Weird Fundy Rules for Dressing

[Witsec7]

I grabbed this off the "I love my LARGE FAMILY" FB page which is a well of snark.

We have rules for dressing since our oldest boy is 14 and our oldest girl is 10, both developing. Either you dress in my room in a make shift changing room, the bathroom or your room but only 1 gender allowed to change upstairs at a time, no door. We have not had an issue with modesty, we put rules in place before an issue could arise. If you set up just a sleeping area, and dress else where there is no reason for any sibling to share a room. We do have an open door policy in our house too, unless dressing. There is no reason to have a door closed.

[ElphabaGalinda]

That's going to give those kids some serious issues. Are they not allowed to close the door while dressing? It wasn't clear to me. But either way they act like all siblings will have an incestuous relationship unless you have strange rules. I wonder if she has to follow those rules too. I guess privacy isn't a good reason to close the door for them, since they don't believe their children deserve any. Wouldn't want the kids to be *gasp* touching themselves. Great way to develop lifelong issues with nudity and sexuality.

[Witsec7]

That's going to give those kids some serious issues. Are they not allowed to close the door while dressing? It wasn't clear to me. But either way they act like all siblings will have an incestuous relationship unless you have strange rules. I wonder if she has to follow those rules too. I guess privacy isn't a good reason to close the door for them, since they don't believe their children deserve any. Wouldn't want the kids to be *gasp* touching themselves. Great way to develop lifelong issues with nudity and sexuality.

So apparently if you are dressing the door can be closed.

We do have an open door policy in our house too, unless dressing. There is no reason to have a door closed.

It sounds more like a supermax prison than a home.

[Sunnichick31]

I can't find the post, what's the date on it?

[Witsec7]

Tuesday Lindsay Fredde Lane opens the thread and these comments are from Amber Abston.

[CelticGoddess]

I grabbed this off the "I love my LARGE FAMILY" FB page which is a well of snark.

Sheesh, what issues? She sounds paranoid. And it sounds like *she* has trust issues. Wow.

[geniebelle6901]

She contradicts herself. First she says only one allowed to change upstairs at a time no doors. Then she mentions closing the door. So which is it? :?

[BelieveinScience]

So apparently if you are dressing the door can be closed.

It sounds more like a supermax prison than a home.

My thoughts exactly. What is so wrong with having a door closed? What if they want to read in private? Or take a nap?

I know growing up if I wanted any quiet to take a nap, watch tv in peace, do homework etc.. I needed to close my door or else it was too loud!

[Witsec7]

I know I come from a place of privilege, by having one child. But kids need their space and privacy, just to be, esp. when it comes to large families. It seems that these parents have no consideration for the children, they are merely on a mission to have as many as they can. That FB page has some women that maintain that if kids want to play it must be in common areas. Family centric is nice when it comes to meals and activities, but how far do they have to push it?

When I reflect on these child rearing styles, and combine them with the purity cult I just get squicked out. Frankly I don't want to dress in a bathroom, when our family was intact the kid saw adults going to the bedroom with a towel wrap. Its no big deal. To me it just reinforces 'your body is not ok'. Could be just me, but I could rant about this shit all day. :lol:

[freejoytoo]

I lived with four guys, walked around in a towel in front of them tons of times and none of us fornicated!

It disturbs me that they're this strict about brothers and sisters. Gives off serious incestuous vibes.

[CanadianHippie]

only 1 gender allowed to change upstairs at a time, no door.

Wait, what?

The whole thing is confusing. When she says "no door" does that mean the upstairs is just one big room and that's why only one gender is allowed to change up there at a time? Or does she mean no closing doors if you are changing up stairs? If it's the latter, why not? At the very least God invented doors so we could change in private.

Also what is with this insistence by fundies that opposite sexed siblings will defraud each other or fornicate without absolute parental insanity? Someone really needs to sit these parents down for a class on kinship imprinting. It'll save them a whole lot of worry and their kids a whole lot of therapy.

[Witsec7]

I was clicking on a bunch of names on that page and there are sure a lot who have VF on their FB pages. So we've got some Gothardite culties over there who are knocking back the kool aid.

[WanderingStar]

So apparently if you are dressing the door can be closed.

I wonder if they time the kids on how long they dress, a la the Pearls?

[ElphabaGalinda]

I wonder if they time the kids on how long they dress, a la the Pearls?

If door closing can apparently lead to so much sin, they probably do time the kids. Got to make sure they're really dressing.

[CanadianHippie]

If door closing can apparently lead to so much sin, they probably do time the kids. Got to make sure they're really dressing.

Their son's future wives are going to be so happy that mommy and daddy-in-law taught the boys speed...

[doggie]

I swear Fundies think all children will only masturbate or have sex with each other or others if they have any free alone time.

[Sola]

How hard is it to teach your kids that if their siblings door is closed, you don't enter without knocking first and gaining permission? It works beautifully for my 11y/o daughter and 16 y/o son. Knock first. Easy peasy.

[bananacat]

My brother and I took baths together as kids and we never "defrauded" each other. It's my brother. I shouldn't need any further explanation than that. Sometimes he even let me sleep in his bed with him, because it was closer to the door so I'd know a fraction of a second sooner when my dad got home in the middle of the night. Even as teenagers we accidentally walked in on each other a few times (like when sharing a room while traveling) and the only thing we ever felt was embarrassment, because it's a freaking sibling! It's not normal to feel any kind of attraction when seeing your sibling naked. It makes me wonder how many of these super-strict fundie parents were victims of or witnesses to abuse when they were children. Walking in on a sibling is not the end of the world and most people just move on with their lives without accidentally molesting someone or becoming unpure.

