Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
37. Book Review: Tia Levings' A Well-Trained Wife...or Widget? (Part 1)
What if the very teachings that promise to bring you love and belong are the same ones that will put you in the greatest dangers? Join us as we explore Tia Leving's phenomenal book, "Well-Trained Wife," and the many parts that resonate with us. We discuss the tight grip of rigid faith traditions and societal expectations, and how liberating it can be to seize control of our own destinies. From personal anecdotes to reflections on our younger selves, this episode is packed with heartfelt dialogue about breaking free and growing stronger, with a gentle reminder to brace for heavy content around various forms of abuse.
Show Notes
A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings
PODCAST: The Problems with The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace (Bare Marriage)
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This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 1:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 2:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path.
Speaker 1:Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had, so whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. Hello everyone, Welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi.
Speaker 1:And this is Rebecca. So today we're kind of doing something we've not ever done before, right? This isn't a take two, this is a take three.
Speaker 2:This is a take three. I'm not sure if we should be proud of our persistence and high standards or if we should feel bad about that. Feel bad that it's taken us three times.
Speaker 1:Maybe it just points to the importance of the subject that we're talking about. Well, fair, the importance of the subject that we're talking about and also, you know the respect that I think we owe the author Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So we're here to talk about Tia Leving's book that just came out recently Well-Trained Wife and this book hit both of us really hard, in a good way, I think. We both sped, read through it and then had so much to say that we'll probably be breaking this up into a two-part book review, and what we're going to do is start out by giving us a short summary of the book, and then we're going to go through and talk about some of the passages that struck us and some of the themes that we see coming up again and again. So, before we get into the summary, why did this book make such an impression on you, rebecca?
Speaker 1:You know, I think for many of us, we are told to play according to the rules, we're told to listen to the elders, we're told what God's will is going to be for our lives and, of course, the ultimate desire is to please God and then, of course, get to heaven. And I think oftentimes we kind of get to a point where it's like what we're doing isn't working, and it's realizing that when we take the initiative and even take control for our own lives, while it feels incredibly scary and while it's everything we've been told not to do, at the end of the day, that's when real and positive changes happen. Sometimes that's even when lives are literally saved. And I think the other thing that we forget is, at the end of the day, we are responsible for the way we individually order and control our lives and we don't have to merely react to it. And I think Tia does an incredible job of displaying this in her words. How about?
Speaker 2:you. I agree with that, and I think part of the power of this book was how it reminded me of my younger self. There were so many of the thought processes she had that I could identify with, so, even though our lived realities were very different, it was amazing how many times she described her perspective on something that really resonated with me, and it also reminded me why we wanted to even start this podcast in the first place. Reminded me why we wanted to even start this podcast in the first place because we know that well, as our intro says, veering off the path assigned to us isn't easy, and since we can't go back and assure our younger selves that our desires and interests and experiences mattered, we can share that message with others who are on this journey, and I think this book does a phenomenal job, telling one woman's story of how she did that, agreed, she really did an amazing job and reminded us that we don't always need to have someone else's permission.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, having your own permission, your own approval, is all that we really need Right, right.
Speaker 2:And that sounds like such a blasphemous thing to say when you come from a traditional background where it's all about maintaining the status quo and all about continuing the norms, and yet we see time and time again that that is the very thing that will set us free.
Speaker 1:And doing this doesn't mean you're selfish. Doing this doesn't mean you're being rebellious. Doing this doesn't mean all those things we've been taught. It simply means we're taking responsibility for our lives and sometimes our children's lives, Right?
