Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 695: The revolt of the Christian home-schoolers

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. recording live from glory hole studios in chicago and beyond this This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome mat.

Today is Thursday, June the 8th. At least the day that this will be. The day this releases. You'll be hearing this. is Thursday, June the 8th. At least the day that this will be. The day it's released. You'll be hearing this. It's not June the 8th now. Here's the thing. I'm lying. It's not.

Today is actually Thursday, June the 1st. But you are now on Thursday, June the 8th. You're going to hear it on the 8th. We are in the future. Yeah. Right now. Right now. Talking to you.

And we are going to be talking about a long-form article that Tom read for patrons. And you can read if you go to a Washington Post. It's called The Revolt of the Christian Homeschoolers. And it's an article, you know, nice, long article. It's a lengthy article. About 25 pages

long. Yeah, it's a chonker. It's a big article. It's a chonker. It's a big article, but it's a really interesting story about a couple that was Christian homeschooled themselves, brought up in a very strict religion, marry, have children of their own, and then rebel. The title says it as much, revolt. They rebel against their own Christian homeschooling, partially because of COVID pressures. And then they wind up sending their school to a kid's school. Yeah, and there's so much to this article.

But one of the things that I want to seize on right away is that one of the things that makes them revolt against homeschooling, which, by the way, is revolting. And also, if you want to be confused about how time fucking works, fucking homeschool your kids, right? Like, or be homeschooled. It is a lesser education. And they basically acknowledge that.

So they've got a daughter named Amy, and Amy needs more help than they know how to give. And it's one of those things where it's like, you know, homeschool sounds like a great idea, but it is so full of fucking hubris to imagine that you can homeschool your kid as well as all of the teams of educators who went to years and years of college to learn how to do that work. And so they have this kid, Amy,

and Amy is not thriving in their homeschool environment, right? And so they realize like, oh, you know what? Actually, turns out we don't know fucking anything about education, educational theory, or about how to help somebody

with special needs, perhaps, or how to like get somebody caught up from that there's even necessarily special needs but how to get somebody caught up who may be lagging or even to identify where they should be at a grade level like homeschool they basically have the the sort of inward look and i gotta credit them for it because it would be really tough to come to this conclusion. But homeschooling is based on this intense, intense fucking hubris that you know how to do something that for everybody doing it professionally requires education and training.

And you're just like, fuck it, I'll wing it. Fuck it, I'll wing it. There's a lot of people, though, who that's their approach is, fuck it, I'll wing it. There's a lot of people though, who that's their approach is, fuck it, I'll wing it. And it's because I think they don't appreciate the level of education that children are given. I think they don't appreciate how deep that level of education is.

For nine months, I was homeschooled when I was a kid. I was in eighth grade and I was having real problems in school. I was getting bullied, not by the students, but by the teachers. I was having a very difficult time. And I have stories of how horrible the teachers were. I'll just tell a real quick one. I remember one day, I was held after class by one of my teachers. She was my English teacher and she held me after class. And after class was over, she said to me,

is that the best clothes you have at home? Is that what you have at home to wear? And it was, I mean, like, that's what I had, like as a kid, like that's what I had. And she didn't realize how hurtful that was to a kid who doesn't have a lot of money, you know, like, that's what I had. Like, as a kid, like, that's what I had. And she didn't realize how hurtful that was to a kid who doesn't have a lot of money, you know, and that sort of thing. And I was constantly in trouble in school. And I was, my brothers both were behavior disorder kids. And so they wound up in BD school,

which is a bad kid's school. Like, it's basically juvie. Like, I mean, it's like essentially juvie. Lockdown and everything. It's like lockdown. And my brother went to BD school. My eldest brother did. I think my middle brother did. I don't know. I don't remember. I don't care either. But, but I, I was on that path. Right. And my parents thought, well, let's just see what happens if we try to homeschool him for a year and then maybe see what happens from there. And they did. And it was a fucking disaster. It was an absolute disaster because both my parents

worked and then they would give me stuff to do and I would just maybe not do it. I would just hang out at home and not do it. And like, you know, cause there's not a thing for them to teach. And you know, there's so much you have to, there's so much more you have to be involved than just expecting it to be finished. And it was a disaster for me. It literally held me back for a whole year. It literally held me back. It was terrible.

