There Are No Girls on the Internet - Shiny Happy People: It's not just the Duggars, religious zealots want to control your future (w/ Eve Ettinger)

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

On Amazon Prime's new docu series Shiny Happy People, we're given a look into the Duggars' harmful religious ideology. Eve Ettinger shares their story in the film. Eve joins to talk about their work with the Coalition for Responsible Home Education to help advocate for homeschooled kids. Listen to Eve's podcast Kitchen Table Cult: https://kitchentablecult.com/ and subscribe to their Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/kitchentablecultpod   SUPPORT Coalition for Responsible Home Education: https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/support-crhe/    Eve's Salon piece:  Shiny happy homeschooling: The abusive Duggar-like household is preventable, if we all take action: https://www.salon.com/2023/06/10/duggar-homeschooling-danger-reform-shiny-happy-people/   Want to support the show and get ad free content: Subscribe to the patreon: patreon.com/tangotiSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Just a heads up, today's episode talks about child abuse. You don't want your kids to be safe. You want them to be under your control. There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. On their Discovery reality show, 19 kids and counting, the Dugger family was portrayed as a sweet, loving, close-knit family. Parents, Michelle, and Jim Bob Dugger,

were raising their 19 children, nine daughters, and 10 sons, to be pure, modest, and godly, which includes strict gender roles, having lots of kids, and of course, homeschooling. But behind the cheery, upbeat show, masked a very deep darkness. Josh Dugger, the oldest son, sexually abused girls, including his younger sisters. He's serving a 12-year sentence after authorities found child sexual abuse material on his computer. The Duggers followed the Institute in Basic Life Principles, or IBLP, a Christian organization founded by Minister Bill Gothard in 1961

that purports to teach families to find success through strict adherence to IBLP's interpretation of the Bible. Gender roles are rigid. Women are inferior to the male heads of household. Children must strictly obey their parents, and all of this, all of these norms, are enforced through abuse. But it's not just about how individual families run their households, because of what's called Christian dominionism,

the idea that Christians like the Duggers should take control over government and society, religious zealots are striving for more and more control over all of our lives. Eve Ettinger hosts a podcast called Kitchen Table Colts, where they talk about life as an ex, someone who got out of a cult. Their story is featured in the new Amazon Prime documentary about the Duggers called Shiny Happy People. Hi, I'm Eve Etinger, and I am on the board at the Coalition for Responsible Home and Children. education. Eve didn't grow up under IBLP, but they were raised in an adjacent ideology called

Quiverpool, and they know a lot about the kind of purity culture that's a hallmark of both movements. So I just finished watching the shiny happy people documentary. First, I have to ask, what has the response been like from the show now that it's aired? It's been so sweet, honestly. It's been really kind. Lots of survivors reaching out. You know, they relate. They're grateful. They're really happy that this is being told. And a lot of

other people who are like, oh my God, I had no idea. How can I help? And so, you know, being able to direct them to CRIG and our work is just really satisfying. We were talking a little bit off mic about this, but you have this really prolific background as an activist, someone who writes about important issues. And I'm happy to hear that the response has been positive and sweet and helpful and supportive as opposed to some of the other issues like your piece about the abortion rights movements, things like that. I can imagine this feels like a change in getting those kinds of responses. Night and day different. I've had to like really up my security first things when things like this go live because I've had, you know, a lot of hate directed my way some like active

threats. And so it's been just surreal to feel just the kindness around this. And I also have to, like, I think thank the producers for this. And I think the medium probably has a lot to do with that, given that there's like so many of us speaking out together. It's not just me writing us, you know, one off piece. But also the producers, I work mostly with Corey and Olivia. And I cannot speak too highly of them. They've been so wonderful and so kind. And there were certain talks. that were really enmeshed in the stories that I was telling that I find impossible to tell without those other pieces, but there's elements of that that leave me vulnerable to people from my past. And they were able to really cleanly edit out all of those things that left me

open to attacks and just really protect me. And I felt very cared for by how they presented what the material that they got. So often when us, the viewers are watching the finished product, the person who is the subject, the person who is being spoken about, who is sharing their experiences, which are often like traumatic or painful or heavy, I hate it when I hear from them where it's like, oh, this felt we traumatizing or this felt like exploitative. So it makes me very happy to hear that you felt like it was a good situation for you and not something that was just like, how can we mine this person's pain more for views? I really can tell when I'm watching something that feels like that. and I don't like it. Yeah. Part of the reason I chose to do this with them is that I felt that Lula Rich preserved the dignity of the survivors, which was the piece that they had done before this.

