Tue 25 Apr 2006
I woke up at 2:00 am with lots of thoughts to put in this post. I am afraid I should have risen and written them then.
I have blogged about this before and I didn’t really invent the term. Paul Washer, the homeschooling dad and evangelist, used the term when he spoke at our church. Here is how he used it:
He was with a group of people from church at a restaurant. He was waiting for his wife outside the bathrooms and his baby started to scream. He frantically looked for a pacifier which his wife rarely used. Coming out of the restrooms was a little homeschooled girl from his church. She saw the pacifier and kinda huffed and turned around looking for her mom. Her mom came out of the bathroom took one look at the baby with pacifier and said something to her daughter like, “It’s Ok, honey, some people just don’t know any better.” Paul said he was ready to punch the lady.
So that is one picture of the gestapo homeschooling mom.
The truth is that it was very hard to homeschool 25 years ago and almost any family that did homeschool had to have a certain amount of strength. Sometimes this made those families hard to get along with but they did pave the way for the rest of us. Those days are over for now. It is time to end the reign of the gestapo mom.
Gestapo moms are those who having control of a small world in their own homes, seek to spread their control outside of their sphere of influence.
It isn’t just a matter of being opinionated. Blogging is opinionated but to tell the truth the best blogs are the most opinionated ones. I enjoy reading people’s opinions on their blogs, but the gestapo mom seeks not only to give her opinion but force her ideas on those around her.
The gestapo mom is not a Calvinist. She is an Arminian of the worst sort seeking through her own efforts to build her own kingdom. She is self-righteous and lacks humility. ( Please read this sentence in the tongue-in-cheek mode. She is metaphorical arminian.)
Instead of being strong she is manipulative. Her concern is more for outward appearances than true heart issues.
She is a perfectionist who is afraid to let those around her make mistakes. She is usually completely taken by surprise when confronted with sin in her husband or children. She is blind to her own sin unless she does something that makes her look bad and messes up her perfectionist image.
Her sons are effeminate, happily baking bread and cookies, proud that they aren’t any good at sports. (Again, generalization, my sons bake cookies when they get hungry, too. Sadly, they usually taste terrible.)
Her husband obeys.
Her children are not allowed to be cold or dirty. She makes all their decisions for them even when they are beyond her reach. She has unreal expectations about their future plans.
Her children are obnoxious and opinionated, too. They are carbon copies of their mom, telling everyone their opinions and ideas, spouting knowledge (so-called) at the least provocation. She admires their boldness. “Mrs Rollins are you sure you want to let your 4 yo carry that (a tiny NASV Bible) to church? That is wrong.”
As I said yesterday, she is boorish. She speaks confidently of things she knows nothing about. She is smug and sure. She nods a lot during the sermon. She looks down her nose at you and your children.
She is headed for a fall.
Have you met her?
In the mirror?
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Excellent description!! Just never knew that’s what it is called.
Printed and saved. Hope it circulates widely on the web.
Lord, please keep me humble and then more humble.
Dana in sunny GA
Comment by Dana (April 25, 2006 @ 9:19 am )
Oh.. I have really tried not to be like that. We as homeschoolers are opinionated-we have to be because we are called to make so many decisions and of course we believe what we are doing is best or else would we be working so hard at doing it? But on the other hand we forget sometimes that ‘minding your own business’ is a biblical demand! Also we women are so competitive. I don’t think that is only a homeschool thing though maybe it has more opportunity to raise itself in homeschooling situations.
Do you ever talk to someone and maybe mention shopping somewhere or doing something and suddenly you feel like you are defending your whole life? Sometimes I feel like I have to justify or clarify everything I say. It get’s exhausting-like I come away from a conversation more feeling like I was wrestling. Ugh. I mean I think it’s nice if you want to bake all your bread and if you don’t shop at so-and-so because you think it’s too expensive (Poor stewardship even!) but I don’t feel like I have to justify everything *I* do to you (I’m not meaning you, Cindy, but some of the people I’ve been talking to lately) just because we’ve reached different conclusions.
