Author Archives: GAHCindy

Mad Scientist Goods

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I know. Nobody reads product reviews. But PLEASE READ THIS ONE!

I wanted to tell you today about the magnesium cream from Mad Scientist Goods. You’ll recall from my last post that MSG are the friends who turned Jesse and me onto PEA, the substance that has given my husband back his life for the last three weeks. MSG are a husband and wife team who craft some very thoughtful products. The husband has a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry, so he’s not just some lowly handicraft-type soap-maker like myself. He actually knows what he’s doing. His wife is a perfect companion for him, being also extremely intelligent, knowledgeable, and artistic to boot, so that their stuff is not only well-formulated and efficacious, but also beautifully packaged, and appealing to the senses.

No product that comes from them is anything but the best quality. They research the dickens out of things, and then make sure everything is just right in the making of the products. That means you pay a little bit more for it, but I’m so happy to do so! I left this review on their magnesium cream page, but also wanted to direct any readers here who need magnesium supplementation to them.:

This stuff has been SO GOOD for our son’s poor sleep and abdominal migraines! Non-greasy, smells beautiful, and most importantly, seems to absorb better than any other topical magnesium I’ve tried. I use it after long runs to calm my legs down. They feel so relaxed and just *warm* after putting the cream on my feet.

My dog also tries to eat it, so it must taste good. Probably keep it out of reach of pets. It has a mild scent, barely there, but still enough to enjoy.

I’ve tried several magnesium sprays and creams and oral supplements, but for our needs, this cream has been the best thing ever. I ordered the small container listed on the website to start with, but we went through it so fast that MSG suggested I order a much larger batch. This size is not listed on the website, but they would likely be willing to do the same for others.

They were good enough to sell me two big containers like this for a good price. I’ve found MSG to be incredibly caring and easy to work with, and understanding of all of the needs we’ve had. If you have special needs, like ingredients you have to avoid, they may be able to help you come up with a solution! They’re available via email and social media, so reach out!

I’m using a lot of MSG stuff right now! I do not do paid or solicited product reviews. I hate doing most product reviews. There’s not a lot of room for creativity there. The few solicited reviews I’ve done that were creative ended up being…well, counterproductive for the advertiser. I’m afraid I’m not the best person to help anyone sell stuff. I’m doing this review because I really love these products and these people. I want to see Mad Scientist Goods succeed. If they stopped making their products, I’d be much worse off, so I need you to go make them successful, ok?

Go give my friends a browse and a buy, and I’ll come back with another review sooner or later.

 

17 Days

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After 17 years.

Some time into my third pregnancy, my husband started having severe head and neck pain. The child I was carrying then turns seventeen before the end of this year, so today could very well be seventeen years to the day since the pain settled in to stay. I’ve alluded to some of the difficulties of living with chronic pain in the pages of this blog (most recently: Speaking of Oil: Seed oil, even). In all of his years enduring this suffering, my husband has not complained. He has not given up. He has not become hard to live with, as many invalids eventually do. He has kept his despair, of which there must have been innumerable moments, entirely to himself and remained steadfast in husbanding this household. I have no idea how he’s even held down a job while suffering so much, but he has somehow excelled at it, and kept the family materially comfortable with the proceeds of his work.

He called himself an invalid, a ghost. I call him my hero. 

After work, nearly every weekday for seventeen years, Jesse would collapse into bed, and try to sleep through the pain until the next day. On the weekends, he’d be ok for the early part of Saturday, doing what he could for the family, and then would be in bed until Monday morning, when he’d get up and do it all over again. Occasionally, he would have a whole good day, quite at random, as far as we could tell.

We tried every remedy we came across. Some things would seem to help a little, and then they’d stop. Some interventions (usually doctors’ pills and shots) made things worse. Nothing ever really helped. Eventually, we ran out of things to try, and we just got used to the pattern of pain.

We think we know what is the main cause of the pain. There are actually several things going on at once, and three different kinds of headache, to complicate things even more. People have always tried to be helpful, telling us what this person or that did for their headaches. This poor head simply doesn’t respond to any of the usual–or even unusual–treatments. We always tried to be patient when the suggestions from others became repetitive. We always hoped that maybe the next person to say something would have an idea that had a chance of working.

And finally, somebody said something that made a difference. Seventeen days ago (on the day I started writing this post), following the advice of my brilliant friends at Mad Scientist Goods, my husband started taking a supplement/compound known as PEA. That’s Polmitoethanolidontknowamide, for those who like a funny word to go with their pills. Well, heck. Where has this stuff been the last SEVENTEEN YEARS???

Turns out, it was there all along. It’s not new at all. I will not question why it took the Lord this long to show me this thing. I certainly have done enough research that I should have come across it long ago. But here we are now, finally, and this stuff seems to work! After all of the pills, injections, supplements, chiropractors, acupuncturists, prayers, anointings, and finally just submission to God’s will, Get Along Husband has been well for more than two weeks straight. Can I get a PRAISE THE LORD, friends?

Jesse doesn’t even have to take the PEA every day. Every third or fourth day does the trick. Whatever the problem is with his own chemistry, this compound takes up the slack and helps him beat the pain. He says it’s still there a little bit, but it’s faint, and easily ignored. He did have a scary day where he thought it was going to stop working, but it passed by the next morning without confining him to bed.

We’re having a hard time processing this, emotionally. I haven’t taken a meal up to our bedroom in seventeen days. My husband has been with us wherever we’ve gone. Every meal that he’s home, he’s at the table with us. He’s writing fiction at a frenetic pace, suddenly able to concentrate on his creative passions.

I really can’t state how different our lives are right now. I’ve been afraid to tell anybody about it! I’m scared to get too excited. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out. Is he just going to slip back eventually, like he’s done with every other thing that seemed to be working? Certainly none of them ever lasted this long, or worked this completely. After this many good days, I can’t help but have a great deal of hope that this really is the end of that season of our lives. (I’m also a little worried. With him around all the time to keep an eye on me, will I get away with my crazy shenanigans anymore?)

Praise God for this blessing with me, friends! Also pray for us to submit to whatever God’s will is going forward. We could be in a very exciting new place. There are so many opportunities for growth peeking over the horizon!

Or, and I hope you don’t take this as an expression of wavering faith, we may just be getting a breather before heading back into the Valley of the Shadow. I simply have no idea what to expect. I gave up trying to figure out what God is doing a long time ago. We’ve never not trusted Him for healing, and yet, we have had seventeen years of this. We have approached this with the understanding that sometimes God puts us in uncomfortable places for His own reasons. We’ve trusted that all of this would somehow work out for our good and for His glory. Kingdom work is going on in these desert places.

But, frankly and understandably, we would like to not go back. My most fervent prayer, after the prayer of praise, is to have that painful season of our lives behind us, and new challenges to face. It really was getting old.

Either way, God is working, guys! I know some folks who are in despair right now. Sleep deprivation, family members in the most pitiful of situations, chronic pain very similar to Jesse’s, difficult social and work situations, financial worries. I know it seems like it’s never going to end. I hope this helps you feel like there is still hope, even after years and years of trials.

Over the course of seventeen years, there’s been a lot of room for confusion and doubt. Is this a punishment? Has God decided that we should not have a normal life because we deserve it less than others, somehow? Do we have to work off some sin debt on this earth?