And so that carried through. Olivia is incredibly careful, incredibly thoughtful, and just very trauma-informed. And I just felt really cared for. I think everybody did. You know, something that they make really clear in the doc is how people watching shows like 19 kids and counting might not have really been privy to how harmful ideologies like IBLP actually are. Why do you think that is?

How is it that someone who watched this show could be surprised by some of what is then clarified in the documentary? That's a response I've been seeing a lot of. Like, well, I knew something was off, but I didn't know what. Why do you think that is? there's some amount of our culture that like generally universal American culture where we kind of want to let other people do their thing and you know we may disagree with it we may judge it we may like hash it on Twitter or the you know the free gender forum exists like has existed there's a lot of rubbernecking, but like, I think there's, there's some amount of like, you know, this is part of

the American persona to like respect someone else's right to like destroy their life, if you will. And, but I think a lot of people don't really think that someone would go that far. It seems kind of like something maybe we left in the past. Like it feels there's a brutality to what they are doing to their children that perhaps feels archaic and like can't possibly be happening in this like modern time. Anyone who's paying attention to like children rights, children's rights issues knows otherwise. But I think that like a lot of people aren't looking at the hard stuff and aren't, you know, it's entertainment. So they're not looking at that and being like what's wrong here. You know, let me go noodle around on Wikipedia to find out who built up.

authored is, they're wanting to like, veg out after work. And so Kieran and I always say on the kitchen table cult podcast, which is when I co-host with my friend Kieran Darkwater, like, the conspiracy is real. If there's like an actual conspiracy, um, for Christian dominionism that has been like put in place over the last 30 plus years. And it's not like conspiracy theories are again, another like past time like a great icebreaker is like what's what's one conspiracy theory you like personally would love to be for it to be real you know like that kind of chit chat um but it is very real and I think we just don't want to take it seriously because it means that the there's a certain amount of religious freedom for the rest of us that would immediately be at stake

follow me here. So I didn't grow up in an evangelical household, but I did grow up in a kind of old school southern, like spare the rods, spoil the child kind of household. And something that really struck me in watching the documentary is how when they were talking about the brutality of some of the physical abuse that was commonplace in their communities and how they had all of these specific ways to avoid the police getting involved with how they were, you know, abusing their kids, essentially. I, you know, you talked about children's rights and this sort of children first ideology that we're starting to talk about now. That is not a vibe that I grew up with. And part of me wonders if one of the ways that people didn't really necessarily want to see some of the more

abusive aspects of these, of these ideologies is because it's, even if you're not evangelical, you might be beating your kids as, you know, and telling yourself it's discipline. I'm doing this for their own good. You might have a mindset that says your kids are not people. Your kids are your property. And the most important thing for your kid is to be respectful to you and not to express themselves, not to have needs, values, opinions, emotions. And so that would be very threatening, even if you were not evangelical. Oh, yeah. It goes back a really long way. I mean, I think there's a piece of this that is like historically, like, you know, women were property, right? Lially, there was a like tradition of law around that.

And the women's, like, movement to end that children were under the same, had that same status. And it really never changed because they didn't come along with the evolution of women's rights very far. I talk about a lot about this in a recent series on Kitchen Table Cult. We did a deep dive into the history of children's rights here. But then there's also, yeah, people don't, people carry trauma from their past, and they think that they turned out fine. And so it's okay to like pass that forward because they're not willing to acknowledge that people that they love deeply, harmed them. And that's a really hard thing to face. And it takes a lot of maturity to be able to face that

and not, like, implode. And then also people, people really just don't want to take kids seriously. It's a lot easier to parent by breaking your child's spirit than to, like, take them seriously as a rational individual with whom you need to negotiate because they have autonomy and consent. It takes more time. It takes more work. And a lot of people are not willing to do that. And a lot of people have kids because they, you know, don't want to be alone or they want to have a legacy or they want to be able to micromanage someone else's life because a partner wouldn't stick around and let them do that. You know, there's a lot of like immaturity that goes into why people have kids. And that's one thing.