I really think we women rob ourselves of true friendships because we can’t seem to get past this comparison thing. I guess you’ve hit a nerve w/me because I feel like I’ve been dealing with this a lot lately. I’ve wanted to blog about it, but I kind of have to be careful too.
Comment by kerri (April 25, 2006 @ 9:37 am )
As a single mom forced to send my kids back to public school, I know the type all too well. The ones that don’t let their kids play with mine because we’re a [gasp!] “single parent family.” [though I adopted mine alone] The ones who think a 29 page statement of faith is required for Park Day or a field trip….And, they are the ones who want to tell the public school what to have in the library even though their cloistered kids are only allowed near the place for band…..And the ones that always can spout a scripture but can’t remember how the Golden Rule goes……The ones whose kids are either zombies or hellians, but put me down when they found out one of mine takes an anti-depressant. Ya, I’ll be there, “Sister,” when hubby gets fed up and leaves you and you have to dirty your hands with, [horror of horrors!!] a JOB outside the home……..But, I recall the Golden Rule and will listen as you try to live thru the nightmare of your kids going off to school and of not having money for scrapbooking supplies any more….I’ll help you learn how to politely refuse assigned readings your kids bring home that are simply not ok [yes, it can be done] and how to deal with co-ed gym and even swimming classes. I am the one who prays when your husband puts three kids between you and himself in the Church pew….. I promise I’ll be the one who won’t snicker and giggle when one of your brood is pregnant or a father-to-be at 14 or pierces their nose or has Satan Rocks tatooed somewhere visible…
Thanks for this “article”–now I, too, have a name for “her.”
Comment by Lisa (April 25, 2006 @ 11:04 am )
My husband and I have at least 5 kids between us at church. This is to supervise. But at home we are close a lot.
(I mean, how else would we HAVE all these kids?)
Comment by kerri (April 25, 2006 @ 11:32 am )
I very much enjoy your writing and find that you describe the gestapo mom almost perfectly. I have known many gestapo homeschool moms in my nearly 20 years of ministry — many who sadly fit your description. Women of all backgrounds; women of all ethnicities; women of all denominations and belief systems.
We have one such family in our church today that causes more grief and heartache for the other moms — homeschooled or not — sending them in tears to my office and to my wife. They don’t understand how she can be so manipulative with her “God would want you to…,” all the while demeaning them for whatever or however they do what apparently God would have them NOT do. Examples being similar to the “Mrs. Rollins” one that you gave. They bake their own bread — sons and daughters. The children are not allowed to participate in sports because they lead to sinful behavior. Their children tell adults — not only other children — what they should eat and how they should dress, etc.
This family is Calvinist. They (he) serves as an Elder. When confronted time and again about her actions toward the other families she simply replies, “God must be using me to do a work in them.” Now, I don’t think gestapo moms are solely a Calvinist problem. Neither do I think that it is solely an Arminian problem. Do you… really? These are the actions of someone who “is blind to their own sin” regardless of background, ethnicity, denomination or belief systems.
You said:
“The gestapo mom is not a Calvinist. She is an arminian of the worst sort seeking through her own efforts to build her own kingdom. She is self-righteous and lacks humility.”
So with the above comment you have given your opinion, and I too “enjoy reading peoples’ opinions on their blogs” just be careful not to force such opinions on those around you, by stating them as though they were fact. Because the fact is when you do so, you come across as self-righteous and lacking humility.
Please accept my gripe, it’s the only one I have.
Comment by Pastor S (April 25, 2006 @ 11:57 am )
Well, Pastor S, that comment was sort of tongue-in-cheek because most gestapo moms I know are Calvinist in theory. What I really meant was that they are arminian in practice, obviously not believing too deeply in the sovereignty of God.
I hope that clears things up.
My son did mention that he thought that statement would cause problems but I left it in because of the principle I meant to illustrate, not the actual theology.
