The Prodigal Summer Series Part 1: Prodigal Children
Welcome to STRONGWILLED, the multimedia project aimed at helping survivors of religious authoritarian parenting methods develop autonomy and find solidarity.
Welcome to our new series on estrangement! This episode we discuss what Focus on the Family and the James Dobson Institute are saying about estranged adult children. This episode focus on the reasons given for estrangement, as well as what we think is actually driving estrangement.
You can read more about religious authoritarian parenting and also find the transcript for this podcast at strongwilledproject.com
You can join our patreon community or at ghost to support this podcast and listen to our series about the developmental impacts of growing up in a high control religion, as well as join our discord community.
You can follow STRONGWILED on Instagram. You can follow Krispin on Instagram here and DL on instagram here.
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TRANSCRIPT
(transcript has been lightly edited for clarity)
Krispin: Welcome to the STRONGWILLED Podcast. We are starting a new series today.
DL: A new series! It's Krispin and D.L. and we're back on your main feed.
Krispin: And we're doing the Prodigal Summer series 'cause it's a prodigal summer.
DL: It's a prodigal summer, y'all. I don't know if you have heard, but it is. And we're going to talk about it.
So we have tons going on, but we're very excited to do a podcast series this summer where we're kind of focusing in a little bit on estrangement, enmeshment, and how the religious authoritarian communities are talking about estrangement.
Krispin: Estrangement and also leaving evangelicalism as well.
DL: Well, leaving Christianity, leaving evangelicalism. That's all a part of the prodigal summer.
Krispin: Well, it's funny 'cause, I mean, as we'll get into, some of it is like, "My kids are going to this new church."
DL: It’s quite the range of what people are saying is prodigal behavior.
Krispin: Yes.
DL: If you grew up Christian, you know what prodigal means. You know it's referencing a specific story Jesus supposedly told.
Krispin: I like how you just threw that little supposedly in there.
DL: Oh my God. Are people aware of me or my feelings yet? But yeah, we're going to be talking about that. And so we have to have a few caveats and conversations before we get into our summer series.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: But I just want to say to everyone, we've missed you. We've been incredibly busy, and we've both been working on books.
Krispin: Yeah, we're each working on a book right now.
DL: I know, we're so cool. And why can't we space it out better, Krispin?
Krispin: This is sort of how it always goes.
DL: This is how the muse works. You can't control it that much.
So we've been hard at work on that, and we've also been hard at work on our series that you're mostly running for our Patreon and paid subscribers, where we're going through the developmental phases of a person and how religious authoritarian parenting methods impact each of those stages.
We've already released the first one on infancy and corporal punishment, and then we'll be doing toddlerhood.
Krispin: Yeah. I mean, to give my pitch for it–
DL: Yeah, do it!
Krispin: There is a lot out there about religious trauma in general, a lot about abusive leaders, toxic churches, et cetera. I think that there's not a lot about what are the impacts of growing up in this way.
DL: Yeah, yeah.
Krispin: And so what I'm doing is I'm looking at each developmental phase, so infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, teenage years, looking at each of those and asking what are the typical developmental milestones during that, and how might that be impacted if you grew up in a high-control religion or with religious authoritarian parents?
DL: Yeah. And I think it's a great blend of sort of like zooming out, thinking about these issues, but also some real, practical, this is how it could impact you. And it's great if you want to process this stuff at a deeper level, at a more personal level. And you can listen to those episodes whenever you want.
So you can just join our Patreon for $4 a month or become a paid subscriber on STRONGWILLED Project. Thank you to everyone who already does that. Thank you to everyone who supports this.
Yeah, so we're going to continue doing that series once a month, and we also have some more fun stuff coming up for the actual website and our posts.
Krispin: You say fun.
DL: Well, it's fun to me. It’s fun to me.
Krispin: D.L.'s been continuing to do deep dives about James Dobson's eugenicist roots.
DL: Oh my God, I have so much more Paul Popenoe information. I can't even handle it. But we're not there yet.
Krispin: So those are the fun things to look forward to.
DL: Ugh. Well, this is a great segue into our Caveat Corner with D.L. Mayfield.
Krispin: Right.
DL: Which is that talking about estrangement is tough. It's tough stuff, and I'm just going to be honest and say that the way I'm going to approach these episodes for our summer series is I'm going to be all over the map.