It's a terrible thing. I'm not going to try to write my experience large over everybody, but I am going to say that there's a lot of parents out there that are path of least resistance parents. They don't have that. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of parents out there that are very motivated,

very interested, that could probably study anything that they need to study to help their child learn. I'm not saying that they don't exist, but I am going to say there's a lot of people who put their kid down in front of an iPad. You know what I mean? That's path of least resistance, man. And I think you got to be more active than just that. Well, look, I went to school to teach, right? So like I went to school, I went to school, I've got a degree in English lit, but I have my minors

in secondary education. And the certificate was a 6th through 12th grade certificate. And like you have to take a lot of classes on child and adolescent psychology, educational theory. A minor is something like 15 classes.

It's a lot of classes. It's a lot of classes. It's a lot of work. Yeah. And then you have to have practical experience. You have to have like clinical experience in observations. You have to have clinical experience in sort of like dipping your toe in the water, developing lesson plans, developing testing materials. You have to do it.

Learning how to evaluate those materials. Then you have to do that work. The idea, it's kind of only education that we do this for, that we would never allow somebody with no experience in education to be a teacher professionally. But we weirdly do allow you to do it at home. There's also not the other thing too, when you talk about things that we think we can do at home, you know, we don't home doctor, right. Like really sick people. Right. We don't do that. No. Like that's not a thing. You would never be able to say like splint something. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Stitch something.

Yeah. You like, it's insane that, that we recognize the need for professional standards and education and requirements if you're going to do it for 12 people. But if you're going to do it just for your kid, then all of a sudden, and you might have 12 of them, like a goddamn dugger. I'll tell you what, there's a lot of these people, they are having lots of kids. And imagine how much, how difficult, imagine telling a teacher, like a professional teacher, all right, here's what you're going to do. Today, you're going to teach kindergarten, third grade, fifth grade, and all the subjects for your freshman year of high school.

That's what you're going to do today. No teacher in the world would say, cool, sounds good. I can do that competently. That's absurd. When I went to school to be a teacher, I had to get a full ass bachelor's degree in my area of teaching. I had to get a full English lit degree that is not an English lit degree for teachers. It's just an English lit degree. And then I had to get this minor in education. And then I had to apply for my

certifications. And that's how you'd be a teacher. if I'm going to homeschool, and I'm going to homeschool at, say, the high school level, I don't have to have, shouldn't I have to have a degree in English and physics and biology and chemistry and anatomy? Because I'm going to teach all this. Yes. And I got to get a degree in mathematics to teach any of those math subjects. I mean, is any of that stuff in the Bible though, Tom? Yeah, it's just absurd is my point, right? Like, yeah, but the Bible is like, hey, here's some bullshit.

Keep your kids at home. And the whole purpose of this homeschooling, and like, I know I'm being a little ridiculous because the purpose of homeschooling is not to provide your kids a great education. No. The purpose of homeschooling is to insulate your children and to insulate other human beings from influences from the outside world and to indoctrinate them into a belief system

that will further that insulation generationally. Yeah. So that you are not exposed to new ideas and people and experiences, and your kids are not exposed and their kids are not exposed to new ideas and people and experiences, and your kids are not exposed, and their kids are not exposed because they know, we talked about this in our last episode, they know that these ideas no longer hold under the scrutiny of the light of day. them cultifying their family. And you're basically just creating a giant cult because these, you know, these are networks of people. This isn't just one family making this decision. This is entire churches full of people making this decision. These are networks of people. And the other piece that pushed these people out of the, out of the homeschool is the discipline that they

were forced to be giving to their children. They were brought up with spare the rods, boil the child. There's a, what's that guy's name? I don't know the guy's name, but he does that to train up a child book, Pearl. I think his name is.

Yeah. Um, he, we talked about him in our book. Um, but this is a guy who he has an entire, uh, book selling, uh, and blog and like a Dear Abby like column where people send messages to him about beating their kids.

And then he tells them how to efficiently beat their kids. And this isn't, I don't want to downplay this as not brutal. This is brutal, right? I don't feel like, you know, like I grew up getting smacked. I grew up getting beat. I grew up, in fact, I grew up being abused. Like I was physically and mentally abused as a child

because my dad was an alcoholic. And he was physically, he would physically, he would get drunk and physically beat us. Like he was like, he was a bad person. Like he just didn't, he didn't understand like his body was shit and his brain was shit and he drank too much

and he kicked the shit out of you. And I was like, that's your life, you know? And so I grew up being hit and I'll tell you what, Tom, for a long time of my life, I thought that was how you treated children.