But then what you do with the children when you have them is it's very, very important to take them seriously as individuals with autonomy. And that's really, really hard to accept. In the documentary, we learn about the kinds of brutal abuse tactics the Duggers use with their children. Tactics like blanket training where a baby is put on a blanket. with a toy just out of reach. If the baby reaches off of the blanket for the toy, they're hit. This is meant to break the child's spirit so that they're more obedient. The film showcases the ways that spanking and brutal physical punishment

is glorified as a godly way for a parent to treat a child. I say often that spanking is sexual abuse, and people really do not like that. I'm sorry, that's an erogenous zone. and you are like preparing, I mean, you saw in the documentary, it's functionally grooming for sexual abuse. Like the whole, I'm doing this because I love you. You need to submit to an adult who is violating your boundaries and you have to go back and hug them after it's done and you have to accept them publicly and you have to have

no resentment. You can't scream out. Like, that's a sign of rebellion. Like all these things, it's sexual grooming. it's predatory. In addition to just the, like, smacking your child is, like, extremely fucked up. I don't know. There's just, there's a lot there.

People don't like to look at it. They really, really don't like to look at it. They really, really don't. And I think it's kind of like what you were saying. I think part of it is that we, as a society, I think we hate children. We are very threatened by the idea that children are little adults and that if we actually built a world that accommodated that reality, that seems big and scary and threatening. So it's easier to believe that kids are just property. You don't really need to think too hard about it and how

you treat them. Are you familiar with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? I am not. Okay. So it's, you know, obviously like UN acts do not have like control over our laws. But when we, you know, co-signed something that, you know, the international community has agreed, like, this is fucked up. Like, it's, it's, it's endorsing a, like, a standard that we're aspiring to, right? And we never, um, endorsed or ratified the UN convention on the rights of the child back in the 90s, early 90s, because Michael Ferris, who's the founder of the homeschool legal defense association. was up until recently the president of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is a really, it's a hate group. Lobbied and organized homeschoolers to try to keep us from ratifying that.

Because among other things, it asserts that a child has a right to not be hit by their parents. I first read this when I, in entirety, I knew of it, I knew it was considered bad in the fundamental some school world, but I first read it in its entirety when I went to Peace Corps. I was serving in Kyrgyzstan as a educator, volunteer, and because Kyrgyzstan had ratified it, we had to read it as part of our training as educators there. Wow. And I lost it. I had to go leave and sit in the hall for like an hour because it was like all of these things that it's asserting like would have saved me, would have saved my childhood,

would have been wonderful to have had as these are our values as a nation. And we just don't like kids. So there's like a whole, there's a whole like a lot of history behind that. And obviously, again, it wouldn't be binding in the way that a federal law would be. But just the fact that we won't even endorse that kind of aspirational value is deeply disturbing. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL, Michael's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two, bind. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can

extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-4-I-Hart. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama,

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how do you conquer them? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout, Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that.

Like, it didn't make sense in my brain. It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't feel on. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladecki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me.

And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the, entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. And we're back. Today, Eva's part of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an organization that pushes back against the harmful, regressive,

and insular worlds that these kinds of ideologies build by advocating for the rights of kids who are homeschooled. The homeschool space has been deeply deregulated, thanks in part to the lobbying efforts of people like Michael Ferris, Republican activist, and the head of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. Eve says that homeschooling is a big part of how kids are further entrenched into and harmed by ideologies like IBLP and quiverable. One of the big things I have to talk about is homeschooling,

I have to imagine that the right to an education is something that, I don't know if it's spelled out in that, in that, but like kids deserve to be educated. It is. It is. I mean, yeah, it is. I mean, I would imagine something that's so clear in the documentary is that homeschooling, there's a lot of things that contribute to the harm that is able to be done and perpetrated here. homeschooling is a big one. What role do you see homeschooling as playing in all of this? Homestchooling enables abuse. And I've written about this many, many places. Like, obviously, like, general caveat of, like, there are great parents and homeschooling can be a really wonderful tool. But as it stands, homeschooling has been systematically deregulated over the last 30 years by people like Michael Ferris. in order to elevate parental control over a child's right to education and child's right to an open future.

The net effect is that in, I'm in Virginia, and I was homeschooled in California and Virginia. In Virginia, there's two ways you can register to be homeschooled. One is, like, the standard process where you report to the school board, I'm homeschooling, and then you have to provide certain academic benchmarks. to prove that there's academic progress. That could be standardized testing. That could be a portfolio. Different states have various benchmarks that they use for that.

