Sideways Stories from the Land of Not Quite Right.

The holiday season is upon us now and I have been reflecting on my holiday seasons past. I love Christmas. Being from a Christian upbringing, my family obviously celebrated the birth of Jesus (although anyone from my childhood would openly admit that Christ was not born on December 25th — why we celebrated his birth at this time seems to have escaped their minds. I know why we do — paganism!!)

 I digress. 

I love Christmas, always have, and I always will. Putting up the tree, the lights, the myriad of ornaments I have collected over the years — I love pulling it all out and enjoying all the memories I’ve had from each of those ornaments. It’s just such a wonderful time.

So this morning, on my way to work I was thinking, “I really miss going caroling.” My very next thought was, “Well, not everyone celebrates Christmas and it’s a little presumptuous to assume that anyone would want random strangers standing on their front porch singing ‘Angels We Have Heard on High.’”  Which has led me to my next Christmas memory…

As a teenager my church would gather the youth group, and take us out caroling. We would bundle up in our winter best.

I will interject here that for the girls, this meant a dress or skirt. The rationale of spending two hours, outside in freezing temperatures has really escaped me. 

Again — I digress … 

So, we’d be in our winter best and we’d go to random houses, knock on their doors, and sing to the families that lived inside them. At the time this was so fun and an excellent way to share the season with the lost and dying masses. Now, I feel guilty because I’m fairly certain there were many Jewish people, people who celebrate Winter Solstice (lets face it, this is Ann Arbor — you know there are people in this town who celebrate Winter Solstice), or people who celebrate Kwanza who politely suffered through our carols. They are better people than my church was. 

I got spanked a lot as a kid. I know parents in the 80s and 90s did that more frequently than than they do now — parenting isn’t what it used to be. However, I think my parents went overboard. The following stories are things I did to get spanked. 

When I was six I refused to copy my alphabet at school. After being sent to the office and being spanked by the matronly school secretary, a note was sent home to my parents informing them I had been spanked. Like the smart six year old I was, I hid the note in the back of my sock drawer so my parents wouldn’t find out.  Unbeknownst to me, the note needed to be signed and returned to the school. After a week of not having the note, my teacher, Mrs. Thurmund, called my mother inquiring about said note.  

My mother came to me and asked me about the note, and I, perhaps in not the smartest fashion ever, lied about having the note. It wasn’t smart because the paddle my parents used to spank us with was also kept in my sock drawer and eventually my mom found it :(     — I got spanked…

So, I guess in the long run I got spanked for being deceitful and then lying about being deceitful. Although, I’d like to point out that the original punishment was for NOT writing my alphabet, which as you can tell, has hurt me terribly! 

So, Kindergarten for me was an all day event. I learned my ABCs and 123s. I was also forced to take a nap. Any adult will tell you they dreaded taking a nap as a child. I was no different. 

However, nap time in my school was mandatory. I MUST fall asleep, and if I didn’t fall asleep — we’d get spanked. 

One especially memorable time my friend and I decided to play during nap time and not take a nap. It’s really shocking that a pair of five-year-olds would find some little game to occupy their time rather than sleep. 

I don’t remember the game, but I do remember being sent to the principal’s office being told how naughty I was for being a normal five-year-old and then being spanked for not taking a nap. 

I’ve been trying to tell stories in a fairly chronological order since that is the way life functions, but I haven’t been quite successful at that. So, this may jump backwards a little bit in the sequence of my life, but I’m sure you’ll be able to follow along here. 

I know I’ve previously talked about the wonderful k-12 education I received from the less than qualified staff. The following story is from my kindergarten days. 

Like most normal children in kindergarten I was taught my ABCs and my 123s, there was snack time and lunch time and recess time. I’ve since learned that most kindergartners don’t have nap time. I did….more on that later. 

Back in the 1950s kids learned to read with the Dick & Jane books. I learned to read from the Paul & Mary books. This series of short stories for children was designed to teach me to read by allowing me to follow this wonderful family — I don’t remember their last name. I do remember each family member though. 

Mother — she had no real name, just mother, as if being a mother was her entire identity — as every girl should strive to be…more on that later as well. Mother was a good woman, she stayed at home and took care of her two small children and the family dog. She always had clean clothes for her family and food on the table when Father got home. She always obeyed her husband and she prayed every day. 

Father — he also had no real name. Although, in light of the unequal treatment of women in Fundie circles, this equality in the naming of the parents was/is lightyears ahead of its time. Anyways, Father had a job although I don’t really know what it was. He came home from work everyday to a piping hot meal, a loving wife and two perfect children. 