The answer is NO! Thank God, no. Read Psalm 103.

I’ve put in bold those verses that really minister to the hurting heart.:

Psalm 103, a psalm of David:

1Bless the LORD, O my soul:

And all that is within me, bless his holy name.
2Bless the LORD, O my soul,

And forget not all his benefits:

3Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;

Who healeth all thy diseases;

4Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;

Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

5Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things;

So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

6The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment

For all that are oppressed.

7He made known his ways unto Moses,

His acts unto the children of Israel.

8The LORD is merciful and gracious,

Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

9He will not always chide:

Neither will he keep his anger for ever.

10He hath not dealt with us after our sins;

Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

11For as the heaven is high above the earth,

So great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

12As far as the east is from the west,

So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

13Like as a father pitieth his children,

So the LORD pitieth them that fear him.

14For he knoweth our frame;

He remembereth that we are dust.

15 As for man, his days are as grass:

As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

16For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;

And the place thereof shall know it no more.

17But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him,

And his righteousness unto children’s children;

18To such as keep his covenant,

And to those that remember his commandments to do them.

19The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens;

And his kingdom ruleth over all.

20Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength,

That do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.

21Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts;

Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.

22Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion:

Bless the LORD, O my soul.

I know that the Lord is not punishing us according to our iniquities, but that he is ready to heal us, when the time is right. If you’ve got some similar burden, cling to this Psalm. Memorize it. Hold it in your heart as I have learned to. He remembers that we are dust, and He takes pity on us.

I can’t say when or how, but I trust that He will bring you through your valley, as well.

Priced Out of Paradise

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How does a regular person afford a carnivore diet?

Crochet (now Carnivore) Gramma has had wonderful success with the carnivore way of eating. She’s lost a bunch of weight, become more physically active, and is (I believe) generally happier. Carnivore can work a lot of miracles in a person’s life! Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually make a person any richer, and she was wondering in one of her latest “walk with me” videos how she is going to afford to keep eating well. She feels like she’s been “priced out of paradise” and may have to start eating the boxed mac and cheese again. I know that feeling. If I were starving, I’d eat whatever was available! The consequences of that kind of food, though, I will avoid for as long as possible.

I have felt that same sinking feeling she does, as I’ve watched prices go higher and higher.

I have heard a lot of carnivore gurus say that eating good meat doesn’t cost more than the standard American diet, so you don’t really need to worry about the budget. That really seemed to be true for a long while. Perhaps it’s still true. I don’t know what the processed food prices look like, to be honest, so standard American dieters may be in just as dire straits as carnivores! But it sure seems like meat is going up in price a lot faster than the other stuff.

I’ve been grocery shopping on a strict budget my whole life, unlike probably most of the people who’ve popularized the carnivore diet. These are usually people who are not feeding large families, and also likely have more income (or more comfort using credit cards) than most of us do. Not to mention, nobody is sending me free steaks to promote on my YouTube channel. I’m not knocking them for that, and I’m grateful that people like Dr. Berry and Dr. Baker are doing well in life. They work their butts off, they’re brave and honest, and they’re frankly just better at everything than I am–than most of us are, in fact.

Us regular folks still have to find ways around the growing money problem.

People who are more financially comfortable likely don’t notice when the “cheap” box of hamburgers goes up by $5 overnight, or when the 12-count bag of meat sticks that you rely on for kids’ packed lunches is suddenly $2 more. Even worse, you’ll be opening a brand of canned chicken that had always just contained chicken, water, and salt, and a glance at the ingredients says that they’ve now adulterated it with food starch. Your yogurt that had been clean now has fruit pectin and some kind of bean gum in it. So now you have to find something new or quit that food entirely.

And it’s all of the foods, not just one item. Just a couple of dollars more per item. NBD, right?

When everything is increasing in price, and your income isn’t even inflation adjusted, this starts to really hurt. I left Wal-mart without my usual cheap box of hamburgers after seeing the hike in price. I won’t pay that much right now for those sub-par burgers. I will probably get over the sticker shock and do it anyway someday, and find some non-food place to cut corners. I’ve already canceled all of my little subscriptions and extra comforts. We’re running out of places to find another five or ten dollars!

We have an above-average income, but we also have seven kids still in the home. The oldest one doesn’t really eat at home much, so let’s say we’re feeding eight people right now, plus two meat-eating dogs. I am blessed that I could walk away from that box of hamburgers because I have a freezer full of beef that I can make into patties for myself. I only bought the boxed burgers for convenience, as we get a whole beef at a time, about 3 times a year. It looks like that’s going to have to be cut back, as well, as those prices just get higher, too. Still, it’s a sight better in both quality and price than the store beef!

What is happening here?

Dr. Shawn Baker posted this on YT a few days ago, and I think this increased demand has a lot to do with it. People are starting to wake up to the fact that the food pyramid we’ve been indoctrinated to was upside down.

Of course, it is nowhere near that simple. On the supply side, farmers are getting squeezed in ways that I’m not conversant enough to articulate. When I’ve picked up my beef from my farmer the last few times, she has been increasingly concerned about what is being intentionally done to the market to stop people from affording to eat meat. The push to turn everyone vegetarian is real. People who eat like this…

…have decided that you should eat beans and bugs. It’s expensive on purpose.

Every elite class in history has known that slaves need to be only strong enough to do what you want them to, and never strong enough to rise up. They want us to be fewer in number, dumber, and weaker, and then to die before we cost the medical and pension system very much.

Meat is elite food. The powerful are deliberately trying to make us too weak to do anything that would raise us closer to their status and make us harder to control.

This is not going to last forever. Revolutions are just as real as elite oppression. I just can’t say how long it will take, or by what means. Perhaps our elites will decide to loosen their grip to save their own skins as people get angrier.  Maybe the market will sort itself out through clever ideas for getting around the imposed scarcity.  Maybe Jesus will come back and we’ll see final justice in a New Heaven and New Earth.

In the meantime, we have to figure out how to afford to eat like human beings, not cattle. That means eating meat.

I have a few tips for my adopted Gramma, who I hope can find some use in this post. I’ve really gotten attached to this lady as she documents her journey on Youtube. Today I learned that she had social anxiety, too, so that’s another thing that we have in common that meat healed. Subscribe to her channel, or give a few dollars to her buy me a coffee fund. Hopefully, we can buy her some meat!

These are some of my habits that help me spend less on food, and some other ideas I don’t currently implement. I’ve ranked them in order from most to least plausible for regular folks:

Eat more of the less expensive meats. This is the most obvious one, of course. Chicken and pork cost less. This won’t be an option for people who have to avoid all but ruminant animals, but thankfully most people do just fine with other meats. Dr. Berry has said many times that you can be perfectly healthy on just eggs and bacon, and I think that’s largely true. But bacon is going up, too! We can rely on the chicken thighs and picnic shoulders for enough fat. Some of our family do not tolerate pork at all, so I will have other meats available for them when I make pork.

Eat a lot more eggs. Eggs prices have finally gone back down to mere Biden-era prices, after having more than doubled during a “bird flu” scare. It was a scam, of course. And the $13-something box that I buy is still $5 more than it used to be. I can buy the cheap eggs, thankfully. Most people do fine with the cheapest eggs, and the nutrition is still adequate in factory-farmed eggs, though not as good as appropriately raised chickens will give. Even with the volatile prices inherent in the egg market with these ridiculous policies for dealing with infectious diseases (again, the real goal is to drive us to plant-based eating), eggs remain the least expensive source of animal protein.

