarily books published by Abeka, BJUPress and ACE. Our textbooks claimed that

• no transitional fossils had ever been found
• the Loch Ness Monster had been proven to be real and was a plesiosaur
• the Great Depression never happened but was just a myth made up by the socialists
• slavery was a win-win solution for all involved dinosaurs breathed fire
• the KKK were great dudes who got a bad rap
• the trail of tears was actually super great
• outer space wasn't real because if you blew on a pile of baby powder, a new planet wouldn't form (this was demonstrated)
• the Liberals don't believe in personal responsibility
• the world is about to be attacked by the floating Space Jerusalem

We never covered much actual math, science, etc. Learning the truth about the government's plan to kill Holocaust the Christians was seen as much more important.

For one year the girls also took Christian Charm. This was primarily about how God really, really cares about whether your chest is 10 inches largest than your waist or not. Girls were forbidden from standing with their feet parallel, "like a man's", instead having to keep our feet at ridiculous and painful angles. We couldn't walk without being careful to "glide gracefully" and avoid "swishing" our knees. We were forbidden to not smile, but our smiles were never big enough, or they were too big.

There wasn't much time for real schoolwork anyway, since we were all so busy being punished for having an ungodly facial expression, and forced to spend the rest of the school day standing on our tiptoes on one foot in the corner.

In fourth grade my parents chose to pull me out and homeschool me. We joined a local homeschool group filled with Quiverfull homeschoolers. My parents had gone to a different church, one which was very Charismatic (we spoke in tongues, exorcised people, "healed" with prayer) but not necessarily quite so extreme as the IFB school I had been sent to. However, as my father became more violent (he had a lot of mental issues and was an extreme hoarder), my mother (who was a borderline hoarder and very depressed, so much so that for the first ten years of my life she barely left her bed except to use the washroom) became more and more heavily sucked into this subculture.

My parents had already gotten rid of most TV channels over concerns about evil spirits and only allowed us to read a few classic books, but after this my mom first stopped allowing us to read anything non-Christian, then banned novels altogether. We began being forbidden to see anyone who did not go to our church or homeschool group. Since my parents never really started teaching, and I had little access to books and at the time no internet, this left little to do all day aside from copy out Bible verses and stare out the window for hours. Time sort of stopped meaning anything.

We became more into the Biblical patriarchy thing, where my father was seen
as the head of our household and a sort of direct representative from god who women were to serve and obey in every way. You weren't supposed to express any kind of wishes or desire, but leave it up to your husband/father to make all decisions for you. (if you were his daughter, this included selecting your husband--girls were expected to be stay at home daughters, serving their fathers, until marriage) Biblical femininity was emphasized, which in this case basically meant long skirts and not having opinions or desires, except to serve whatever man God chose as the best "helpmeet" possible.

For a couple of years my mom, who was herself a nurse stopped allowing us to take medicine, believing it to be witchcraft. She became more and more crazed about the idea of demons trying to attack her and our family.
Unfortunately, I was born with a birthmark on my leg. She believed that this made me Satan. My father and mother both searched for ways to fix this. I've been exorcised, had oil poured over me, had everything I owned burned, etc. It apparently didn't work.

After my father died we were at least spared his extreme violence, but my mother became only more unhinged and depressed. She mostly gave up on her idea of me as Satan, but became absolutely obsessed with the idea of Satan attacking our family. This belief is reinforced by our church and all the Charismatic material she reads. She even abandoned our homeschool group, believing it to not be concerned enough about how demons are possessing everyone.

Our church is obsessed with spiritual attacks, which are seen as stemming from absolutely everything. Anne of Green Gables? Witchcraft! Christian music? Actually sung by Satanists, filled with subliminal Satanic messages! Cabbage patch dolls? Demons who stay still when we look at them! (I'm 100% serious) The only way to ward this off is speaking in tongues, making prophesies, etc. A few people in my church believe they hear the voices of demons in their head, and said demons are chasing them. I've been there as we've all laid hands on people and prayed for them to be liberated from the demonic oppression in their lives.

I...don't really have an end to this story. I still live with my mother and sister. I still go months without seeing anyone who isn't from my church. I still have no real education, although since I can now access the internet (it's monitored, but my mother doesn't know incognito mode is a thing, so I can secretly read Homeschoolers Anonymous, No Longer Quivering, things about atheism and reddit) I've been trying to learn some math through Khan Academy. I have hope of eventual escape, even if I have no idea how just yet.

Originally Posted by WWJDnow (Post 1122710)

Reddit? Isn't that a communist website?

Originally Posted by LolitaWolfiebear (Post 1125948)

I've never heard of this Quiverfull movement but it sounds like a very scary and dangerous cult.

Originally Posted by LolitaWolfiebear (Post 1125948)

I've never heard of this Quiverfull movement but it sounds like a very scary and dangerous cult.

Originally Posted by LolitaWolfiebear (Post 1125953)

Lol, not hardly. Anyone who wasn't walking around in stupid would know that is a cult from the lady's description of it.

Originally Posted by A smart person (Post 1126178)

I for one is glad that this has been posted to redit. now if only it was posted on 4chan maybe then this site will be DDOSed into oblivion

Originally Posted by A smart person (Post 1126186)

there is a large difference between wishing for something to happen and actually doing it. i was just stating that 4chan has a history with taking matters into their own hands