But in Virginia, you can also register under religious exemption, which basically says I'm homeschooling for religious reasons. And as soon as you do that, you don't exist. So this was established back in, I want to say the 80s. I don't think that's quite right. But it was established originally to allow the Mennonites to pull their kids from school to be part of the farming work in their community or whatever they had going on and, you know, not have the mandatory education through 12th grade.

And that's a homeschooling loophole that has been used. It's been like really strongly protected. by the homeschool parental rights extremist lobby. And kids, like if a parent decided to homeschool their first kid and then decided that we're going to have a home birth for the second kid and, oh, we don't want to register this child as existing if the home birth goes really smoothly and like nothing goes wrong, they could potentially have a child without a social security number who is being educated at home under the religious exemption who the state has no idea that they exist. And that's

perfectly legal. Under the religious exemption, you could have your kid graduate from high school without knowing how to read. And again, that would be perfectly legal. Virginia's kind of like one out of many different, every state has a very different set of regulations. You can look years up at responsible homeschooling.org. We've got a list of states in there, the current state of homeschooling by state. We consider Pennsylvania currently to be the gold standard in terms of how they track this stuff.

But we at CRHE have a vision of changing policies so that the child's right to an open future and a child's right to an education are preserved. And currently, that's not the case. And so all of that sets the stage for families like the Duggers. Ironically, Arkansas is one of two states that does not allow a registered sex offender in the home if a family is homeschooling. So if you want to register as a homeschooler, you have a registered sex offender in the home, you will not be permitted to homeschool in Arkansas. But there are only two states that have that.

That is, I can't, I'm like, I'm, I believe you, but I am shocked. That is shocking information. So, you know, like we're looking at groups like moms for liberty, right? They're trying to, they're trying to be, like, some of them might be homeschool moms coming to school boards, trying to, like, regulate how things are censored. this is based off of the model that the homeschool lobby has been using to deregulate homeschooling and has been wildly successful, which is why CRHG exists because we're homeschool alumni being like, this is fucked up, we would like a word here.

Right. And the other side, because a lot of this org, a lot of the lobbying was done by homeschool parents, they just see us as like bitter or disgruntled and don't take us seriously. our concerns are not real because, again, in their eyes, we're still kids. It doesn't matter that I'm 34 and I have like a master's degree and like have taught in multiple different colleges and like institutions of varying levels. Like I know what I'm talking about when it comes to education and what kids need. It doesn't matter.

Because, because, yeah, you will always be a child in, in their eyes. There's not, and I also think there's a kind of thing of like, oh, they're just biased because they didn't have a good experience. So, you know, they don't know what they're talking about. Some of the board members at CRHE had wonderful homeschooling experiences. But because they saw the peers in the community who fell through the cracks, they're mad about it and they'd like to write the ship. We'd like to make it safe for, you know, even if some of my homeschooling, homeschooling experience was great. I don't need to like spend a lot of time getting into like the specifics because it's not up for debate. But like I like certain things. What does homeschooling look like for you? So I'm the oldest of nine kids. And up until I was 13 and my mom had a set of twins numbers six and seven in the lineup. I had much more like support and like flexibility.

I got to like have some sort of input in the curriculum. I didn't have a lot of choices, but I got to choose within options. And my mom had time to like work with me on stuff. But once the twins arrived, I was co-parenting the younger kids. I was babysitting. Ninth grade. I didn't know school. I just read, you know, great books, works of literature.

I met while I was watching children. I got super behind in science and math. I did not have assistance to check my work on things. I mostly had to do it myself. I had to, you know, go take the great book and, like, go check my answers and, like, not have any idea how I got X algebra problem wrong. And then going to, you know, my mom or my dad for help would be, like, does one even remember how it works? and does the other even have like the energy to even look at this or like there's a screaming toddler who needs to be fed like let's go do that so I you know I have ADHD I like to learn

I hustled and I didn't want to be stuck at home so like I was like an okay student on my own but the environment was not conducive to learning and there are a lot of gaps that I've had to fill in my own afterward um if you want to get a pretty good example of how it can look like that, like Tara Westover is educated, felt very familiar in terms of, like, you know, I knew that the Holocaust had happened by the time I got to college, but she didn't. And that's not uncommon or unheard of. Do you think part of it is gendered? Like, had you not been assigned a female at birth, would you have been responsible for child

care at nine? Fuck, yes. because I was expected to be a wife and mother someday. And like the long-term theory was you don't really need to go to college. But if you want to go to college, that's fine. But the only reason you would need a college degree is like, what if someday in the future your husband got disabled and couldn't work and then you had to go earn money? Like that's the kind of like extrapolation. There was no like I really wish I could have taken my college search seriously and applied to Ivy League schools.

