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In Reply to: Advice needed posted by Michael on September 05, 2004 at 14:26:26:
My two cents on this. Oddly enough I have experienced similar things regarding all of these issues with my own parents and siblings.
A few years ago, when my parents first decided to live on their own with their own children, the kids were also being “home schooled”. They were not receiving any sort of education, and when I discovered this I had a chat with my parents and told them that they had an obligation to provide an education for their kids. I told them in graphic detail how a lack of education had handicapped me and that if they didn’t put their kids in school or provide adequate schooling at home, I would call social services to investigate. They put the older children in a christian school and put the younger ones into a proper home schooling program. Three of my siblings have now graduated from high school and as a result have many more options available to them in terms of post-secondary education.
This worked with my parents for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I was not just some stranger giving them advice or “sticking my nose in”. I had been there in their care myself. They know how much I care about and am involved with my siblings and they know that my intent is not to hurt or “persecute” them for their beliefs, but to prevent what happened to me from happening to them. They understand that I have a personal and vested interest in getting involved.
Secondly, my parents are very afraid of authorities investigating them. More than just the typical paranoia most cult members (and some excult members) have, they also experienced raids by authorities in France, which they do not wish to have repeated.
If you are not close friends with the parents and have not known them for very long, confronting them on the issue of schooling could create problems. If as you said, the children do not have any outside contact anywhere else (no medical checkups, no play groups or outside friends), if the parents are offended and cut off contact with you, the children would be completely isolated.
If this was me, from what you have said, I would place a call to child welfare with the understanding that my report would be anonymous to the parents in question. From what I understand, they will not come and take the children away, or demand that they put them into public school, but they will investigate the education that the children are receiving. If it is inadequate, they will work with the parents to ensure that the children’s RIGHT to a basic education is not being violated. I really think you have to do something though. When I was a child living with my parents in the UK, someone called social services on them. A social worker came to the house and saw that we basically ran wild all day and “home schooling” as my parents called it, was a joke. Since they could not provide us with an education at home, we went to the local public elementary school for a few years. That very minimal education provided many of us with some very basic skills that many children our age in the Family did not even have and I am very grateful to whoever reported my parents.
Regarding talking to the pastor about it, in my opinion, while it might be helpful to discuss the issue of their children's education with him, personally, I do not think it would be a good idea to “out” them as former Family members in their church. While some churches are understanding and welcome excult members, due to the specific nature of some of the Family’s doctrines and crimes, other churches might be appalled and ostracize these people. Also when I was a young child, my parents attended a local church and became quite close with the pastor and other people there. We children went to Sunday school and Bible classes and the local youth group a few times a week and were part of a welcoming christian community that was not the Family for the first time. My parents made some close friends and it seemed that they were drifting away from the group. Eventually the pastor found out about my parent’s affiliation with the Family. The outrage and anger he directed towards them was pretty awful. We were not allowed to see any of the other children, for fear that we would "corrupt" them with our sinful ways.
My parents have never attended another church, although they are now on their own and have no direct “fellowship” with people who share Christian beliefs (no I don’t share Christian beliefs, but yes I understand the importance of community and sharing your faith with others). Again, if this is one of the few points of contact that the children have, if something were to happen, they could end up isolated, which is exactly what happened to us. We moved soon after this and took in other Family members again, and that is when the abuse really started, since were completely isolated.
Also when I first left the Family, I was still sorting out my own beliefs and attended the local church and youth group. My mother had joined the Family from this town and apparently everyone in the Christian community knew who I was and all about the worst of the Family. The pastor took it upon himself to preach a number of sermons on false prophets, sexual sin, honesty and deception, etc., with some very pointed looks at me. I may as well have been wearing a scarlet A. After a few weeks of this, I finally got up and walked out in the middle of one of his rants.
Finally, dyslexia runs in my family on both sides. I have never been tested, but all my siblings have and are dyslexic, so it’s likely that I am as well. My mother did the same sort of thing (oh, they can’t learn, they’re just dyslexic) to some of my younger siblings and the label they carried around has caused them a lot of difficultly. One of my siblings could not read until they were 14 years old and people just accepted that. She announced this to everyone, without any real understanding of what dyslexia is or the progress that has been made in treating this disability over the past few decades. As a result no one who was taking care of these sibling ever tried too hard to educate them properly. More than just the academic handicap, the psychological impact of being labeled and given up on in this way can not be overstated. Some of my siblings have wrestled for many years with the notion that they were just “stupid” and it is much to their credit that they have finally overcome this and are now university students. Their spelling and language skills have improved drastically over the past few years, although they are young adults now, and it is apparent that although there are still difficulties, the main one was this "label".