If you are eating eggs and trying to stay higher on fat content, you’ll want to dispose of most of the whites and eat more yolks. I often do one white to three yolks. Even throwing out the whites, eggs are a very good choice for inexpensive eating.

Shop the markdowns and sales. This is another very obvious one that we’re probably all already doing. I really hesitate to say this one out loud, though, lest someone who shops at my favorite grocery store sees it and decides to compete with me for the meat there.

Find out what days and times your local grocery store puts the marked down meats out. The stores are on a regular schedule, so if you can get to the bargain section at the same time as the manager, you’ll have a lot more to chose from. We have a particular brand of hotdog that we like, and that is acceptably clean, that was marked down to $2.50 a pack. I got a dozen packages that way! It is kind to leave some for other people, so I will often leave some good deals and come back the next day and only buy them out if nobody else wanted them. I’m pretty sure the cashiers at my favorite store know me as “Red Sticker Meat Lady”.

You may even want to find out what stores the wealthier people shop at–the ones you know you can’t afford–and scope out their deals. Every store has things that have to move fast. People with plenty of money don’t care as much about those red stickers, so you might get better deals there. I haven’t tried this, probably because I’m already shopping at a slightly higher-priced store due to our dietary needs.

Look for alternative sources of meat. If you have a freezer or two or an extra fridge, buying a whole, half, or quarter beef directly from the farmer is a much less expensive way to go. I only buy hamburgers at the store because I’m too lazy to make my own patties. Now that they’re so ridiculously expensive, I will probably make my own patties from my freezer beef. Hanging weight for my last one was $4.50/lb, I believe. That is more than dollar higher per pound than it was when I first started doing this several years ago, but it’s still a lot better than grocery store prices, and the meat is incomparably better. Store-bought steaks make me cry. I can’t even eat at steakhouses, I’m so spoiled by this meat.

I did the math with my take-home weight the last time we bought a cow, and because I take the marrow bones, heart, fat, and organs, I think I recall ending at about $6/lb for the whole thing. That is a lot to shell out all at once, of course. I understand how impossible that sounds for a lot of us. But if you can get ahead enough to buy just a quarter of an animal at a time, you’ll be doing much better in the long run.

We’ve got a friend who sells us duck eggs for $5 a dozen, just to get rid of them. You’ll have a hard time finding anything like that, I’m sure, but any local producer will be giving you better quality, and the prices can vary widely, so just look around.

Buy leaner cuts, which tend to be less expensive, and add fats. I’m not a fan of chicken breasts, pork loins, or any other lean cut of meat. But when they are on sale, I will buy them anyway. I can add bacon to pork loin or country ribs. I can add bacon to anything, actually. Chicken breasts can be made into something delicious with a cream sauce or cheese and bacon. I have an air fryer chicken tendies recipe that is delicious, and we use butter and mayonnaise for dipping to increase the fat content.

Canned meats are kinda OK. Dr. Ken Berry says you can get by just fine on canned meats like Vienna (pronounced: vy-ee-nee) sausages, and we do have a fair amount of canned meat in our lives. But I do find that these need to be less often than once a day, especially for the ones with a lot of salt and nitrates. Several times a week, though, can be a good amount to supplement with canned goods. Canned beef with the fat is fine every day, but it’s expensive. I keep that in the basement for emergency situations, and don’t bring it out much for regular meals. Canned fish of most kinds is also good on a daily basis. But the things that are lower in fat and higher in salts, like sausages, just don’t satisfy the same way. You also need to read the ingredients every single time you buy it. Manufacturers are quick to start adulterating the food with starches and sugars rather than raising the prices.

I will post some recipes for salmon or tuna patties that are carnivore or carnivore-ish, along with my chicken tenders.

Fast more. Take this advice only very carefully. I am not a fan of fasting for anyone over the age of about 45, nor for people who are already lean, nor for children, nor for women of childbearing age. I personally only fast for religious purposes. I’m happy to give my lean mass for prayer and supplication, but I’m not giving it up to make the number on the scale look better. You can achieve a lot of ketones and weight loss by fasting, but it’s not worth the detriment to your muscle mass, unless you are in a very strong state to begin with.

All the same, if you have plenty of fat to lose, your body will prioritize burning that up first, sparing your lean mass, and it will be a lot less harm than eating potatoes, I am sure. When money is tight, you could tighten your eating window down and only eat for 6 hours of the day instead of 8, do one meal a day, or you could skip every third or fourth day of eating entirely.

Scale it back to “keto”. For me and many other carnivores, this really is not an option. I have not found very many plant foods at all that don’t trigger either my auto-immune or anxiety/OCD problems. But most people who are on carnivore probably have a few things they can get away with. Low-carb berries, some green things like asparagus or cauliflower, or avocados and olives can fill in some gaps. It is a trope among carnivores that “plants are trying to kill you”, but in fact, some plants are pretty benign. Plants with fruits seem to even want us to eat them, to spread their seeds! But the sweet fruits we find in the stores are so over-bred for sugar content as to be dangerous for regular consumption.

It is mostly the good fruit oils–avocado and olive–that I would add back, to satisfy the need for fat, but  it is my opinion that there are other plant foods that many people will not experience any real detriment from. If you need to make cauliflower “taters” to fill up your stomach a little more, or add some berries to your yogurt, you may find that to be a good, though not perfect, option.

You have to experiment yourself to find out what you tolerate, and (like me) that may end up being nothing. Honestly, I hesitate to add this as an option, because most of these “foods” just waste your body’s energy trying to digest them. But you will feel fuller for a little less money, perhaps, and it may be a short-term solution.

Get creative. Ask for beef for Christmas, or a freezer to keep your bulk and bargain buys cold. Use your tax returns to buy the side of beef you can’t save up for any other way. Finding new ways to bring in money is an option for some of us, I suppose. But most of us are pretty much already doing what we can. Cut corners other places. I’ve canceled all of my little $5 subscriptions, for instance. It’s hard to do that, though, because I know that other creators need my money, too! You could start a YouTube channel or a blog (doesn’t pay if you’re me, but some people might do well). Whatever you’re already good at, see if you can squeeze just a little income out of it.

Raise a few animals of your own. This is another one of limited use. You have to be in a place where you’re allowed and able to raise animals. You have to have time and energy to take care of them. And, really, backyard chickens can be a lot of trouble, let alone any other kind of animal you might try to raise. But many people do find they have a knack for raising their own eggs and meat, and if you are good at it, you will save money. I sadly never saved a dime with my backyard chickens, but I enjoyed them, and the eggs were much better. If you can free-range them, they cost very little indeed! But the predators around here made that impossible, so I was always out more for the feed than I would have been just buying all of my eggs at the store.

Hunting is another way to get fresh meat on the table for a lot less money. Again, this requires a certain skill-set and location, so not as many people can take advantage of it. I will probably be doing this eventually, but haven’t quite decided to yet. There’s a gal down the road here who says she would be happy to teach me to hunt!

