storbarnsförälder

eew. I will now promptly attempt to forget that link.

From:

rmc28

Run away! (I watched Teletubbies yesterday)

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Women like that make me want to stop calling myself a homeschooler. And choose a label more like "notinsanescaryfundieweirdojustaparentwhoeducatesinthehome" but that's a bit unwieldy.

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ailbhe

It's called "Home Education" here in the UK.

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I actually lean toward calling it non-school based education, because my kids do take classes and belong to groups, their education is not all undertaken at home. But in the U.S. that still ends up with us being lumped into the same category as your crazy.

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ai731.livejournal.com

You are so lucky that you're in the UK and not the US where "homeschooler" is almost synonymous with "scary right-wing Christian fundamentalist"!

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pocketnaomi.livejournal.com

Nah -- it's split schizophrenically here between scary right-wing Christian fundamentalist and loony left-wing "any kind of teaching or influence is evil because it dampens their wonderful natural impulses" types. Between the two. I'm convinced that the one grave problem with homeschooling is that it doesn't force reality checks on the parents. It can be done well, but only by people who are interested in seeking out reality checks for themselves. Neither the control freaks or the control-phobics do.

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ailbhe

I'm not a homeschooler anyway :) because I have grave problems with "schooling" as a concept. I'm more like the laissez faire loonies

pocketnaomi mentions. Only I don't enjoy damp natural impulses.

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rivka.livejournal.com

You know, ever since you linked me to one of her posts I've found it hard to stop reading.

If you read her post about mental illness (linked in the sidebar), it becomes clear that religion didn't "cure" her intense mental illness - it just gave her a channel to sublimate her craziness into. The insane lengths she goes to to control her children, her frantic efforts to root out all of her bad thoughts (even, say, disappointment with something her husband has done)...

She makes me sad, but I can't look away.

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helenprev.livejournal.com

Yes, I read the mental illness post last night and thought exactly the same thing.

And I too have bookmarked it because I am going to have to keep reading now... :-S

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sshi.livejournal.com

Particularly the bits about 'training' her children. Training them for what? The Army? The Olympics? The nineteenth century?

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micheinnz.livejournal.com

Oh my.

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dangerpudding.livejournal.com

Wow. Just... wow.

Her kink is ok, over there. But it's *so* not my kink.

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ailbhe

Her kink is not ok, because she's abusing her children.

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dangerpudding.livejournal.com

I suspect I got annoyed by her "struggle to be submissive" and glee that her children were helpful before I saw anything worse. Cause, yeah, abuse is not ok.

*sigh*

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angelmine.livejournal.com

This one (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/camillaanderson/282061/) made me cringe :-(

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ailbhe

That's because beating an eight-month-old with a stick is child abuse. (Aside: I'd love to know why she takes notes on Pastor's sermons but ignores his advice to stop abusing her baby).

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angelmine.livejournal.com

Indeed. I found it even more disturbing that she understood that people would think what she was doing was abusive (she doesn't take the 'correction rod' to church for fear of being reported to social services) but that didn't make her question it (or indeed that a 'sting or spank' was also abuse).

Really upsetting :-(

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ailbhe

I've never heard "spank" being used to describe a blow with a stick before, either.

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That's a very American idea, especially in the south. One of the things I remember vividly when we would visit my grandparents in Texas was the neighbor kids on either side being forced to go and get "switches" (thinner, flexible branches from saplings or shrubbery) and bring them to their parents to be hit with. I was absolutely horrified by the idea then, and I am now just thinking of it.

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ailbhe

I've read about that practice in some of those books about people who survived horrific childhoods. It gives me a milder shade of the same feeling I got reading about people digging their own graves under Nazi supervision.

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micheinnz.livejournal.com

One story that broke my heart (and fortunately the parent's too, and they stopped) was that of the little boy who was told to go and "cut a switch" to be hit with. He came back in and said "I couldn't find you a switch so I brought you this rock instead."