But it if really is such a BFD to keep all the kids completely separate, why not just just partition off two small changing areas in the house, one for boys and one for girls? It seems like they already own screens. Why not just put curtains in corners of the laundry room and one other small room? It would be a designated changing area so they'd always know to never go to the one they're not supposed to see.

[alba]

We have rules for dressing since our oldest boy is 14 and our oldest girl is 10, both developing. Either you dress in my room in a make shift changing room, the bathroom or your room but only 1 gender allowed to change upstairs at a time, no door. We have not had an issue with modesty, we put rules in place before an issue could arise. If you set up just a sleeping area, and dress else where there is no reason for any sibling to share a room. We do have an open door policy in our house too, unless dressing. There is no reason to have a door closed.

The bolded doesn't make sense to me, because it implies that kids should share rooms if they don't have a separate changing area. WTF?

I don't get the open-door-gender-segregation, though. Either kids deserve the privacy to get changed in peace, in which case close the damn door, or they don't, in which case the boys and girls should have no problem getting dressed together (ETA: Well, once they hit puberty is a bit different, but if the oldest daughter is 10 I suspect that doesn't apply to most of the kids).

[GenerationCedarchip]

I grabbed this off the "I love my LARGE FAMILY" FB page which is a well of snark.

Wow - I can't imagine what kinds of issues these kids are going to have when they're grown up. All of these weird rules make me think that these parents must be afraid that living under their roof is going to turn into something out of a VC Andrews novel unless they take some kind of action. And yes, at least in my neck of the woods, some of us fundie kids read VC Andrews on the sly in the library. :o They were shelved in an area where it was easy to not be seen.

[FlorenceHamilton]

These fundies are bizarrely obssessed with gender differences and sexuality. It amazes me that they do not understand that gender and sexuality are separate things that are related, not simply the same thing. I think that their system is perverted and disgusting. Children's bodies are asexual. There are of course, gender differences. I bathed my kids together (Two girls and a boy) until they started to really do the body care on their own. My son, being the oldest started showering on his own around age 5 ish, at first with me in the room, then with me nearby with the door open and then with total privacy. The girls followed in their time. It was about privacy and independence more than anything. Of course, they did notice that boys and girls are different when they were still bathing together. Boys have the plumbing set up one way and girls have the plumbing set up another.

Privacy is a responsibility. Like any other responsibility, children should be afforded gradual increases commensurate with demonstrated need/ability. Like any responsibility, it is part of the path to adulthood. I think that children are proud of themselves when parents tell them that they are big enough to be alone to do things. Affording privacy is a great compliment and kids take it that way. Denying privacy is denying responsbility and kids get resentful of that.

When kids incorporate recognizing gender differences into their world, it needs to be in context. The fundy families we read about seem to make it a focal point. Then they sexualize it way before kids need deal with sexuality anyway. They make sexuality the focal point of everything that they do. These folks are totally sex crazed in ways that boggle the mind. Do they really try to raise perverts?

[holothuroidea]

These fundies are bizarrely obssessed with gender differences and sexuality. It amazes me that they do not understand that gender and sexuality are separate things that are related, not simply the same thing. I think that their system is perverted and disgusting. Children's bodies are asexual. There are of course, gender differences. I bathed my kids together (Two girls and a boy) until they started to really do the body care on their own. My son, being the oldest started showering on his own around age 5 ish, at first with me in the room, then with me nearby with the door open and then with total privacy. The girls followed in their time. It was about privacy and independence more than anything. Of course, they did notice that boys and girls are different when they were still bathing together. Boys have the plumbing set up one way and girls have the plumbing set up another.

Privacy is a responsibility. Like any other responsibility, children should be afforded gradual increases commensurate with demonstrated need/ability. Like any responsibility, it is part of the path to adulthood. I think that children are proud of themselves when parents tell them that they are big enough to be alone to do things. Affording privacy is a great compliment and kids take it that way. Denying privacy is denying responsbility and kids get resentful of that.

When kids incorporate recognizing gender differences into their world, it needs to be in context. The fundy families we read about seem to make it a focal point. Then they sexualize it way before kids need deal with sexuality anyway. They make sexuality the focal point of everything that they do. These folks are totally sex crazed in ways that boggle the mind. Do they really try to raise perverts?

Children are not asexual, they are in the process of developing sexuality. The process towards sexual maturity starts at birth, is gradual, and goes through many phases.

Some people are asexual, and asexuality can manifest at different points in a person's life for different reasons, but it is not typical. Children are generally sexual, but not maturely so.

Apart from the bolded sentence, this post was QFT.

[holothuroidea]

Sexual modesty has nothing to do with nudity, because nudity is NOT inherently sexual (unless you fetishize it and make it so, which these people have obviously done).

I can say from personal experience that preventing siblings from seeing each other naked will NOT prevent incest. The biggest risk for incest in these families is that sexually repressed teenagers are given the responsibility of care for younger siblings.

[FlorenceHamilton]

Would it be better say that children ar pre-sexual?

[holothuroidea]

Would it be better say that children ar pre-sexual?

Yeah, and I had a feeling that was what you meant. I associate asexuality with something entirely different, and I thought it was important to make the distinction.