This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Episode 027 – We Discuss Two Books: “Counting the Cost” by Jill Duggar &
“The Woman They Wanted” by Shannon Harris (Part 1)

November 1^st, 2023

T: Alright, we are starting to record…

S: [belches] – wow, suddenly belching, as I often do.

[laughter]

T: It’s the demons. You’re expelling the demons – that is, in certain circles, a belief.

S: Ah well, then I’m close to…

T: You must be very demon possessed, because you burp a lot.

[laughter]

S: No, I’m demon free because I burp a lot. I must be expelling mine, and you’re not expelling yours.

T: Oh okay, wow.

S: It’s because I down carbonated beverages. Coke Zero is my beverage of choice. Uh huh, that’s it. That’s it.

….

T: Hi, I’m Tracey.

S: And I’m Sharon. And we are Feet of Clay..

T: Confessions of the Cult Sisters! Were you drinking Sharon?

S: Why are you laughing?

T: Because it sounded like you were drinking.

S: No!

T: This podcast has driven her to drink.

[laughter]

T: Okay. This is going to be another first for us, Sharon.

S: Yeah.

T: We’re doing something a little different on this episode.

S: Yes we are. A couple of weeks ago we both read two brand new books. Well, actually Tracey read them first, and then she messages me saying that I have to read them ASAP. She can be really dominating in that way, folks. Good thing that once upon a time I learned how to submit.

[laughter]

T: Yes you did.

S: I did. But before we get rolling here, I think it’s only fair to say to our listeners, this will definitely be a two-parter, and I don’t know Tracey, do you want to place bets; can we hold it to two, or is it going to go longer than that?

T: Two books; two parts. Let’s do it that way.

S: Okay.

T: So we’re recording this at the very beginning of October, because these two books were actually released in late August and early September, and frankly, I am pretty proud of ourselves that we finished two books in one week. I can’t remember the last time I did that.

S: Yes, we did.

T: And I’m telling you people, we read them. We didn’t just listen to audio books. We read them.

S: And not only read them, but I highlighted quotes that I wanted to bring out so it was kind of almost like a school project. Sort of.

T: Yes. It shows that we still have some brain cells left, because I know my work schedule is pretty demanding, and travel schedule, and you’ve had a very demanding travel schedule, so…

S: Yep. We did good, girl. We did good. So Tracey, why do you want to talk about these particular books, here on our podcast?

T: Well, these are two very important books for people in and out of fundamental evangelicalism. They’re both chock full of the subject matter that connects to so much of our own story Sharon, and the stories of our guests that we’ve been having.

S: Yeah. What we hear from others. So one thing that I want to preview is that both of these books show the overwhelming power of fear and guilt and shame, as it is used to control and manipulate the behavior of others. That’s a common thread throughout both books, and it’s also what we’ve experienced in our own lives as well, right?

T: Mmhmm, yes.

S: That fear and guilt and shame – that was enforced externally by all the teachings and rules in our commune cult Last Days Ministries, but what I’ve come to recognize is that the even greater stranglehold was the internal enforcement that we did to ourselves in our own belief systems.

T: Yes, that’s such a good point to punctuate.

S: Yeah, so in these books, although they don’t really call it this, I can totally recognize that both of these women – who are younger than us; they definitely suffered some true trauma in the literal, clinical definition of that word.

T: Wow Sharon, that was really well stated. We have so much to unpack here, really. Both these books were so chock full of stuff.

S: Yeah.

T: So, what are these books, our listeners are probably asking by this time?

S: But wait a second, isn’t it going to be in the title of the podcast? Maybe they already know it.

[laughter]

T: I don’t know. Maybe for our subscribers this will just automatically go to the next one.

S: Okay.

T: So, the two books; the first one is “The Woman They Wanted” by Shannon Harris, which was published August 29^th, this year, 2023. Shannon is the ex-wife of Josh Harris, the I Kissed Dating Goodbye, boy meets girls fame. Josh’s books were published decades ago, and he became a key leader and a key name in the purity culture movement, and a key leader in the Sovereign Grace, People of Destiny churches. Also, which became embroiled in a sex scandal in the 2011 to 2014 timeframe.

S: Who hasn’t been embroiled in sex scandals? You know? That’s almost par for the course these days.

T: It is. You know, if we’re doing a competition we’ve gotta chalk one up to Last Days Ministries on that one.

S: You know, you’re right. We did not have any sex scandals. Nope, we didn’t.

T: That we know of, so yay.

S: Okay. Yay.

T: We were all too afraid.  Way too afraid. Anyway, the second book is “Counting the Cost” by Jill Duggar Dillard, which was published September 12^th 2023.

S: You know Tracey, I did a double take when I heard her married name, because that’s the same last name of two key leaders at Last Days Ministries that you and I were both very close to. Wayne and Kathleen Dillard.

T: Yeah, do you think there’s any relationship?

S: I doubt it. That would be weird though, if there was.

T: It would be. Jill is one of the Duggar kids from the reality TV show, 19 Kids and Counting, and went on to have a couple of names there; Counting On (lot of counting in those series). Her brother Josh Duggar is infamous for his sex abuse scandal, including Jill herself, and later was caught in a terrible scandal of child pornography crimes, and was ultimately convicted and is now serving time in prison. All this, despite the fact that the Duggar family was held up in such high esteem and firmly rooted in the cult teachings of those great four letters that we always hear; the IBLP of Bill Gothard.

S: Tracey. Tracey – woman, please, please, I beg you, show some respect and pronounce that man’s name correctly! He’s Bill GotHard. He Got Hard keeping all those pure virginal young women so close by.

T: Urgh. Bleeurgh. If you guys can see me – blurgh, my fingers down my throat. It’s just so creepy to think of him that way!

S: I know.

T: According to his own belief, he would not, has not, ever, been able to have a legitimate orgasm, or even a hard on – ever, ever, ever.

S: Well, wait a second. Maybe he could have a legitimate hard on, I mean he can’t help that, but he certainly couldn’t touch himself or do anything about it.

T: Ewwww. Okay, okay, onto the books, because this is starting to go down a horrible path. Very interesting how both of these women are in the satellite of two very well known Joshes in the fundy sphere.

S: Yeah. A tale of two Joshes. But this really is about the women, right? These are their stories, so I do want to say bravo, bravo, bravo to each of them because they stepped forward. They’re finding their voices, they share where they’ve come from, where they are now, and the very painful process they went through to get here. To me it’s also pretty interesting to contemplate where they might be in the years and decades yet to come. You and I have both learned that awakening to all the bullshit – it’s really just the beginning. I kind of think that as the future unfolds, Jill and Shannon will most likely become more aware of the depths of the trauma and mindfuckery, and all that stuff that they have started to recognize.

T: Very, very good point. You know – for listeners, we’ve referenced in several of our episodes, but Sharon and I got out of this mindfuckery over two decades ago. That’s when we didn’t call it deconstructing. We didn’t have a name for it, we just walked away.

S: Oh, backsliding. That was the name for it.

T: Oh yeah. We were definitely accused and taunted for our backsliding. I can’t even imagine trying to write a book at that time, so soon after getting out of everything. I remember some days just telling friends hey, I’m just trying to hang onto the fallout right; to get divorced, have five kids, all that stuff. We definitely need to keep that in mind for them, throughout, as we read those books. This is a long journey out, and one hopefully where we never stop learning and growing. This is their snapshot now, and even now – decades later, I’m still seeing the depths of some of the damage I left in my wake. Let’s give some quick info about these authors.