Paul — was the oldest child of Father and Mother. He was a good boy, he always ate his vegetables, obeyed every word his parents said, and prayed to Jesus every night before bed. He was expected to become a missionary or pastor of a church when he grew up.

Mary — was the youngest child of Father & Mother. She was a polite, quiet girl. She was never disrespectful to adults nor did she question anything she was taught in school. She did what she was told. She was taught that good girls become wives and mothers. If they are not fortunate enough to be married, they become school teachers at the local Christian educational institution. 

Finally, there was Toby — the family pet. He wasn’t expected to do anything but lay quietly at the foot of the couch and generally keep the children safe — kinda like Lassie.

It was from these stories that I learned about life. I learned what my role in society would be by reading about Mother and Mary. I was told early on that I was going to be a good wife and mother, but that if for some reason I couldn’t be married I would be a good teacher. I would also learn to play the piano and be the spinster that played hymns for church!

I’m going to break from my normal sharing of childhood stories to share a current story that has really started to annoy me. 

My mother has recently been spending time with this young college student and sharing the stories from the Bible with her. I don’t really have a problem with this. My problem lies in the fact that she is completely misrepresenting God (in my opinion). She has made statements that women should be submissive to their husbands and that if their husband says something they have to do what their husband says. The feminist in my has the biggest problem with this statement. 

Of course there are the other issues I have with what she’s telling this woman — mostly that it seems my mom really wants her to have a conversion experience. I just feel so bad for this woman because I don’t know how much of this she is buying and whether she feels emotionally pressured to believe what my mom is telling her. 

This has brought up many of my own issues of being forced into a belief system and I hope this woman knows she doesn’t have to believe all of this and she is still a good person even if she doesn’t believe it. 

We have all seen the episodes of Little House on the Prairie where the small, braids in her hair Laura, gets into her white sack of a nightgown and says her bedtime prayers. Shockingly, we never really did that in my house — bedtime prayers. Perhaps after the following story you’ll know why. 

In my household there was really only one bedtime rule. Once you got in bed, you were not to get out of bed for any reason. All ‘business’ was to be taken care of BEFORE getting in bed. So, brush your teeth, get your drink of water, take care of all bodily functions, and get your hug and kiss. If I - at seven years old - forget to do any of those things before getting into bed for the evening, tough shit. If I got out of bed for any reason, perhaps to pee because at seven, that happens -  I would get a spanking! 

Well one evening AFTER my two younger sisters and I got into bed, we decided to get out of bed (yeah we liked to play it fast and loose as kids — flirting with danger and what not) At some point during our ‘escapade’ my mom walked past our bedroom, and not really caring what we were doing yells, “Dad (yes my parents referred to each other as mom and dad — it was creepy) these kids need a spanking.” I don’t really remember what my dad replied, but my mom ended up spanking us. 

Flash to the morning…

My family always ate breakfast together. The following conversation took place…

Dad: Beth, will you pray for our meal?

Beth: No dad, I don’t really feel like it (this wasn’t abnormal, Beth isn’t really a morning person). 

Dad: Rachel,  will you pray for our meal?

Rachel: No Dad, I don’t want to (this was odd because I always jumped at the chance to brown nose and impress). 

Dad: Why Not (starting to be annoyed)? 

Rachel: Well, Mommy spanks us when we pray. 

Dad: (looks at my mom) What?

Mom: I DO NOT!!

Rachel: Yes, last night we were out of bed praying for our missionaries and you spanked us (for a full description of missionaries see previous post). 

I’m not really sure how the rest of the conversation went, but this is certainly a situation that we have never let our mother forget!! 

Whenever I discuss Mission work, or Missionaries, or people who are on Missions, there tend to be a million and one questions about what it actually is. So, here is my lame, and probably sarcastic attempt to answer the common questions I get. 

In the world of religion, there are many different words that are used for people who go to foreign lands and tell others about Jesus. Mormons call it a Mission, other religions calls it Misson work. In the Fundie world they are called Missionaries, and we refer to the places missionaries go to, as the Mission Field. Historically, Fundies went to places like Africa, or China (the far east) — places that, in the Fundie’s perspective — lacked Civilization and God’s love. I find this to be rather ironic since China, and Africa have been considered ‘civiliaztions’ for much much longer than North America ever has…. but that’s a conversation for a different day. 

So, present day though, Missionaries still go to Africa and other countries around the world to spread the love of Jesus to the lost and dying masses. This work is often funded by the local church, making donations to those who have chosen to venture to parts unknown. After the missionaries get enough churches to make monthly donations, they pack up all of their worldly belongings and go to these foreign countries and build other churches, and get the locals to come in and listen to stories about Jesus. They often get people to come in by providing some kind of service. In less developed countries (like Uganda, or Cambodia) they might offer medical or educational services. In more developed countries like South Korea, or Turkey, they might offer English lessons, but teach them English by making people read the Bible. 