Not like the Ivy's early better, but at a certain point I believe that they were. And I had a lot of anger over the fact that I was directed at certain private Christian colleges or super local colleges so that I could be close to home and be available. I left as far as I could within those parameters. But again, I had options within a set of choices handed to me. But I was not encouraged to think about myself as someone who was going to be earning money in the future and having to support myself or having to take care of other people because I was training to be a wife and mom. guess what, not a girl. It didn't really work out that way. Yeah.

You know, I wonder, I read your amazingly written salon piece about homeschooling. And something that really struck me was how secrecy seemed to be a big part of it. Like if somebody asks about your education, don't say this, say that. If somebody from the state comes poking around, say, this, not that. I think a lot of that was early on, and that part of my life was in California, especially. So California's like homeschooling law at the time was you registered as a private school. There was no limit on how many students a private school had to have. And so each individual homeschool could operate as a private school. And that's how they, you know, registered to homeschool.

So back then, you know, this is like 96, 97, 98, somewhere in there. When I was getting taught those things, like homeschooling was not very well known. Mean girls hadn't come out. You didn't have like references. And so it felt like one, probably my mom didn't want to explain things in the grocery store. Two, there's serious fearmongering always and is still being carried out by HSLDA, Mike Ferris's org, to make homeschool parents pay dues to participate in their organization based off of the fear that you might need legal production from us someday, legal representation

from us someday, because the state is probably going to come for your kids. We were taught to not trust social workers or CPS to see them as a threat. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think I-Hard. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-8-4-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-I-Hart. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind.

Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source,

the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaders to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context,

and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Life throws hurdles big and small.

The question is, how do you conquer them? On hurdle with Emily Abadi, we sit down with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness, professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions to talk about the challenges that shaped them and the mindset that keeps them going. From the WNBA standout Kate Martin and rising hockey star Layla Edwards. If a boy can do it, I don't see why a girl can't. Like, I've never understood that. Like, it didn't make sense in my brain.

It's hard to be in spaces that no one looks like you, but don't ever feel like you don't belong. Don't let that be the reason you don't do it. An Olympic champs Gabby Thomas and Katie Ladeki. The ability to show a gold medal to someone and have their face light up and smile, that means the world to me. And that's what motivates me to win more gold medals. At our level, at this scale, like being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything.

Because resilience isn't just about winning. It's about showing up, even when it's hard. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Let's get right back into it. Teaching kids to fear agents of the state like social workers and CPS is sadly not an uncommon thing for some parents. Jennifer Jean Hart and Sarah Margaret Hart adopted six black children who the women physically abused and neglected. When child protective services would get involved in one state, the women would pack up the kids and flee to another state.

Until eventually, in 2018, the women loaded all of their kids into their SUV and intentionally drove it off a cliff. None of them survived. If you look at, you know, the Hart family case, that's a very, that's a very classic case of this. It was like they left the state to go to Oregon. I think they were in Wisconsin. in the upper Midwest. Because the CPS case was open and they were being looked into and they were trying to avoid it. And that was happening again in Oregon.

And that's when they took that fatal road trip. Like being trained to be afraid of the resources that are there to protect children, again, kind of goes hand in hand with the like they hate kids. You don't want your kids to be safe. You want them to be under your control. You know, thinking back about how fear is really. really used to control people's behavior. The documentary makes this interesting point that all of this ideology was really picking up steam on the backdrop of things like school desegregation.

And I was just like watching it. I was like, God damn, these people really did not want to go to school with black people. Like they sent up this whole thing. It is, it is very clearly laid out. There's a really good piece I can send you that kind of, it's a political piece, I believe, that documents this. But it's basically like Brown Beevee board. white people started private Christian schools. And then the private Christian schools started getting desegregated. You look at Bob Jones University and like the ruling there. And they fucking panicked and went to homeschooling.