S: Actually, before you say that – Tracey, I’ll tell ya, it’s funny because when we did our four part series on purity culture, Virgins and Volcanos, I thought okay now I’m really looking at that trauma I experienced with the arranged marriage and that whole wedding night, but I gotta tell you, just in the last couple of weeks as I’ve been working through and seeing some stuff, I’m recognizing some levels of trauma that are deeper than I even saw when we recorded that just a few months ago. So you are so right; it is an ongoing and unfolding process.

T: Yes. So, listeners, be gentle with people’s stories. They’re out there starting this journey and we want to as well. Onto who are these authors, and what are their books about? Keep in mind, we usually give a trigger warning – this is a spoiler alert warning. A little easier, but spoiler alert if you haven’t read these books or if you haven’t been following their stories in the news, we might tell you some things that you want to read the books first.

S: Yep. And there’s triggers too, right? I mean, there’s sexual abuse, there’s misogyny, there’s child… – anyway, it’s a shit ton of shit. So okay.

T: That’s what our new spoiler acronym should just be – a shit ton of shit.

S: Shit ton of shit coming – beware. Right, so the first book, The Woman They Wanted by Shannon Harris. Shannon was born in 1974, and that was just one year before I officially got saved.

T: Wow.

S: I know. Put it in a timeframe. So Shannon is now 49 years old, and we Tracey, are in our 60s.

T: Mmhmm. And we both did our deconstructing in our 40s though, which is interesting.

S: Early 40s, yeah.

T: Early 40s, but interesting note, yes. We have to make sure that the listeners always know that you are older than I am.

S: Fuck you Tracey.

T: I was earlier in my 40s than you were. Just so that we’re clear.

S: Fuck you Tracey, fuck you. Okay. So Shannon and Josh divorced in 2019. She was 45 then and I assume she began her deconstruction around that time as well.

T: Yes. The first announcement that I am aware of where Josh started publicly speaking was around 2019.

S: Alright. Quick synopsis of that book – Shannon’s upbringing; she was not raised in a Christian family. Some time when she was in college she was invited to a church. She got love bombed, all of us who were once fundys and evangelicals – we know what we do when we do that, right? So she gets love bombed, she becomes a Christian. She gets involved in the whole People of Destiny International – whatever that was; magazine, organization, church – she’s pulled into that sphere.

T: Yes. I think I referenced them in a previous episode, but my ex and I were big followers in the early 80s of People of Destiny magazine, and of the founders, who we’ll mention here in a minute.

S: Okay. Shannon gets sucked into the whole purity culture thing, the subjugation, the submissive role of women. She’s introduced to Josh Harris, and there was a facilitated engagement. CJ Mahaney, right? He kind of sets this thing up. She dives deep into that whole you need to deny yourself. She gets married, she gets deeper into the leadership structure of the organization. She starts recognizing that she is losing her true self, and eventually has kind of an emotional breakdown of sorts. That kind of catapults her to really getting out – fully getting out.

T: Wow yes, so much I’m sure that you can relate to parts of that story, about having a marriage facilitated in a very public way.

S: Yeah.

T: I’ve been following the news about Josh and Shannon since they made their announcement. Quick back story; we had already followed pretty hard after our own purity culture, which we talk about in our purity culture series. By this time I’m helping to raise my nephew, who is older than my children. He comes to live with us in his teens, and I take him to a Josh Harris seminar. Yes, I do.

S: That’s Don, right? That’s your nephew Don?

T: Yes. My nephew Don.

S: (quick sneak peek folks; Don’s going to be on an upcoming episode!) Okay, sorry.

T: No, that’s great, it’s a great plug. So we gave him that book, and even though I wasn’t reading that for myself, it was something that I was really connected to. I knew that Shannon’s book was coming because I was watching all the news stories of Josh deconstructing and then their divorce announcement, and I have history with Sovereign Grace Ministries. Way back in my hometown of El Paso, before I even joined Last Days Ministries, that’s how much of a teenage fundamentalist I was. I was already a part of a church of a church that would eventually become part of the Sovereign Grace family. Back then it actually became part of the People of Destiny International family of churches. Even before I went to Last Days this church is the one that sponsored me to the Bill Gothard Basic Youth Seminar…

S: Lucky you!

T: Look at me! I feel like my life has just been one tour of the culty culty culty shit, and how it all ends up coming back together. I didn’t understand church splits back when I was a teenager so a lot of it went over my head, but eventually they would go in hard with Larry Tomczak and CJ Mahaney, who were the leaders of this organization/church at the time. Very close friends of mine are still at the helm of the church leadership that’s still connected to Sovereign Grace Ministries. So I was interested, very interested what this book was going to say.

S: Yeah. Wow. Right, second book. Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar Dillard. She was born in 1991, which means she is the same age as my twins, my youngest boys.

T: Wow yeah. Right in the middle of my kids’ age ranges.

S: Yeah, you’ve got one younger and a few older, right?

T: Yes, because we were five kids and counting, and then we stopped counting.

[laughter]

S: You know what, if we could become a couple Tracey, we would have ten kids. It’s too bad.

T: Ahahahaha. We could have a great reality show!

S: Oh my god, we could. Well, Molly and Rachael think we should be a couple but you know, they’re wrong. Sorry girls, you’re wrong.

T: Well, you know, it’s not over till it’s over. There’s still some years to discover things about us.

[laughter]

S: Okay. Alright, well the quickie on that book – the Duggar family, as Tracey mentioned, they have this reality tv show on TLC which I never saw. I did not see that show.

T: Yeah, and same nephew that we referenced earlier, his wife was just in love with this show. She was always wanting to have it on, and of course, Don and I could never watch it. We were like nope, we’re out, we don’t want to see this, and I don’t think she quite understood it until now that she’s started to see the fallout of what’s been happening there. I never saw a whole episode either, but I was aware of the advertisements and the clips, and I could see all the little matching children in dresses and I was like, I can’t watch this.

S: Yep okay. So, Jill’s parents totally bought into the IBLP bullshit; purity culture, suppressing women, etc, etc. That whole philosophy was certainly a major factor in structuring their beliefs and all the crazy family stuff that went on. The oldest child, the brother Josh, he sexually molested some of his sisters, including Jill, plus I think a couple of other girls outside the family. It was totally covered up. Totally covered up. Then a few years later the sexual abuse becomes public, and Jill and her sister are forced to go on tv to do this interview to defend the family – and to some extent, their brother who molested them.

T: Yes. That interview was on Megan Kelly. I watched that live, again, because…

S: Oh my god, was it live or was it prerecorded?

T: It may have been prerecorded, but when I said live, I watched it as the first showing of it.

S: As it aired.

T: Yes, as it aired. It had a lot of attention, and of course I’m coming from it, expecting – and you’ll hear us kind of say that at different times in our podcast – I’m expecting for something to happen because that lifestyle is not sustainable. It’s just got so much stuff we’ve all been the victims of. As this was then gaining this national attention I absolutely wanted to watch that interview. I think, learning in this book – which I did not see, nor did I know at the time, none of us did, that Josh himself was in that room, off camera during that interview. Even as I watched it I didn’t have all the understanding that I have now, as we’ve been learning what it means to be traumatized by your abuser to that level, but I could tell this was a PR piece. Absolutely. And my heart did go out to these girls, because you could tell they were spinning the tale to keep this on the air. That was heartbreaking enough, and knowing Josh was in the room was a whole other level.

