Leaving The Fundamentalist Bubble

Kathryn Joyce interviews members of the ex-homeschooler movement – which consists largely of individuals who where raised by fundamentalist families:

The closest parallel to transitioning from strict fundamentalist families to mainstream society may be an immigrant experience: acclimating to a new country with inexplicable customs and an unfamiliar language. “Mainstream American culture is not my culture,” says Heather Doney, who co-founded Homeschooling’s Invisible Children with [Rachel] Coleman. Doney, who grew up in an impoverished Quiverfull family in New Orleans, felt for years that she was living “between worlds,” never sure if her words or behavior were appropriate for her old life or her new one. She didn’t understand what topics of discussion were considered off-limits or when staring at someone might be disconcerting. She couldn’t make small talk, wore “oddly mismatched clothes,” and was lost amid pop-culture references to the Muppets or The Breakfast Club. When public-school friends talked about oral sex, she thought they meant French-kissing.

More than a decade later, Doney still finds herself resorting to a standard joke—“Sorry, I live under a rock”—when people are taken aback by her. “It’s a lot easier to say that,” she says, “than to explain that I was raised hearing that you’d be allowing demonic influences into your house if you watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I feel like an expat from a subculture that I can never go home to, living in one that is still not fully mine.”

Chris Jeub disputes Joyce’s “hasty generalizations”:

Joyce’s book Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement (which I’ve read) attacked Bill Gothard’s ATI, Doug Phillips’ Vision Forum, and other groups who saw it their duty, I suppose, to populate the world with a patriarchal society. Her latest book The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption (I haven’t read this one) apparently exposes abusive adoptive parents and builds a sinister case against the adoption movement.

I see a routine here. It appears that Joyce generalizes an entire population of people by focusing on the heartbreaking abuse of some. A skilled debater sees through this. In debate lingo, this is called anecdotal evidence, poor argumentation that is only surface deep in proper persuasion. Emotional appeals will work for some, but to really persuade most people, debaters know enough to dig deeper, gather evidence with substance to help build the case that will change minds and hearts and even influence legislation.

Joyce’s article has no statistics, no cited convictions, no vindictive story beyond one-sided testimonials. She digs deep into the “extremist roots of fundamentalist homeschooling,” as if public education didn’t have its own extremist roots in its history. At best this article uncovers civil unrest in homeschool families. Civil unrest is a worthy topic, by the way, but this article can be read as an indictment on the entire homeschool movement.