Of Graduate School and Life

Oh my gosh, it's been almost three years since I posted anything. I promise I'm still alive haha. Life's just been really busy. I started a Ph.D program at an awesome university and so I've been investing my writing time in academic pursuits and learning languages. I spend most of the academic year buried under a mountain of books, teaching, or traveling for research. Also, I'm seriously dating a great guy so that's been very distracting in a good way. :) Honestly, since the reign of Vision Forum came to an end, I haven't felt much impulse to write. But if Doug Phillips, Peter Bradrick, and their team of sadistic, narcissistic, nerfherders resurfaces, believe me, I will take them down again.

Then again, when I get free time to peruse blogs and consider the young Christian culture surrounding me, there is much to consider. There's been a lot of fallout from the "Purity Culture" in the last few years and books like, I Kissed Dating Goodbye have rightly been drawing a lot of fury from those affected by them. This a good thing! But it's also heartbreaking to read the stories of others who suffered a lot more than I did from these teachings. I've been blessed to have really awesome parents who didn't mind my challenging the books I was reading as a sixteen year old and now I'm blessed to be dating an awesome Christian man who was not affected by the purity culture.

Still, I see a lot of narcissism and legalism in today's Christian culture and I see that the fundamentalist ideas that I've spent years writing against have seeped into the evangelical church--at the same time the fundamentalist structure toppled. So I'm going to be writing about that... maybe not  often, grad school being what it is, but I think someone needs to speak up.

Ingrid  

A Day in the Life of a College Student

The View from my Desk

As it happens to be on my mind, I have noticed that those in the patriarchy movement have a tendency to misunderstand or devalue college and the academic experience. According to Jennie Chancey, Doug Phillips, Voddie Bauchum, and other leaders in the movement, college is a terrible experience that will strip one (or one’s child) of all values, morals, and intelligence. In their minds, if you go to college, you will lose your soul. (Even though all of those named attended college.) Many Stay at Home Daughters fervently believe this rhetoric and some even write fervently about the evils of college without even setting foot inside of one. When I was influenced by the patriarchy movement and still in Jr. High, I didn’t understand college either. I thought it was this vague place that your parents make you attend and you have to travel long distances to get there so that you can study some kind of very difficult subject. This is a pretty fragmented and immature view of the college experience; it sounds bleak and it doesn’t reflect reality. In all honesty, I think Stay at Home Daughters probably have the same vague ideas about college that I did when I was younger and, they have been kept in the dark about college into their adult years. They don’t understand it and thus, think of it as a dark, scary place. Well, I am going to dismiss these ideas by presenting a picture of my life as a Senior in college. While I don’t think everyone needs to go to college or to spend a lot of money doing so, I chose to attend college to gain expertise in my field, prepare for graduate school, and to learn about life and other people. Plus, if I want to homeschool my own children someday, I think it’s a good idea to have a degree. (Disclaimer: I do go to a small, affordable, more conservative school—they do exist! I’m also careful about which professors I take classes from and try to know what I’m getting into—even if they are more left leaning or difficult, it’s not that bad if you know ahead of time.)


Early Morning: I get up, get ready, stop to talk to my younger brother (who is still lying in bed at 8:30 in the morning), glance at the headlines in the newspaper, and hug my mom. I am out the door before 9am and commute to my school. It’s a historic school full of tradition and the liberal arts. If you don’t understand liberal arts, think of it as a solid core of subjects that every student should know: art, literature, science, history, mathematics, philosophy, and language. There is a strong focus on reading, understanding, and interpretation; in other words, critical thinking (not endless memorization) is the most important thing.

Mid-Morning: I arrive at school and hike upstairs to my office on the top floor of an 1800’s building. Depending on the day of the week and differing Mon/Weds/Fri and Tues/Thurs schedules, I will either work for several hours or I will stick my lunch in the fridge and go to my first class. If it is a morning classes day, I walk to my classroom and chat lightly with my classmates about events on campus, current events, and homework until the professor arrives. Almost all of the professors at my school have Ph. D’s (meaning they spent 8+ years learning about their chosen field) and they know their information and love their jobs. On this sort of day, a rousing lecture in U.S. History is the first order of business. Though I have already taken enough History classes to meet requirements, I still take at least one class per semester with this professor because he’s so much fun and his lectures are so interesting. After this, I head to a literature class where I study anything from British poets to Native American literature. My professor for this class is a woman and she loves her work and her students. Though we look at very different ideological viewpoints, she is very good at helping us to understand them without losing our own. After morning classes, I go back to my office and start working. Unlike the dire situation of a woman working under a man presented by those in the patriarchy movement, my boss is one of the female professors and she is so easy to work under. My job consists of answering the phone, taking care of the 10 professors in my department, working on secretarial projects, taking care of mailings, and doing homework in the absence of other work. The professors are so nice and the atmosphere is very professional and lively—I absolutely love my job.

Afternoon: On alternate days, I either go to a History class with my favorite professor or to a Political Science class with another professor. If I go to the former, I get to listen to a young, dynamic, female professor who has shaped my writing immensely and is somewhat of a role model for me. We may not see eye to eye on everything but she has had an immense impact on my academic career. If the latter, I get to go to class and hear about the Lincoln-Douglas Debates and how my professor read all of them over the weekend or we talk about how to fix the federal debt problem. It’s pretty fun actually, especially since my professor is politically conservative and I agree with him most of the time. :-) After this, I will work for an hour or so and am usually the last person in the office. My last school experience of the day is watching one of the Philosophy professors and one of the English professors walk out of the building hand in hand. They’ve been married for 30+ years and have offices down the hall from one another.

