This one is another very good lesson which teaches us that researching whether or not we are being given a half-truth or the whole truth should be an automatic step in the listening process!
You may have heard about the family in North Carolina going through a divorce recently. Part of the ruling in the divorce is that the children will be forced to go back to public school. And, the adulterous father of the children, of all people, is the one demanding that they be moved away from homeschooling. All the children are succeeding academically, two of them at above grade level and one at grade level.
What an injustice? What an outrage? The courts are FORCING them to go back to public school? Get me the number for the Governor, my Representatives, the State Legislators!!
But wait … are you just going to believe what you read at face value and assume that it is totally correct? If I read it on the internet, it MUST be true. Right?
I am at a loss for words at how tired I am of being duped by the media into thinking certain things about certain situations. It is so easy for them to mold your thoughts without you even knowing it. Easy, that is, if you don’t start thinking for yourself and try to really find out if what they are saying is true or false.
They made sure you knew about his adultery so that you would form an instant opinion about what is really going on here. Did they tell you anything about the wife other than her devotion to homeschooling? Doesn’t it take two to make or break a marriage? Please don’t misunderstand, adultery is wrong no matter what the wife did or didn’t do. I am merely pointing out how you are only being told part of the story.
The full story lies in the public court documents which very clearly outline what is really going on in this story. After several days of hearing only part of the truth, I was finally able to find out the whole truth and boy, was I surprised. I was surprised at myself for being so easily duped. I was surprised at the craftiness of those who are revealing only parts of the story.
You can read the actual documents here, but let me summarize for you. The family was very happy together, the parents were in love and everyone was on the same page. The kids were in public school and everyone was okay with that.
Suddenly, in 2005 mom joins some new “church” and begins to pull away from family and friends. She then decides to pull the kids out of school to teach them at home, against her husband’s wishes. He makes it clear that this is a temporary schooling arrangement.
Friends begin to notice that the children are scared and uneasy around mom. She shuts down completely with her husband, even while he pleaded with her to help him save their marriage. Everyone is concerned that this new “church” is more like a cult and that its leaders are having quite a bit of influence over the life of this once-happy-family.
Ex-members of the “church” begin to come forward about some of the doctrines and teachings of this organization including “boot camp style” training of the children designed to “break them”. One ex-member talked about a program the leader of the organization helped her devise which included, “waking the children up in the middle of the night to do push-ups and physical exercises, and screaming at them “boot camp style” … my middle child became stressed out to the point of throwing up. When I informed [the leader] that she was stressed out and needed to lie down and rest, he told me that she did not need rest, but she needed work …”
Another ex-member testified that “[the leader] told me that my oldest daughter (then age 12) was the kind of girl men would take advantage of, that my middle daughter (then age 7) was the kind of girl that would sleep with any guy, and that my youngest daughter (age 4) was the kind of girl that would use her looks to seduce men.”
One of the children in the Mills family was doing dishes one evening and asked to go to the bathroom. He was told that he could not until the dishes were finished. His bladder then emptied itself on the kitchen floor, much to the child’s embarrassment.
My heart just breaks for the children involved in this situation. I feel terrible for the husband and father who once had a happy family which has now been torn down. I feel sad for the wife and mother who has been taken in by this organization which has now ruined her family.
But, if I hadn’t come across the court documents in another forum where a discussion of this situation was taking place, I would never have known the full story.
Ah! But do we have the full story yet? Were any of us there? Do we know for sure this “church” is a cult? I know my church has been called a cult before. What makes my church different from this mom’s church? (Other than the fact that I do not wake my children up in the middle of the night for boot-camp drills or try any other means to “break” them.) Life is full of questions – especially when looking in on someone else’s life. I am quite sure there could be a bad slant placed on anyone’s life which would cause onlookers to make predetermined judgments without all the facts.
It seems to me that what it all boils down to is carefulness. Whether we are listening to the media at large or a friend in our living room, when it comes to talking about the personal lives and intimate secrets of others, we all need to be very careful of what we believe.
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