Born and Bred For Christianity
From Raw Story:
The Institute in Basic Life Principles, (IBLP) the homeschooling
program used by the Duggar family, was accused of covering up sexual assault
against underage girls in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the
Washington Post reported.
The five plaintiffs, identified as Charis Barker, Rachel Frost, Rachel Lees,
Gretchen Wilkinson and one Jane Doe, are each seeking $50,000 in damages,
saying they were "at times minors" when they were subjected to the abuse and "inappropriate
touching" during their association with the group.
Josh Duggar has become a poster boy for hypocrisy and cover-ups of the uber-Christian style. Now he has become a shining example of the problems homeschooled children face: lack of socialization may lead to sexual psychosis. The article Purity Has Its Price outlined the cult-like atmosphere of IBLP and its users. Disgraced founder Bill Gothard stressed CONTROL:
Gothard teaches that dating is morally dangerous and that courtship is the better alternative. Gothard encourages parents to be involved in their children's courtship. The father, especially, should be involved in his daughter's relationships. He should at the very least have the right to say "no" when a man asks to marry his daughter. Gothard also advocates conservative dress. [1] Gothard's teachings discourage dating and rock music, including Christian rock. Gothard teaches that women working outside the home are putting themselves under another man's authority and conflict may arise. He has warned that some toys such as Cabbage Patch dolls may cause destructive behavior in children.
Anti-Socialization
While the number of children homeschooled using the IBLP program is not available on its website, the fact that it took in over $63 million in 2006, shows that it touches in the tens of thousands.
About 1.35 million children in America are homeschooled. So, are 1.35 million kids deprived of socialization? To a certain extent... yes. A majority of those children are homeschooled because Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christian parents detest most forms of secularism, and they deems a strictly "Christian" upbringing impossible in a secular world. Homeschooling glorifies a narrow religious perspective and makes assimilation and socialization very, very difficult.
Lana Hope was homeschooled and became a part of the homeschool movement, only later to come to terms with the myth of socialization:
We first generational homeschoolers have finally reached the age where we recognize that we were duped. When I was 19, I thought I was well socialized because I had been told that I was well socialized. Everytime someone asked me, "well, what about socialization?" I had been trained to say, "oh, we have plenty of social opportunities." I had no idea that yes, we had social opportunities, and that I would still have social problems from lack of interaction with public schoolers. When I grew up and had social problems, I just blamed myself because, again, it never crossed my mind that I wasn't well socialized. It took online bloggers and online community -- sharing stories together -- before I realized that actually, I have socialization problems as a result of my homeschool years.
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