Bradrick! Divorce Part 4: With at Least One Remarriage

[Jellybean]

Continued from here:

We continue with Kelly remarried and living, as far as we know, on the east side of the US and Peter Bradrick! on the west side, so they have approximately as much distance between them as the average Manly Man has between his manly legs.

The Bradrick! promotional video never gets old (thanks @LurkerOverThePond) so I’ve brought it over to this thread:

Edited to add image of Manly Man Wide Stance as demonstrated by Manly Men (thanks to @ophelia for posting this on the previous thread):

[MamaJunebug]

2 hours ago, Jellybean said:

We continue with Kelly remarried and living, as far as we know, on the east side of the US and Peter Bradrick! on the west side, so they have approximately as much distance between them as the average Manly Man has between his manly legs.

Laughed so hard—!

[Granwych]

2 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

Laughed so hard—!

 

2 hours ago, Jellybean said:

Continued from here:

We continue with Kelly remarried and living, as far as we know, on the east side of the US and Peter Bradrick! on the west side, so they have approximately as much distance between them as the average Manly Man has between his manly legs.

The Bradrick! promotional video never gets old (thanks @LurkerOverThePond) so I’ve brought it over to this thread:

Maybe I'll ask Grampwych to "assume the manly stance."  Bet he'd give me a WTF look because his idea of the manly stance is to stand in front of the toilet.

 and no, he knows nothing of Pastor Anderson, lol.

[Jellybean]

I’ve just edited the first post, lovely @Granwych, so you can show Grampwych an example of the Truly Manly Man-Stance. Use it at your own risk — you will not be able to call on the services of the braveish men of BRADRICK! should things turn out badly

[acheronbeach]

Its so weird to me that Peter decided to live in one of the most liberal (and IMO expensive) states in the US.  Did we ever figure out why?

I see he still appears to be selling real estate around Seattle/Tacoma.

[Jellybean]

1 minute ago, acheronbeach said:

Its so weird to me that Peter decided to live in one of the most liberal (and IMO expensive) states in the US.  Did we ever figure out why?

I see he still appears to be selling real estate around Seattle/Tacoma.

Didn’t his parents live there?

[kpmom]

I swear when I see the start of that BRADRICK! promotional video it looks just like a trailer for one of those "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" type horror movies.

[refugee]

1 hour ago, acheronbeach said:

Its so weird to me that Peter decided to live in one of the most liberal (and IMO expensive) states in the US.  Did we ever figure out why?

I see he still appears to be selling real estate around Seattle/Tacoma.

As @Jellybean mentioned, his parents live there.

[acheronbeach]

@Jellybean @refugee I wonder why and how the Bradricks VF style fundie-ism.  Washington has a lot of Christians, but they are of a particular West Coast lumberjack woo variety - particularly around the cities.  I vaguely recall the Bradricks being farmers (I think?) and being involved in fundie conferences even in the 90's.  

I always feel more empathy than I probably should for Peter.  I think (even with the ears) he's a handsome guy, and he has some natural charisma.  His parents' education and his youthful celebrity within the VF house of cards really squandered his opportunities.  

 

[refugee]

1 hour ago, acheronbeach said:

@Jellybean @refugee I wonder why and how the Bradricks VF style fundie-ism.  Washington has a lot of Christians, but they are of a particular West Coast lumberjack woo variety - particularly around the cities.  I vaguely recall the Bradricks being farmers (I think?) and being involved in fundie conferences even in the 90's.  

I always feel more empathy than I probably should for Peter.  I think (even with the ears) he's a handsome guy, and he has some natural charisma.  His parents' education and his youthful celebrity within the VF house of cards really squandered his opportunities.  

 

OR and WA state homeschooling organizations got hijacked by patriarchy pushers in the 90s. WA state actually had two christian homeschooling state organizations at one time (don’t know if that’s still the case)—the lunatic VF/Voddie Baucham/Vaughn Olsted (?)/family-integrated-churches/courtship folks, and iirc, the Bradricks were on the board of that one, and the other state organization was a more moderate, still conservative but not patriarchal organization (I think Jay and Heidi St. Johns were influential in that group). There’s probably also a secular homeschooling state lobbying group in WA; I don’t know for sure.