Speaker 2:right? Yes, it can be a very nuanced issue, and that's what we're here to talk about, so maybe I'll kick this off with the summary and then we'll get started. Oh, before we do that, though, trigger warning. We don't do a lot of content warnings, and maybe it's because the whole podcast could merit a blanket trigger warning, but there's lots of disturbing content here, right?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Her book probably covers every type of abuse imaginable and it's kind of heavy material imaginable. And it's kind of heavy material but also it's empowering material and so yeah, for our listeners, be kind to yourselves. If you need to take breaks, that's totally okay. If you need to talk about it with somebody, absolutely do that, because while it's heavy, while it's moments of great sadness, it is also very empowering and absolutely beautifully written, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I should also mention that there might be spoilers. There's not a lot to spoil in the book, but you'll probably enjoy this conversation more if you have read it. So you might want to go do that before you read it and then come back. And I should also mention I woke up this morning with a migraine. I took my meds and I think I'm going to be okay. But sometimes I have longer pauses than normal between my words because my brain is moving a little slowly. So you might have to turn up. Our listeners might have to turn up the speed of the audio, and I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:Migraines are no fun, are you?
Speaker 2:okay, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm just slow, that's okay, that's all right, okay, so in A Well-Trained Wife, tia Levings shares her journey through an escape from evangelical fundamentalism. The book begins with her family's move from rural Michigan to Jacksonville, florida, in the early 1980s where, as a young girl, she attended a mainstream Southern Baptist megachurch. There she learned the precepts of purity, culture and personal devotion to God. When her young adult dreams of art school and then Bible college were pushed aside, she dutifully followed the path of early marriage, a path that promised love, acceptance and belonging. Later, as a young wife and mother, she was taken under the wing of quote-unquote Gothard mom mentors at church. These women, with their long lines of well-behaved children in tow, introduced her to the household management strategies of Terry Maxwell, the authoritarian parenting methods of Michael and Debbie Pearl and the larger world of fundamentalist homeschooling.
Speaker 2:While Tia's mentors were urging her to adopt denim jumpers and blanket training, their husbands were introducing her husband to Christian fundamentalist patriarchy. In the years that followed, one rigid fundamentalist dogma led to another. As her husband battled his demons, tia battled for her life. This beautifully written memoir is filled with prescient insights about the trad wife life when you don't have a lucrative social media following or a trust fund to back you. It also exposes the empty promises of high demand religion, and why breaking all the social norms to trust your gut and take initiative is likely to be the very thing that saves you. So, rebecca, what are some of the moments you couldn't stop thinking about after reading this book?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, as she starts the book, they had just moved from Michigan to Jacksonville, florida, and there was a lot of grief in that for young Tia. She loved her world in Michigan and there was a quote in the book where she wrote and this was her mom making sense of the move. But her mom said we were headstrong in Michigan. We didn't pray together, have devotions or go to church enough. We had to stay in Jacksonville to be disciplined by God. And I thought it was fascinating how easily and quickly, and even how familiar this felt to me that fundamentalism gave Tia's mom, tia's family, a way to make sense of their life experiences. But in fact it was simply a confusing and unstable US economy. And I think we all have times in our lives where it's confusing, where it's unstable, and we're simply trying to make sense. And what if those moments aren't necessarily about God punishing us or God bringing us back to him, but it's just simply part of what happens in life.
Speaker 2:So are you saying that fundamentalism gave her family a narrative that her father's job loss wasn't about economic forces beyond their control and one of many, many others who lost their jobs during that time too but that it was their lack of dedication to God that forced them to move to Florida from Michigan and leave their home in Michigan? And so it's a very familiar way to me, too, of seeing the world. I have family members who tend to see day-to-day events that happen as God doing this or that in their life, and what's unfortunate to me is then they don't they miss the fact that this is something that's happening to lots of other people.
Speaker 2:Right, the economy affects lots of people, everybody, but fundamentalism gives a story that distracts from that and instead makes financial failure a personal failure Right.
Speaker 1:When it's almost like this empty promise of if you do things right, with God, bad things like that won't happen. Right, and it feels like fundamentalism is simply a way of magnifying social dysfunctions like sexism, like poverty, like job loss, things that are normal. But it magnifies these social dysfunctions that are already in culture but kind of just cranks up the intensity and when everyone finally gets in line we call it a virtue.