And I, you know, looking at the homeschooling community I grew up in, both in California and Virginia, predominantly white. There were people of color. And there's other, you know, communities within that. some immigrant families, you know, who were choosing that because it felt safer for various reasons. But it's just the way it started was like very clearly a move, a fear-based move around white supremacist ideology. And that is still like kind of so embedded in the movement. you can't find homeschool curriculum.

There's a few options that are not overtly religious or don't have like overtly revisionist history. So as the during the pandemic, the like spate of people leaving to go homeschool their kids, there was a, it seemed like there was a wave of especially black homeschool families starting to homeschool. I just, I feel really bad for that. because, like, yes, this is a really good and safe option for you. And also, you're walking into a community that is really stacked against you.

The resources that are available are directly opposed to any kind of, like, adequate education. I just feel bad that, you know, this is a really good option for them and it's not safe. And again, that's part of why CRHU exists. It's like this should be safe. There should be, you know, there should be good resources. We'd love to see like homeschoolers being able to be integrated into public school extracurriculars, you know, those kinds of things where you're part of the community, but you get to do it your way. Yeah, you've made really clear that the kind of abuse that is made worse by homeschooling that we saw in the document. documentary is preventable? What are some solutions to preventing that kind of thing?

So I did a piece or team vogue about this with my friend Nyla Burton. One of the things we covered in our reporting was a lot of former homeschoolers who are now social workers talking about we don't want more like mandatory oversights. Yes, we want more interactions with mandatory reporters or mandated reporters, but not through. like a top-down, like you have to meet with this person every year. Instead, opening things, opening up existing resources and existing communities where they will interact with mandated reporters so that you avoid the carceral top-down stuff where if you open up my kid is homeschooled but wants to participate in band. And the local middle school down the street has a really good

band program. And we can, like, I can drop Tommy off at three. for ban practice. And like he's part of the community and that teacher is a mandated reporter. And like, so providing more integration resources for homeschoolers to participate in systems that already exist to be able to take some pressure off of parents for being the sole source of educational resources. And just kind of like, what can, how can we like bring them? in how can we make things accessible?

And this will, like, I feel like everybody would benefit from this. This will help the kids with disabilities or being homeschooled, but, like, we need to participate in certain things. Or, like, you know, being able to pick and choose more and integrate yourself as much as you want. Well, obviously, like, how to manage that policy-wise is complex. But I feel like a more integrated vision is probably the safest way forward for everybody. Yeah, that was really clear to me watching the documentary when folks would talk about how they didn't have, they didn't have TV, they didn't have movies, they didn't have like when there was a hurricane, there's somebody had to, a family member who had to call because they didn't have that, even that level of access to the outside world.

And when people are so closed off and these communities and families become so insular, that really is just like a breeding ground. Not to mention the way that these young people are being taught, like do whatever the oldest male tells you to. Or, you know, if somebody is abusing you, that's actually good for you. It's just pretty obviously like a recipe for not great stuff happening, not safe stuff happening. Yeah. I it's like I mean I also like kind of think about this in terms of I this is this is absolutely opening a can of worms but there is kind of a like back rooms conversation among the ex-homeschooler community about like you know for a while and I think now the question has been closed but for a while before the most recent allegations came out is Josh Dugger actually a pedophile or was he just? not given access to sex ed. And I think like now like child porn case closed.

But up before that, there was a lot of conversation about like, we didn't get access to sex ed. And so stories of siblings checking each other out to figure things out is a really like terrifyingly common. experience for a lot of people. And you just, you just set everybody up to fail if you don't anticipate curiosity and provide resources and education. It kind of goes every which way, you know, kids having information about childbirth because mom had a home birth in the living room, but not knowing about how their body parts work. Like, just the lack of information really sets you up to fail. Definitely.

And like not leaving space for the realities of what kids are going to wonder about and be curious about enough questions about. Again, they're a tautomous beings. You can't anticipate everything. You can't control everything. Like they are going to surprise the fuck out of you if you let them. Just be willing to like go along. and provide resources for them.