Late Afternoon: I’m done with classes and work and I head home. When I arrive, my mom and I have tea and watch something BBC/Jane Austen/Art Film/Costume Drama related and then I do homework. Some nights, I go hang out with my friends, work on service projects, or to see my grandparents or cousins.

So that’s what my life and the college experience is like—my parents didn’t force me to go, I’m not far from home, and I love gaining knowledge from experts. While I loved being homeschooled in high school, I don’t think college at home can replicate this experience. At some point in life, you have to put yourself in social situations with people of different views. Even though my school is conservative, I do have liberal professors with viewpoints that differ greatly from mine. However, they are very secure people that do not feel the need to impose their beliefs on others and are willing to entertain lively discussions. I have chosen to live at home and I am happy with this choice because I get the best of both worlds. And I still love Jesus. Oddly enough, the different pressures I have encountered in the world have only strengthened my faith. If only Patriarchy followers and Stay at Home Daughters realized that the stories they have heard about college are dramatized and almost completely untrue. They have absolutely no idea what they’re missing.

Ingrid

Falling off Again

“The world is like a drunken peasant. If you lift him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off again on the other side. One can't help him, no matter how one tries. He wants to be the devil's.” - Martin Luther.1

“I’m choosing to stay at home and joyfully serve my father as God as called me to do. The world tells me that I can go to college and have it all: a career and a family but I know this is a lie. The world hates us for being keepers at home but I know that I am glorifying God.”
“Courtship is the best road to marriage. Through courtship, one does not experience the grief of giving one’s heart away through many casual dating relationships. I’m glad that I will avoid the pitfalls and immorality of the world...”
I read a lot of blogs written by proponents of the patriarchy and stay at home daughters movements. Most of them are written by young women and they’re all the same… or at least, it often feels that way. I actually wrote the two entries above; they refer to a couple of the most discussed topics on these blogs. Do you see the common theme in the entries above? That’s right; they go from one extreme to another.
In the first, the writer assumes that college for women equals balancing career and family. So in one sentence, we’ve moved from simple studying in college to being a career woman putting her children in daycare in order to be in the workforce. Believe it or not, many women actually go to college, marry, and then chose to stay home with their children. That’s what my mother did and that’s what I plan to do if God blesses me with marriage and children. Patriarchy people seem to think that college equals going far from home, partying, and becoming a feminist and a career woman. It doesn’t have to be any of those things. I, as well as many of my friends, live at home and commute to school; we don’t party and our faith is strong. In the same vein, I often see the idea that “the world hates us for being keepers at home” and I always wonder, “Does it really?” From what I see, homemaking is in vogue right now. I meet women everywhere who stay at home with their kids. Many women love babies and cooking and aprons and interior design… they just don’t obsess about these things. I honestly don’t understand where proponents of patriarchy are getting the idea that the world hates homemakers. Still, such comments are a good marketing scheme for selling more copies of Passionate Housewives and So Much More to “encourage” stay at home daughters and housewives in their desperate battle against the world. *rolls eyes*
As for the courtship paragraph, this recurrent jumping from a discussion of courtship to casual dating drives me nuts! So many patriarchy people decide that since the culture casually dates and hooks up, we should all practice courtship and betrothal. In courtship proponent’s minds, there is no middle ground! The examples of dating that they give are always about casual dating. Casual dating is NOT what my parents and many of my friend’s parents did! They had lots of friends, dated very few people, met the right person, dated them (as in going out to eat, hanging out with family, etc.), and then got married young. That’s what most of the young adults in my church do as well. I like to call it purposeful dating. It doesn’t have the pressure of courtship (i.e. on the first “meeting” you’re talking about getting married!) and it allows young people to be friends and then pair off if something develops.
Extremes don’t just belong to proponents of patriarchy… I also see extreme behaviour in people who have left the patriarchy movement. It is easy for them to declare that they don’t want kids or that they will send their kids to public school, or even believe that the government has a right to oversee homeschooling and/or parenting. They see abuse in everything because they have been abused and thus, jump to an extreme. It’s really sad. Unfortunately, it only encourages proponents of patriarchy to continue in their extreme behavior and convinces them that all who are outside of the movement are against them/hate them/etc. I find myself jumping to extremes sometimes too…. I read blog entries about how controlling the men in this movement are and it scares me to the point of praying, “I’m never getting married! What if I end up with some control freak who only cares about himself and beats our kids!!” Then after a moment, that still small voice says, “But, Ingrid, don’t you trust me? There are many kind, caring young men who would be just as offended by these men as you are.” And then I remember how many nice young men I know and I realize that I’m going to an extreme. It’s that pervasive. I always go back to that quote of Luther’s, “The world is like a drunken peasant. If you lift him into the saddle on one side, he will fall off again on the other side. One can't help him, no matter how one tries. He wants to be the devil's.” Just because we have escaped from falling into patriarchy doesn’t mean we should fall off the other side of the proverbial horse. It’s actually letting the patriarchy people win because we’re reacting to the point of being exactly what they thought we’d be if we “rebelled.” So be on your guard and try to be balanced.
Living your life by bounding from one extreme to another isn’t what we were created to do. For the most part, people jump to extremes because they are afraid. Afraid of pain, afraid of losing their faith or God’s (or their family’s) favor, or even afraid of being trapped within a legalistic lifestyle. We’re not to live our lives in fear or as a reaction to someone else’s bad behaviour. We need to trust God and realise that He is in control and He gave us “a spirit of power and love and self-control.”2

“Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.”
– Ecclesiastes 7: 16-18.

Ingrid

1. Table Talk #630 (probably recorded around 1533), which can be found in volume 54, page 111 of the Luther-Werke, Luther's works. http://ask.metafilter.com/118341/Help-me-track-down-a-quote-from-Martin-Luther
2. 2 Timothy 1:7.