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Oh my Lord. That just made me nauseated, severely nauseated.

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micheinnz.livejournal.com

I hope like heck it's a myth, I really do.

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pogodragon.livejournal.com

I started poking at that blog. when you linked to it, you're right, it's scary.

The very first post (seemingly, the book review one anyway), contains the line:
"I have an 18-month-old, so it is always necessary to carry my rod!", because you know, at that age they need physically disciplining all the time.

(OK, I admit, I don't have kids and don't plan to, but that seems off base even to me. I don't remember

ailbhe talking much about what she uses to hit Linnea with when she's been naughty).

Scary stuff, and a news story in the making I suspect.

From:

ailbhe

I beat 'em with forks and soap.

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missmarmot.livejournal.com

People who think God talks to them frighten me.

From:

ailbhe

That's because you need to open your heart to the LORD.

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missmarmot.livejournal.com

For I am a sinner, unclean.

*chortle*

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pogodragon.livejournal.com

Very wise - using soap means you can get rid of the evidence, not so sure about the forks, but it's certainly different enough to throw people off the trail.

(Still reading, still shuddering at that site)

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Eep. I only skimmed the front page, didn't notice the abuse you're all talking about, and even so, what I was going to post was that I try to be religiously tolerant, but this kind of thing makes me want to label it "religious psychosis" and make it grounds for taking children away at birth. And now you're saying she's also physically abusing the children... Is it possible to identify who she is IRL and set the authorities on her?

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oldbloke.livejournal.com

Well, one might just send the link to the blog to the authorities, they have the power to find out whose it is.

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But probably you have about as little idea as I who the right authorities are - anyone know? She has an email address [email protected], and going to http://www.cornerstonelogan.com you find

Cornerstone Baptist Church
15024 St Rte 328
(1 Mile South of Hwy 33 on SR328)
Logan, OH 43138
(740)385-9080

Camilla Anderson is probably her real name, at a guess, too.

So who is "social services" in that part of the world? And do they agree that hitting a baby is abuse, or has that religious flavour got too strong a hold over there for that to be a given?

I can't say I have any appetite for following this out of curiosity - it's real life, not a soap opera (probably).

From:

Logan, Ohio - Hocking County. http://www.co.hocking.oh.us/

"The Children Services Web Site is under construction.

To Contact them please call 740-385-4168"

From:

ailbhe

Nyargh. I can't phone now. This sucks. If someone else does it please let me know so I can stop steeling myself to do it.

At least there aren't very many entries in the blog for people to read.

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I can't face doing it by trying to talk to someone about the details, but I rang them to see if they had an email address. They don't (or rather, from the sound of it, the person who answered the phones knew individuals' email addresses, but couldn't think which one to give me!) but offered a fax number: 740 385 2479. So at least that means it can be done in writing. I only have fax at work and won't get round to doing anything any earlier than Monday now, but maybe one of you Americans might, she says hopefully... Otherwise I'll try to find time to send something on Monday.

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OK, I found time: fax sent. I'll be quite surprised if it actually achieves anything, but at least we tried.

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She's now edited the post about making her baby quiet in church to remove the line about not using the rod so people wouldn't call social services. I hope they saw it first.

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I quoted it in my fax, but they'd have to use one of the web archiving things to find the real thing. Interesting that this happened hours after my fax: I'm tempted to imagine that someone in the office I was faxing to tipped her the wink. More likely, I suppose, that someone from here was the commenter that prompted her to post the latest thing about hoping she gets more antispanking comments.

I don't know which is more scary: that she thinks the explanation she's now posted justifies her, or that I fear it really might in the eyes of the authorities... Scotland tried to pass a law recently making it illegal to hit a child under 2 (ever, for any reason), and failed because it was argued that parents wouldn't be able to stop their kids running into the road...

From:

ailbhe

I have explicitly *not* been commenting so's not to warn her. So twarnt me guv.

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Yeah, that was my thought too.

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