Right. Because I was brought up that way. I was brought up as a kid who got the shit kicked out of him by my dad. Dad get a couple of drinks in him and he would kick the hell out of me by my dad. Dad get a couple of drinks in him and he would kick the hell out of me and my brothers. And I always thought, you know, my whole life

that when a kid got spanked, that was how that worked. That was why that worked. It worked because and I didn't have anything to put it together because I'll tell you what, when I was a kid, I never thought I did anything worthy of getting a spanking. And I probably didn't, right? Looking back on it as an adult, I probably didn't do anything worthy of getting spanking, but I got a lot of them. I sure as hell got a lot of them as a kid. And these are belt spankings too, by the way. They weren't just like a couple of swats on your ass. My dad would literally like hold you down and wind up and kick your ass. I mean, these were not just like little love tabs or whatever, but I thought my whole life, that's how you treated kids. Like I didn't, because I grew up

that way and that's how they grew up too. These kids grew up this way too. And this guy, I don't want to tell people that this guy who writes these books isn't brutal. He talks about keeping a small piece of tubing with him, plumbing tubing, so that he can what he says, lightly wrap the child, hit the child with it. They also talk about this training of the child to put something in front of the child that they want. And this is at a

two or three year old baby. This is a small. This is before toddler. This is a just learning how to crawl baby. So I don't know what age I do, whatever toddler, pre-toddler. You're looking at a six to nine month old baby. Very, very young baby. He would put something that they want there. And then when they try to go for it, he fucking whacks someone. And I don't know how hard they're hitting this kid,

but what are you doing to your child when you do this? What are you doing? What you're doing is you're basically saying, I want an obedient animal. I don't want a child. I don't want a child that sometimes has meltdowns and sometimes has problems. And I got to fix these problems sometimes. I want a child that I look at and I say, shut up or I'll give you something to cry about. And that child shuts up. That's what you want. You want to, I mean, you essentially want an obedient dog. Well, they literally talk about using discipline to break the spirit of their kids. They use that term. Like a kid's a filly or something.

Yeah, like to break them, to break them like an animal. Like what all of this stuff does is it normalizes, It doesn't just excuse, but it normalizes and requires genuine abuse. And it's just another reason. Like we were talking before, when you go to school to be an educator, you have to learn a lot about the developmental process of growing up. You have to take these educational and early childhood development psychology classes so that you understand

why it is differently horrifying to beat a baby than it is to discipline a 12-year-old, right? Their brains, it's not the same fucking brain, right? It's not the same. But these guys want to hit kids. That's what they want. They want,

like one of the things they say in the article is like they want to talk, your kid is, their spirit is broken when they can't look you in the eye when they apologize. Like you are making fearful, terrified people.

You are not recognizing and acknowledging the different developmental stages of human behavior. You're actually denying the humanity of these people by denying the human steps of their development and behavior. And like these homeschooling systems intentionally conflate education with discipline because they're not interrelated. Yeah. They're not interrelated at all. You're right. But they intentionally conflate them. And the way that they do that, and part of the reason they do that is because they use

education as a way to have a system that intentionally shields and obfuscates abusers from accountability. Yeah. Right? Yeah. If I beat the shit out of my kid and my kid goes to second grade, there is an entire building full of mandated reporters that are there. Sure. We want to, these guys want you to homeschool your kids because they also want you to beat the shit out of your kids

and not get caught. Yeah. They want to build an entire system of obfuscation to hide the ritual religious abuse of children. Yeah. That's what this is in part about. And they have this whole like demonic indoctrination worldview

that, oh, if you send your kids to the government schools, the evil government schools are going to indoctrinate your kids and turn your kids against you. And it's like, yeah, man, I actually think that's true. If you send your kids to school and they

see that abuse is not normal, they'll turn against you. Yeah, they absolutely will. I look back on my life and I wonder too, like what would happen if I lived in a small town where that was normal? Yeah. You know, I wonder what,

if I were to have kids, would I beat them too? And I think the answer is yes, if I wasn't, if I didn't have any outside information that came from anyone else. Yeah. And that's what this is. It's a small town. I think about too, like how these small niche communities feed off each other.

I think about like, I know so many people that are in like small communities that are like anti-vaccination. And they feed off each other. They just tune each other up about these anti-vaccination and they feed off each other. They just tune each other up about these anti-vaccination things. And the same thing goes when it comes to what you were saying, indoctrination of the children in schools. You know, I always kind of thought about it as like,

they didn't think that there was enough. Whenever I thought this person is teaching their child at home. My first thought was, they think that the Bible needs to be more in their child's life than what it is in a school, which is why they're doing it. And that was my first thought,

I think for the longest time. And I don't think that's wrong, but I think it's missing a big portion, which is they also don't want that other stuff in there. It's not just that the Bible is missing. It's that the Bible needs to be primary and only. It's not that the Bible is also in there with the physics, with the whatever, the literature, the phonics, the history, whatever.