I think I always had more respect for the missionaries who went to more challenging places, places with no running water, or electricity. I thought that people who went to places like Canada or Europe were wimps who really just wanted the churches to pay for their extended vacation. One time my church had a missionary come and tell us about his work in Grand Rapids, Michigan and wanted us to give him money to continue building his church. I really wanted to ask him how long ago his unemployment benefits ran out! 

One of the unique aspects of my childhood was our family devotional time. My father aimed for this to take place every evening (that didn’t always happen). I think he wanted to instill into his children the desire to read the Bible and be always mindful of God’s grace in our lives — add this to the 4 times a week church services… I don’t think we were forgetting much of anything about God.

These daily evening devotional events usually took place after dinner, usually right before bedtime. Perhaps it was my parent’s way of making us sleepy before tucking us snugly in our beds. Because lets face it, what 7 year old finds Leviticus interesting. Even I, a major nerd, could not sit through the 613 laws that compromise the book of Leviticus! It’s worse than reading the constitution.

I don’t really having anything snarky or sarcastic to say on this topic… other than to let you know that for years, I sat through this ridiculous charade of devotion and it really never got me anywhere… It was part of the ‘indoctrination’ that I had to overcome…

One of the main reasons most extreme religions work is because they isolate themselves from the rest of the real world. This isolation is started as a small child, so after a generation or so, no one really knows what the real world is like. Most families limit television, and then the television you do watch is censored, or children are made to feel sorry for the people they see on television because they don’t have the love of God in their lives. 

Around 1970 Fundie churches started establishing K-12 schools (I went to one of these schools). This was a response to the fact that public education banned prayer in the public schools. Fundie parents felt that God was no longer present in the public schools and their children would be exposed to the evils of society because they couldn’t pray before every class period. Fundies went to the extreme here because (even today) Fundies believe that there is absolutely NO prayer allowed in the public school system. Anyone who has been inside or worked for a public school knows that is simply not true.

Fundie schools are generally run by an unqualified member of the church, and then the teachers are equally unqualified members of the church. Once in a great while, you’ll find an actual college graduate teaching in a Fundie school, but certainly, certified teachers are extremely rare. In all of my K-12 fundie education, I think I had 1 or 2 teachers who possessed an actual state teaching certificate. 

So back to isolation… 

Fundie parents put their children in these Fundie schools so that they can be further indoctrinated (as if going to church 4 times a week weren’t enough indoctrination). All lessons are taught from a Fundie point of view. For example, Europeans first came to America for religious freedom. There was absolutely no other reason Europeans came to America. No one wanted to take over Native American lands to plant tabacco, or make millions of dollars by forcing the native population off of their land. Nope…we came for God!! And lest you think we don’t learn about Evolution, we do … only Evolution is bunk and can’t possibly be true!

So, all of my fundie friends go to fundie schools, and fundie churches, and I had little to no contact with the outside world. Everything I was taught to believe is reinforced everyday by everyone in my life (I never had a hope for normalcy). 

Needless to say, my formative education was lacking. However, I’ve since made up for it by reading every raunchy banned book I can get my hands on!

Everyone of us knows a cute little five-year old who slips out a swear word they hear from their parents or another older family member. There’s nothing cuter than hearing a little kid say ‘shit’. 

Swearing was (and is) absolutely verboten in my household. We weren’t even allowed to say ‘darn it’. Well, one day I broke that rule…

As a child we REGULARLY attended Sunday School. This was a time for small children to be indoctrinated. We were told happy stories such as Noah’s Ark and how all of mankind was wiped out by a world wide flood. Or about Moses and the time in history when the Egyptians killed all of their male infants, but Moses’ mother put him in a wicker basket and put that basket into the Nile River to save his life! My favorite though was the one girl in the Leviticus who was stoned to death for disobeying her parents — talk about terrified! 

It was one such Sunday School class that Justin, decided to rip a sign off the wall and run around the room with it. I found this to be odd, and shouted at the top of my lungs, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!” The teacher ripped me up by my arm, dragged me out of the room, and down this dark, scary hallway. She then proceeded to yell at me — for a reason that, while I understand now, completely escaped me as a small child. It should be noted that nothing ever happened to Justin, who defaced church property with his sign rippage downage. 

I all but forgot about this incident in about 7 minutes, because lets be honest, small children have the memory of a flea. However, when I got home, my parents not only yelled at me for ‘swearing’ in Sunday School, but they then proceeded to spank my small behind. 

I’m 32, and I am still refuse to swear in my parents presence.