In OR, the secular and what-became-patriarchal organizations were the only game in town. No “moderate” state support/lobbying group. Wish we’d joined the secular group way back in the beginning when we pulled our oldest out of school because of bullying. But the christian group was the first one we heard about, and they were not patriarchal at the time we started.

p.s. I remember the Bradricks (along with a number of PNW families) were on the cover of Teaching Home magazine. Cheryl Lindsey of “Gentle Spirit” lived in WA. Gregg and Sono Harris were based near Portland, Oregon. Raymond and Dorothy Moore, early homeschooling advocates, were also in that area. Brian Ray of the homeschooling statistics was based out of OR, as was Dennis Tuuri, whose name I’ve seen in passing I think here at FJ, though I could be remembering wrong. And the only place you could get curriculum as a private homeschooler in the early 90s (I think it was Abeka) was to go to this hole-in-the-wall ultra-right (John Birch?) storefront, where the Abeka stuff was hidden away in a back room as if it were contraband. Being apolitical, the implications didn’t strike me at the time. It was just word-of-mouth how to find “school stuff” for a family desperate to get their kid out of reach of the bullies.

So there were ties to ultra-right politics from before the time homeschooling became legal in OR. After it became legal, eventually you could buy an ever-widening variety of educational materials at places like Christian Supply (a christian kitsch and bookstore) before the internet offered the access homeschoolers have now to a smorgasbord of stuff.

All that to say the PNW was a node of patriarchy pushers from the 90s onward.

Edited February 2, 2019 by refugee
Trip down memory lane

[acheronbeach]

@refugee that's both fascinating and dreadful... thank you!!!  

I wondered why Josh Harris made his way to Vancouver and now that makes a lot more sense.  

[Leftitinmysnood]

8 hours ago, refugee said:

And the only place you could get curriculum as a private homeschooler in the early 90s (I think it was Abeka) was to go to this hole-in-the-wall ultra-right (John Birch?) storefront, where the Abeka stuff was hidden away in a back room as if it were contraband. Being apolitical, the implications didn’t strike me at the time. It was just word-of-mouth how to find “school stuff” for a family desperate to get their kid out of reach of the bullies.

So there were ties to ultra-right politics from before the time homeschooling became legal in OR. After it became legal, eventually you could buy an ever-widening variety of educational materials at places like Christian Supply (a christian kitsch and bookstore) before the internet offered the access homeschoolers have now to a smorgasbord of stuff.

Was Shekinah Curriculum Cellar in Oregon then? That's where we got our BJUP and ABEKA back in the 80s. They are currently in Texas.

[ladyamylynn]

Weird. We always just ordered our Abeka books from a catalogue. 80s, Oregon.

[Blessings of the Corn]

On ‎2‎/‎2‎/‎2019 at 11:55 AM, acheronbeach said:

@Jellybean @refugee I wonder why and how the Bradricks VF style fundie-ism.  Washington has a lot of Christians, but they are of a particular West Coast lumberjack woo variety - particularly around the cities.  I vaguely recall the Bradricks being farmers (I think?) and being involved in fundie conferences even in the 90's.  

I always feel more empathy than I probably should for Peter.  I think (even with the ears) he's a handsome guy, and he has some natural charisma.  His parents' education and his youthful celebrity within the VF house of cards really squandered his opportunities.  

 

Some of us ( me) find big ears very, very sexy! :)

[refugee]

On 2/2/2019 at 10:17 PM, Leftitinmysnood said:

Was Shekinah Curriculum Cellar in Oregon then? That's where we got our BJUP and ABEKA back in the 80s. They are currently in Texas.