It's that the Bible isn't there alone. And that's the problem. And that's what, you know, these, these, this couple, they wind up having a child that's, that's a problem for them to teach. They also start to get these pushbacks in their own lives about like how much they should kick the shit out of their own kid for not being good at this stuff. And then they decide, I'm just going to send them to a regular school and see what happens.

And it's, it's kind of, it's great, but at the same time, like, you can see it really troubled them. Like,

the way this story is told, it troubled them to do it because they were so afraid of it. Well, and it's, it's fascinating. I want to return,

I just, one other point I really want to make really quick, and then I want to return to what you just said. But, you know, it occurs to me with the subject of disciplining kids that like, if there is some physical discipline, if there is some method of discipline in general, actually, if there's any method of discipline that you would reserve only for a child, you are probably in the wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

You know? Yeah. And I say that, and I mean it. Like, I would not discipline an employee by hitting them. By smacking them. Or shaming them. Yeah. Or yelling at them. Or, I would never do that. Like, no effective leader that wants... Time out? Yeah yeah, I, you would time out an

employee, you know, in some ways I know we're laughing, but in some ways actually, yeah, you would like, you might put them in a timeout differently as an adult. You might suspend somebody for a few days. Sure. Yeah. Right. So like a, a suspension from work is a form of employment timeout. But we treat kids worse. Like they're less than human. We absolutely do. We treat them like subhuman. Instead of treating kids as our most vulnerable humans.

Sure, yeah. And that's wrong every time because they're just people. They're just really vulnerable people. If we treated the elderly, if you just smacked around an old lady because she wasn't compliant, we're just automatically like, holy shit, you can't do that.

Right? But if you do it for your kids, you can do it at least a little and it's discipline. Sure. That's fucking insane. I just want to say, that's insane. You can in this country. I think if I was at the store and somebody started

spanking their kid, I think that's perfectly fine. You can't do shit about it most days. You can't do anything. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

like, you might be able to say something to them. And I have a feeling they might catch more hell about that now, a lot more hell about it now than when I was a kid.

I'll tell you what, down south, they wouldn't. Well, down south, there's a bunch of states where the teachers can discipline- That may be true. Teachers can whack kids.

Like, corporal punishment is still perfectly fine in schools. I will say, when I was a kid, being a crying kid and getting dragged out of a, like a store by your hair and getting your ass whooped outside is not something that didn't happen.

It was not uncommon. It was very often. But how often do you see that now? I never see that in any stores now. But like you said, this is only my slice of the country. So I have no idea. But in suburban Chicago, no. Never see it. In downtown Chicago, no.

I've never seen anybody getting their ass handed to them like that. Well, I think part of it is that we've come to a better understanding of the psychology of early childhood development. And we realize there are better, more effective ways

to get kids to behave and to meet them at their level and understand them. One thing to return to your previous, one thing that I thought was fascinating is this story

about this couple, the Beals. They have this kid, to your point, that they're having a hard time educating at home for whatever reason. They realize they've got to send this kid to the public school.

They send their kid to the public school. The kid thrives. And what that does immediately to the father is he says, holy shit, if I was wrong about that, then what else was I wrong about? And it was a crisis of his faith. And he lost his faith. He lost his faith. He started looking up cosmology books and other books on evolution and

whatnot afterwards. Cause he's like, if that was wrong, what else is wrong? What else haven't I been told and what else is wrong? What other part of this Truman show wall has been fabricated for me that is not real, you know? And to that end, again, I would repeat, the homeschoolers are right, right? Their impulse is accurate, that if people are exposed to a world full of ideas, they are less likely to believe your insane bullshit. And so like, if your religious worldview continues to be this like deeply evangelical, fundamentalist, literal worldview with an 8,000 year old earth and, you know, all the red dinosaurs on the ark and an ark and all the other silly nonsense, like that stuff increasingly cannot stand the light of day. And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to put their hand over the lamp and make sure the light

never gets shown. And like, it was just so interesting to me that like the impact of homeschooling wasn't just on the kid being homeschooled or not homeschooled, but the impact trickled down to the dad who was like, fuck, I've been lied to because I was told that this was a tool of the devil. And instead my kid is thriving and is happy and is reading and doing all this stuff that we couldn't get done. And I was told the only way it could happen is if we did it with Jesus' help, amen. And instead everything's better. And what else was I lied about? And then he looks into it and he's like, fuck, it was all of it. It was all of it. I was lied to about all of it. And, you know, there's some real pushback