Speaker 2:Right, well, you mentioned sexism. Sexism is a real thing in both the secular world, the religious world, the fundamentalist world. But what we see in this book, and what those of us who've experienced, is that fundamentalism takes sexism and says this is a good thing. Actually, we need to reinforce this hierarchy and call it a virtue.
Speaker 1:Agreed, and I think they even do it with poverty, because, on one hand, if you are struggling financially, it's God punishing you, but yet there's that attitude of they're there, you'll get there, they're there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so kind of like bootstrapping. It gives a religious, it gives a spiritual veneer to the secular bootstrapping. Yeah, absolutely. And the American dream and all that, yeah. So once Tia's family was settled in Florida they found themselves part of a megachurch, one of the largest churches in the Southeast. It's a Southern Baptist church, so very much a mainstream kind of church. And she talks about some of her impressions and I have to say she does such a beautiful job of describing her world in very concise terms. So every word carries lots of meaning and you liked her description of church right Of the music at church.
Speaker 1:I had to laugh she was talking about, and I think music was kind of. Especially in her younger years music was kind of a big thing for her. But she talked about how Sunday mornings they usually sang two blood songs and one heaven song and I thought this was so hilarious. The way Christians glory in the whole blood narrative to me is always so fascinating. It's vampire, it's gore, it's dramatic and if it was any other genre other than our salvation, we would call it bad, a blood cult. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just think it's fascinating how much blood songs were part of our history.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's part of the magic of her writing. Is that without saying that, she's calling that to our attention?
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, it's brilliant.
Speaker 2:It's brilliant.
Speaker 2:Now, another lasting impression of church was the minister who would preach over the pulpit about the dangers of movies and the dangers of going to blockbuster and the dangers of what else.
Speaker 2:There were lots of things like that, also instructing parents to maintain control over their teens, and this message that came through again and again was one of control between parents and children, between the church and the membership, and there was not a message of connection, of developing connection, and what's interesting to me is how many of these messages seem to kind of fly over the heads of the parents.
Speaker 2:Or at least her parents didn't completely buy into the dogma and yet she took those lessons from the pulpit very seriously Not that she wanted to give up movies, but she felt guilty and enough that she felt like she had to hide that part of herself and also the teachings at summer camp, and that was really where she got a lot of the purity culture messages and she learned oh, this is what I need to do, these are the rules I need to follow in order to be loved, and I think that is a good reminder for me that when my children are exposed to different messages, to sit down and talk with them about it, because I can't just assume that they know that I don't buy into this or that idea.
Speaker 1:And it's also interesting, while this was being presented over the mainstream church's pulpit, largely people weren't taking it literally and seriously until she moved into the fundamentalist groups. So again it was almost like mainstream was kind of saying things, but it was the next level of weird that took it literally. Rigidity yeah, Rigidity is probably a better term.
Speaker 2:Yes, and along with that, different kids responded to the teachings differently. Where she got caught up in that rigidity, her sister didn't, and her sister went to a lot of the same, or my impression is that her sister, you know, was exposed to many of these same messages and for whatever reason, they they didn't take with with her sister the way they did with her. But Tia was very, she's highly intuitive, she's very aware, she's very conscientious, she's taking in information, it's not just flying over her head, and I think those of us who can identify with that, we're more likely to absorb those messages and and they may have led to a lot, they may have have led to a lot of anxiety for us yeah, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I absolutely identify with that as tia moves through her 10 years, she's a young adult full of dreams and goals. She excels at art and writing and she's getting a lot of encouragement at school to pursue these things. But then at church she's getting the message that this is going to be less than God honoring, and when the money doesn't show up, well, that's evidence it's not God's will for her to go to art school. Then Tia thinks well, wait a minute, what about Bible college? And maybe the church would help fund it, because they had a history of funding students who are going to Bible college, and so this might be an avenue for her to continue her education.