I will be the first to admit that one of the biggest dangers of blogging is not only appearing self-righteous and lacking humility but actually being those things. Sometimes the line is thin.
Comment by Cindy (April 25, 2006 @ 12:08 pm )
Thanks for the post, Cindy. Thankfully I can’t think of anyone in my area who fits the above description. I have met people like you describe but they weren’t always homeschoolers and they weren’t always moms. I think the worst offender I knew was a man from Holland back when Vince and I were in NTM. He managed to criticize us regularly on almost every aspect of our lives. He was a very proud man and of course he and his wife did everything correctly. I heard later that he ended up with lymphoma when he was back in Holland and I hope his time of serious illness gave him time for reflection and that today he is a changed man.
I don’t usually post too much opinionated stuff on my blog because probably half of my readership are local people who I know and there are times I could really offend them. It does make it difficult at times. There’s an E. Free church down the road from our house and they’ve had a sign out front for the past couple weeks advertising a night of modern rock worship. My first impulse was to jump out of the van, take a picture of the sign with my digital camera, and then blog about it. Then I remembered that someone who occasionally reads my blog is a member of that very church so I refrained. I really wanted to ask why we should worship modern rocks.
Comment by Jeannine (April 25, 2006 @ 1:32 pm )
Wow, Lisa, that was a lot of opinions. Like Kerri, my husband and I often have had children in between us at church, especially when the oldest of our brood was nine and we had three that were, for all intents and purposes, developmentally about two years old. Two of them were adopted and didn’t have a clue how to behave in church when we got them. So we put the children in between us and on either side. The logistics were rather daunting at times. This is because my husband and I behave ourselves, and the children didn’t yet know how to do that, not because we do not love each other and are not close.
Prayers are always welcome, but I hope you include in that prayer a prayer for grace, charity, and that the small children will learn proper decorum quickly. Eventually they do. We have five between the ages of 23 and 15 now, and not an out of wedlock pregnancy, piercing, or tattoo among them. I even get to sit by my husband most weeks.=)
We not only let our children play with the children of single parents, we babysit the children of single parents for free if that’s what they need. We’ve even helped homeschool them. It sounds like that’s not the sort of people you’ve been dealing with, and I’m sorry for the pain they’ve apparently caused you.
Comment by deputyheadmistress (April 25, 2006 @ 1:40 pm )
Yes, Cindy…I do see her in the mirror much more often than I’d like, although, hopefully less and less as the years go by, I also see her pop up all over the place and in so many types and forms.
I think that it comes down to what Nancy Wilson writes in her book, Fruit of Her Hands…we MUST agree on principle, but need to give Grace on practice. It is not alwasy easy to do, and gets even harder if we want to help each other be faithful, “as iron sharpens iron”.
I think we also have to be careful too, that we don’t assign this label to someone if they are just living radically different than us. If you, who are free to put her guys in sports think I am wrong to not have done so, are you much different than my friend who has all her boys do all of her kitchen chores such as bake bread and thinks I am wrong to have the opinion that my boys only need cursory knowledge of housekeeping skills? And those were just examples, I don’t know that you feel that way, but I hope you get my point.
How do we have strong opinions and be convinced that we are right, without others feeling that we are being the kind of person you describe? And you must know that often, a person will feel threatened just because we think that we are doing the right thing, when they are doing something different.
I definitely think that we need to give our opinions less (IRL, I think the internet is a whole ‘nother thing altogether), and when we do, give them without pride. I also think that we need to not judge each other’s consciences and think the best of other’s intentions. You know, the whole treatment the WCF gives the 9th commandment, forbidding “miscronstruing intentions, words, and actions…thinking or speaking too highly or too meanly of our ourselves or others…”
Oh man! This is really hard!
Comment by Margaret in VA (April 25, 2006 @ 2:08 pm )
Ah, I questioned whether or not that statement was tongue-in-cheek, unfortunately, I only questioned myself and not the one with her tongue in her cheek.