And that's the warning. That's it. I'm sorry if I can't be perfect when talking about this because it's a complicated thing. I'm going to be both flippant and very intense. That's just how I'm going to deal with this. That's my caveat. I don't know what else to say. What would you say? You're a therapist, so you probably have better ways of preparing people.
Krispin: Well, I think just, yeah, it is a really difficult, tender subject.
DL: Yes.
Krispin: And also some of the rhetoric out there and the way that we see people engaging it is really hilarious.
DL: Yeah. And if you're listening to this, you've probably listened to our other stuff. Like, we've been sad. We've talked about the grief, we've talked about the trauma of our own experiences, and we're not going to do that today.
Krispin: I think in a lot of ways, when I think about my own process, going through estrangement was a really, really painful experience for me.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: And also it's helpful sometimes to kind of dip into, like, I've taken this, these people so seriously.
DL: Oh my God, so seriously.
Krispin: So seriously. And I think that there's a way of kind of finding some power to be like, "Y'all are really ridiculous."
DL: Exactly. This is a pretty well-known move in authoritarianism, is you have to draw on the energy of the jester. Do you know what I mean?
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: On the trickster. Now, it doesn't mean you're always there, but that's a real energy we're bringing into these conversations. However, I also want to say if you're not in that place, it makes total sense, because sometimes you're just in the thick of it.
Krispin: Right.
DL: And everything feels so sad, and it's this core attachment trauma, right? That you are grappling and dealing with, that you're, you can't be in a relationship with your caregiver. So that's... We just want to say we're, we're going to model having the wide range of human experiences, and we're going to make fun of some of this stuff.
And that doesn't mean we're discounting any of the grief or trauma. But we're humans, and we just live through all of it at once, you know?
Krispin: Right. Yep. And in this episode we will have an unhinged comments section that we will give you a heads-up on.
DL: Well, but I'm here the whole time, so I'm going to be making my own personal unhinged comments the whole time, just so you know. You can't box me in one corner. You're saying the Focus on the Family, James Dobson parent comments will be in one unhinged comment corner, okay?
Krispin: Yes. Well, I mean, we'll be talking through comments throughout, and any of those have the potential to be upsetting.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: But I found that there was a certain caliber of comment that was so dysfunctional on the behalf of the person that was writing it, that I found it really, like, hilarious and also deeply unsettling and upsetting.
DL: Yeah, 'cause it could be any of our moms or dads, honestly.
Krispin: Exactly. And so I saved those for our unhinged comment section. So.
DL: Great. But I'll be unhinged the whole time. That's my DL guarantee. Okay?
Our cat is freaking out. So Krispin, are you going to kick out Checkers or what?
Krispin: Look at him! He’s so cute.
DL: He’s being too cute. He's being a cute podcast kitty.
Checkers: Meow.
DL: Okay, Krispin, so let's really quickly just talk about the three episodes we're going to be doing this summer for our Prodigal series so people know what they're getting into. Today, we're going to be talking about…
Krispin: Prodigal Children.
DL: Oh, that's us!
Krispin: You and me!
DL: That's us! That's probably you if you're listening to this, as we will explain later in this episode.
Krispin: Yep. Right, and basically this episode is about: Why are the adult children going prodigal?
DL: Why are they setting boundaries? Why are they going low contact? Why are they going no contact?
Krispin: Why are they leaving Evangelicalism?
DL: Yeah, with religious authoritarian families.
Okay, so that's what we're going to be focusing on today. We're going to be looking a little bit into why do we think people are going no or low contact, and then we're going to be looking at what do these communities say about it.
Krispin: Yeah, so what is Focus on the Family saying – "Here's why the kids are going astray."
DL: 'Cause trust me, they are talking about it. This is the number one thing they are talking about on their Facebook page. So that's kind of what led us to do this. Okay, so what about episode two?
Krispin: That is about the Prodigal Parents. So what are parents being told to do about this estrangement?
DL: Yeah, so they know it's a problem 'cause it's happening in these communities. So then what's the advice they're being given for what to do about these fractured relationships? And we're going to talk about why that advice is really unhelpful. And then episode three, what's that going to be about?
Krispin: That is for you after you have left the religious authoritarian system. So, you know, being a prodigal, living your best prodigal life.