with in-laws in this story, right? So the in-laws, very upset in some ways that the kids are not going to be homeschooled. You know, snarky shit gets said, bad texts back and forth. Somebody sends an email that's not supposed to go to somebody and it goes to somebody else. And it's just, I mean, it's a real mess with this family

and their in-laws. And I was thinking about tradition and how the families there were fighting to keep that tradition alive, right? This is a tradition that keeps that family together and how breaking of tradition can sometimes break families too. And in some ways, this is an experiment in that. I mean, they broke, it didn't, I don't know that it broke it because there is some hope as you get to the end of the article, there's a feeling that the family can survive, right? The family, their family can survive. Maybe it won't be the same family it was with their parents and things like that. But it sounds like some of them didn't care as much anymore. But really, it feels like when they push back against that tradition, it's almost like they're

saying to their parents, you were wrong., there's a deep hurt there between their parents and them because of, you know, something as, as trivial as how, how you decided to do something with a child. In my opinion, it feels trivial to me like that, you know, like how you're making your decisions about how this child is raised. One, I don't, I mean, I don't, I'm pretty sure you've never had your dad like, like talk to you about, you reached out to him to be like, how should I raise my child? Like you raised your own child, right? It's not like you're just like, I need to get some, you know, like it feels trivial that parents and children would fight about something like that. To me, it does. Well, I think a couple of things are interesting about that. I think that in some homes and some families, grandparents and extended family are, they are and they're expected to be a bigger part of your everyday.

And I think that that's just kind of something you and I just experientially don't really see because we don't have that. But I know a lot of people. Yeah, I didn't have grandparents. Right. I didn't have grandparents either. And my dad never wanted to take an active role in being a parent with my kids, right? So like he was a grandpa, he is a grandpa, but like, you know, if my dad sees my kids once a year, that's fine. You know, he's okay with that. He's not trying to like insert himself. But I do know that in many families, grandparents are expected to be an act and perform in these really intimate ways, right?

And so- And then at a certain point, you're supposed to walk grandpa out to the mountain and he's supposed to starve. Leave him at the top. You're supposed to leave him there. Yeah, there's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.

So like I get it. And I know that like there's a lot of people who's a whole thing. So, so, so like I get it. And I know that like, there's a lot of people who, who their families are really tight knit and everybody takes a village, that whole fucking thing. But I also, it would be very difficult as a parent to have to face the realization that you fucked up. Right. Yeah, right. Gosh, you're right. If I made a decision that I thought with my whole fucking heart was the right decision, and I made it with real love and good intentions, and I did, and I think to give them individualized credit, like, I think that these guys, because they're indoctrinated, right? They're built in these systems. They've

lived generationally in these systems. I think that they think that they're indoctrinated, right? They're built in these systems. They've lived generationally in these systems. I think that they think that they're doing things with all the love in their heart and they're really making decisions with great intentions. And then to find out, fuck, that was the wrong thing to do. And not only was it the wrong thing to do, but it held my kid back and it hurt my kid.

That would be, do, but it held my kid back and it hurt my kid. That would be, there would be a very understandable cognitive and emotional pushback against that. You would, I don't think, I don't think it would take a very evolved person. And I am not one of them to immediately and without hesitation, raise their hand and say, you're right. I fucked up because it would be very tough to be like, for 20 years I did this thing with great love and wonderful intention, and it was wrong. And as soon as I find out, I'm going to raise my hand and say,

you're right, I fucked up. I would have a hard time with that. It would take some real soul searching. I don't think anybody else would have easy time with it. I think it's a tough thing. But I think that the only way to grow is to acknowledge that you fucked up. But I think that the only way to grow is to acknowledge that you fucked up.

But I also think, too, religion has such a deep tie on these people that I don't think they could ever get to the point that you're talking about where they think that they fucked up. That might cross their mind, but that's like a devil thought that they will be.

That's true, man. You know what I mean? They'll be like, fuck you. That's the devil talking to me. I didn't fuck up. God has my back and God has the kid's best interest in art or whatever. I don't even know what God has. Yeah, right. I can't get there, but I know that their thoughts are inflated by God and they are buoyed up by God.

by God and they are buoyed up by God. So I feel like they can always rely on that as a cushion to protect them from anything. And this is one of those things that they could easily protect them. Yeah, man. I think you're right because I can't imagine what it would be like to realize after the fact that you didn't have to beat your kids. Yeah. What would it feel like? That would not feel good, man. Yeah. That would not feel good. Especially after, especially after you, I mean, you know, you kick the shit out of a kid. The kid is gonna like, that's a, that's a, that's a moment that you should remember. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I want to, I want to talk about this. This was, so we want, when we talk about these people, this couple, I want to put this on the big screen and then I'm going to have you read this out loud. Now, this is a crumpled piece of paper

for people who are just listening. This is a crumpled piece of paper that they've scanned or photographed from the woman who sent her child to public school eventually, the mom in this story. This is her little, I guess, diary or daily affirmation from 2004. So, Tom, can you read this? Requirements for My Husband, If God So Wills, by Christina Michelle Comfort. I love this. Friday, June 25th, 2004, A.D.