S: Oh my god. Yep. It’s betrayal. It’s betrayal from her parents not protecting her. It’s just unthinkable. Poor Jill – seriously, the betrayals just keep on coming for this young woman. The day before her wedding, her dad, Jim Bob, tricks her and the other kids into unknowingly signing a contract which obligates them for years to come to be in these tv shows. And, they get no financial compensation for it whatsoever. Jim Bob, the dad – he gets all the money. Later on, a few years later when they become aware and they ask for a copy of the contract, Jim Bob flat our refuses and he fails to even give them a copy of this thing that he obligated them to. That leads to Jill and her husband being prevented from joining a missions group that they had applied for, because they have to show they have no legal entanglements, and they can’t because their dad won’t give them a copy of the contract. Then, at the birth of Jill’s second child, she experiences a real life threatening medical emergency. She has a torn uterus – it’s just horribly traumatic. She and the baby almost died. It’s just really, really tough. Some time after all of that she does start to see a trained therapist. Then – and I think I’ve got this chronology right, but it might be slightly different – it’s discovered that Jim Bob committed tax fraud, claiming that he paid his kids but in fact they never received any money. So Jill and her husband have to go get a lawyer, and press to finally be given all the info so they can know where they stand, and it’s somewhere in all of this that she begins that really painful journey towards freedom, getting out from under control of her family, and kind of questioning and softening her own beliefs.

T: Mmmm. Mmm. Great synopsis, Sharon. For us, who didn’t really watch an episode, you could pick all that up from just the few clips they would show. It’s just dripping with all of the stuff we’re going to end up talking about. It’s really a heartbreaker just to hear her talk through in this story, and us on the outside seeing what a – I want to use all the bad swear words, thinking of how her parents just exploited, exploited, exploited, and took advantage of her. It’s pretty chilling.

S: Yeah. I saw the few little clips in the docuseries Shiny Happy People, but yeah, I never saw the Duggars tv shows at all. I’d heard about them, umpteen kids and counting, or whatever. Of course, that just made me sick to my stomach, because I knew how fucked up that family had to be. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen it in person – you know that’s what it’s like.

T: Yeah, and the weird thing is usually in those circles they’re not out to put themselves on tv. As a side note, we have a Last Days fellow member that also has 11 kids, and back in those early days I remember him referencing a famous family that they were friends with, and he gave them both the thumbs up of they’re the real deal, they’re a really great family. I’m pretty sure it was this family, early on.

S: Wow. Interesting.

T: That’s all I needed – when that family gave this family the thumbs up?…

S: Oh my god.

T: For reasons we’re going to get into, you’re going to know that no, this is not a show for me.

S: No. I remember back in our Last Days time hearing that phrase the umbrella of protection. Jill talks about that in the book. I remember seeing the diagram and hearing the name Bill Gothard – excuse me, I have to correct myself this time. Remember the name Bill Got Hard – and thinking yeah, this is good bible based stuff, right? I did not know that much about all the diabolical details in it, but the term Basic Youth Conflicts, or these conferences, I’m like – yeah, that sounds good. But I don’t remember hearing the phrase IBLP. What made me want to really read this book – besides the fact that you told me I had to, just about put a gun to my head…

[laughter]

S: …was when we got to talk in depth with two IBLP survivors on our own podcast, Abigail and Chad. You guys can go back and listen to those interviews, and of course watching that docuseries Shiny Happy People, then I’m like, yeah I’m all in. I want to hear what Jill has to say. But I tell you what, it also leads me to this point – I did find it really strange that in this book, Jill never mentions being in that documentary. Any ideas on that Tracey, why she might not have mentioned it?

T: No. I know that it was very brave of her to even go on that documentary as the only representative of the family, so I’m not sure if the timelines of these projects just crossed in a way that one manuscript was done before the other thing, not sure, but it really was when the docuseries Shiny Happy People came along that it gave voice and an in depth look at why this show had bothered us so much.

S: Show, meaning the 19 Kids and Counting.

T: Yes. When we would see it and I would turn away like, no I can’t watch it – really seeing the detail and account of everything that Shiny Happy People brought out, punctuated it. This is why we hate this, and we know families who have varying degrees of this kind of mindfuckery going on, and really this insight into the Duggars is just putting it all on display for all of us.

S: Yeah. If folks have not watched that docuseries, it’s really good.

T: So, back to these books. Within the stories of these books there are so many crossovers between the two stories, and of course, those crossovers are crossing over into the stories of our lives, and also evangelicalism as a whole. Some people would like to say these people they’re just crazy, they’re extreme, and we’re like, nope, no, no, no, there are so many tentacles that reach across into us. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

S: Yep. It’s a lot to try to get our arms around, Tracey. There’s a lot here.

T: There’s so much here. So many points to discuss. I think sometimes it can be overwhelming but Sharon, in your great, organized fashion, you’re like, well how about we break these into topics so we don’t just keep rambling about a big bucket of – what did you call it? What’s our new acronym?

S: A shit ton of shit?

T: A shit ton of shit. So we’re not just walking around the bucket of the shit ton of shit. Let’s break this down into the little tiny buckets of the shit so that we can have a coherent conversation.

S: I’m glad you yielded control, because I like being in control sometimes. Alright, well the topics are not in any particular order, just kind of as they came up for us, right? So, we‘re going to be comparing the experiences between Shannon and Jill, the authors of the two books, and then also Tracey, relating it to our experiences as well. The first comparison, or contrast, that I really want to emphasize is kind of the origin of the origin stories. By that I mean Tracey, you and I, we came into Christianity in our early teens. We jumped in all the way, right. We did this immediate swan dive off the thousand foot cliff. No hesitancy – all for Jesus. We were radical; we embraced it fully, no questions asked. The harder it was, the more that was required of us, the more right it felt. We realize now we were both escaping the pain from some really messed up families, including alcoholic parents. Shannon, it seems, she came to Christianity through social facilitation while in college. I’m not sure she started out as crazy, all in as we were from the get go. She did come from a divorced family, so that of course does bring pain and fear into the life of any child. It seems the promises of Christianity maybe offered safety for the future for her? Maybe that’s what it was. Maybe the extremism gradually kind of crept up on her, or she gradually crept into it. Now Jill, of course – she was born into the fucked fundamental evangelical extremism. This poor girl, she had no choice whatsoever.

T: Mmm hmm mm. Throughout our discussions we will be taking note of the similarities for sure, but also – and what I have to contend with in my own life – is that there is a difference for those of us (Sharon, Shannon, me) who chose to go all in, and then of course, the generation of those of our kids age who never got a choice in the matter, at all. From the very beginning of their life they were immersed in this, with no choice of their own. For listeners, if you are in that group we do want to say again, we do see you, we recognize how unfair that was, and we take ownership for our part in that.

S: Yeah. We are so sorry for what we and those of our generation did to you in your formative years. We can’t give you back what was stolen from you, but we can try to help the healing now. That’s why we’re doing this podcast.

T: Yes.

S: Alright Tracey.

T: So the first topic Sharon – spiritual justifications and manipulation. Or, we could sum it all up to say hubris. Hubris is my new favorite word.

S: Alright. Well, it permeates throughout both of the stories. At the heart of it all is that sense of pride, the elite thinking that we’ve got the answers, we’ve got the best answers. Quotes throughout Jill’s book especially, show you how that sense of being set apart is at the heart of all kinds of manipulation and justification. There were times when they were convincing the kids along the way – the Duggars were. It’s also part of Shannon’s slide into extremism, this idea that we have the really true truth, right?

T: Yes. That is the hook, and I know that we will be talking about that in more detail, but we definitely felt that from Last Days. Even when we followed the People of Destiny church, that was the hook. We are the truly true, radical ones that are going to live for Jesus in a different way.

S: You know Tracey, the holier than thou “holier than thou” – that is really what we believed we were. We wouldn’t admit it, but that is the reality of what our mindset was.