I’m sure I have more to say on this subject, but I think this post is too long already. What do you do to keep food prices down? Or to make enough money to cover the increasing costs? Currently, I’m just using a buymeacoffee link. If you want to contribute to my gofundme for my last run, it is also still active. I will give a report on that race very soon, I’m sure!

Leave me a comment or something! I want to hear from you!

 

 

Wagon Status: Hanging on By My Fingernails

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Oh, oops! Did I make the perfect the enemy of the good again?

Well, it’s been a good three months since I abandoned all my social media friends in favor of healthy dopamine responses and face-to-face connections. It is both a strength and a weakness of mine that, if I think something is worth doing, I will gladly leave everybody and everything behind to pursue it. It is a strength because, if the thing is worth pursuing, I’ve gained the Thing. It is a weakness because, whether I was right or wrong, I’ve just left the safety of the herd. Sometimes that is pretty uncomfortable. (Do go read that post if you want to be reminded of the depths of the covid-madness for a moment.)

Even the correct decisions made in anybody’s life will result in some downsides. When I lost a bunch of weight, I also found myself with a lot of new friends, while some of the old ones (certainly not all) didn’t feel as comfortable with me anymore. Homeschooling definitely makes a difference between us and some people we would otherwise be very like. Eating only meat makes social occasions a little less sharing, food-wise. I can make up for that stuff with tact, but it’s always going to make somebody ask, and then we have to talk about it. I got yelled at a lot during the masking nonsense. Following Jesus is so off-putting to a lot of people that they’ll never even give me a chance to say hi.

All of these things have been worth every social cost to me. But opportunity cost is a real thing to be considered. Not being on social media has had a lot of upsides. I am, indeed, paying better attention to the world around me. I’m happier, generally. I’m also feeling my emotions more appropriately–not numbed to things because I’m just on to the next post after something “affects” me, nor overly interested in things that don’t concern me. Since I swore off scrolling, I have written several blog posts I wouldn’t have had the energy to write before. I don’t know whether to apologize for the posts themselves or be proud, but it’s a fact that I have more to write when I’m not yammering on social media. I’ve transcribed some music and practiced drumming a lot more. I think and hope that my Sunday School lessons are far better thought out without the distractions. I’ve dreamed up some new schemes, saved some money not succumbing to ads, and played a few more video games. I’ve done much deeper research into things that interest me, and finished more books. I even have a book idea of my own, but I tremble to think of that too hard just yet.

I’m finding that, indeed, my mind is very much more my own, and more importantly, much more potent, since I left the Facebook and Social Galactic realms.

At the same time, I have traded something both pleasant and beneficial for all of this really marvelous head-space. I’ve lost interaction with people I really do like, who are far enough away from me that our paths don’t cross. I hate to think I’ll never chat with some of the SG folks again. I’ve learned a lot by just randomly saying ignorant things on there and waiting for the smart people to correct me. I follow a lot of Substacks and blogs, and hopefully won’t lose those good words entirely. But I don’t know what’s on everybody else’s mind to the extent that I did, and that’s a little bit sad.

I’ve also lost touch with some family. I have to drive a while to see most of them. The upside, of course, is that I do sometimes get out and do that, because I don’t want people to think I only like them on social media. To my chagrin, I find that I’m the only one who seems to feel the responsibility to keep in touch that way. Getting off social media means lukewarm people are out of my life unless I see enough value in them to pursue them myself and try to make things warmer. If they cared, I imagine they’d use the phone occasionally. I didn’t start calling it Fakebook for nothing. So that’s really another upside.

I still have all my IRL people. I’m grateful that I’ve not become lonely like I thought I might be. In fact, I’m valuing all the more those real people who have reached out in other ways after finding I’m not on the socials anymore. These are the people who really want to know me. Now I know who they are for sure.

Something else I’ve lost, and this is one that’s really bugging me, is the ability to self-promote. The fact is, nobody is going to promote my blog if I don’t promote myself. I have this blog, a book to write, and a fundraiser that’s running out of time, but I have no way to really put them out there myself. I do have long-time readers stopping by, and the occasional social media share is coming in (Thank you, friends!), as well as search engine traffic, but it is just not the same as I could do for myself.

Alas, nobody comments on blogs. That’s fine! I understand that the internet really has changed since the first version of this blog. I used to have a pretty good readership, with good interaction, but I stopped for enough years to lose most of that. The people who are reading now are at least mostly the same people who were reading back then, so I know you know how to find that comment box and say hi! Please do!

Otherwise, I won’t know what you’re thinking, where I missed something, or where to go next with my posts. The conversational kind of blogging I like to do could make a comeback, if you’d just help me out a little bit! Make Get Along Home Great Again! MGAHGA?

So, am I going to push that big “frens” button now and get back on social media? I was just thinking it through, and I really hadn’t decided until just now, but…no.

Maybe not ever, but certainly not yet. My reasons for going back aren’t really sufficient, when I consider the downsides. I’m jealously guarding my mind from distractions right now. Even if I were to set the rules that ought to keep me from getting back into the sorry state that I was in before, I don’t think it would be very long before I started to fail again. Honestly, I didn’t even write blog posts as much, because my thoughts wouldn’t last long enough. So going back wouldn’t even solve the self-promotion problem!

I am a pea-brain, friends. I can’t walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. If you are not similarly handicapped, I would appreciate a share on your own social media pages.

Whether you link to the main page or to a post that you like, or just drop a comment here on this post, I would love to just know that you’re here, that you find anything here worth thinking about. You can even argue with me, if that’s what you want! You can also subscribe to my rss feed, so that it all comes to you when it’s fresh.

 

Why are Christians Even Bothering to Raise Kids?

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You’re throwing away your life for nothing, Christian!

A Sigma Game Substack post this week, entitled It’s Beyond Your Control, featured a comment that came so directly from the pits of Hell that I can still smell the sulfur. I don’t have anything to add or subtract regarding Vox’s commentary, as far as the SSH goes. How could I? It’s fairly complete, as far as I can tell, and I am not the person to ask about men. I have five sons, and Vox’s Socio-Sexual Hierarchy explains things so well that I’ve had much better success in understanding and rearing them than I otherwise would have, I’m sure.

But the comment from which he is quoting isn’t, strictly speaking, about the male social hierarchy, or the inborn traits that a young man has that determine his place within it, but with Christianity and rebellion. The commenter said this, and I believe (with far more evidence than he has given to back up his statements) that he’s just making stuff up:

In many spheres of my personal and public life within the last year, the incidents of Trad families with wayward-leaning children has grown to at least a dozen. It is my belief  (emphasis getalonghome’s) that the Traditionalist Christian society in America (not just Catholics) is experiencing a very big epidemic of kids who are disowning the faith of their parents–or even the parents, themselves.

This is such an enormous tragedy. You’ve climbed over mountains of pain and passed through crucibles of fire to find the peace of Jesus Christ. You only want to do the right thing. You end up marrying, and you have a good batch of children. You pour your heart into them. They are the very purpose of your existence–your reason for being. All of your happiness depends upon their success. You sacrifice and give up the things you loved doing. You do with less so that you can give them nourishment. You modify your behavior and become boring and wholesome for them. You probably even homeschool them, teach them, encourage them. They are in your thoughts most of the day. You pray for them, and you teach them to pray. You warn them about the evils of the world, how your little family is surrounded by orcs, goblins, and devils. You take them to church, drive them to church functions, keep a wholesome setting throughout their childhood.