It's not that hard. From IBLP to quiverful, the point of these harmful ideologies is not just about how one family raises their kids. It's much more than that. With young people being trained and educated to serve at the highest levels of government and politics,

and using social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube to put a more palatable, telegenic sheen on their ideology, the goal is pretty explicitly world domination. One of the points that I thought was so scary and salient in the film is this idea at the end where it's like it's not just about this one ideology. This is about people who are harmful, who are also very well connected politically, have lots of money, who are doing this because they want, they ultimately want like global domination. They want to be at the highest levels of government and politics. They want to be the people who are making decisions for the rest of us, for what we can and cannot do. How have you seen this playing out and should we be worried?

Oh, God. So there's a whole lot. There's a whole lot that goes into this. So I think this was clear in the film, but like what I just like reiterate. I did not grow up in IBLP. I grew up in Quiverful and the Venn diagram is like almost over top of each other, but not quite. The only reason we didn't do that is because my dad liked to play is electric. guitar. And that is satanic in IBLP. So, but pretty much everything else we, we adopted. And there's a lot of

that, like, overlap. If you look at R.J. Rushduni, so kind of the grandfather of Christian dominionism. And the, like, intellectual trickle-down effect that he had on everybody, you could play bingo with all of the, like, stuff that's going on with the Southern Burr. Baptist Church Convention right now and evicting women from from practicing as pastors and the Hill Song documentary stuff and the um god willow willa creek Baptist church problems and all it just like anytime there's a Christian sex scandal or like overt racism happening in a church community you can just like there's there's a genealogy you can trace back to these these old school Christian dominionists who were like trying to basically like push the Confederacy into theocratic territory like I sound like the guy with the string map on the wall but I built out the string map and it's pretty solid yeah the big old card is like rush genie schlafly uh It just goes on and on.

I mean, that's one of the things that's like, it kind of goes back to what we open the conversation with about this idea that we do have this innate thing in us in society that's like, oh, if this person wants to live like this, even if it's harmful to them, let them. But some of these harmful ideologies, it's not enough that they live like this and they want their kids to live like this. They want me a bitch they've never met to live like this. They want what I can do and can't do. They want to make decisions. It's the same thing like you were saying, like the homeschooled parents, moms for liberty, their kids are not even at the public school, but they want to be at that school making decisions for what other people's kids can and cannot read.

What do we do with that? It's called Christian dominionism. It's a thing. It's it's fascist. I mean, that's ultimately what it is. It's Christian fascism. And like there's different ways people get into it. Some of them like have a literal, literal eschatological belief that like if America is not made into a Christian nation, then they will, then Jesus will never have a second coming.

Like full on, full on. It's deeply anti-Semitic belief system about the way end times should work and will work. if we do or do not become a Christian nation. And then there's other people who are much more like soft about it, but they kind of end up in the same place through other ways, just in terms of like wanting to have these like Christian values imposed upon people or wanting to be able to functionally eliminate certain segments of society. I mean, like what is happening right now is a very slow transit.

genocide. Like that's the plan. And these book bans are like the start of it. And that's why I'm calling it fascism because it looks very slow. But that's where it's going to end. And they all get to the same place no matter where they, they start if their interest is controlling children and controlling access to information and consolidating power. Even if it's said by a really sweet-seeming lady with a baby voice and big hair, it's still fascism. I was going to do Michelle imitation, but I can't. I can't bring myself to do it. That voice is something.

It's like, the stuff that she is saying is, like, terrifying. And it's that much more terrifying that she's saying it in that voice. I was like, oh, my God. It's called having a gentle and quiet spirit. Oof, like chills up my spine. Yeah, it's really bad. It looks real pretty. I mean, but then again, Ivanka also looks really pretty.

Speaking of like polishing up things that are scary, having grown up in the quiverful movement, which is basically this theology that's like having lots and lots of kids is a blessing from God, do you see the ways that right now, like there are lots of tech billionaires like Elon Musk who are really into pronatalism where they're like, I want to have as many superbabies as I can to repopulate the earth and to make sure that, like, you know, kids with lots of kids with my good genes, quote unquote, are running around. Do you see this as like a new version of the same kind of thinking that's like kind of like vaguely eugenicist where it's like my DNA, I need to. It's explicitly eugenicist. Not if you ask, not if you ask people like Elon Musk.