A.D. A.D. Thanks. Thanks, good. I haven't put A.D. A.D. A.D. Thanks. Thanks. Good. I haven't put A.D. down on anything in a long time. A.D. Oh, that really helped.

I thought, yeah. My goodness. One, must underline. 2004 A.D. Number one is must with underlined, be an on-fire, sold-out Christian who loves, fears, and serves the Lord wholeheartedly and myself, kids, by extension.

Two, must be committed to courtships or pre-marriage. I think it says, I don't think it says by extension. I think it's serves God, my kids, myself, and kids next. Oh, you're right. Oh, I did. Yeah. Well, I'm going to reread that. Number one, must be an on-fire, sold-out Christian who loves, fears, and serves the Lord wholeheartedly and myself and kids next. That to me right there. God first. That to me is just like, that should throw the brakes on anything you're thinking. When you're just like, you know, this thing that's outside of the most important relationship in my life is now the most.

God is the most important relationship in my life is now the most, that God is the most important relationship, not a real relationship, but the most important relationship. What you're saying is, I want you to put your imagination before me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because it's not, it's all imaginary. It's all imaginary. That is fucked up to me. I, you know, I read that as an atheist and I'm like, that's fucked up, man. That's fucked up. All right. Look, know, I read that as an atheist and I'm like, that's fucked up, man. Yeah. That's fucked up. All right, look,

I would like to come second to your imagination. I would like- What? Here's what I would like. I would like you to have a very tight relationship with Sir Lancelot,

your teddy bear. Yeah. Snuffle-uffagus is obviously before me. But I'm second. Yeah. Are you serious? I'm a hard second.

God. Must be committed to courtship so our pre-marriage relationship goes smoothly. Okay. Three, must believe in full and unconditional surrender of our number of children to God Almighty. Oh, that's like fucking just spin the wheel of children. Yikes.

Yep. How many kids are we having? However many you put in me. spin the wheel of children. Yikes. How many kids are we having? However many you put in me. Fucking what the sweet fuck. We have technology that helps prevent that shit, man. You have other holes that help prevent that shit. I will tell you what.

I will tell you the truth. I would rather be... I could have an entire army of non-living fallacies. Yeah, man. Fuck that. We could have a whole wall

of whatever it is. Dude, I would rather be celibate for the rest of my life than have another kid. No. No. If that was the only choice on the table, I'd be like,

yeah, man, I'm pulling dick for the rest of my life. Sounds great. No life. No problem. No problem. Done. Sold. Forever. At a certain point,

you're just like, nah, man, it ain't worth it anymore. It's so funny. God, man, spin the wheel of kids is terrifying. Fuck that. Fucking yikes. Number four,

must desire to homeschool our children. This one made me laugh. And here's why. Because in this scenario, the Christian patriarchal scenario that's described, is he doesn't have to do the homeschooling. Yeah. Must desire for me to homeschool our children. That's true.

Right? He must desire for me to do this work. And that leads us into the next one. Must want me to be a full-time homemaker and only have an outside job if required or instructed by my potter. Harry Potter? Yeah. Is she a Hufflepuff? What's happening here? Wow. Yeah. This is Hufflepuff. She doesn't want anything slithering out of her room anymore. I'll tell you what, after all those kids, you'll be huffling and puffling for fucking sure No, the potter is a

line, and they talk about it in this, because they have to explain this in the thing, because I did not know, when they read this out loud I'm glad they said it too, it's a reference to God, God as a you as clay, and God as the potter So what this also means, right because you have to read into this, so

if instructed by my potter means So what this also means, right, because you have to then read into this. So if instructed by my potter means that if we fall on hard times, then I'll go get a job, right? If we fall, because that would be God saying- Sure, that's a nudge from God. Right, that's a sign. Everything is a sign, right?

Everything's a fucking symbol. Then here's what they prefer. They prefer to spell preferred wrong. Okay, Tom. All right. Well, you know what? She was homeschooled. I don't blame her. Yikes.

