Brandy starts over, all over again.

[fundiefan]

Apparently, her peeps didn't sway her. She's given thanks to FJ.

Maybe this means she'll start moving forward instead of spinning her wheels.

Candy is sooo not going to be happy about this new direction.

Yes, STC = Sweeping the Cobwebs before it went belly up.

[Witsec7]

Not to worry by next week she'll change her tune again. :lol:

Brandy, since I know you read here Try doing some research on 'family of choice'.

But more than that, I really wish you would come visit us at FJ, we have cake ya know.

[fluttershies]

Apparently, her peeps didn't sway her. She's given thanks to FJ.

Maybe this means she'll start moving forward instead of spinning her wheels.

Candy is sooo not going to be happy about this new direction.

Yes, STC = Sweeping the Cobwebs before it went belly up.

I can't wait to see what Candy says about this.

Brandy seems like a nice woman to me, unlike many fundies - I don't think she's fundie because it suits her to believe in a rigid, patriarchal way of life but because she's looking for something that's missing in her life. I just wish she wouldn't do it in a way that damages her family life and her children's education so much.

[prairiemuffin]

Brandy, since I know you read here Try doing some research on 'family of choice'.

This.

My family is all kinds of f'ed up, and I've made a deliberate effort to create my own family of choice.

Brandy, in all seriousness, I can't stress enough how important it is to have a group of people to surround yourself with that love you and support you. Humans need real, tangible, face-to-face connections with other humans. You are doing yourself and your family a great disservice by isolating yourselves.

[Witsec7]

This.

My family is all kinds of f'ed up, and I've made a deliberate effort to create my own family of choice.

Brandy, in all seriousness, I can't stress enough how important it is to have a group of people to surround yourself with that love you and support you. Humans need real, tangible, face-to-face connections with other humans. You are doing yourself and your family a great disservice by isolating yourselves.

I often speak of my 'village'. I have large accepting family of choice, its possible, but it takes effort to build relationships. If you isolate yourself, have no idea who you are or how you feel, its got to be very difficult to build your village. Brandy after years of self isolation needs to do something positive to build he social skills. Staying in the trailer 24/7 and communicating only with folks on the internet will not help her move forward.

[Sola]

I'd like to say, "Wow Brandy, you've actually taken a huge step!" but considering her track record, I hope this isn't just another flip flop.

Brandy, I know you read here so I will say, "well done" to you. Now do yourself a favour and print out your blog entry and pin it to somewhere prominent in your home. Read it though every day and hold on to it.

Your life is YOUR life. Find your own path and stop following someone else's. You want to be a crunchy, tattooed, dredlocked, hippy Christian, go for it. You want to wear dresses and head coverings, do that if you want (although I seriously doubt that will give you the happiness you seek). The problem with the way of life you keep wavering in and out of (head coverings, skirts only, yada yada yada) is that it is intensely legalistic. You don't strike me as the type of person who can be happy in that. To live like that would require you to strictly follow a set of rules that you yourself don't quite believe in, day in and day out. That's not you.

I know that many of the bloggers you call friends seemingly have a perfect life, and I would guess that is what you are trying to find. But you are looking through it with rose coloured spectacles. It does suit some people, but I dare say it wouldn't suit you. If they are true friends they will accept you and love you no matter what path you choose. If they can't do that then they aren't true friends.

If you want a bit of advice; get a little routine in your lives, get out there and meet people, and allow yourself the time to find what is right for you. Oh and if you are feeling really brave; come and join FJ. I'm serious, come and join us. We don't bite much and as long as you clear up your own shit when you take a dump on our carpet, you'll be fine. We aren't all heathen atheists (well I am) and some of us are actually quite nice when you get to know us :D

[starfish]

Brandy does seem like a nice person, and believe it or not, I'm rooting for her to find her mojo and get some happiness. She's too isolated, though, and I hope she can find a way out of her isolation.

[brandyc]

Ok ... here I be. Yes, this is THE Brandy. :lol:

Y'all have been on my highly-moderated stomping grounds often enough that I thought I'd go ahead and come to your stomping grounds.

Now ... where's the cake? :whistle:

[Witsec7]

:banana-stoner:

Just don't crap on the carpet.