T: Yeah, so throughout this we’ll be pulling out some of the quotes from both Jills and Shannon’s books. One of the quotes that Jill gives is a really good illustration of that. I’ll just read it from her book, a day on the beach. It was one of those first moments that I remember feeling awkward about the difference between the safety of my family and the strange lands beyond it. I tried not to dwell on it too much, I told myself that whenever we were in situations like that, where we stood out – because they’re at the beach, and of course all of their garb – it was an opportunity to be a positive example to others, just by lifting life and showing others how true conservative Christians should live; set apart and unpolluted by the world.

S: Mmhmm.

T: Hmm. That was part of why we…

S: Wait, before you say that, do you remember going and swimming in the lake with our giant, heavy t-shirts and shorts?

T: Yes, and the lake you’re referencing was a lake on the property of Youth With A Mission.

S: Oh, so much fun there. So much fun.

T: Yes, and not all the Youth With A Mission team mates wore big shirts over their bathing suits, but Last Days Ministries associates did.

S: Yep, we were holier!

T: We were holier. We’ll be coming back to that quote that I think is an IBLP – I think it’s a framed quote in the actual IBLP locations that says Others May, You May Not. That really captures the hubris, and that sense of pride and elitism that is the hook for so many of us. I know it was that for us – we didn’t feel oh we’re missing out because we have to wear these big t-shirts. We felt we’re holier than these other people who aren’t as enlightened as we are, and are showing so much skin, and stumbling their brothers.

S: Mmhmm.

T: Ugh. It’s interesting reading Jill’s quote as she goes to the beach and they’re all dressed up. Many people know I raised my kids in Lancaster County, which is home to the Mennonite and the Amish, so we were used to seeing all manner of types of dress. Often when you would go hiking, or even to the beach, you would see the Mennonites there, and they would wear their full dresses. So it’s interesting how each of us in our own group – like, I never thought they were holier than I was because they wore long dresses, even though I thought I was holier than YWAMers because I wore a t-shirt. You have all this hierarchy going on of convincing yourself of why it is that your truth is the true example. I don’t know – what do you have to say about this Sharon? It’s illogical and it’s laughable, if it weren’t so painful and destructive.

S: It’s true – those comparisons, you’re not supposed to compare yourself with others, but we did. You’re not supposed to judge others, but we did. Yeah. I look back on it now and you’re right; it’s laughable and tragic. Both.

T: Yeah, and I think what then reinforces it – you know, Jill goes on and there’s another quote in her book: Nearly every day we’re getting emails from people who say they’ve been impacted. They’ve shared how they’ve given their lives to Jesus or started going to church again, or decided to have more children,…

S: Yaay…

T:… just by seeing Christian values portrayed through the show.

S: Okay, I just gotta say, that is – yes, that is the mindset they have, but it is so not honest, and not real, and not true, because they weren’t seeing a normal family. They’re getting subsidised by lots of money from the tv show, otherwise they could never do the things they were doing with all these kids, so they’re not portraying an honest picture of what it’s really like. They’re sweeping child sexual abuse under the rug, and yet they’re saying ah, but we’re winning people to Jesus, so it justifies everything. And that’s just part of that whole self mind manipulation and justification, and it’s just bleergh. It drives me crazy.

T: It is, but it’s so prevalent, right, we’re dealing with that in different – even churches that some of our family members still go to. It’s like well, you know, lives are being changed, and from the outside we know what that trajectory is going to look like, and I think somebody said it best- you’re all welcome at the beginning. All are welcome in until we start to try to change you.

S: Come as you are.

T: Yes.

S: But you can’t stay as you are.

T: You can’t stay as you are. You’ll see that technique and that love bombing that’s happening until like, Shannon is slowly losing parts of herself as she goes on. So one of the quotes from Shannon that led her into People of Destiny is: But no one else was doing Christianity right enough, or hard enough, or biblical enough. And that was what People of Destiny / Sovereign Grace said about themselves.

S: Tracey, we thought they were good, but we were better. Last Days was better.

T: Yeah. Ugh. But that is part of the hook for us. It really feeds that ego that we have of we’re set apart and we know the truth, and look at all this good. We’ll often hear from people after they listen to our podcast – but what about all the good? What about all the good?

S: Right, right.

T: When you start to peel back the layers of what it means to live in this kind of sustained – the death to self, you’ll see how poisonous this is.

S: Yep.

T: One more thing I know we have to bring in; the white, nationalist political movement, right?  That’s what happens as well, because in this, what you’ll hear from Jill a lot is this subtle conditioning that if you are living correctly, and if you are being set apart, and if you are different, there will be persecution that will come to you. That’s part of the deal. Quote Jill now: When you’re doing what’s right, you’re always going to be persecuted. Don’t ever forget that Jesus was persecuted, and he never sinned once in his whole life.

S: I’m throwing another quote in there because they both kind of go hand in hand. Again, this is Jill: I told myself that people’s confusion about Duggar family life was just another sign that we had been blessed by God with a wonderful opportunity to show the world how we live. So, it’s that yeah, if you’re persecuted, or people don’t understand or they think you’re weird, that is evidence that you’re doing right.

T: Yeah, and that’s such a slippery slope, when I get into the political movement – because what it does is it gives people permission to be rabid and hateful, and racist and all manner of terrible behavior, and then when people backlash them they’re like well, that’s the cost it takes to be on the side of righteousness. In many ways Keith had that right, that’s the thing that we’re seeing – he was excused for some awful behavior, some awful interpersonal skills because – well, he’s just being persecuted for Jesus’ sake. He’s the only one brave enough to say those things that other people wouldn’t say. So you basically have this conditioning to be a terrible citizen, a terrible participator in society.

S: Yeah, you know it is. It’s a mindset that allows you to block out any input from another source. So like, the family with all these kids, people could be questioning or challenging, or hell, even laughing at it, because you’re being so utterly ridiculous, or there’s hypocrisy, or sometimes people are being just a plain old asshole – as I think we’re going to see that Jim Bob tended to be at times, but this gives you something to hide behind so that you don’t have to really look at what you believe and how you are behaving. So the persecution, martyr complex – it’s a wonderful and powerful deflection against any possible input from someone on the ”outside” of your cult, of your tribe, of your way of thinking and really what it does is it short circuits your own critical thinking, because it suppresses you from questioning yourself or wondering. As you mentioned, Keith Green – he also used this. He was definitely into this. He used this type of thinking to plant the idea in my head, back when I was 14 and 15 years old, in high school, that my parents might want to throw me out of the house because I was now following Jesus. He said the scripture talks about this, this is going to happen. And he said I should come live with him. So, the more my parents were unhappy with my Christianity, the more I wore it as a badge of honor, that I must be following Jesus the right way – right?

T: Yes, and I don’t know if you had to deal with that as you started to have more children, but that was something our first four children (at least) – it happened at least in the first six years of our marriage, and so we were definitely getting that from extended family who were not in our belief system, and I also wore that as a badge of honor. Like, this is a sign of my commitment, this is a sign of my being sold out. They would throw things out like, how are you going to have enough money to pay for all those kids, and we would laugh. Ahahaha.

S: We trust God, right? We trust God.

T: Yeah. Again, we chose to go in and go in hard, but especially for all of us whether you’re born into it or chosen it, that spiritual justification, that slow manipulation, and that hubris that brings that hook in that just allows you to do that circular thinking that continues to confirm why you’re right. Because now people are actually pointing it out, and that’s proof.

S: Right. And you’ve got bible verses to support it. The wisdom of God is foolishness to the world, and all that other fun stuff.