Speaker 2:And she had this brief exchange with the minister that I think had a very different impact than what was intended. She mustered up her courage to take the initiative to ask the minister about the possibility of funding for Bible college. But before they even got started, when she entered the office, the minister offered her this plate of delicious looking candies and when she accepted them and reached out to take one, they turned out to be fake. I think they were like ceramic or something, and it was a dumb joke at her expense and as a young girl she felt embarrassed.
Speaker 2:It took her off balance and I just had to wonder was that a control tactic on the part of the minister? Was he intentionally trying to make her ill at ease as a way to assert his dominance? Was it a lesson to not trust her own instincts? And I think, why not validate her courage and resourcefulness? I can't help but think that if she had been a boy, her courage and resourcefulness would have been rewarded. And in fact what he said was oh no, those funds are reserved for young men who are going to preaching school, and so no, we would not waste that money on a young woman. And I'm sure the minister didn't think twice about that meeting. But I think, about the impact that must have made on young Tia and the lessons that she got from it, that the minister didn't intend, or did he?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the million dollar question, because sometimes I think those jokes are used for a purpose Right. And I think it's also interesting that those fake candies could easily be seen as representing so many of the fake promises that these church leaders often make to young people, to many people. And these carrots dangled in front of people keep them doing those jumping jacks for Jesus. It keeps promising you know, get this right, do this right, and then this will happen. And it's oftentimes just fake, it's a carrot you can't quite grasp Right.
Speaker 2:And if it's a fake candy, it turns out when you do grasp it, you maybe don't want it after all. You chip your tooth and choke on it. Exactly. She doesn't expressly say that that was the lesson that she took away from it, but well, I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2:It gets interesting to me that even in the moment where she is being turned down for taking initiative, she was learning something about what she could expect from her church, family and whatnot, and I can't help but think that informed her choices down the road, even though she was turned down and on one hand we could say it was her taking initiative there wasn't successful, just ended up with her being embarrassed. When I look at that now, having read the whole book, I'm so proud of her. I am so proud of her for taking that step, and it's not her fault that the minister was a jerk.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. I don't think we applaud the bravery and courage that it takes for people to do that type of thing, regardless how it turns out.
Speaker 2:Right, right, especially people who have been groomed to not take initiative, which I don't know that that was as intense for Tia as it maybe was for some of us, but yeah, very, very true. So this kind of rule following message continues to follow her as she is maturing as a young woman. When college is eliminated as an option for her, she's really floundering for a little bit, wondering what is she supposed to do next. And during that time, we can see that the things that made her unique, the things that were strengths for her, the things that she could have really excelled at, were being pared away from her life. There's a line no to what I wanted, so I could say yes to God.
Speaker 2:It was presented to her as an either or she couldn't follow her interests and follow God. No to college, art and boys he couldn't be husbands. Time was ticking and so, again and again, she had to choose between her dreams, on one hand, or following the rules, which is how she would gain love and acceptance and the approval of God, right being in God's will. And so she absorbed the message again and again that being loved meant abandoning herself. Being loved came at the cost of the things that mattered to her, and I think this is an experience that many of us can identify.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think it's something that is almost so normal that you don't really think about it until it kind of like smacks you in the face. But she points out how the church promised women that quote if you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. I mean, who thought this was a good translation? Women are so easily reduced to a kitchen utensil. It's just sad. It's sad.
Speaker 2:And she hints at this at certain points along the way and then later on in the book, after she's married and has children and she is struggling within that situation, she says to a friend it's almost as if I could be swapped out. Leah, Anyone could mother my children according to his wishes, Because of course, that was how she was supposed to be a mother. According to his wishes, Anyone could clean the house. Anyone could be me, Because everything that is uniquely me is choked off and shamed away.
Speaker 1:You know, that kind of hit me and I couldn't help but wonder if. Is that part of the plan, even if it's subconscious? Is that part of the plan to keep reminding us women that we are replaceable? We really aren't that needed? It reminds me a little bit of a lot of work environments oh, we're family here. We're family here until they don't really need you or until you don't quite perform the way they want. I agree.