I don't think there was any Shekinah Curriculum Cellar in Oregon then, though I saw them years later at a homeschooling convention. Homeschooling was not exactly legal in Oregon, IIRC, in the 1980s. We started in the early 1990s. You couldn't get curriculum from the local public school district. When we started, I went to that political hole-in-a-wall store for our first few books because I thought textbooks were essential at the time. (Turns out they make a good "spine" and supplement, but our kids were different learners and were bored to tears with textbook-style learning. Not to mention, with our first, it took from breakfast until after dinner to get through a textbook-driven day, trying to do everything in the teacher's manuals, not realizing that even teachers might pick and choose or create their own way of interacting with the material. It took a couple years to figure out her learning style and what worked best, back before learning styles were a "thing".)

I heard a radio interview about teaching phonics and ordered a phonics program by mail. I found out about a math curriculum for different learning styles in a similar way and ordered that by mail. (Those were our summer studies after we pulled the kid out of school. I wasn't so sure about my ability to teach my kid, so the idea was to test it out over the summer and if I was able to catch the kid up to grade level, something that didn't seem possible in a classroom full of kids, we'd continue.) Then someone told me I could get "real" curriculum from Bob Jones by mail, and we did that for a few years, with a stop off at Switched-on Schoolhouse one year. With my "different" learners (ADHD, kinesthetic), I tried one thing after another until we hit on Charlotte Mason's techniques (Wikipedia has an article about her). All of a sudden, things clicked. Her approach worked in our situation.

Not long after we started homeschooling in the early 90s, the Oregon homeschool lobby (christian and secular state organizations working together to lobby state legislators) got a favorable bill passed that loosened some of the restrictions. Homeschooling became more common. 

Curriculum sales became a thing in the 90s, starting small (mostly staffed by representatives from Bob Jones, Abeka, Alpha Omega, Christian Liberty, publishers who originally marketed to christian schools and at first refused to sell to private homeschoolers but then realized they were missing out on the ever-growing gravy train) and growing out of the little Holiday Inn conference room at the first sale I went to, until it eventually took up a large exhibit hall at the Portland convention center. I first saw Shekinah at a booth at one of those events.

I remember when I got the first Rainbow Resource Center catalogue. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

tldr; Homeschooling was not exactly legal in our state until just before we started. Materials were hard to come by, though the market for educational materials exploded as people realized there was money to be made. "Teacher training" was in the form of both organized workshops and private mentoring where we lived. Other states had stricter regs, like requiring homeschool parents to have an accredited teaching degree to be able to teach their own kids.

3 hours ago, ladyamylynn said:

Weird. We always just ordered our Abeka books from a catalogue. 80s, Oregon.

You probably had better word-of-mouth than I did! I was told (in the early 90s) that Abeka wouldn't sell to private homeschoolers, only christian schools. I bought Abeka at that store I mentioned, and then someone gave me a Bob Jones catalogue, so we switched to BJU for a couple years "because it was there."

ETA: Then, again, it may be that some of us are only as good as our mentors, especially for those as gullible as I used to be. I was pretty much a follower, and swallowed more-or-less whole what my mentors (families who'd been homeschooling since the 80s) told me, without questioning. Turned out to be really bad for our family in the end.

So my memory of Oregon homeschooling history is heavily colored by the propaganda I swallowed from the likes of the Bradricks, Harrises, Rays, and their ilk. What I've written here reflects our own personal experience, and may well differ from that of others. Everyone's on their own journey. YMMV.

Edited February 4, 2019 by refugee
typo, clarification

[refugee]

5 hours ago, ladyamylynn said:

Weird. We always just ordered our Abeka books from a catalogue. 80s, Oregon.

Now I'm curious. Would you mind talking a little about homeschooling in Oregon in the 80s? That was before our time. Our mentors talked about having their kids hide under their beds when a knock came on the door because it might be a truant officer, I think. Now I'm wondering if they exaggerated to get us to buy into what HSLDA was selling?

[ladyamylynn]

I will, I promise! I'm also sitting in front of a cocktail in Las Vegas at the moment, so give me a bit! ?