T: Mmhmm. Which brings us to the second topic and it all goes along – like we said, the topics don’t necessarily stand alone because they bleed into each other, but that black and white thinking is very much a hook for young minds – I see that you were 14 when you started to be enticed by Keith Green. I was 15. I know Shannon was in college where there was a lot of starting to question your purpose and all of that, and of course Jill is just a young girl, even though she’s growing and maybe having some questions. The black and white thinking is right there to give her all the answers that she needs.

S: And psychology – looking at child development has really identified that the black and white thinking really is a hallmark – an appropriate hallmark – of early developmental phases, right? The right answer; the wrong answer; the absolutes. It makes sense and it’s also something that’s interesting – I think those that go hard into Christianity and set aside critical thinking – holding onto those black and white absolutes is very comforting. It’s very easy. And you get the preachers from the bible telling you more and more about it, and we want to be right. We want to know the right answers. We want to follow the rules. If we follow the rules, all will be good. It’s the promise. You will be the happiest you could possibly be if you follow the rules and do it right. There’s a quote from Shannon’s book: Living by principles is not living your own life. It is easier to try to be better than you are, than to be who you are. If you are trying to live by ideals you are constantly plagued by a sense of unreality. Somewhere, you think there must be some joy. It can’t be all “must”, “ought to”, “have to”. When the crunch comes, you have to recognize the truth. You weren’t there. This is Marion Woodman addiction to perfection, and I want to say this denial of self is really part of the whole black and white thinking. It’s part of that suppression of any of your own desires, and because you’re suppressing your own desires and your own personality and who you are, you also then have to put everything in the terms of what does God want. Because it’s gotta be what God wants. Again, that’s the black and white. I find it interesting, especially in Jill’s book, how many times that they need to pray about it, and hear from God, and what does God want. You’ve got to find God’s will for everything. You can’t say what do I want to do, or what would I prefer. You have to say I prayed about this and I think God is telling me, or I have a peace about this – or remember, I have a check in my spirit. Because we’re taught that if it’s from me, it is not good. That’s the black. If it’s from God, it is good. That’s the white. So I must find a way to make anything and everything be about and from God.

T: Yes. Some people are more wired to be very successful in this system. You can see throughout Jill’s book multiple times where she references she liked the rules. She was told the only person you should ever kiss is the one you marry on your wedding day. I liked this simple rule, says Jill. It made sense to me.

S: Because it takes work Tracey, it takes work to ponder and question, and find your own internal moral compass. That can be scary if there’s no absolutes, right?

T: Yes, and I think for me, and I think maybe some of it is in your story, I also saw the fallout of people making choices that were very unhealthy and not good. In my young teenage brain it was like well, that’s bad, and the Jesus box is good, so let me follow the Jesus box and won’t get addicted to alcohol and I won’t get addicted to drugs, and I won’t have these painful relationships. I can see that same thinking throughout Jill’s book – her parents taught her that the world out there was full of all these bad, scary things, and as long as she followed these simple truths she would have this very blessed and successful life.

S: Yeah, and back to the immaturity of the all or nothing black and white thinking. Tracey, I think we have an interesting example of this, maybe you can share with the listeners. Remember that time when my ex-husband (I don’t think he was my ex yet, we were still together); he was talking about how if you Tracey, rejected the bible, the authority of the bible and what it taught, there would be no controls over you and what you might then do. Can you talk about what happened?

T: Yes, and so we were in the black and white thinking until we got out of the black and white thinking, and then we had to confront or be confronted by all the people still in the black and white thinking, and one of them was Sharon’s ex. He sent me this very lengthy letter that said if I, Tracey, reject the foundation of the bible as true, there is nothing now that’s mooring me to my morality, and now there would be nothing that would stop me, Tracey, from taking an AK47 into the streets and opening fire. That was his leap. You follow the bible, you obey the bible, you obey the rules; you now don’t follow the bible and it’s just a free for all.

S: You’re a mass murderer now that you don’t follow the bible.

T: I’m going to take that leap to become a mass murderer – I, who even at the time would trap spiders and free them, I would try to let the spider live and take them outside, so that was very much an extreme version of that black and white thinking.  But some people, that’s what they think – if you do not adhere to this, it’s a slope downward, and it’s fast.

S: Yep. You know, another episode we will dive into the ideas of why there absolutely are morals and ethics and societal connections that have nothing to do with religion; that have everything to do with being human. Being a healthy human. But another episode, right.

T: Yes.

S: Next topic. Suffering as Christians.

T: Oh. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,

S: Which is kind of along the lines as we were talking before, about being persecuted and being martyrs, but this is a little bit different. This is not like what’s coming to you from the outside – well some of it is, but it’s more a sense of who we are and what we need to expect.

T: Yes, and I did a special ding, ding, ding bell because I would say this is really one thing that set a lot of people at Last Days apart. We embraced the scripture, the fellowship of the sufferings of Jesus. It became equated to our spirituality, the depth of the suffering that we would endure.

S: Mmhmm. And to crucify the flesh.

T: To crucify the flesh. That is one topic that we share with both Shannon and Jill, and you can see it woven throughout their entire book; how they are being indoctrinated by that same message. And with that message, you can achieve all manner of suppression and oppression of people, because they help you. They help do the work.

S: That’s right.

T: One of the quotes from Shannon’s book: Very simply, we were taught we did not belong to ourselves.

S: Right.

T: That’s the start of that foundation, right? We don’t belong to ourselves, we belong to Jesus, and then if Jesus suffered, how much more are we also to suffer.

S: Mmhmm. Here’s a few quotes from Jill’s book. But I also knew that sacrifice was an essential part of serving God. Ministries sometimes require sacrifice, mom and pops would say, quoting Psalm 34:19. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. I’ll go ahead and read a couple more of hers. All my life I’d been taught that ministry comes with hardships. That following God inevitably involves suffering, so in some ways this negative feedback was kind of a relief. That would be helping her know yeah, if I’m suffering, I must be doing it right.

T: Mmhmm.

S: One last: All my life I’d been taught that suffering was good. For anyone doing the Lord’s work, pain was to be accepted, even embraced. Now I just want to leverage this one step further. We’re saying yes, sacrifice and suffering, but do you remember Keith’s song based on 1 Samuel 15:22? To obey is better than sacrifice. So that’s even more leverage for unquestioned, instant obedience, because who are you going to obey? You’re going to obey your leaders in the Lord. You’re going to obey your parents. You’re going to obey your husband. So that totally primes us for manipulation and mind control, because obedience is put even on a higher pedestal, a greater godliness than sacrifice.

T: Yes. You’ll see it very clearly through Jill’s book, and also Shannon, because that was a very important tenant of the People of Destiny, Sovereign Grace Churches was that obedience and that leadership structure. If you remember Sharon, one of the chilling interviews on the docuseries Shiny Happy People, they talk about this. We’re going to circle back around as we get further into this, but how this does prime you for an environment of abuse. A culture of abuse. If you’ve conditioned everybody that suffering is part of being godly – do you remember what one person said, they almost felt sad that they weren’t one who had been abused, because they didn’t have the treasures that somebody else had developed. To me that is so important, and we’re going to see that later on as we start to get into the sexual abuse scandal part. But this is not just your own personal trauma. This is setting a stage to develop an entire culture of trauma that will allow people to remain silent, because they expect it. They welcome it. Ugh.

S: Remember that mantra also in that documentary, that Michelle Duggar was so proud because she was getting this little toddler, this maybe three year old kid to say what is expected of you? Instant, joyful obedience! Instant, which means you do not have time to think. You are not allowed to think. Instant obedience.

T: Instant obedience.

S: Fucked up. Just fucked up.