Well said, that the line is quite thin. It appears to not only be thin in the writers’ blogging… but in the readers’ commenting as well.
It is my sincere hope that I have not crossed it.
Comment by Pastor S (April 25, 2006 @ 2:13 pm )
Margaret,
I agree that Nancy Wilson really nails the point on that one. I really could have explained more about a few points but didn’t want to make the post overly long.
I really do understand why some families avoid sports. We avoided sports for 15 years. I have mentioned before that I despise running around and think it is a big negative in family life BUT I also do see lots of effeminate homeschooled boys and I think sports help young men relate to outside authorities. Each family must be able to sort these things out…”Work out their own salvation,” so to speak.
I have learned a lot about looking in the mirror by watching how the homeschool community has reacted to our family decisions. I have learned a lot about my own behaviour being judged by others of my own breed.
Have you ever looked over your shoulder in the grocery store? I have. No, I wasn’t sneaking an ugly magazine into my cart…just buying cheap…(white) bread. No, I don’t think it is good for anyone but I did buy it for sandwiches and I did look over my shoulder, fearing my homeschool friends would not understand. How weird is that?
Comment by Cindy (April 25, 2006 @ 2:22 pm )
Not at all, Pastor S, I appreciated your comments especially as they validated my own son’s thoughts and let me know I did need to clarify that statement.
I have gotten trouble several times lately for using the term Calvinism which is out of vogue. I have been told repeatedly to use the term Sovereign Grace instead. I should probably change my vocab on this issue but I am a bit stubborn.
Comment by Cindy (April 25, 2006 @ 2:24 pm )
Great Journal! I think I know a few of these gestapo mom’s and I it encourages me that I’m not alone! Crazy world out there… I’m so glad we can make a difference and show everyone that not everyone is a “gestapo” mom.
Valerie
http://homeschoolblogger.com/socalval/
Comment by Valerie (April 25, 2006 @ 6:22 pm )
Well in MY OPINION YOU’RE ALL…..
Sorry I just couldn’t resist the urge to say that.
Great post. I have probably been both moms at different times. I truly thank the Lord that there was not such a thing as blogging back when I was a “younger” mom. Ouch. It would have been painful to read now that I am older.
God is faithful. He will gently draw us from our pride to our knees.
Comment by Spunky (April 25, 2006 @ 7:01 pm )
“deputyheadmistress” & all,
Sorry Yes, I have been slammed by “Gestapo Moms!!” I should have balanced my post by thanking the Moms who are there for us. The ones who have related how hard it is to try to be perfect because of Gestapo-types among us. The ones who have no fear of saying they left home for awhile to work and get over “baby blues,” or to pay off debts. The one who HID a successful career as a CPA, calling it a “little book-keeping for a friends business” so her husband would look good among the “Gestapo breadwinners” I think to of all the Dads who have been there to coach my son in sports and lead the Scout Troop [yes, I do volunteer in these things, too]
My post was taken as nasty and I meant it with humor.
My comment on the kids between the parents was mean–discipline and manners really matter. I am grateful for the Church elder [and Dad of 4] who followed me out of the Service with my son when he misbehaved and reinforced my words. I am grateful that the next week he came and greeted my son and gently reminded him how to behave. Thankfully, he later baptised my son as well.
Still, I have had a calls from 2 moms needing to go back to work–one due to trying to look perfect on credit cards and one due to hubby leaving for greener pastures. Both are totally normal in our country, but were stunning blows to the families concerned. My kids and I were there for them.
Again, I love reading the Blog and love the community of Moms who puts God first, Husband and Kids second all else a distant third.