[brandyc]

ROFL

Oh that's hilarious!

[Guest Anonymous]

Ok ... here I be. Yes, this is THE Brandy. :lol:

Y'all have been on my highly-moderated stomping grounds often enough that I thought I'd go ahead and come to your stomping grounds.

Now ... where's the cake? :whistle:

Hi, Brandy. I think most people here wish you and your family health and happiness, no matter how much some of us disagree with your choices. I was raised, along with my siblings, by an extremely isolating and overprotective fundie mother. I was not homeschooled but all of my younger siblings were - very poorly. I'm watching them suffer from the fallout of that and the hyper-sheltering now and it's pretty awful. From the outside looking in, it seems that your daughters might end up struggling with some of the same issues that my siblings are dealing with.

I don't have a problem with homeschooling if it's done rigorously and with lots of socialization. Do you think there are ways you can improve your daughters' education? Public school has its problems but it was an almost literal lifesaver for me.

[Witsec7]

ROFL

Oh that's hilarious!

Chicca you need to lighten up a bit, buy a bus, come to Boregonia and find some Jesus loving hippies, build some community for you and your family. And send your kids to an ebil public school out in the coast range.

[Koala]

Ok ... here I be. Yes, this is THE Brandy. :lol:

Y'all have been on my highly-moderated stomping grounds often enough that I thought I'd go ahead and come to your stomping grounds.

Now ... where's the cake? :whistle:

Welcome ;)

[Anise]

Welcome!

[brandyc]

Hi, Brandy. I think most people here wish you and your family health and happiness, no matter how much some of us disagree with your choices. I was raised, along with my siblings, by an extremely isolating and overprotective fundie mother. I was not homeschooled but all of my younger siblings were - very poorly. I'm watching them suffer from the fallout of that and the hyper-sheltering now and it's pretty awful. From the outside looking in, it seems that your daughters might end up struggling with some of the same issues that my siblings are dealing with.

I don't have a problem with homeschooling if it's done rigorously and with lots of socialization. Do you think there are ways you can improve your daughters' education? Public school has its problems but it was an almost literal lifesaver for me.

I think we've done a good bit with education this year. While I do like some unschooling ideas, I'm not entirely sure we could adhere to it strictly. I'd always be wondering if they're learning enough. I think I said this on my blog, but it doesn't hurt to repeat it. I want my daughters highly educated. I would love for them to go higher in subjects than I went. I would love for them to keep this love of learning and the desire to learn new things throughout their adult lives. It's an important thing to Jason and I.

Gabriella is actually more socialized than Hannah is at this point. Because we lived with such a large family {I believe there was 17 in the house in Vermont at one point} and were highly involved with both sides of the family and their friends. So while Gabriella is shy and nervous, at first, with strangers, she can strike up a conversation and relate quite nicely with adults, children older than her, and children younger than her. Hannah, though, since we've been kind of cut off from everyone as she's been growing here isn't real good around strangers. Takes her several hours to warm up to people. Well, except her grandma {on Jason's side} ... she warmed right up to her when they were here for a visit a couple years ago.

We know we need to get out there. Public schools isn't something we'd consider .... *however* .... getting more involved in our local homeschooling group, or visiting a local church and getting involved with that, or even just going to the public library and parks more often to get them around other children more is definitely something we've talked a lot about.

I don't want our girls to be lil' hermits who can't function out in the world. We would be doing them a GREAT disservice, I agree with whoever said that, if we continued to keep ourselves isolated.

Besides, like one of you said, we could use some really close friends again.

{totally off topic, I know it's been mentioned here that we don't know anyone in real life ... that's not true. I'm still friends with a couple of people I went to high school with. We're spread out across the country, but we still talk on FB often. And we have met a couple of families here in town. Both families have been to our home several times for fellowship. :) }

Chicca you need to lighten up a bit, buy a bus, come to Boregonia and find some Jesus loving hippies, build some community for you and your family. And send your kids to an ebil public school out in the coast range.

Boregonia?

I'm actually a pretty go-with-the-flow, laid back, lightened up kinda gal. Haven't shown that so well, I know ... but that's me lol.

Welcome ;)

Thanks, Koala. :D

And thanks to you too, Anise :D

[brandyc]

I can't wait to see what Candy says about this..