And it all ends in crackhouses and prostitution for a huge number of these kids, apparently.

Bless your heart, poor Christian. “You’ve” climbed over all these mountains, suffered so much, given up your very identity for this! And you’re just going to lose it all and be miserable because your kids have disowned you! I think the psychologists call it “going no-contact”. If this is just a particularly tone-deaf fellow who knows some folks who lost their way, I may come off a bit harsh. But I think I’m dealing with an actual enemy here, and I will treat him as such until he proves otherwise.

That quote just reads like the Serpent, don’t it?

Now, I am a mother of a large number of children, only three of whom can be considered “grown”, and those just barely. I know many more families who have lived just as we have, and guess what? The kids are doing great! I also know some families who did all these things, and some things still went horribly wrong with a child. But mostly? No. Usually it’s one child out of many. As long as there is life, there’s hope, so those stories aren’t done. Our Lord doesn’t give up on people just because they get lost. He goes out to find them.

This comment about how you can’t trust that anything you’re doing is effective is not only “a little black-pilled”, as Vox called it. I am choosing to treat it as calculated–whether the writer is aware of his own motivations or not–to be intentionally discouraging to Christians and homeschoolers.

Don’t waste your time, families. They’re just going to lose their minds when they get out from under your thumb anyway!

This is almost verbatim what a man who professes Christ said to me during a discussion about raising children recently. So this nonsense doesn’t just come from strangers on the internet. It is widespread and obnoxious as all get-out. I really appreciate the comment at Sigma Game giving me a chance to address my brother at church who spoke with the same shocking ignorance. I needed the intro.

Let me just take some of these idiotic sentences one at a time.

He: You’ve climbed over mountains of pain and passed through crucibles of fire to find the peace of Jesus Christ. 

I: I assure you, I have not. Jesus Christ climbed over all of my mountains of pain and passed through all of my crucibles of fire so that I could live victorious in Him. He gave me my peace, free of charge. Entire books have, of course, been written on Christian suffering. I’ve suffered some, and been joyful right on through it, with the Lord’s occasional chastisement for my attitude. I’ll gladly join in His suffering in any way He wills!

But something tells me that my definition of pain and fire are different than this guy’s. He doesn’t know there’s joy in it.

He: You only want to do the right thing.

I: OK, that’s fair enough. Is there anybody who doesn’t want to do “the right thing”, insofar as they can figure out what that is? Poor, hapless Christians, trying to do the right thing all the time, to no good effect.

He: They are the very purpose of your existence–your reason for being. All of your happiness depends upon their success.

I: Oh, my word, do you even know any Christians? Christ is the purpose of my existence. My children are lovely, but if, Job-like, they all were erased from this earth or my life in the blink of an eye, I would still have my reason for being.

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. –Job 19:25

If I live my faith out in front of my children daily, they will grow to understand that He is the reason for ALL existence!  My happiness, for some definitions of the word, will certainly take a hit if any of them decide to leave the faith of our Fathers, but my joy is indestructible!

I’m not here to become happy. I’m here to become holy.

He: You do with less so that you can give them nourishment. 

I: Absolutely. You get me. I feed them a lot of meat, and it ain’t cheap. (Shameless beg here: I do do without some things for the sake of my children. Not much, and I wouldn’t trade them for any comforts imaginable. My needs are fully covered. But I have to make choices, just like anybody with limited income. Chip in to support my hobbies, if you like! I’ll put my current fundraiser at the end of this post. Enough about money, though. Back to the conversation.)

He: You modify your behavior and become boring and wholesome for them.

I: Not only do you not know many Christians very well, I just found what looks like very good evidence that you are not one yourself, and thus have no credibility at all. I did not modify my behavior for my children. I didn’t modify my behavior at all. I put on a new Man. Christ changed my heart! I know that’s hard to believe. Unbelievers mostly think Christians have always just been what they are, with a few behavior changes to make things look better on the outside. It’s just a decision we make, in your mind. I get that. You have to experience it to really believe it. But if you could talk to people who knew me before, you’d know something really happened there!

I was not just a little bit of a loser who needed some work, ok? I was L. O. S. T.

I couldn’t have changed myself. Neither can you. Repent.

Also, what unwholesome things do you think would be making our lives so much more interesting that we should regret giving our children such a pleasant, safe, loving environment, even if they should come to reject our faith themselves? I’m not going back to any of the stuff Jesus took from me. That is independent of any concern for any other person, including my beloved children. I’d have never been able to do this just for them.

Jesus did this.

It’s a real change of heart that Christians experience. I prayed this evening for you to have that same transformation. I wonder how much of this even came from your own head, Commenter. I have to suspect AI of writing a lot of this at this point, it’s so void of understanding.

No, we are not “boring”. We’re having more fun than anybody I know! My husband and I laugh more and experience more excitement on a daily basis than we ever did before we had children. People around us quite enjoy our family, as well. These people are wonderful.

What is wrong with you? 

We are wholesome, though. I’ll give you 10% credit for using one correct word, but the rest of the statement is so dumb I can’t give you more.

He: You probably even homeschool them, teach them, encourage them. They are in your thoughts most of the day. You pray for them, and you teach them to pray.

I: Oh, wow, you got through three whole sentences without lying! That had to be strenuous. Better throw down a pint of something strong to quench the thirst you built up before moving on to the next lie.

He: You warn them about the evils of the world, how your little family is surrounded by orcs, goblins, and devils. 

I: Well, you flubbed it, buddy, just as the prophets (I) foretold. Yes, we warn them of sin, and of the Devil’s tricks, many of which you are engaging in here.

We also teach our children, as all Christians do, that Man is fallen and in need of a Savior; that no one is righteous, not one of us. We show our Savior, our Mighty Hope, to our children. We teach them compassion for others who need Him as much as we do. It’s Good News we bear, not fear.

The world certainly has evils. You probably don’t really believe that yourself, considering your language here. Orcs and goblins are imaginary, and I assume you think devils are, too, since you lumped them together. They’re real, but Christ has overcome all of them. We have nothing to fear.

We are storming Hell’s gates, not cowering in fear as Hell surrounds us.  

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. –Ephesians 6:4

Also, our family is not “little”. There are 10 of us in the GAH household, 11 if you count the new kid, but there are also millions, even billions, of believers in our extended family. Not small at all.

You tell me, Reader: Does this guy demonstrate a familiarity with real Christians and especially those who homeschool, their motives and outcomes? Does he offer any evidence that there is an actual epidemic of losing our children, rather than his fevered imagination? Does he offer any kind of solution or point out a reason this might be happening? No, and because Vox was focused on the minor point, which was accurate, he let this fellow off the hook over a major problem that I couldn’t ignore: he doesn’t understand the first thing about why Christians do anything. He just wants to take shots at what he doesn’t understand, and probably in fact hates.

This comment was not ultimately about any inborn or socialized male traits, or what parents can do about them, which is very little indeed, but about whether our Savior can be trusted to bring our children safely home. 

He says no. You’re all just spitting into the wind, Christians.

I say yes. Our way of raising children is the correct one, regardless of how they “turn out”. But they will stand, because the Lord is able to make them stand.