They're like, what do you mean? Like, it's just, my DNA is just special. You ask any disabled person, they will say it's eugenicist. And they're the ones that get to have the authority on that. Yeah, no, it is horrible. And I can't believe, I guess the reason why I say, like, I think that we are being sold right now that it's actually fine. It's eugenicist, but like there's that couple who they, I forget what magazine they were in, but it's like, I think that right now we are being sold, that it's smart, good. These people are doing their part to make, you know, the future better, blah, blah, blah. I think we are being packaged eugenicism with a pretty package

and we're being told that actually it's good for the world. And also like, I'm sorry, Elon, if your dreams are so good, one, what about that hairline? We've seen the before pictures. And two, he has literally lost more money

than anyone in history has ever lost. If you just... When you put it like that. If you just look at the Twitter deal. And those jeans don't sound good to me. But like, yeah, no, the pro natalist, like, birth, you know, reproduction fetish, whatever it is.

It's not that dissimilar. They're just, you know, putting a text bin on it rather than, you know, a verse from proverbs. Yeah, that's exactly what I think. I think if you told some of these people, it's the same thing, just packaged differently. They would really resent that. They'd be like, what are you talking about? I'm a smart techie.

I live in San Francisco. Make them squirm. Good. Make them squirm. You know, another thing I'm curious about is when it comes to, like, the documentary and the work that you're doing with Kitchen Table Colts amazing podcast, your writing, does it feel good to just be, like, getting this out, talking about it? It does.

And also, like, I have so many other things that I am interested in and have been working and writing about that, like, I can't wait until, like, this is. Absolutely. Like, we've been trying to end Kitchen Table Colt for so long. And every year we're like, guess we're in for another one, because these things keep happening that are relevant. And unfortunately, we still have stuff to say. Like, it's, I would love to be able to shut up about this. I would love for this to be irrelevant. I would love for like homeschool policy to like, you know, exist in such a way that like, Sierra G feels like we have nothing. to do. That would be great. It would be so nice. It's cathartic and also like, I want to write a

memoir about my garden. Thank you. What does it feel like to have this life that you have? You have this full dynamic life full of interests and work and friends and culture and color and fun. Did you, what is that like? Did you feel like that would be a life that you had when you were young? No, I have two answers for you. One is this t-shirt that we need? Driving out of spite. There's a little bit of that that's like, oh, you said I couldn't do that. Fuck you.

But there's actually a lot of it that's like, I have lived far beyond the like scope of my imagination that I had for my life when I was a teenager. And so sometimes I feel a little like I'm floundering because I'm like, anything else that I do is so far removed from anything I ever thought possible that like I'm just like inventing new goals and inventing new visions for my future. It's really cool. And it's also like, wow, I never, it's the thought of the, you know, I sort of have experienced this in another sense. but there's the thought of like when you've experienced a long period of depression and you're like damn it I'm still alive like what now like I didn't think I'd live to be X and then now I'm here might as well just like figure stuff out like it's it's that it's a little of that like I didn't

think I'd get this far whatever else happens is just really cool and gravy but also um I struggle to dream big about it because there's so much that I've already been able to do that was so, it seems so impossible. That's kind of beautiful. Yeah, it's fucking rad. It's fucking rad. Eve, is there anything that I did not ask that you want to make sure it gets included? I think that it's important to know that CRHE is the only organization founded and run. by homeschool alumni for homeschool kids and their rights. I think it's important to know that

we are still largely a volunteer-run organization and we would love to be able to pay all of our staff all time. So we are looking for monthly donors. If you feel so led to use the church language, go for it. We are about at the end of our fiscal year. So by the end of, by June 30th, we're like, that's the end of our. our end of the year fundraising drive. So, and being able to have monthly donors helps us be able to project who we're going to be able to pay next year. And that would mean a lot to all of us.

Where can folks donate and get involved and learn more? Responsible homeschooling.org. That's the place. Go find them. Also, where can folks hear kitchen table cults? Kitchentablecult.com. we have various handles that's either kitchen table cults or kitchen table cult pod depending on what we're able to get. But we are available on all of your usual podcast platforms.

And if you become a patron, we have Patreon, we have a Slack that is largely survivors venting and sharing their like little and big wins in the after we escaped without what world. So it's pretty great. I love it. Thrive out of spite. Eve Ettinger, thank you so much for being here and thanks for the work that you're doing. Thank you for having me. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget. Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Another podcast from some SNL, late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest,

SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. And every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source. the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff

nobody gets to hear. Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward.

At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed Human.