Speaker 2:I agree, and I think it's a lot easier to control widgets, it's a lot easier to control objects than human beings. And I think when we repress and squelch our emotions and talents, our interests, I think it's important for us to think about the cost. What is the cost of cutting off, squelching those parts of ourselves? Now, in the short term, we might get acceptance and love, and those are our core needs for human beings, and so that's a huge incentive to follow the norms. But the long-term costs are also really important to think about, because how long until we quit feeling other feelings and as we quit feeling, we quit caring, how long before we quit listening to our instincts and just kind of chalk them up as so in women's silly emotions? And I think we should ask ourselves is it really that God doesn't value our uniqueness, or is our individuality inconvenient for those who want to control us?
Speaker 1:Just recently I read a phrase it's more safe to suffocate in a box than it is to be raked over hot coals, and I think of that so often. Sometimes it feels like those are the two options we have, and you need to be raked over hot coals one time to realize how painful that is and how unsafe it is to play outside the sandbox that you've been given. And I think about how desperately leaders try to evade emotions. I mean, she talked about how even funerals were called homegoings, and I think about funerals in my past. How easily we try to make it a celebration and instead of honoring the person who has passed, we like to make it a call for repentance and a call for preparation. I've even been to funerals where they have altar calls. And are we so uncomfortable with emotions that even at funerals we can't tap into our grief and hold space for mourning?
Speaker 2:So, as Tia is telling the story of her young motherhood and marriage and the challenges that she was facing, as well as the Gothard moms who were mentoring her and coaching her in fundamentalist ways, she talks about some of the books that were recommended to her. One of those books is the Excellent Wife. Is it by Martha Pease? Yeah, the point Tia was making was how many of these fundamentalist marriage books implicitly condone or explicitly, more often, implicitly condone domestic violence. And there is one line in the book it's okay for the husband to beat the wife. Martha did say and this writer denied it later, but it's undeniable when you look at what she actually wrote.
Speaker 2:Now, even more to the point, in the back of the book she had a chart of different scenarios where women might struggle to trust God, and then there's appropriate verses for each of these occasions. And some of those challenges that women might be facing were things about bitterness or struggles to forgive, or struggles to common relationship struggles. But then also the chart included scenarios like if I don't want him to hurt me anymore, here's a Bible verse for that. If I wish I had a gun to kill him, here's a Bible verse for that. If I want to kill myself. Here's a Bible verse for that. If I want to kill myself, here's a Bible verse for that.
Speaker 2:How telling is it that in a book on Christian marriage, two women, these concerns are so common that they need to be included. The thought that a Bible verse is going to take care of these problems. A big problem there. Big problem that this is just common and not a huge concern. And once more, if marriage is for life and we're talking about relationships where these feelings and these fears are present, that's not the good life, that's a life sentence.
Speaker 1:So do you think by including it in a book like this, they normalize it to the point that you're ashamed to speak about it. Because if we normalize it and give you Bible verses that you should be quoting, then if you're still thinking these thoughts, you obviously aren't quoting enough Bible verses or believing the right things. And Bare Marriage actually does an entire podcast on this book and I haven't listened to it yet, but I think it would be really fascinating to listen to it. Oh, it's very good, it's very good and it's frightening.
Speaker 2:It's frightening because she was not in Anabaptist groups, but this was passed around our church groups as well, and I think those kinds of messages, when we combine them with all the directives to just wait on God's provision, just pray, let go and let God, all those directives start to look a whole lot more like shut up and cooperate and perpetuate the system.
Speaker 1:Right. There was a phrase that she used that kind of was the crux almost of the entire book, and I think it was used at least twice in the book. But today it hit me. Maybe, maybe it was up to me to save me, and I think she's so right. We can save ourselves, and the thing is, people can save themselves we. They don't need anyone's permission or approval to do so. We can simply follow our gut feeling of it is time, our gut feeling of it is time, and no one needs to stay in relationships where their dominating thought is I don't want him to hurt me anymore, I want to kill myself. There is no need ever to stay in a relationship like that.