DL: Yeah, Life after Leaving. So talking about our own experiences and maybe sharing some listener experiences, too, about what life has been like after you leave and you kind of are like, "Yeah, I guess I am the prodigal." You know?
Krispin: Yeah. Right.
DL: And, and here's how I live the rest of my life. So that's the arc of these episodes. Krispin, are you ready? Are you ready to talk about being prodigal children?
Krispin: Yeah. Should we explain kind of where we're going with this episode?
DL: Sure, go for it.
Krispin: Which is, we did research.
DL: We did research.
Krispin: I tackled Focus on the Family.
DL: Boots on the ground.
Krispin: You tackled James Dobson’s…
DL: James Dobson's Family Institute.
By the way, when James Dobson was booted out of Focus on the Family, which he was, (and if anybody has information on why that happened, please contact me at strongwilledproject@gmail.com because I have my theories) he went and started his own organization called James Dobson's Family Talk. He started a radio program.
Like, these things are indistinguishable from each other, which is a big no-no in this world. You know what I mean? If you're booted out of something, you're not supposed to compete. But he was.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: So anyways, I was looking at that one. So we're just going to talk about both of them. They're basically the same ideology, just different people making money off of these issues, I suppose
Krispin: Right, yeah. Yep. And basically we looked at websites, Facebook posts that they make, and then the comments section in the Facebook posts.
DL: And to be clear, we've been doing this for a while.
Krispin: Uh-huh.
DL: I would say even two years ago I made a TikTok about some of the emails Focus on the Family was sending about estrangement because you had alerted me to that. And then I've started to see chatter, like on Threads and stuff. Many people are noticing that one of the main things Focus on the Family now posts and talks about is people who have estranged adult children.
So we already saw this coming.
Krispin: Right.
DL:And that's one of the things about the research, there isn't tons about the rates of estrangement, so we're using a different tactic, which is well, what, what are they talking about? And they're talking about this issue as if it's happening all the time.
I think one of the things we saw, it said it's happening to one in 10 Christian families has an estranged child. Which I think is low.
Krispin: Right. I saw all these comments where – I'm jumping ahead to the comment section a little bit – but I saw lots of comments, some version of this, which somebody wrote, "God is so timely with these recent posts from Focus on the Family. Thank you."
DL: So timely. God in His infinite wisdom just put it on the heart of Focus on the Family to talk about this issue.
Krispin: Yes, exactly.
DL: It's not like they're getting tons of calls or emails about it. You know what I mean? Just God put it on their heart.
Krispin: It's just God's providence.
DL: So one in 10, that seems low to me. But I could be biased, because literally every person I know and most of the people I interact with on the internet are somewhere in the range of being estranged from their parents. So maybe I'm biased.
Krispin: Maybe it's the people you hang with.
DL: But I do think this is a huge issue. And we don't have the statistics, but if Focus on the Family's talking about it this much, you know they're hearing about it a lot.
Krispin: Right. Mm-hmm.
DL: So that's why we started doing this. But yeah, we started seeing these posts, and it seemed to have a huge uptick in the last few months, too.
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: Focus on the Family's going all in on this idea of prodigal. The prodigal children. They also use the word wayward. They also use the word lost. Non-believers. It's kind of all lumped together.
Krispin: Yeah, I feel like they use non-believers some of the time.
DL: It's kind of a touchy subject, so maybe they do it less.
Krispin: But it's always like, your child is questioning, or they're a prodigal. Prodigal meaning they're going to return.
DL: They're going to return. So that's interesting, if we want to camp out on that word a tiny bit.
Krispin: Uh-huh. I mean, that's a lot of what their posts say is like, if you pray, God can do anything.
DL: Yes. Well, we can't get ahead to episode two.
Krispin: Right. So I think, actually, I think a good place to start would be this article that's on Focus on the Family's website called Good Parents, Prodigal Kids.
DL: Okay, here we go!
Krispin: The parents, the parents are good, the kids are prodigal.
DL: Yup. There we go.
Krispin: And yeah, with this narrative of, like, why is this happening?
DL: Yes.
Krispin: Right? This article says it's happening because Jesus said it would happen. I think this is a really good place to start. Let me just read a little bit
DL: Whoa, but like in the end times?
Krispin: Yes.