I will split this response into more than one post for the sake of readability and shareability, but I will return with much more on the topic. It’s one of my favorites, after all. Suffice it for now to say:

Yes! My children’s outcomes are beyond my control. Praise the Lord!

Please share this post any way you like! By social media, by phone, by Pony Express, whatever! I don’t have social media anymore, so I’m counting on subscribing friends to pass the posts around.  Come back and see me soon! 

Versatile Carnivore Bread

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Yet another simulation that can do lots of bready tricks!

 

I hope you’ve already tried the Carnivore Waffles and the Carnivore Waffles II. I have updated both of them with better ingredients, and hopefully more accurate measurements.

I blogged a long time ago about a cornbread simulation that I’ve come to really dislike. The first time, it was pretty good, but I was never able to replicate that experiment. I don’t know what changed from the first time to the next, but I hope you have not tried that one. If you have, I apologize. I’d delete it, but I believe in letting the failures stay right out there in the open with the successes.

The following has become my go-to recipe when I feel the need for something fluffy and bready. It stands in pretty convincingly for a hotdog bun, and I’m this close to trying to make corndogs with it. I just don’t know if the batter would stick well enough to fry. If I have enough tallow to do the deep fry someday, I’m doing it!

Print Recipe

Versatile Carnivore Bread and Buns

A versatile batter to substitute for bread in a keto or carnivore diet
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Keyword: carnivore, gluten-free, keto, low carb, low oxalate

Equipment

  • Stick blender optional
  • Parchment optional

Ingredients

  • 11 eggs
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 tsp beef gelatin
  • 1/4 cup liquid allulose optional but improves texture and browning
  • 1 tsp butter extract optional
  • 10.5 oz pork panko You can crush your own pork rinds or buy the convenient jars of panko.
  • 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder optional

Instructions

  • Heat oven to 350℉
  • "Bloom" the gelatin by sprinkling it on top of the 1/2 cup of water. Let sit for a moment to soak up the liquid.
  • Crack eggs into a large bowl and add the rest of the wet ingredients.
  • Blend well with stick blender, hand mixer, or fork.
  • Blend the dry ingredients in another bowl, then stir into the liquid mixture.
  • Pour into a parchment-lined 9x13 pan.
  • Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Notes

Different sized pans can be used for different kinds of bread. Use a smaller pan for thick, fluffy bread. Spread the batter onto a larger parchment-lined baking sheet for breadsticks. Pour into muffin cups for that shape. This recipe makes ALL the breads! 
1 tsp of baking powder can be used instead of the cream of tartar and baking soda. We avoid corn and other starches, and baking powders typically have fillers.

As always, when consuming the carnivore simulation of a carbohydrate food, be aware that there is a LOT more fat and protein packed into the same size. You will not be able to eat nearly as much of this as you could of an actual bread.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

 

 

Training Update: Ready to Run!

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If the Lord wills it, and with some help from friends…

The Black Bear Half Marathon is next week! Since I ran that last year under some suboptimal circumstances, I thought I’d like a re-run to see if I’ve improved any since last year.

Last year I finished up at 2:48:07, which was 20 minutes slower than I had even feared I’d be. I was very unprepared, as you can read at the post linked above.

We haven’t had any hurricanes this year, thank God, but my training has been sidelined by an apparent bout of the ‘vid that’s going around our communities. I finally got better, and I have trained a bit this week. I anticipate being a little bit faster, but I don’t think I’m in the shape I should have been. We’ll see! I do not feel tired when I run, and I’m coming back in with energy to spare every day. Mostly I’m just trying to keep from overuse injury due to stepping it back up too fast, but I’m also afraid of relapsing the respiratory problems I’ve had. Conditions will never be perfect. These are not excuses. These are battles I get to fight.

My goal this time is just any PR. The 5k, 8k, 10k, the whole thing, or any combination of the above.

I really like beating the smaller distances at the beginning, and I think negative splits are for weenies. Maybe they’re great, since everybody talks about them so much. But what I’ve come to understand about myself is that I have to start strong, or I will get to the end and wonder if I paced myself too much. Then I feel like I’ve wasted my opportunities. I do not want to be discouraged late in a race with irrecoverable mistakes.

Nobody and nothing can ever take away a step I’ve already taken. But I can take it from myself by trying to save it for later. I don’t know what’s going to get into my mind at the 10th mile to slow me down. I might daydream or lose confidence, or have on the wrong socks, like last time. All the steps I could have really pushed for in the beginning never happened, and now I can never make it up.

Other runners’ mileage may vary, but pacing myself at the start just won’t work for me. I’m not wired for planning. I’m wired for pushing.

I’m a pretty strong erg-rower, and that’s my indoor activity of choice. I always, always end faster when I start strong and don’t worry about whether I’m going to have enough steam at the end. I decided to carry that into my running. We’ll see how that goes for this race. My 5k PR last year was 33:47, but I beat that again in the spring at a local race by exactly a minute, 32:47, so I’m trying to get sub-31 this time. Seems unlikely, but I’m going in hopeful! Here are my Garmin predictions:

Those are usually very optimistic, but that’s what I’m pushing for, and then some. It really is a mental thing, as I will allow myself to slow down after a few good minutes with no real physical need to do so. You don’t get to rest on your laurels until you have the laurels! Any time I get that through my head, I win.

I only walked a few minutes last year because of some foot pain, so if the shoes and socks are just right, hopefully that won’t be a problem this time. I did have a shoe problem last time I went out this week, so I may make a last-minute stop at the shoe store this weekend to see if there’s a better shoe for the distance. The sock problem won’t happen again. I have been training in toe-socks. My feet are so much stronger this year from zero-drop and barefoot shoes that I’ve lost two shoe sizes! You really shouldn’t be wearing supportive shoes, folks. I’m wearing a 6.5/7 now, where it used to be 7.5/8!

Thanks to all of you who’ve donated to my run fund! I have enough to get some new shoes and I’ve bought a running belt that will serve me a lot better than my pockets have. You also covered the entry fee. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Last year it was “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.” My friend even bought me a tee shirt:

This year it’s “Lord willing and I have enough money to travel.”

If you want to help a gal crush some goals, this is my last blog-beg…bleg?…before the big day. If we have the money to sleep over down there the night before, I will go. If we don’t, I don’t think I can drive that far and turn out very well the same day, so I’ll switch to virtual and run a half marathon up here at home on some back road with comparable hills.

In that case, any money raised will still be used for running. I’m hoping to be ready for a marathon in the spring! It would be a little bit sad for me to try to run by myself that day, so I’m hoping some readers feel inclined to help get me there.

Help out if you can, pray if you can’t! Please leave a comment, too!

Friday Random Mess

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A few links and thinks I’ve collected over the last week.

First, I must look out for Number One. If you missed my last post, The System’s Children, now’s the time to correct that egregious error.

I was just reminiscing about the old times–back when the internet was fun–with another homeschooling blogging friend, and she made me think about The Common Room, whose Headmistress is still in my head all the time. She said things that changed my whole world, and then her blog just kinda wound down. I never really knew what happened to her, but when I googled her name after finding the original blog defunct, I got a painful shock. Wendi Sue Lord Capehart died a few years ago.