Speaker 2:And I think the narrative is so often oh, but what's it going to do to the children if you break up the home? And I think the more important question is what's it going to do to the children if you keep them in that?
Speaker 1:And I think we need to be really careful, because there are not just church leaders that are promoting this message, there's also politicians that are promoting this message, and when you remove a woman's right to leave, we are in big trouble, absolutely, absolutely. Additionally, I think this waiting on God keeps us stuck. It keeps us praying harder, keeps us trying. It keeps us on this hamster wheel of just trying to get it right. Do we need to dance this way? Do we need to move this way? How do we need to pivot? And all of a sudden, I think so many reach a point where you just cannot do it anymore. And then there's this realization that, with all this praying and all this trying, all this dancing, maybe I'm in fact the only person involved who wants things to change, and that is a really bitter and difficult realization. And then they wonder why we leave. Then the church sits back and wonders why people are done. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure this out.
Speaker 2:Right. Speaking of false promises, she talks about how the church's promise to comfort the vulnerable through the grieving was really an attractive message to her family, and this is kind of reverting back to when she was younger and this is what really drew her mom into attending church again. Here they were, newly arrived in Florida, just trying to get their bearings and reestablish their life and recover from a financial setback, and the church offered comfort and a narrative to make sense of things. And yet what they and so many others find that along with that sense of community comes things that they didn't know, things that they weren't prepared for.
Speaker 1:I think realistically. Often what happens is the vulnerable are groomed. They get them to show up, they promise them blessings, they get them to and, in many ways, take advantage of them. Right now I see a lot of churches promoting this idea of we are a safe place for a hurting world, and it makes me cringe. Churches who typically say this the loudest are the worst with helping single moms, they are the worst for helping immigrants, they are the worst for simply being there, and it feels like they're often a safe place for the wealthy.
Speaker 2:For those who already belong. Right, and I just want to say, too, that this is not something that you are just speculating about, right. This is from your personal observation in working with folks who are in desperate need of resources and struggle to find them. Again and again, you find that churches are just unwilling to make good on that promise.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and I mean I can think of so few churches who actually take care and help abuse victims. Churches don't want to enter that messy. It's annoying. The answers aren't clear, cut Right. And it certainly doesn't bring them more money and more revenue. And it doesn't build bigger churches. And if we think about it, IBLP promised rest, healing, safety, identity and belonging. I mean, what these churches are promising isn't anything new, and often what ends up happening is these systems tend to place more scrutiny on the abused individuals or on the vulnerable than they do on the abuser. I mean, how often do they say well, you know what you do is more important than what happened to you.
Speaker 2:Really, Really, you know. It reminds me of the observation that in human interactions, we usually defer to the source of the most toxic behavior in the room. It's true. And I think in these kinds of situations often the most vulnerable person is the easiest to manage, easiest to control, and so it's easy to focus on their behavior, what they did wrong, than to the real problem, because the real problems are often much more difficult to solve, which kind of brings us to the next point.
Speaker 2:I actually had a conversation where people were trying to point out the fact that, well, alan Tia's ex-husband had mental illness, and while mental illness absolutely had a component in this story, Does that statement imply that it wasn't really that there was a problem with the church community, it was a problem with his mental illness, that that was the source of their problems and it was not a faith issue?
Speaker 1:Well, and almost it was that, but it was almost also this notion that it's someone with a mental illness who wants power, and it's someone with a mental illness. Who desires control?
Speaker 2:The patriarchal dysfunction. The patriarchal dysfunction was a manifestation of the mental illness. Okay, okay, interesting.
Speaker 1:And I disagree. I think environments like this just give those people a place to live and a place to even, at some level, excel live and a place to even, at some level, excel.
Speaker 2:Well, the leaders were encouraging him to be more controlling. They moved them to a place where he could spend more hours at home so he could keep tabs on her more. If his controlling and abusive tactics were a result of the mental illness, the leaders were just encouraging that.