DL: Yes! Sons will turn against fathers…
Krispin: Yeah, yeah. So, so let me just read this, 'cause I think it also kind of sets the groundwork.
DL: Okay.
Krispin: So you know, this is one of those, like, cheesy articles. "Ariana was heartsick over the immoral choices her adult son was making. She asked him where he saw Jesus in all of them. 'I'm having to rethink that,' her son said. 'I've had questions about Jesus for a long time.' Those were the most painful words Ariana had ever heard."
DL: Sorry.
Krispin: I know. "Her son's behavior was one thing, but losing faith in Jesus was something else entirely. As we talked, Ariana wondered, where she had gone wrong as a mother. Should she have homeschooled her son? Should she have clamped down on him more?"
DL: Yes, she should have, obviously.
Krispin: “Had she let him get too busy with sports? Had she not emphasized faith enough?"
DL: Yes. Uh-huh, obviously.
Krispin: “‘Is it my fault?’ she wondered. ‘Was I a bad parent?’”
He, as a biblical counselor, he says, "I took Ariana through Mark 13, where Jesus says, while talking to believers, ‘Children will rise against their parents and have them put to death.’"
So it's just, Jesus said this would happen. He said that there would be this young movement that want to kill their parents, which is what the prodigals want.
DL: What do you think his immoral life choices are? Is he gay?
Krispin: Maybe.
DL: I don't know.
Krispin: “‘And you will be hated by all for my name's sake.’"
So I think that's a good place to start is like, if your kids turn away, it's because Jesus said this would happen.
DL: Okay. Remember how you made fun of me for saying Jesus supposedly said something? Here's why. Here's why I need to poke holes in this fucking Jesus narrative all the time. Because of us being used. Okay, that was a lot.
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: And that's it. This is how they are setting up these conversations, and they are having these conversations a lot. Because, as we just said, this is happening a lot. But two things I want to pull out of that.
One is, you'll be hated. This is so a part of evangelicalism is you will be hated for your beliefs, and you should count that as a sign you're doing the right thing. Which really sucks that now they're putting that onto this strange fractured family narrative.
DL: But yeah, I just think there's no sense of what the immoral life choices are.
Krispin: Right.
DL: But just the fact that someone says, "I'm rethinking my thoughts on Jesus," that is the most painful thing ever. That's a great way to set up this conversation I want to have, which is, why do we think people actually are leaving? We'll get back to more of what these Focus the Family communities are saying.
But I kind of want to take a moment before we get into all that ridiculousness to say, what is actually going on here? Why are people setting boundaries? And again, it's a spectrum of boundaries. It could be even as... But in that article, it just said, if you set a teensy, tiny boundary of, "I'm rethinking how I feel about Jesus," that is not only seen as the most intense boundary ever, but it's the end of the world.
Krispin: Right.
DL: The kids are wanting to kill us all and hate us all for our beliefs.
Krispin: Yeah. Right.
DL: You know what I mean? It goes from aero to 100 when you just say that! So imagine saying something like, "I actually don't live my life in accordance with this text and how your conservative pastor interprets it."
Imagine trying to say that to this woman, to Ariana. You know what I mean?
Krispin: Yeah. Right. Uh-huh.
DL: So that's kind of like how the stakes have always been set up, and that's how we all know if we grew up in this.
Krispin: Right. I mean, really, what we're talking about is, like, cult dynamics.
DL: Well, yeah.
Krispin: Right? I mean, I think that really is a sign of a cult if it's like, I can't even entertain, like, how do I feel about this?
DL: Which again, which is why I think we need to make fun of Jesus a lot more because he's used as a cult leader, you know, in these spaces.
So I wanted to ask you, you know, you're a therapist. We've been doing STRONGWILLED. We've been on the mean streets of ex-evangelical social media. A lot of our friends… you know, we have some experience with estrangement. I asked around, and I got some of the biggest reasons why. So I'm going to go through those, and then you can chime in there and kind of add to that.
Krispin: Yeah, that sounds great.
DL: So, one of the things that people say – and this resonates with me and what I've heard, and we kind of just saw it evidenced in what you referenced from Focus on the Family – one of the biggest reasons why people feel forced to put up boundaries…
And here's the other thing I want to say is almost everyone we know, and of course there's going to be some exceptions, they didn't want to become estranged from their parents. Very few people really want this. It's like a last-ditch effort to maintain your own personal peace and identity.