She did exactly what I expected her to do when I hit publish on that post. She removed my links from her sidebar, removed me from FB, and sent me an email telling me her husband wanted her to remove me ... ... but that she feels that she needs to protect her FB page, to extreme measures sometimes. Ya know, typical contradictory stuff.

My reply?

"Nope, we're good. Just shows you're no real friend to me. Thank you anyway. Have a nice life."

And that, of course, got spun to me cutting her out of my life. :doh:

[Confused_by_religion]

Hi Brandy,

nice to see you here, even after all the commotion. :-)

[Sola]

She did exactly what I expected her to do when I hit publish on that post. She removed my links from her sidebar, removed me from FB, and sent me an email telling me her husband wanted her to remove me ... ... but that she feels that she needs to protect her FB page, to extreme measures sometimes. Ya know, typical contradictory stuff.

My reply?

"Nope, we're good. Just shows you're no real friend to me. Thank you anyway. Have a nice life."

And that, of course, got spun to me cutting her out of my life. :doh:

Hi Brandy,

Welcome to the dark side Freejinger. Nice to see you here!

[Guest Anonymous]

We know we need to get out there. Public schools isn't something we'd consider .... *however* .... getting more involved in our local homeschooling group, or visiting a local church and getting involved with that, or even just going to the public library and parks more often to get them around other children more is definitely something we've talked a lot about.

I don't want our girls to be lil' hermits who can't function out in the world. We would be doing them a GREAT disservice, I agree with whoever said that, if we continued to keep ourselves isolated.

Besides, like one of you said, we could use some really close friends again.

I will freely admit that this issue hits me close to home and I am passionate about it. I'm also not known for tiptoeing around the subject. Talk is cheap. My mother talked about educating the kids better and getting out and doing more things all the time. But she never actually did it, and now the kids are the ones who suffer for it. If you know you need to do that stuff, make it happen. You're already doing your kids a disservice if you know you should do better and you don't.

I think it's pretty arrogant to say that you would never consider public schools. There are quite a few homeschoolers here who have gone back and forth to public school when it was best for their kids. Refusing to even consider that something might be better for your children is crappy. It's a parent's obligation to give their child the absolute best education that they can, no matter what the method shakes out to be in the end.

I believe that you are a smart/bright person, which makes me all the more frustrated with the flip flopping and the statements like the one you made about public schools. I think you're capable of better.

*ETA: I said better about a million times in this post.

[Confused_by_religion]

I think it's pretty arrogant to say that you would never consider public schools. There are quite a few homeschoolers here who have gone back and forth to public school when it was best for their kids. Refusing to even consider that something might be better for your children is crappy. It's a parent's obligation to give their child the absolute best education that they can, no matter what the method shakes out to be in the end.

I believe that you are a smart/bright person, which makes me all the more frustrated with the flip flopping and the statements like the one you made about public schools. I think you're capable of better.

I can see the attraction of homeschooling and think it can be done relatively easily at elementary school level, but hip hip hurray for everybody who homeschools high school students, especially difficult teens. First of all, these are hard subjects; secondly, if you have a teenager in full blown teenage rebellion mode, being their parent AND teacher could lead to major disasters. So hats off to anybody doing it successfully, I truly admire you all.

[Sola]

I will freely admit that this issue hits me close to home and I am passionate about it. I'm also not known for tiptoeing around the subject. Talk is cheap. My mother talked about educating the kids better and getting out and doing more things all the time. But she never actually did it, and now the kids are the ones who suffer for it. If you know you need to do that stuff, make it happen. You're already doing your kids a disservice if you know you should do better and you don't.

I think it's pretty arrogant to say that you would never consider public schools. There are quite a few homeschoolers here who have gone back and forth to public school when it was best for their kids. Refusing to even consider that something might be better for your children is crappy. It's a parent's obligation to give their child the absolute best education that they can, no matter what the method shakes out to be in the end.

I believe that you are a smart/bright person, which makes me all the more frustrated with the flip flopping and the statements like the one you made about public schools. I think you're capable of better.