Edited February 4, 2019 by ladyamylynn

[Tigerchild74]

I did not homeschool in the PacNW, but I have now lived here for over 20 years, and my husband grew up in central OR.  He is in his 50s and has lived all but 6 years of his life in OR and WA.

Washington and Oregon are not liberal states.  They are not even super liberal even in the metro areas.  Our population is skewed that our /national/ legislative representation somewhat looks that way-ish.  But if you look at the state legislatures it's very apparent that they're not.

The pacific northwest has been a bastion of white nationalism and back to the landers for a long time (these groups are not interconnected though of course there's some overlap).  I can kind of see how someone who hasn't lived in this area (or has been very isolated in where they do live) might believe this to not be the case, but if you just get out a bit and are willing to see it, you will in droves.

It's also not a very populated state, it's a very live and let live state, and in my experience fundies who are not of the hipster variation, who want to be left alone with their group, ect. love those areas.  Fundie churches (including the SBC and home study groups) are thriving here as are megachurches, even though as a whole there are less churched people here than the average.

It is a very VERY fundy friendly area.  Unless like, I dunno, you want to go live in the capitol hill neighborhood of Seattle.

[erunerune]

As a life-long resident of western WA, I can honestly say we generally are liberal, and your characterization is inaccurate. Eastern WA is more sparsely populated and conservative, but the bulk of votes for the state reside in King county in Seattle-metro area. True blue by and large.

I don’t live on Capitol Hill either. We have two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor as well. I’m not sure where your data comes from.

Edited February 5, 2019 by erunerune

[Tigerchild74]

16 minutes ago, erunerune said:

As a life-long resident of western WA, I can honestly say we generally are liberal, and your characterization is inaccurate. Eastern WA is more sparsely populated and conservative, but the bulk of votes for the state reside in King county in Seattle-metro area. True blue by and large.

I don’t live on Capitol Hill either. We have two Democratic senators and a Democratic governor as well. I’m not sure where your data comes from.

People I run into in my community.  Comments that my eldest kid (who is trans) has received.  People's comments I hear all the time in my line of work in the community (Seattle eastside).  What I hear people saying in the grocery store.  The school board candidate who ran explicitly on an anti-diversity platform and whose facebook site was full of confederate flags and the many people (including a former school board member) who defended him because really he's a good Christian man so give him the benefit of the doubt.  What I observe when I have been out and about ferrying my kids' friends group (which has African American and latino kids in it), and what I know some of those kids have gone through harassement wise at school and in the community, and what their families have had to endure.  The fact that we have several homegrown white nationalist groups here in the Seattle area that have grown.  The death threats and vandalism my eldest's faith community endures for having a Black Lives Matter sign next to their church sign.

As I said, legislature is one thing.  What it is like in the community is very different.  I will grant that we also have a lot of people who will trample over whomever it take to virtue signal and compete over who's the most woke too, which has its own problems.

I do some political activism locally.   A great deal of that activism centers on communities of color.  So I hear, and witness, many things that I think a lot of our general liberal-ish community likes to pretend doesn't exist.

[Tigerchild74]

In addition, if there's one way you can get a huge racist tirade out of an old timer here, just ask them about native American rights.  Especially if you are in the north burbs.  We have clusters of red pill idiots everywhere too (I guess that is to be expected in a high tech and gaming industry area but it's still disappointing).

I guess my question would be how do you not see this stuff?  Just because when you compile the entire state (which is not a high pop state) you will NOW usually get a democratic top representative--but you also know that we just turned over the in-state legislature from a republican majority and it is a slim turnover--doesn't mean we are a liberal society state.

The guy who wrote the manifesto about killing non Christians and establishing a conservative Christian theocracy is a sitting state representative.  Who also has been involved in threats against a domestic partner.  Who has organized an anti-muslim hate group.  And who is a radio show host on conservative Christian talk radio.

We do not live in an anti-fundie state.  Especially east of the mountains but also in many other areas including some of the Puget Sound area, we are decidedly fundie friendly.