T: It is, and we could see it so clearly when you’re seeing this little child repeat those words, but that was very much at the foundation of Last Days Ministries, was very much at the foundation of Youth With A Mission teaching, at the foundation of Sovereign Grace, and clearly Bill Gothard IBLP, conditioning a generation and a people to obey. At the heart of that we can’t trust in our own heart, right, we have to obey what God says. I’m going to read another quote from Shannon. The essential teaching is called total depravity, which teaches that people are corrupt at the core. Even the good that can come from a person is said to be God acting from within them, and not the actual person.

S: Yep.

T: So you have this total obedience, and this breakdown of any trust of your own internal voice.

S: That’s right. Because your righteousness is filthy rags. You are the black. You are the black, and God is the white. But, do you see God? No. You don’t see God. God’s put authority over you in the form of your parents, your husband, your pastor – they are the ones that are going to tell you the white that you need to find. The white of God.

T: Yes. Which then leads into that other great saying from the IBLP docuseries: This kind of teaching basically equipped every father to be his own cult leader in his own family. So that brings us to the cult leader that we all love to hate: Jim Bob Duggar.

S: Okay wait, I’ve gotta say this. I’m gonna admit one of my character flaws, Tracey. I am definitely guilty of holding a stereotype in my mind against anyone with a name like Jim Bob. So Tracey, you’ve always been the better, more spiritual person. Help me out here, please! Help me.

T: I mean, I don’t think I can be much help, because I just wanna say can we all agree on how awful Jim Bob is? You could tell in Jill’s story – at least, I felt like I could tell – that she’s trying to be gracious, right. She’s really not trying to lob missiles and blow things up. She’s trying to go the extra mile to really call out those great things, and even in that I think this book magnified his awfulness for sure.

S: Can I just say, I believe because she is early in her journey of coming out of the fog, she does not see it as clearly as it really is. I just want to be gracious and give that to her.

T: Yeah. I mean, as mothers that we are and fellow women that we are, and further on in this journey that we are, we’re like, you have been so exploited and under the cult leader of someone who has taken so much advantage of you that it’s not even borderline. This is pretty shocking and chilling.

S: Yes, you can tell in the book that Jill really does love her parents. Truly, she does. Even though – I’m going to be honest; he’s a total shit when it comes to what’s really important. Jill’s view of her father – we know that every child wants to look up to their parents, believe they are good. We want our parents to kind of be our hero figures, right – that’s human psychology 101.

T: Yes. That’s part of what’s been so hard for me in all of this, because I look at the fathers in some of our circles Sharon, and they are the ones that were on the cutting edge of let’s not use birth control, let’s have as many kids as we can have, and through time we have seen so much of that similar kind of attitude that these are a group of nameless, faceless people that are my task, to some degree. Not an understanding of their individuality, of who they are as precious people, and that’s something that I have struggled with for my kids’ sake, as we have been divorced and moved on, and I have seen that this mindset now is still taking the fathers away from the children. They’re the ones that suffer. They suffer from the neglect; they suffer from the exploitation; they suffer from somebody else, something else has their heart. I could see that and hear that all throughout Jill’s story, and that did break my heart.

S: Well, kids also – if you really want to break down the quiver full scripture right – as arrows in the hands of a mighty warrior, so are – what is the scripture? I can’t remember –  thank GOD I can’t remember it anymore.

T: Yeah.

S: The whole point is, the kids are tools. They are tools in the hands of the father, to do the work of God. They are not seen as their own individuals with their right to self determination; they are tools. And they are used, because that’s what you do with a tool. You use it.

T: Yeah, and then you know, for the ones in our circles – because listeners, we have talked about some of the pairings that happened at Last Days, were pretty catastrophic for some of them, and many of them had a bunch of kids. You see the fallout from that has been the mantra that Jill continues to say throughout the book; children are a blessing, children are a blessing, children are a blessing, but you don’t see that that is how these fathers are relating to these children. It’s something – I know we’re not talking about the sister wives, that other terrible show on TLC that’s actually a significant storyline there as well; this man now has over 20 children and it feeds the ego, and it’s something like I’ve got my city, I’ve got these arrows, these tools, but it’s all back on God, right. God is the provider, not me. I don’t have to live up to all of these other obligations – not even obligations, like joy. They’re missing the joy somehow, in all these children.

S: You don’t have time!  You don’t have time.

T: Yeah. I think when they then have failed at these marriages, they’ve failed at a task, not the individuals that they may have failed. You see that throughout Jim Bob’s story. Every time there’s a failure that is being broadcast throughout the nation, he is doing all this double time to keep it covered up, to protect his empire, not thinking of the individual children being impacted. One of the things while I was reading, because Jill, she’s grown up, she’s moved on, she’s now a mother, but I think of all those other little children, who even to the rest of us, are kind of this group of no-names. Jill even refers to them as “the littles”. You think of their individual needs, and you think of their individual fears, and you think of the things they have to struggle through, and it breaks my heart that Jim Bob continues to uphold this weird empire that just runs roughshod over each one of those precious beings.

S: That’s so well said Tracey. That’s so, so true. You know, towards the end of the book Jill talks about how she is really giving her father an out. She’s saying how it must have been the tv show that changed Jim Bob. But now remember, this is a man who lied to his kids; who induced them to sign something, they had no idea what they were signing; who committed tax fraud, and who covered up and did not report the sexual predation of his son on his own daughters. So I have to say as you get towards the end of the book, and you see what Jim Bob is doing, I think this is probably just revealing who the man Jim Bob always was. It just didn’t have opportunity to be seen so publicly. But I don’t think he changed. I think it is the essence of who the man has always been.

T: I tend to agree with you, because one of the things I’ve seen in this belief system is they’re the first ones to get on the soap box for family values, family values, but again it’s a task that’s being carried out, and you can see that – I was horrified Sharon, even at the contract. I was like, who is this person? Who would do that?

S: Right. But you know, here’s another quote she says, about him, because she truly does love him and look up to him. She says: He was the same, honest, upstanding Christian man at work as he was whenever he was talking to us kids at home. So I’m going to turn that around and go, Jill I think you’re right. He was the same man at work and in his business as when he was talking to you at home, which means he manipulates, he deceives, he uses, he abuses, he bullies, and talking to you kids at home when you were little, and you were compliant – you didn’t see that side of him, because you were going along. He didn’t have to be a bully to you because you did everything he asked. But as soon as you start having some sense of individuality, and as soon as you don’t go exactly 100% along with his agenda, serving his needs, it changes, and you get to see who he really, really is. You can see that is how he protects his son, his pedophile son, versus protecting his daughters. In the “ministry” – he wants to show the real life of real Quiverfull Christians, but no it’s not really the real life. It’s altered for tv; he’s providing for his family with the money that he gets from the reality tv, but other Christian families can’t do that. He says his calling from God is to show how having as many children as possible is the real blessing from God – that’s still all about him.

T: It is.

S: And he is controlling his kids. He’s controlling his kids’ behavior, their beliefs, their emotions, their finances – even as adults. Everything. So in that sense, I agree. He was the same man in the work world and to the world as he was with the kids. It just lacked the opportunity to show what was really there.

T: Yes. And the agenda – you can see, when you said agenda that’s what it was really about. Eventually she has another quote, because when they do finally have that opportunity to clash, here’s what she says about Jim Bob in that meeting. His words were typically vague, designed to shut debate down, not invite it. So while there were a ton of questions that we (talking about Jill and her husband) we could have asked, nobody was saying anything. Our main job in these family meetings was usually just to listen. Substantive issues were not up for discussion.

S: Nope. That’s parents controlling the children from the time they’re born, and thinking they can and should do it all through adulthood. It’s just fucked up. Fucked, fucked, fucked up.

T: With a God given mandate, right.

S: Or at least a Bill Got Hard mandate, yeah.

