Highly-Controlled Friendships

One of the big reasons I loved attending IBLP‘s annual family homeschooling conference year after year (the Advanced Training Institute) was the freedom I had to pursue friendships with practically anyone I met there. I was a very friendly child, if a little awkward and out of practice due to limited social opportunities. In the age- and gender-segregated groups I attended through the years, I made many friends who I would write to between conferences. Not many of them were local to me, so I mostly saw them once a year.

One of my friend’s older brothers worked for IBLP and was part of the conference’s video team; somehow I found out he skipped breakfast. Disapproving of this, I’d bring him waffles from my hotel’s continental breakfast counter each morning of the conference, year after year. To my parents it didn’t matter that I was interacting with a grown man–he worked for IBLP and IBLP could do no wrong. My friend’s brother was a nice guy and nothing bad ever came of me bringing him breakfast. My point is that if he had not been involved in IBLP I never would have been allowed to interact with a guy in this sort of way.

Friends outside of the IBLP bubble were treated differently. They did not enjoy the same benefit of the doubt that those familiar with Bill Gothard‘s standards did. This made making friends who were part of the “secular world” difficult.

Shortly after we joined IBLP, my family left the church I’d grown up in. IBLP taught that church was supposed to be a meeting place for growing Christians to congregate and learn about the meat-and-potatoes lessons of the Bible, not for nonbelievers to be converted with the baby’s milk gospel of John 3:16. Churches like the one I’d grown up in were focused on conversion and therefore weren’t spiritually feeding their flock. We didn’t go back to a church once we left because my parents couldn’t find any churches that were up to snuff with IBLP’s superior spiritual standards. Instead, we patted ourselves on the back and did home-church, mostly watching videos that IBLP sold at their conferences. This meant that I lost my Sunday social opportunity.

Home church was just another day at home after being homeschooled all week. As for school at home, it had once consisted of weekly co-op activities and field trips with friends I grew up with, but those social activities were removed from our curriculum shortly after joining IBLP. It was important for IBLP families not to mingle too closely with people from the outside world. Mom told me that other girls were bad influences on me. I once overheard my mom telling my childhood friend’s mom this over the phone, and I heard the mom respond loudly, “But Leona is a good influence on my daughter!” That was encouraging to hear. Hearing over and over again that you are easily badly influenced doesn’t do much to build up your self-image. Besides, wasn’t there something in the Bible about going out into the world and spreading the gospel? And didn’t Jesus hang out with a bunch of people who were social outcasts?

My opinion on the subject didn’t matter, so even if I tried protesting with my own ideas, they never won out against the hundreds of because you’re the child and I’m the parent‘s and because I said so‘s I heard from my parents over the years.

We didn’t join any other social groups except for Wisdom Booklet class, which had 3 other girls my age in it. They were friends of mine, but I wouldn’t describe them as “best friends” because we never got much past the surface. That is, we never could.

I have a particular memory of spending time with one of the girl’s at her house. We were in her room with her door nearly closed. I asked her something–most-likely having something to do with boys or puberty–and we began to discuss in hushed tones. All of a sudden, her mom opened the door, said, “Hey girls, let’s talk about something else,” and left the door intentionally open. After that, her mom was always within earshot of our conversations, and it was clear we weren’t allowed to talk about anything private. I remember wondering what the point of being “friends” with anyone was if we couldn’t discuss anything with depth. These kinds of interactions repeated themselves with different friends until I gave up trying.

I felt isolated without anyone to act as a sounding board for the things I was experiencing throughout adolescence. I had questions about my period. I had questions about sin, about God. But I didn’t feel safe asking my parents these kinds of questions because when I did they turned into lectures or interventions. I wasn’t allowed to talk to my brothers about anything relating to puberty. I didn’t know what a tampon was for years after getting my period, as no one ever taught me about alternatives to pads.

One time as a teenager I asked my mom if she was a virgin. “Am I a virgin?” she asked incredulously. The whole lesson of the Virgin Mary had clearly been lost on me. I didn’t know what virginity was, except that I shouldn’t lose it. I didn’t even know that there was a word for my female anatomy until I read the word “vagina” on Tumblr when I was 17, and even then, I thought it rhymed with “Regina”. I never got the talk and I had no one to talk with about it. Our internet reported any sketchy Google searches to my parents and the pastor of our old church (the one we were too good to attend) and my parents had no problems asking about those internet reports, so I censored my searches to avoid humiliation.

Anyway, the point is, I knew that deep down I was curious, confused, flawed, and sinful. But I had very few opportunities to reflect on this with other girls my age in deep ways that could assure me that I was not alone. Friendships I’d developed before IBLP were highly controlled. One of my closest neighbor friends who I met at Awana was my “best friend” until she joined public school. Once she did, my mom told me I wasn’t allowed to be friends with her anymore. This devastated me for months. Other friends I made outside of the IBLP bubble were discouraged and heavily criticized.

Once I joined speech and debate in high school, I was starving for connection. I made many close friends and my mom made every effort to get me to talk about these friends and the goings-on in their lives so she could ascertain whether they were appropriate friends for me. It was during one of these conversations with my mom that I realized what she was doing; I decided that it was in my best interests not to share private information with her anymore. I mourned the loss of her as an outlet for my girl secrets for years. Ever since that conversation my relationship with her has been different.

It seems obvious in hindsight, doesn’t it? That it’s not in one’s best interests to share vulnerable information with the person who has all the power. Mom decided who I could talk to and who I couldn’t. She had the power because she drove the car to the places where my friends were. She could take my phone, could ground me from my computer. She could and did leverage any access to the outside world against me. I should have clammed up sooner, I know. But when the person with the power is also one of the only people you have access to on a daily basis, you get desperate for connection. And you know that this person is doing everything she is doing because she loves you. And you love her back. So you forgive, over and over again.