But why are people putting up boundaries? And the number one reason I've seen is because they can't actually be in relationship, because they can't be themselves.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And so if you're not allowed to be yourself and voice your true thoughts, feelings, opinions, make your own decisions without it being nitpicked or shamed or whatever, eventually you're going to move on from that relationship, right? If you, if you can't be yourself.
But some of the other bigger pictures I've seen people say is because their parents, in these worldviews, they don't have emotional maturity. So it's really hard to have conversations. It's really hard to express yourself to people that you know, maybe they're not even not listening, they truly don't understand what you're saying or your point of view, and they don't seem to have any impetus to do that, if that makes sense, or maybe even not even the ability.
Krispin: And it's so one-sided, because we grew up in this, so we understand you.
DL: Oh, yeah. We have the empathy, we have understanding, but they don't.
And the other dynamic, which we've talked a lot about, a lot about in our chapters, in our writings, in our podcasts, is parents in these worldviews, they don't see their children as autonomous human beings.
And so how do you be in a relationship with someone who thinks of you as, what do you like to say? Like, a lump of clay, or something to be molded, something to be shaped?
Krispin: Uh-huh. Right.
DL: That they were told they would get to do that their whole life, and God would do that your whole life.
Krispin: Mm-hmm. That was a theme that I saw over and over again, is, you really need to realize that your child is not yours.
DL: It's God's.
Krispin: It's God's. It's never, they're their own person and they get to make their own decisions.
DL: Never, never, never, never, never. So then when people start to do that, it creates this huge conflict, and people are like, "Wait, do I have to choose between being who I am or having you like me? Uh, that's a really hard choice that you are putting on me. I would like to do both."
And they're like, "What do you mean?" And one of the ways this plays out, too, which we'll get to in this episode, is because they don't view us as people with autonomy, they are able to couch everything that happens around estrangement around this idea that their adult children are being manipulated. Okay?
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: Into sin, into estrangement. And it can never come from the kid’s self. It has to come from some outside force, which we'll get into.
Krispin: Possibly a partner.
DL: Or a spouse, or Satan himself! Okay? We have to talk about Satan in this episode.
Krispin: When I looked at the Focus on the Family website, that was a lot of the talk was these, like, cultural influences and friends influencing kids away from faith, right?
DL: Yeah. Yeah, and so I actually have an article I'm going to talk about in a little bit that will kind of talk about that same thing. I want to keep going, though, because, again, there's these bigger picture things that I just want people to have in their heads as we keep talking. One of the things that people talked about a lot is when someone is in this world – and again, if you didn't grow up in this, this might be new information to you.
Maybe not, because we're kind of seeing it be revealed. Basically, when you put your entire identity into an ideology, that becomes the gravitational center of everything. So people talked a lot about this narcissistic pull of Christian ideology, where it's when you're trying to be in relationship with someone where that's their entire world, it's all they talk about, especially if you start to set boundaries, it kind of kicks into high gear, right?
Like, uh-oh, you're starting to... So now every conversation has some of that pull to it. It's all they talk about. It's how they think about everything. It's how they make decisions about everything. And you'll see this in these communities, right?
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And even if you have a conversation and they seem to be changing their mind, they go right back to square one when they hear their pastor, or Fox News, or James Dobson, whatever, you know, say something.
If you don't agree with them, and remember, they're talking about it constantly, okay? They're bringing it up constantly. If you don't agree with them, it is threatening to them. So not only are they talking about it all the time, your reactions to their ideology are being policed constantly.
Krispin: Right.
DL: So it's so much. Does this resonate with you, what I'm saying?
Krispin: Mm-hmm, yeah, totally. Yeah, it's really going into an environment where you are implicitly being asked to set your own autonomy, identity, values, perspectives aside to agree with the totalitarian ideology, and any time where you disagree or dissent causes friction and stress and conflict that really doesn't go anywhere.
DL: Yeah, and sometimes, I think there's two ways this can play out. One way is there's lots of conflict. You know? Like that story you just showed. This woman's like, "This is, this is the most devastating thing that's ever happened." She's reaching out to a therapist.