T: And so you can’t talk about Jim Bob without talking about his supportive wife, Michelle Duggar.

S: Okay Tracey, so here’s another dark piece of my heart. When I saw the Shiny Happy People docuseries, and Michelle is talking – her cartoon character, sweet submissive, high pitched soft voice – I mean, Tracey, it drove me fucking crazy. I know what she’s playing at. I KNOW what she’s playing at. The sad thing is, she has done it for so long maybe it’s not play acting in her mind anymore, but it just makes me feel so agitated I wanted to slap her. Snap out of it woman! Talk in your normal, real voice, for fuck’s sake!

T: Yeah, that was something we’ve heard about from the IBLP survivors, that they really do condition that in the women. I know that you and I never had that. We were never conditioned to have a different kind of voice, but I was really on the pathway to try and have a quiet and gentle spirit, as the scripture says.

S: Oh right! Yeah, yeah, that gentle and quiet spirit that is so precious in the sight of God – I remember praying that too. I remember praying because I’m like okay, I’m kind of loud and I’m kind of strong. God please help me, please help me because I did feel that I was not as precious in the sight of God because I was not quiet and I was not gentle and meek. So yeah, I get that.

T: Yeah, and I think that this Michelle going to that level of trying to make herself what she thinks she’s supposed to be. I never added the voice, but I did try to stay silent more often than not – not more often than not; more often than I would have. Let me say it that way.

S: More often than was natural for you.

T: Yes, and particularly around the children. That’s why they didn’t necessarily see stuff that behind closed doors, is when I was more likely to have some of the more serious conversations if I disagreed with something. We’ll get into that – Shannon has some wonderful quotes as she starts to unpack what that means, to become smaller and to have a softer voice. But I think that’s her answer to that, and I do remember my sister coming to live with me at one point – who had known me all my life, and was saying this to me, of why are you behaving differently around your husband than I know you to be? So I must have achieved enough of this quietness, enough of this subdued nature that she could notice, even though I never did the soft sweet voice.

S: Yeah. One of the quotes from Jill in the book, she says I also see mom more clearly these days. I see the myriad ways she cared for us when we were growing up; the sacrifices she made, and the depths of her love for people. I love her, respect her, look up to her. I do think that is beautiful. We want to find the good in people. I don’t know Michelle Duggar’s heart. I have no reason to doubt that she didn’t truly love her children, and yet the beliefs and behaviors that she went all in for were destructive to her children.

T: Yeah, and ongoing. Were and are.

S: Were and are destructive. No doubt.

T: What’s chilling about some of the stuff that Jill says is I don’t know how many kids they would have continued to have, but it was clear that that got ratings, and that there seemed to be a big push to have more babies, because that’s where the ratings were, and that’s what set them apart by having so many kids, at the expense of their health and wellbeing, and the burden and impact to the other children in the family. I stopped at five, but on my last baby I was bed ridden for a period of time. It wasn’t even the whole nine months, but I ended up having to get bed rest because the baby was planted too low in my uterus – on number five. My oldest child had to pick up the slack and start doing laundry. That was something that was a wakeup call to me, I could see that was not fair to my other children. I am not there for them, and if I keep having more kids it’s going to denigrate how much of a mother I can be to them. Thankfully there was still a part of me that could hear that inner voice in me and I think what they have at play is that her health and the wellbeing of their family continues to be sacrificed on the altar for ratings. To get to 19 blows my mind, but at the top of this podcast, at the top of his episode I mentioned another family that knew this family, and I know that to be an element in that family, that they continued to have children, even in the face of some serious health issues with the mother. I’m telling you, that is some evil stuff there.

S: I’m gonna say; I don’t know that they kept having kids primarily for the tv ratings. It first got discovered by the tv producers – they already had 14, I think?

T: I think it was 12. But maybe 14.

S: Whatever the number was, Tracey I think they were just so deep into this brainwashed shit they were going to keep having kids no matter what, with or without tv. Maybe I’m not quite so cynical to think it was just about the publicity. I think it was their belief.

T: Yeah. It was. He seemed to take a special glee, and I think when she finally hit that last one when there was problems and that disappointment that there wouldn’t be any more children, is not because he really does delight in each individual. It has now become – his identity. It’s very weird.

S: He has to live up to it. That’s there too, right. You’ve been saying you have to trust God and have as many kids as God wants you to. Alright, well now if you have physical problems with it and you decide not to, does that mean you don’t trust God anymore? And now that you’ve been so public on a national and international stage, how are you going to back off of it? So maybe that part of it did play – but I do think they did truly honestly believe it.

T: Yeah. Yeah.

S: Two other quick things that kind of come with that. The reality show – as we’ve already hit on – it really wasn’t really real, right?

T: Surprize!

S: The money from the show, they were able to actually buy groceries that they like, when the show producers are giving the money and filming them going grocery shopping. When they’re not being filmed going grocery shopping, nah, they’re buying much less and crappier food. And this big, incredible house with the dual kitchens and everything – that money was given to them by the tv show and the interior decorating and the furniture – all of that came from the television show. So kudos to Jim Bob for figuring out how to scheme this thing and get the goods for his family, but that’s certainly not representative of the “average Christian family” that’s going to have a dozen or more kids and try to survive on one income. I mean, holy fuck! It just was not really real, but they want to show it as that.

T: As real.

S: As real. And yeah, the tv producers, they know this is just entertainment and that’s why they’ll do retakes and staging and all that kind of stuff, so back to that spiritual justification that Jim Bob says this is our mission, this is our ministry because we’re showing the world what a real Christian, Godly family looks like. No the fuck you’re not. It wasn’t real.

T: Right. It wasn’t real, and it crossed over into a machine very quickly, right.

S: Yeah.

T: So it becomes a machine that it’s hard to extricate yourself from.

S: Yep. So all these kids, right? All these kids.

T: Yeah, now it’s your livelihood.

S: Now it’s your livelihood. So, all these kids, Tracey. We’ve kind of already started on it a little bit. You and I both bought into the no birth control. I was slower to the party than you.

T: Yes, but you caught up to me very quickly, so you get points for that.

S: Thank you.

T: I think that’s why I had such an aversion to this show, because there were so many bits and pieces in my life that crossed into that. They were definitely extreme, by most families. That’s why they had a national tv show, right. They were in the extreme part of the spectrum on that. But the whole term parentification has come about.

S: Yeaaah.  I hadn’t ever heard that term before all this Tracey, and yeah, it’s chilling. It’s real and it’s chilling.

T: It is. And it’s that belief when you have all these children – well then, especially the older daughters, they’re going to be raised to learn to take care of the younger babies, because that’s their purpose anyway. That’s what they’re going to be eventually getting married and having babies of their own. I bought into that. I remember reading an article or something that talked about how do you ease the burdens of home schooling. Here I am with four kids under five; eventually my fifth one comes along. He is needing to be home schooled, he’s on a very different educational path than the older kids, so then the answer is you bring in the older kids to teach him. And it sounded like a great idea.

S: It’s like Little House on the Prairie, right? It’s like, oh isn’t that sweet and wonderful!

T: And it’s like how better to learn a subject than to teach a subject – there is definitely some logical things that I thought this was a good idea. Thankfully my oldest completely pushed back on this. I mean, vehemently pushed back and said I am not teaching your kids how to read.