So that just knocked the wind right out of me. I was hoping to find her somewhere and let her know that she is still in my head, still one of the reasons I blog. Her sharing helped shape my mothering and my Christian faith in a way that I hope to pass on to someone else the same way. Rest in peace, friend. I know the Lord holds you in His peace. You were such a light to me.

You can still see some of Wendi’s work at Wendi Wanders. If you like the Charlotte Mason style, there’s lot there.

I’ve got an inspirational story next. This sweet Gramma with a crocheting channel on YT is now a Carnivore Gramma. If you think you’re too old to change, or too sick to have hope, just watch this lady. In 35 days, she has already made the kind of changes for free (no more than the cost of eating, anyway) that western doctors can’t give you for thousands of dollars.

And if you are under a prescription-happy doctor’s care right now, and not really getting any better, revero.com is where to go to find a doctor who understands how to get you healthy and deprescribe your medications.

Revero is also accepting investor money right now. I’ve already invested as much as I have for such things. It’s a risk, but one well worth taking if you want to see people get better instead of spending their life savings on sick-care. I think if anybody can make real healthcare work while fighting two Goliaths like Big Food and Big Pharma, it’s Shawn Baker. Go give us some help making doctors great again.

If you’re not using cash as much as possible, you’re playing into schemes to control you through digital money. Vietnam is a testing ground for that very idea. If you’re worried about the Mark of the Beast (which seems to be on some people’s minds these days), you’re looking at it, in concept at least, right now. Use cash.

Yes, Palestine is a real place, with real people. All you really need to do is read some Agatha Christie stories to know that you’ve been fed lies about the region. Of course  that region has always been Palestine. Christian “Zionists”, please read this.

Tylenol has always been on my list of “nopes”. I love my liver. I hadn’t known of a link between Tylenol and autism, and without reading much I suspect the data is hard to draw a cause and effect relationship from. It’s usually like that. But don’t take chances with your babies. Don’t use Tylenol.

All peoples have a right to remain who they are, and to keep their borders if they can. Trump tells Europe where they’re going. 

Speaking of which, this guy needs to go back:

And, finally, if you’ve enjoyed anything you read here this week, or just want to help a friend out, I’m still trying to get funding for my running adventures! Or just buy me a coffee, if you prefer that platform.

The System’s Children

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Socialization is the reason we homeschool.

People used ask me all the time why we homeschool. These days, everybody knows why, and I’m more likely to receive their apologia as to why they don’t than queries as to why we do. I have a book’s worth of good material after many years of answering that question. I get bored easily, so I’ve made a game of trying never to use the same answer twice. Here are just a few of our reasons, all of them true and worthy:

  • We believe it is our responsibility as Christians to give our children an unsullied Christian worldview.
  • We want to be more involved in our children’s lives than the school schedule can permit.
  • We enjoy hanging out with our kids.
  • We want to avoid bullies and bad influences.
  • We want better, more personalized academic choices.
  • We don’t want to get out of bed early enough to catch a school bus.
  • We certainly do not want to have to drive and drop off that many children at two or more schools every day.

Can you imagine getting a large-family number of kids ready for school every day? *shudders*

We’ve found so many good reasons to homeschool over the years–some weighty, some very light indeed–that I’ve never had to really explain what my own First Cause was. The more distance I get between my first inkling that we would homeschool (pretty closely following the day I found out I was pregnant for the first time) and today’s understanding (after 21 years of motherhood, I could list literally a thousand reasons to homeschool), the more I realize that the answers we usually give are, while perfectly fine, much lower in importance than the one I’ve kept closer to my heart, where the idea–nay, the heart-need–started.

Of course, nothing can be higher on the list than the desire to please our Father in Heaven, but this need flows directly from that, as it concerns the spiritual and emotional well-being of children. It really does all come down to that question most annoying to all homeschoolers: What about socialization?

The truth is, everybody is socialized.

After nearly a couple of decades of homeschooling, after seeing the differences in the way hand-raised children and schooled children behave, and after the massive explosion of homeschooling since 2020, I had naively thought the socialization question would be put to bed for good. It’s been a few years since anybody asked me about that–so long that I don’t even have any posts on the new version of the blog that I can quote or link to. But someone worried recently to one of my teenagers, during an ironically cordial and lucid conversation that gave the lie to the very words coming from the lady’s mouth, that she and her siblings are not properly socialized.

My teen looked the person in the eye, argued clearly her own opinion, and came away from the situation with the respect of the questioner. Is that not good socialization? How about the ability to work a grown-up job among people who swim in the main stream, and remain on good terms with everybody and get the job done well? Is that socialized enough? Able to speak with and relate to people in all stations and stages of life? Able to see the world entirely through a Christian lens? I certainly haven’t witnessed that kind of socialization among very many public schooled kids!

I’ve concluded that what they mean by “socialized” is “made compliant with my group”. One Boomer even called my daughter “brainwashed” over something very mild indeed: a disagreement over whether the piano she plays needs to be replaced or not. It didn’t make sense in the context of the conversation, so I can only conclude that this is just what he thinks of our family generally. I could recount other proofs of this attitude around us, but that will suffice.

If conformity with a group is the kind of socialization they mean, I’m happy to inform them that, yes, my children are socialized very well indeed. They’re just not socialized to the System.

System Kids

My daughter (the same one) was recounting a conversation she’d had with a co-worker recently. She is not at all shy about telling people that when she “grows up”–she’s pretty grown up already–she wants to be just a mommy. One co-worker of hers said at some point, in an apparent dig at the girl I’m so proud of, that she was going to go get a “big-girl job”. We both kinda laughed that off. Working women have no idea how immature and clueless homemakers often find them–with their girl-dinners and big-girl-panties and girl-bossing–and their apparent complete inability to imagine what they would do with themselves all day without somebody clearly defining their role in the System. I knew a mom once who couldn’t break the programming. She left the SAHM life because, and I quote verbatim, “I just want somebody to tell me what to do.”

I was thinking about that girl-language today’s young women use. Always girls, hardly ever women, and certainly never ladies. In fact, “ladies” seems to be a condescending, angering word to many of them. I’ve gotten some looks for saying “Hi, ladies!” to groups of younger females. Why do they react this way?

I think I’ve worked out why: This is the language they have to use to soothe and motivate themselves, because it is the language their own parents and teachers used to soothe and motivate them. As they cried not to get on the school bus, or not to go to the daycare, or not to have to go to school while they were facing their first periods, they had to ignore every felt need and go be big girls now. As they shed all of their feminine nature to go out into the world and do what they’ve been made to do since the first day they went to kindergarten, they learned to invert what it even is to grow up into a woman.

They are adults, but they were never given a chance to actually grow up. They were trained, indoctrinated, and sexualized, but not grown up. They’re the System’s kids and most of them always will be. Every day, they have to remind themselves that they are big girls, so they can go out to do what big girls do.

My Story

When I was a little girl, my mom stayed home with us until we children went to kindergarten. She was and is a gentle and sweet soul. I don’t know if anybody could embody motherly love better than she has. I mean none of this to blame her for not homeschooling me in a day when very few had ever even heard of such a thing. She was making her best choices with the information she had, and I have done the same.