I don't blame her. Yikes. Boom. Boom. Holy shit. You know what? Good Lord, Tom. To play an instrument

that could be used to play songs to lead our family in worship. Oh, God. That's a lot of words for no accordion. Man, I would rather

pull my toenails out than play an instrument to lead my family in worship. Can you imagine if he shows up and he's like, I play the Vuvuzela or whatever? I'll allow it if it's a harmonica and someone's in latex and there's worship. I'll allow it. There you go.

I'll allow it. But other than that, no. She's on fucking Christian singles or whatever and some dude's like I play the theremin actually like no no

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Yeah. It actually is awesome stuff. It actually is really great stuff. It is awesome stuff. It really is really great stuff. I use it all the time. It's great. It's wonderful.

I'll tell you what, before we got ours, I know we've said this before, but like before we got ours, I let the, I let the field run fallow for a while when it was like in shipping

and vroom, like cleans you right up. It's actually a good product. It's like a legitimately good product. It is like a Roomba. They got to get one that like, you could just like map out your fucking regions.

That's, work on this landscape. Just fucking lay back and let it happen it happen so so like it sits in your nightstand right and charges and then you go to sleep and then it just claws out and just does the work and goes back oh and just like you wake up shiny and smooth yeah and with a with a whole sheet full of hair there I wake up with a sheet full of hair anyway because I'm Italian. So that happens. I shed like a dog. All right.

To like farming and horses, to possibly own either one or both. To own... Oh, the farming or the horses. To either own a farming or horses. To own a farming. I prefer it to own a farming or a horses. Again, homeschool. To consider missions work to a a farming. I prefer it to own a farming or a horses. I get homeschooled to consider missions work

to a Spanish country. I guess that's not a hard preference. Okay. A Spanish country, by the way, would be Spain. That is.

Yeah. Spanish speaking country. There might be like one or two colonies in the Caribbean that are still Spanish. Spanish countries. But I don't know.

So, yeah. Oof. I guess geography and history. Not heavily emphasized. What if it's all these Mexican countries all over the place? And then this one. To have known me in a brother-sister relationship for some time before courting me. So I think that's supposed to be-

That is the grossest thing to have known me. Is that a kink? I think this is the front page of Pornhub every time you open it up. You know, that's just the world we're in now. It really is. The world we're in now. And the entire world we're in

is like Keith Enright's kinks. It's like everything is like, so big sister, and you're like, come on, man. Can't you people not know each other beforehand? Can't we just have, can't you just have a scenario where you didn't know each other before, and you didn't

grow up together? What is happening, man? I'm going to yell at a cloud again. What happened to ordering a sausage pizza? I don't know the pizza guy. He didn't know me. What happened to ordering a sausage pizza? I don't know the pizza guy. He didn't know me. What happened to the naughty nerds? Come on. Why has everyone got to be related to you, you fucking weirdos?

I'm okay with the teacher even. You know what I mean? Hot for teacher. That was a song, I think, back in the day. You can move on from there, but come on. I don't have to know him so well. I don't have to have a brother-sister relationship at a time. I went sledding with them or something.

Like, what is happening? Yeah, we shared a bathroom a little. Oh, come on. What? Gross. Look, a way to write that would be to be friends. Yeah, yeah. You know?

Well, and I thought there was something up there, too, like I guess being courted and stuff like that. But you know what this reads as? I mean, like this reads as someone who was deeply indoctrinated in a patriarchal society, right? Like someone who's deeply, deeply indoctrinated as a child in this mindset that the world is going to be controlled by someone else forever,

that I will not have much responsibility if I do. And the responsibility I do get, I will be given by someone else who had that responsibility to give to me, right? So I'll have the responsibility to homeschool my kids, but I won't, I will have to have them have to want me to do it, right? That's a requirement is that they want me to do it. I can't just have the volition of my own to know that I'm going to

do it. It's that I have to find someone who will allow me to do it. This wishlist reads as a list of things I'm supposed to want. It very much is. There's nothing that feels deeply personal except for the horses. The horses. The only thing in here that gives me any... Yeah, the Spanish country maybe. And the Spanish country. Yeah, that's a preference.

Yeah, right. That's it. That's like of all these things, these are like, these are the things this person is supposedly writing down for no one to read but themselves. And they have been so indoctrinated into this worldview that there

are hardly any actual personal preferences. When this person is writing down the things they want in a partner, they're writing down a list of not even personal attributes. I want you to play an instrument so you can sing songs to the kids about loving Jesus or whatever. What about, to the kids about loving Jesus or whatever. Like, what about, do you want something funny or kind or, you know, that's good to you? Like, do you want somebody that like- Yeah, none of those things. Enjoy the same hobbies and interests as you?