Speaker 1:Well and we all know leaders who are not mentally ill, who love power and control.
Speaker 2:Well, and the reality is, these groups usually don't have resources for dealing with mental illness, and what we're really talking about is a situation where there were problems that were evident in the family, but these church leaders exacerbated the problems, and it's not just this one guy who was mentally ill, it was a whole system. It was a whole system that was protecting him without getting him help or resources Right right and in the process, was harming the family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was ultimately when Tia paid attention to her intuition, when she heard the words run, that literally saved her and her children's lives, and I think her story so proves and illustrates the tragedies that we can avoid when women, but also, I think, men learn to pay attention and listen to their gut and to their instinct.
Speaker 2:And I think it takes a lot of bravery to do this Takes so much bravery when the social norm has been established that following the rules, working within the hierarchy, submitting to those who have the rule over you, that that is the righteous thing to do, that's the virtuous thing to do, and I think we're here to say Tia's story shows us how misled that can be and why it's worth breaking out of those roles.
Speaker 1:I think it's Richard Rohr that says religion is for those who are afraid of hell, spirituality is for those who have lived through hell. And I think at some point in this whole mix, you reach the realization that this is hell. This isn't about dying and going to hell, this is about living in hell. And I think when a person reaches that point, this whole narrative of fear of the afterlife loses its power. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:You know, I think one of the most hopeful parts of the book were the moments when Tia interacted with someone from outside the bubble, outside her community, and I think what is so valuable is for us to think about the potential impact that strangers, folks outside the bubble, have for breaking the spell of authoritarian control. I think of a bystander who expressed concern when she was attacked as a young girl. Think of Trapdoor. This was an online forum that she was part of, and this was a group of rural, breaking homeschool moms who helped her get back in touch with her interests in art and writing and intellectual pursuits after she was a mom and deep in fundamentalist circles drowning. There were other mothers at the NICU when her daughter was in the hospital, who gave her life-saving advice. The Orthodox priest who helped her escape.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, all these bystanders were so powerful because of their compassion. Their compassion was whispers of affirmation that said I see you, you don't need to live this way, and I just can't emphasize enough how compassion from a stranger is often the kindest thing that someone in a high demand religion will have experienced, especially someone who is in a difficult situation. They are often told that the world, that, however hard life is within the bubble. It's even harder outside the bubble. But a stranger's compassion cracks open that lie.
Speaker 1:It absolutely does, and I think so often. This idea that this is where safety is, inside this bubble, inside this group, this is where safety is, this is where belonging is, this is where Jesus is, and outside this group, oy, oy, that's danger, that's all the bad things. And kindness from outsiders and perspectives from outsiders absolutely bursts that narrative. It challenges that narrative. I've always been a little cautious when people fuss about social media, the dangers of social media, yeah.
Speaker 1:And well, I get it, Wow, I get it. There's dangers, there's problems. Social media also saves lives and I think sometimes the fussing about social media and the dangers involved with that can be a means to control and shrink someone else's world. It was social media where I learned about gentle parenting. It was social media where I stumbled onto Rachel Held Evans' blog and started deconstructing when deconstructing wasn't even a thing and gave me not just permission but approval or affirmation that the things I was seeing was actually real, that I wasn't making things up and that you weren't the only one seeing them.
Speaker 1:And that wasn't just you, exactly.
Speaker 2:It wasn't your delusion Right, isn't that true? And now that you say that, back in 2000, so we're talking pre-social media, the internet was a really important part of my breaking free from high demand religion too. So when I was part of the small fundamentalist church in Oklahoma City, my friend and I were becoming increasingly concerned about some of the dynamics that we were seeing, and it was starting to feel a little bit like deja vu, like wait, haven't we seen these, you know, kind of the fear, obligation and guilt, the kind of exclusivity, the kind of you know, just all that. That just started to feel very like, disturbingly familiar, and I started to wonder oh my goodness, did we go through that difficult thing just to land in the same kind of place again?