[laughter]

T: And again I want to bring us back to – remember, I wasn’t raised in this so I didn’t have indoctrination going back to my childhood. As a matter of fact, my mother and father were raised Catholics myself, and my mother came from an environment where she had a lot of large Catholic families that she went to school with. One of the things she used to say to me growing up, just randomly, because we lived in military housing and there would be families with six and seven children, she would often say it’s really unfair for the older kids in those families. It’s really unfair that they can’t have a childhood because they’re having to take care of the younger kids. She would bring that up in several different circumstances, and that always stuck with me. So when I was on bed rest my mother’s wisdom was churning around in my head, this is unfair, this is unfair to your kids. And when my own daughter pushed back I had something besides indoctrinated fundamentalism to draw upon. I think that’s part of why I was able to eventually break out. I think of Jill and what she’s had to go through – she never had that. This has been her life from the beginning.

S: It’s been her life, and here’s a quote from her, and it just breaks my heart. Let me just set this up; it breaks my heart because her whole life, the idea of having as many kids as possible is evidence of God’s blessing. It’s evidence of your obedience. It’s evidence of your dedication. It’s what makes life worth living. It’s everything. And here she is having a real possibility, with her second child and all the medical problems, that might be it. And now her whole sense of identity and being able to be pleasing to God and being able to be a good servant of God – everything rests on this have a shit ton of kids. So this is what she said when she was wrestling with can I just be happy with the two kids I have. But in my world, big families were everywhere. If you didn’t have one, then there was probably something wrong with your body. I hated that I could still feel the involuntary recoil at the stigma. I had always been told that we should “trust God”. It’s heartbreaking to read her heartbreak.

T: Yes, wow. That really is, and I think of Abigail when she was sharing her story with us from the IBLP and that stigma that she definitely could identify with, because her family came to it later.

S: They only had two kids. And you couldn’t hide.

T: And the stigma.

S: So your lack of faith in God, your lack of obedience to God, whatever, is right there on display for the whole world to see. Because they can count them. Oh, only two kids.

T: So twisted.

S: So twisted. This actually transitions into the next topic which is the whole financial impact of all of this.

T: Which is a big one for me, Sharon.

S: Yeah.

T: We decided out of the gate not to use birth control when we got married, at Last Days Ministries, which was going to be interesting because that would take me out of the workforce once I had a baby. But even then it was a little bit easier because we were at a ministry that our food and board and everything is taken care of, right. But of course, another episode, ministry blows up and we are suddenly launched from this ministry seven months after we were married, to make our way in the world. We’re like the three little pigs and the house that gets blown down. Go make your way into the world, little ones! Thankfully my ex did have a college degree and we did have parents.

S: You were pregnant when you left?

T: I was pregnant when we left. I was seven months pregnant when we left. We had no health insurance, no job, no place to go. We had all of that to figure out, but of course my job is to have the baby and care for the baby, so it was never even on the docket that I would work outside the home. The toll that that takes, and that’s just the first one, but we ended up paying off the first one for four or five years, because we had no health insurance. As time marched on and we got to number five and it’s still on one income, it became increasingly stressful, so I could really relate to some of Jill’s stories as she’s talking even before they had the tv show, and she mentions eating beans, and you could tell the diet was not very good, because what was he doing – they had 12-14 kids at that time before the tv show, and we had five, and it was a huge financial stress. Of course, my ex, I don’t think is allowed to have stress because that would be unbelief, so he just internalizes it and buries it, and I am feeling I can’t spend this and I can’t spend that, and I can’t have this and I can’t do that, and so even in that environment you have resentment starting to percolate, you have children that you’re seeing are going to have to go without because there’s just not the financial means. So I see the appeal to Jim Bob to have this deal that could help them out of some of their financial difficulties.

S: Yeah, there was one thing where she talks about how when the tv show was being filmed, and some of them had to go out and run errands in town, whether it was taking kids to music lessons or dentist appointments or something like that, when the tv filming was going on, they were given money so if the littles (as they called them), if the littles were hungry they could stop and buy them some food. But when the tv show wasn’t filming they had to take a crock pot of chilli or beans in the car with them, so during the course of the day if the kids got hungry they could just spoon out these beans to them, because they didn’t have the money to go grab a couple of burgers. So yeah, the financial strain was really real, and that’s why the reality tv show was not really real.

T: Yes, and the financial stress for these families that are supposedly watching this and now all having, is a big dark side that’s not talked about. I know that as I started posting on Instagram some of my story, I was surprized at how many people messaged that said that was their experience too. I mean, kids that didn’t have – couldn’t do any outside activities. Then the home becomes everything; you can’t afford any kind of music lessons; you can’t afford any kind of dance lessons. You’re going to the restaurants (which I thought was a particularly hilarious story, because we did it), where you find those places where kids under five eat free, and you build that into your weekly treat for the children. One of the things that they’ve said that was a step too far in that documentary, is they prided themselves on basically sinking the restaurant on that, which I think is a terrible thing. We did not. We were really grateful, but looking for any kind of freebies in the area just to help give a balanced childhood to kids. It’s tough.

S: It is tough.

T: Very, very tough to make it on one income with any amount of multiples of children.

S: Yeah, but Jim Bob’s empire helped change that all because the money started flowing, and the kids did not – even the adult kids, on whose backs this show was being carried for the ratings, they did not get any of that financial benefit, but boy he’s – he’s raking it in. He’s buying rental properties, he’s got airplanes. This is one thing Jill said: I didn’t want to ask how much the plane had cost, or where the money had come from. Now Tracey, you and I, we’ve had some very personal experience with a famous public Christian figure making more and more and more money, and then justifying the expense of a small airplane or two.

T: Yeah, it’s human nature right, you see it, but the difficulty in this is you’re claiming Godly ministry while you’re being sucked down the tube of the greed and the machine that you’re willing to feed your own children to, to make it. That’s – apart from the criminal things that we’ll actually talk about, is the criminal part of this too. This is on the backs of aren’t these children a blessing; aren’t we just so Godly, and it makes your stomach turn.

S: Yep, it does. All that financial malfeasance – we’ve kind of touched on it. And I’m going to recommend the book, folks; it’s really worth reading, both of these books are really worth reading.

T: Yes, and if you can read these books before we pick up part two of this, then you will be able to follow along even more closely, because we have more topics to get into. Some of the stuff that really hits close to our heart, child abuse, and then of course, unpacking women and our empowerment.

S: Or disempowerment.

T: The disempowerment.

S: Yep.

T: Which Shannon does a beautiful job of really writing some beautiful quotes in.

S: I’m going to shame people. I’m going to do it right now.

T: You’re going to shame people?

S: Yeah. We read both those books in one week, so you folks, you have two weeks in which to read those books – but you don’t really have to.

T: Yes, because we’re going to unpack the key points – so we’ll end it for here, and we’ll take it up for part two where we’ll go into even more detail, Sharon.

S: Yes, we will. Hey people, thank you so much for listening, and if you could do us a big favor, whatever podcast platform you are on, please go in and give us a rating, and if you have a moment or two, a few words of review. When you do that it helps us move up in the search engines – I’m not techno savvy, Tracey. I feel like I’m a parrot saying words I don’t understand.

[laughter]

T: That’s never good, it probably got you into trouble at one point in your life.

S: Anyway, but rate us and review us, and tell your friends about us, please.

T: Yes. And I put in here, I feel a little cringy saying that because we’re not out to get anything from this. We are just out to share our stories, but it is a lot of work to go into sharing our stories, so the more people that can hear them, it makes us feel better. So go out and rate us and review us, it doesn’t do anything for us financially, it just helps us put this together.

S: It makes us feel validated.

T: It makes us feel validated – that sounds so terrible.

[laughter]

S: Oh man, I think we should just say goodbye, Tracey.

T: I think we should.

S: Oh except, Instagram, Feet of Clay.cultsisters. She’s always putting up crazy stuff, so enjoy.

T: See you in a couple of weeks.

S: Bye everybody.