Comment by Lisa (April 26, 2006 @ 8:23 am )
Cindy,
We should hang out…
Then you could blog about Gestapo Breadwinners of Homeschooled Baseball players…
Cheers,
Teed
Comment by TeedOff (April 26, 2006 @ 11:05 am )
well I’m late in my blogging rounds but wow what a timely and wonderful post. You are one brave woman Cindi! I’ve been blogging for three years and I’ve kinda pulled back from speaking my mind because I’m VERY opinionated. Thats hard enough for people to deal with in real life but in blogging when expresions cant be read or voice inflections heard it’s real trouble for me.
I see myself as a gestapo mom in different ways. I’m not too terribly opinionated about homeschooling but I sure am about other stuff. So thanks for the look in the mirror.
Comment by mrsdarling (April 26, 2006 @ 3:58 pm )
Teed,
I know the type….
Comment by Cindy (April 27, 2006 @ 6:43 am )
May I add another characteristic?
The gestapo mom proclaims to the public that belief in 144 hour creationism and disdainful rejection of scientific orthodoxy is a pre-requisite of being a Christian. She can prove it because she’s used a critical thinking curriculum.
I haven’t found that scripture verse yet that says, “I am the Way the Truth and the Life; myself and one particular political interpretation of a particular translation of ancient Hebrew scripture.”
BTW, I was raised faithfully in Calvinist theology and have even come to accept it as Biblical. Didn’t require a critical thinking curriculum either. Just prayer and humility.
Comment by Kim (April 28, 2006 @ 9:44 am )
I think you bring up some good points, and with humor (I just found your blog, realize I am kinda late in on the conversation).
Thinking there is a connection here.
Comment by Rebecca (May 1, 2006 @ 10:21 am )
Wow…well said!
But for different “issues” …it’s always hard to look at that ugly reflection in the mirror.
Julie
http://www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/Julie
http://www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/FreeStuffForHomeschoolers
Comment by Julie (May 9, 2006 @ 12:41 pm )
Hmm, well … I am not a “gestapo homeschooling mother”, I believe everyone should follow the right path for their family. However, I have been known to interfere in other areas, such as when mothers leave their preschoolers unattended on a mall ride-on toy while they go supermarket shopping out of sight. I have done this (twice) out of genuine care and concern. So perhaps I was feeling a bit touchy when I read this blog post. However, my way of seeing it is that perhaps if we think people are not of a suitably high standard of humility or any other virtue we would like them to have, we could offer them kindness or a gentle insight into our own hearts, or thank them for their concern - in other words, bring a positive light into the world - rather than come up with nasty epithets for them. Otherwise we run the risk of looking like gestapo mothers ourselves. Having said that, this is a lovely blog, and I wish the best for your family
Comment by Sarah (May 10, 2006 @ 2:12 am )
I really love to read this stuff, Cindy
Thanks for the excellent thoughts. I hope to show your post to my hubby later and talk some about it.
I don’t think any of us can check ourselves in this area enough. At least, I can’t. I say things to my children like “Honey, different families make different decisions about things like this (Halloween, certain TV shows, white bread - just kidding) and that’s okay. God’s Word doesn’t tell us exactly how to live out this principle. He’s given us some freedom to decide”. BUT, I admit, sometimes I’m saying it just as much to myself as I am to my children. I should **love it** when I meet solid, godly, joyful families that send their children to public school, co-sleep with their babies, watch Disney movies on a daily basis, and eat nothing but frozen dinners. Just because it rocks my little world and gives me a better look at the big picture. What a blessing.
Comment by JacciM (January 2, 2008 @ 5:22 pm )
Oh, and I understood the Calvinist thing the way you meant it. As long as pride still holds on in my heart like it does, I know I have a long way to go in understanding God’s sovereign grace.
We’re members of a Reformed Baptist church, so the “Calvinism” tag doesn’t really fit too well in some areas ;)We like to refer to the 5 points as The Doctrines of Grace. “Calvinism” is more widely understood, though, and useful for that reason. So, in mixed theological company, I’m a Calvinist ;)If baptism comes up, we clarify.
Comment by JacciM (January 2, 2008 @ 5:29 pm )