I remember the first day I got on the bus. I was as excited as any child could be. Then when I got off the bus at the end of the day, happy but relieved to be home, I heard a bunch of the big kids laughing at me. Not having been told what apparently every other child was born knowing, I had come around the back of the bus instead of the front, and that provoked some very loud laughter and name-calling through the open window.

I realized then for the first time, very poignantly, that there were strangers about. I didn’t know any of these people, nor did I feel safe around them. I didn’t know the word “dehumanized” yet, but that’s how I felt. I don’t have many more school memories until second grade, in Mrs. Tugman’s class, so I guess the rest of the next two years was fine.

Mrs. Tugman spanked me a lot. She spanked everybody. I’m sure I’m not the only one who received her mistreatment. But that year, I was the literal whipping boy girl. Everybody else was left alone after she decided I was the kid who really needed her attention.

The first time she paddled me, it was because I had repeatedly gotten a math problem wrong. I wasn’t paying attention to my symbols, and just kept adding instead of subtracting every time she sent it back to me. It was a two digit plus two digit problem, and I was so focused on the carrying that I didn’t notice I was doing the wrong operation. She certainly could have just pointed that out to me, but she was hell-bent on making me guess why I was getting it wrong over and over and over. After she spanked me, I understood my mistake, so I guess she decided I was keeping my brain in the seat of my pants, and that was the only proper way to deal with me thereafter.

The other times she spanked me, though, it was for crying. I didn’t make many more math mistakes after that. But I displayed anxiety, and she got angry about that. Which, of course, led to more anxiety. Now, understand, I was not throwing temper tantrums. I was trying to hide the fact that I was about to cry.

I was scared. I was scared I’d get on the wrong bus. I was scared that one of the big kids on the bus would be cruel to me. There had already been hints that there were ugly things going on in the back of the bus that I didn’t understand, so I was scared there’d be no seat near the front by the time I found my bus. I was scared my mom wouldn’t be home when I got there. She always was, but my imagination disposed of her in a thousand different ways between the time I left home and the time I got back. I was scared I was going to mess up another math problem. I was simply scared, all the time. You can say, as many did and more will when they read this, that a child has to learn not to be scared. But those were rational fears. I wasn’t scared of an alien abduction. I was scared of real dangers, but had no agency to remove myself from the threat in any way. I was six, and I was alone. My only authority figure didn’t care about me, and in fact actively despised me.

Thankfully, we changed schools in the middle of that year and went to what I still believe was a very good school, as schools go. I often wonder who Mrs. Tugman turned her baleful eye on after I was gone. The other children at this school, save those few that I knew as neighbors, were unpredictable, and often cruel because I was quiet. I was gifted, and the teachers saw that, so I was really blessed in a way that other kids might not have been. I was allowed to sit outside the classrooms to draw or write, or go to the library and read books at my own level. I was allowed to go tutor smaller children, with whom I was not at all scared to engage, as long as I understood the purpose for it.

I was a particularly sensitive and imaginative kid, and school made me extremely anxious. It made me so anxious that I had full-blown selective mutism. I became an object of interest to the school psychologist, who spent an hour or two every week with me. I could not speak in this unsafe place. No amount of smiling and encouraging by my teachers was ever enough to break my silence.

I’m not telling you this because I think I was some kind of special kid. I wasn’t. That’s my whole point. I went on to have some good teachers and some bad. I learned to hide in books and imaginations of my own. I learned to talk later on, too, though it was always forced. Sometimes forcing myself to speak turned to anger instead of tears, getting me into trouble and confusing everybody involved, including myself. I made good grades. In a lot of ways, I adapted just like every other kid.

Finally, I had been socialized.

I was stuffing real, earnest needs away because nobody would address them. How could they? I couldn’t even articulate them! I’m not the only child that ever went through that, not by a longshot. Every child being thrown into an impersonal crowd of other children with barely an adult in sight is going through this at some level. They just either don’t feel it or, when they do, they are easily convinced that this is the way it should be. I simply had a more introspective nature, a better vocabulary with which to store up my thoughts, and a willful nature that would not accept explanations that didn’t fit my observations. By the time I got home, I was able to forget everything and be a happy kid! So down in the memory-hole all that feeling would go, until the next morning. My parents never even knew anything was wrong. I got “sick” a lot. Stuffing feelings does that to a child. They’re not malingering. They’re heartsick.

Ripping me from my family at that stage was completely developmentally inappropriate. It was a real trauma. But it was not just developmentally inappropriate and traumatic for me.

Every Child’s Story

This education system is developmentally inappropriate to all children. I was just more sensitive to it. I understood, in a way that escapes most 6 year-olds, that I was in a place full of strangers who only “cared” for me because they were paid to, who had me jump through their hoops because they were the only hoops they had. Dress what a teacher does up in however many lovely words you like, the fact is that there is no personal relationship to be had there. If there is a personal relationship, it is inappropriate. But children are persons! Young children need close contact with the real love of a mother for much longer, both in years of age and in hours spent each day, than they are allowed in this system.

Now, I did have teachers who were perfectly lovely people, and Christian in their intentions. I consider my education to have been very good for the poor region we lived in. It was fairly Christian, even, and especially good compared to what the schools teach now. But that the classroom is a stultifying and impersonal place that smothers learning and the human connection was still true, even in those very good schools.

I could only be in a given teacher’s class for a year, sometimes two because the classrooms were mixed-grade, and then I would move on. Then in high school every subject was taught by a different teacher. Even there, I was again lucky to be in the gifted classes so that the teachers got to know us in a more intimate way. But I was marked to be a hoop-jumper, a test-taker, a problem to be solved, even there. Never a soul really knew me. The System only cared about getting me on the track that would program me for its own best use.

I resented that depersonalization of my Self very deeply, so when the time came to begin to teach my own children to read, write, and think, I committed to their spiritual and emotional well-being above all of their academic needs. We can do all that school stuff, that career stuff, but it will never be the true goal. I want my children to feel known. I want them to feel safe, and not traumatized into compliance with the System.

Public school is destructive to the finer nature that many children are born with. It is probably nature, much more than nurture, that makes a child sensitive or hardy. I won’t try to figure out in this post how most kids go through that grinder without breaking down as obviously as I did. Lots of reasons are worth exploring in another post, perhaps. The fact remains that those other children are being robbed of intimacy, too, whether they seem happy or not. I feel like one of the lucky ones because I was unable to finally, fully assimilate like the rest.

Many will read this and say “Well, I came through it just fine! In fact, it was good for me!” They believe that only because their indoctrination–one might call it brainwashing–was indeed completed. They became the System’s kids.

Many more children go into school sensitive and thoughtful than come out of it that way.

The System, from the first day that sweet little guy walks into kindergarten, works to rough up the very finest mind into the only kind of material the Machine can use: coarse and unthinking. He’ll learn all the alphabet, and something else besides: that his needs must be subsumed to the needs of the whole classroom. He is never anybody’s first concern. It is the separation from the family, and especially a loving mother, that does the most harm to a child’s spiritual development. I don’t care how Christian or kind you think his teacher is. He is being taught to be someone other than who he is in Christ, and in his family, his first little Church. He can’t help but become something else, because they can’t know him to begin with.

That is my whole first reason for homeschooling. I don’t want my children to be the System’s children. I want them to be mine. I want them to be their own. And I want them to be God’s.