Speaker 2:So my friend goes well, I know we're not a cult, you know we're just serving God, but how would we know if we were a cult? How would we know? And so she got on the computer at work and Googled characteristics of a cult. Well, she found a list of characteristics of spiritual abuse and she brought me this list and said check it out. And it just stunned both of us, because here we thought we were the special little group, this list of characteristics of spiritual abuse were like boom, boom, boom. It was like someone was looking in our windows and describing the group.
Speaker 1:And we were gone within a few days. Isn't that amazing? It's amazing when special little groups aren't so special.
Speaker 2:It blew my mind and I took the next.
Speaker 2:How many years reading everything I could find on the topic because, yes, nothing special about it I learned that we were one in a million, but not in the way we thought, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:So Tia talks about craving what it meant to be well-read and educated and she really wanted to experience and understand and see connections within the broader world, and Trapdoor was the forum that really scratched that itch. And I think what is so important here is how her initiative and reaching out and finding these sources outside the group not only fed her soul, but those connections to people outside her little bubble also helped save her later when she was running for her life Literally helped save her later when she was running for her life Literally, literally. And when we are discouraged from making connections outside our group, whether that is just through friendship or through learning or interests, hobbies, that kind of thing, instead of being suspicious of the people outside our bubble, we need to be suspicious of why our bubble is trying to cut us off from people outside, because it was those connections that were her lifeline, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Something else that I think is so important, and this is something I'm kind of passionate about. When Tia knew it was time to run, when she heard the words run, she ended up calling her mom and she wrote just come home, mom said and that's what I did and parents who care more about a marriage than about their kid who's within the marriage need to stop. Parents who care more about your kid's preferred gender than the kid's actual life need to stop. When you care so much that you shut your kids off, you are setting up your kid to be vulnerable and taken advantage of. When you don't care about your kid and set a standard, no one is going to care about your kid.
Speaker 1:Tia talks about how her ex-husband was always a little nervous and a little bit worried about her parents' perception of him, and I'm convinced that was some of the saving grace in Tia's life. And parents, your attitude towards your child sets a precedent for how others will treat them, and if you treat your child with disrespect, it invites their future spouse to treat them with disrespect as well, and I think we need to be so very careful when we see parents disrespecting their children, disowning their children. It sets them up for failure, but it also sets them up for abuse he is.
Speaker 2:There are hundreds of women who are also trapped in situations where their family cares more about maintaining the marriage than the well-being of their own daughter and when she calls home, the parents don't say just come home. They say pray about it, be kinder to your abuser, and that is not okay. And if you are one of those women, if you know one of those women, and if you are one of those women, if you know one of those women, please know it's not okay. It's not your fault. This is not the way it should be. Only you know what your next step needs to be. But please trust yourself. Please know that if others push back against you, looking out to protect yourself and your children, that's a failure on their part. You're not doing anything wrong. Listen to your gut and then take initiative when it tells you.
Speaker 2:So we're going to pause here and wrap up this part of our book review, and then we'll be back next week for part two, where we'll talk about rebuilding life after leaving and what that looked like for Tia in the book and what lessons we can learn from that as well.
Speaker 2:The book is such a prime example the way that midlife pivots are never easy and each one has its own unique set of challenges and rewards. So in an upcoming episode not the next episode, but an upcoming episode we're going to do a deep dive into Rebecca's experiences starting college after 40 and her day-to-day experiences. What's it like? So we want to know what you, our listeners, are curious about. Text us a question you have for Rebecca about what it's been like to go to college in midlife. There are no stupid questions. We want this podcast to be a place where it's safe to ask the kinds of questions Google can't answer, and we can promise you you're probably not the only one with that question. Someone is going to be so grateful that you asked it, so click on the link in our show notes and send us your questions. We'll talk more soon.
Speaker 1:Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 2:What are your thoughts about college and recovery from high demand religion? We know you have your own questions and experiences and we want to talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom. That's uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed today's show and found value in it, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app. This helps others find the show While you're there. Subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode Until next time stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