[refugee]

@Tigerchild74 There are people with some pretty extreme beliefs in SW Washington (and around the Portland area and other parts of Oregon) as well.

Someone outside those circles might not realize they’re there, in the same way that members of my extended family have no idea who Doug Phillips, Doug Wilson, or Mark Driscoll may be.

But I believe your comments because of the ugly attitudes we saw before we left fundie circles. We dismissed them as “nuts” or part of the fringe, but honestly? I’m ashamed now that they were acquaintances of ours.

[starfish]

I still want to get the Robotkins going again. I looked up their "Christ the King" church. Pappy Botkin is the preacher although the boys fill in from time to time so I guess it's a homechurch really. They post a phone number on the website but no address.

Just like Doug the tool's old church, Boerne Christian Assembly. You had to be asked to worship there. 

But anyway, I wonder if they have any opinion whatsoever on Bradrick! now with remarriage.

But back to the fundies of the Northwest--that is really interesting. Seattle is where the fundie parents Carri and Larry Williams murdered their adopted Ethopian child, Hanna Williams. They were a patriarchial,  homeschooling fundie family and I wondered if they were outliers or part of a larger movement. 

[VVV]

4 hours ago, Tigerchild74 said:

People I run into in my community.  Comments that my eldest kid (who is trans) has received.  People's comments I hear all the time in my line of work in the community (Seattle eastside).  What I hear people saying in the grocery store.  The school board candidate who ran explicitly on an anti-diversity platform and whose facebook site was full of confederate flags and the many people (including a former school board member) who defended him because really he's a good Christian man so give him the benefit of the doubt.  What I observe when I have been out and about ferrying my kids' friends group (which has African American and latino kids in it), and what I know some of those kids have gone through harassement wise at school and in the community, and what their families have had to endure.  The fact that we have several homegrown white nationalist groups here in the Seattle area that have grown.  The death threats and vandalism my eldest's faith community endures for having a Black Lives Matter sign next to their church sign.

As I said, legislature is one thing.  What it is like in the community is very different.  I will grant that we also have a lot of people who will trample over whomever it take to virtue signal and compete over who's the most woke too, which has its own problems.

I do some political activism locally.   A great deal of that activism centers on communities of color.  So I hear, and witness, many things that I think a lot of our general liberal-ish community likes to pretend doesn't exist.

My two very small data points to add to this are a sibling and spouse in the Seattle area who are staunch 45 supporters, and slightly more distant relatives in eastern Washington who "home educate," whose adult children mostly still live at home, and who are batshit. Needless to say, they too vote red.

[older than allosaurs]

1 hour ago, starfish said:

But back to the fundies of the Northwest--that is really interesting. Seattle is where the fundie parents Carri and Larry Williams murdered their adopted Ethopian child, Hanna Williams. They were a patriarchial,  homeschooling fundie family and I wondered if they were outliers or part of a larger movement. 

The Williams family lived in Mount Vernon, about 60 miles north of Seattle up I-5, and judging by my experience (4th generation western Washingtonian, longtime public school teacher, adoptive parent of children of color) they were outliers but not completely off the charts in their beliefs. My daughter is a social worker in Seattle. One of the foster families she worked with had a Confederate flag in their window, and evidently that was OK with social services.  Another said that if they adopted a child they later learned was gay, they wouldn't be able to accept them.

Tigerchild is correct in my experience that the deepest racism around here tends to target Native Americans, who were for generations our most visible nonwhite group, but there's plenty to go around. Once you get out of the gentrified parts of the urban corridor, there are all sorts of pockets of people, from the purest and most idealistic of young organic farmers to ethnic community activists to hard-core white supremacists.

I appreciate the information on homeschooling communities and curricula around here. I homeschooled for a year in the late '90s after one kid had a disastrous year at school, and in my search for other nearby families I realized that most of them, though not all, were uber Christian. Since I was a teacher and had a bunch of supplies, I didn't bother buying much curriculum, but I wished the nearby co-ops were not so aggressively religious.