Somebody whose need for attention mimics yours? Somebody whose like constitution for work is complimentary to your, like none of these things which are actually important. None of these things, which are actually important. None of these things, none of them at all. All of it is here are the things I've been told about a role that I'm supposed to fill. I am a person, women in this, in this culture, they are indoctrinated to this homeschooling shit to give up who they are in order to become a role that they have to fill.

Yeah. And then this wishlist is a self-fulfilling prophecy because they are arranged marriage. That she was. She was arranged marriage. She was at home and then her dad called her and said, hey, I found your husband, basically. I mean, like pretty much that's what he says. I know it's a little different than that, not not much yeah not much different right there's a guy who basically wants to be your husband and he's a god-fearing man like you found him in this community and all those requirements

were already written for him by his parents right and so he this all and then you can look back at this and be like look at how prophetic this was. And you're like, yeah, but you built that house. Right. Like you built the whole house. And now you're like, look at this house that God built. But it was like, you played the card trick on yourself. You did this on yourself.

And these are all arranged marriages. And so this is just a fucked, I mean, genuinely. It is, man. I want to say it's a fucked up society. It's a fucked up little group of people that do this and perpetuate this on their kids. And this is such a great story to watch people snap out of this.

It is such a wonderful thing to see somebody see through the bullshit, to see through it and say, no, not for my kid. My kid isn't going to sit down and write a list like this and wait for some other homeschool boy that I'm going to allow them to marry. My kid's going to grow up and my kid's

going to be free from whatever this is. And I think that's so touching and meaningful. And at the end of this, this family that originally just sent their daughter to the public education, to the public elementary school, because they were originally just sent their daughter to the public education, to the public elementary school, because they were not able to, they didn't have the resources to teach their kid. By the end of it, he lost his faith. She's questioning hers and they are sending all of their kids to the public school and their families to various degrees have accepted and recognize this without ostracizing them. And I know that- Not too much yet. There is some. There's some pushback.

There's some pushback. Yeah, there's some pushback. But this really is a great title. It's the revolt of these people. They really feel tricked. And I think, again, the modern world is built in such a way that you can't help but feel tricked. There's a little aside where the daughter is at school and she comes back and it's Groundhog's Day and it's February. And she says, oh, you know, like Puxatawney Phil saw his shadow. And he's like, fucking who? And he's so removed from even those little stories we tell about the society that we live in, that he doesn't know who Puxatawney Phil is and how that relates to Groundhog's Day.

Yeah. And it's nothing, right? It's nothing. But it's one of those things that says, if I don't know this, what else don't I know? Sure, sure. If I haven't been clued in to the same stories that tell us as a culture who we are as people, what else have I missed? What else have I missed? And what they didn't miss was they didn't miss out on their kids learning that stuff on their own. And that's powerful. And I see, as I look into the future, I do sometimes feel a

little hopeful when I hear stories like this, because it's not just that the nuns are growing, N-O-N-E-S. It's not just that they're growing at a rate, but it's also people who are currently, you know, that are currently religious are walking away from religion too. They're becoming nuns as well. It's not just that there's people growing up that aren't indoctrinated in religion

and those are the nuns. It's that those people exist, but then there's also these people who were really religious and then stopped. They stopped being religious and started becoming these nuns. And so I think that there's gonna be more and more of this walking away from this stuff,

which makes me kind of scared too for our school boards if they, you know, because they really want their cake and eat it too. They want to be able to homeschool their kids, but then they also want to be able to control what other kids learn, even though some of their kids aren't even in those schools. Yeah. Yeah. And I do worry about that too, is that, and we've seen this in certain Jewish communities.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they take over the whole school board. And then they turn, like, these ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in New York, they turn the entire school into essentially a Jewish religious school. I forgot what it's called. And then they just...

That's it. And there's no oversight anymore because they are the oversight. So there's some worry there, for sure. But I do hope that in most communities, the demographics don't allow that. Yeah. And these people can't take over

and they just say, you know what? I'm just going to send my kid to school and I'm going to mourn the things that I didn't learn and I'm going to stop beating the shit out of my kids. And my kids are going to be in front of mandated reporters and they're going to get an education in things like biology and things like history and they're going to be better for

it. All right. So that's going to wrap it up for this week. We'll be back on Monday with a new episode. So check it out then. We're going to leave you though, like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides.

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