I actually identify with that though. Twenty to twenty-five years ago, that was me. The difference is, I didn't have kids. I would go from one extreme to another, not in the fundie sense, just with different lifestyles. I desperately tried to find something that I fitted in with. In the end I realised that I didn't have to do that, that my lifestyle had to fit ME, rather than the other way around. I dread to think how much harder it would have been for me had I been mixed up with religion too. I am the type of person who would have been easily influenced by the fundie side at that age. Anyway, eventually I realised that the best lifestyle for me was my own IYSWIM. Perhaps it was maturity that did that for me, or meeting my hubby, probably a bit of both. But eventually I stopped flip flopping and that is why I started to love life. I think that is one of the reasons why I quite like Brandy, she reminds me of a younger me.

[Austin]

I will freely admit that this issue hits me close to home and I am passionate about it. I'm also not known for tiptoeing around the subject. Talk is cheap. My mother talked about educating the kids better and getting out and doing more things all the time. But she never actually did it, and now the kids are the ones who suffer for it. If you know you need to do that stuff, make it happen. You're already doing your kids a disservice if you know you should do better and you don't.

I think it's pretty arrogant to say that you would never consider public schools. There are quite a few homeschoolers here who have gone back and forth to public school when it was best for their kids. Refusing to even consider that something might be better for your children is crappy. It's a parent's obligation to give their child the absolute best education that they can, no matter what the method shakes out to be in the end.

I believe that you are a smart/bright person, which makes me all the more frustrated with the flip flopping and the statements like the one you made about public schools. I think you're capable of better.

*ETA: I said better about a million times in this post.

All the parents I know who have homeschooled successfully have been pretty highly motivated people. They're generally not people who homeschool because they are anti-government or had personal issues in public schools (don't know what this blogger's reasons are, but when people say, "OMG, never, ever. . .", it makes me suspicious). Anyway, I think it's really hard work and takes a lot of energy to do it right. I'm not sure that's my impression of this blogger.

[Witsec7]

Brandy, why do you think exposing your kids to diversity of thought is wrong?

[Anise]

Well, if I may add some input: I don't think it needs to be an either-or choice, and there are certainly choices beyond public schools like some nontraditional or co-op schools. But I will say that I was homeschooled, and while I do have problems with social anxiety, I did get a pretty good education.

[Guest Anonymous]

I actually identify with that though. Twenty to twenty-five years ago, that was me. The difference is, I didn't have kids. I would go from one extreme to another, not in the fundie sense, just with different lifestyles. I desperately tried to find something that I fitted in with. In the end I realised that I didn't have to do that, that my lifestyle had to fit ME, rather than the other way around. I dread to think how much harder it would have been for me had I been mixed up with religion too. I am the type of person who would have been easily influenced by the fundie side at that age. Anyway, eventually I realised that the best lifestyle for me was my own IYSWIM. Perhaps it was maturity that did that for me, or meeting my hubby, probably a bit of both. But eventually I stopped flip flopping and that is why I started to love life. I think that is one of the reasons why I quite like Brandy, she reminds me of a younger me.

The not having kids thing is definitely the difference, to me. Heck, I am thirty and childless. Part of that is because I was a sister-mom to my siblings and I was so over childcare by the time I was eighteen. Part of it is because I realized that I was screwed up from my upbringing and I was confused as hell about who I was. I had barely enough awareness to realize the guy I married was a horrible jackass and adding a kid to that toxic relationship would be monumentally bad.

I heartily endorse people experimenting and figuring themselves out. Ideally, before they have kids. Once small, completely dependent humans are involved in the situation, shit is serious. I'm certainly not saying that everyone needs to be thirty before they procreate, some people have it together and are ready at much younger ages and that's cool too. But in my opinon, the topsy turvy, spin wheel, it's Tuesday so we must be headcovering, back and forth that Brandy has going on isn't good for little kids, who crave stability.

As for the fundiedom and the isolation/sheltering, I'm giving the perspective of an adult who has lived through it and doesn't thank her parents one bit for any of the craziness they inflicted on me and my siblings. There are five of us, and none of us are grateful for it.

**Insert standard homeschooling disclaimer here: I believe that homeschooling can be done well and often is. In the specific case of my mother and my siblings, it was done terribly. I see a lot of parallels between that situation and Brandy's, which is why I brought it up.**