Like, this is an earth-shattering thing. Well, there's another way people can go about this, which is, okay, so they try to, like, not bring up anything, and then it becomes very shallow.
And many people notice their parents, they don't ask any questions. They're not curious. They don't have any interest in you if your interest is not revolving around their politics or religion. Does that make sense?
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And so that's also not a real relationship, if people don't want to know about your friends, your job, your hobbies, your kids if your kids are gay, you know what I mean?
Krispin: Right. Yeah, which as I mentioned, I've been writing a book, so I've been doing a lot of research on parental psychological control.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: And in the research in that academic field, they talk about one of the ways that psychological parental control is enacted is when parents limit their interest in their children to things that they're interested in and don't make space for their child, because the implicit message is, you have to like the things that I like and see things the way that I do or else we're not good.
DL: Yeah, and so they've tied that to religion. And so when people are like, "I don't actually know if I believe all this," it just creates these large rifts. And so I think this is really hurtful for people, just this lack of interest and curiosity if they come from a more conflict avoidant family, but it's really just a piece of that bigger picture of, if you're not agreeing with the Christian ideology, it's causing extreme discomfort for people within the cult, you know what I mean?
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: One of the things that can happen because of this, and again, we've talked about this before, if you walk away from the faith – according to them, 'cause you could still be a person of faith, just not the same way your parents are or whatever – they don't want good things to happen to you.
And so that is really tough, to be in relationship with people who are kind of rooting for bad things to happen to you if you're a prodigal. That's kind of, like, the whole story is terrible things happen to the prodigal child until he's forced to return home. So that's what people are hoping for. I hate to say it but that’s the truth.
Krispin: But it's true. And I, and I saw that in that community when I was looking on Facebook.
DL: Yes. This is an explicitly stated belief. It's also incredibly implicit. It's everywhere. And when I was still really trying to be in a relationship with my parents, you know, this was very much an underlying message.
Like, anything bad happens, it's like, "Well, good. That's a sign you need to come back to God." Sucks to be in a relationship with parents who are manifesting bad things for you. You know what I mean?
Krispin: Right.
DL: Here's a big one. Homophobia and transphobia. Most people, unfortunately, that I've found, they're even willing to accept it for themselves, but they draw a hard line at the next generation.
So you have to become estranged or set up boundaries with people who have toxic beliefs about they have the right to control other people's gender and sexuality. So a lot of people are becoming estranged because they don't want their kids to have to deal with that.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: Even though they might accept it for themselves, which again, is kind of sad.
And then the last one I heard from a bunch of people is, what's leading to estrangement from a prodigal's perspective is no accountability from the parents.
And, you know, I used to think this was just one of the pieces of emotional immaturity, which I do think that's true, maybe narcissistic personalities stuff, I don't know. But it's very much couched in spiritual terms in these communities. The parents don't need to take accountability because it was God's way, and this is something that Focus on the Family is really pushing, which is if you followed God's way, it can't be abuse.
They're literally saying that. We can put it in the show notes, but there's an article from June 2nd that says that to parents. Like, "Are you struggling with an estranged child? Don't feel guilty. If they say they were abused in childhood, that can't be right because following God's word is never abuse."
Krispin: Yeah,
DL: Those are the big ones I heard. Now, of course, there's going to be lots of particulars, but that's a lot, Krispin. What's your thought as a therapist hearing all that?
Krispin: Yeah, I mean, I think you captured a lot of it. I think most of it is... I think there are two categories.
One category is, like you said, the inability to talk through conflict and actually have an authentic conversation where people on both sides feel heard and understood. In contrast to that there are also are ideologies that don't allow for a relationship for some people.
So that's one way is like, "Yeah, we can't actually have a real conversation." That being said, there might be a scenario where you have a real conversation and that person is like, "Yeah, I think that, you know, God created male and female and no other gender expression or identity is valid." And it's like, "Okay, we understand each other, but this isn't a relationship that I want.
DL: Oh, okay. Are we going into this already? I feel like that's more next episode, but I think you're right, this is something that people said, and I didn't know really how to, like, sum it up. One thing some people told me is that it's all or nothing for many of these parents, and I'm trying to, like, conceptualize that, but I know when it comes to homophobia and transphobia, from my personal experience, my parents made their views incredibly clear.
They did not seem to have any curiosity about our views on it. They had their books locked and loaded. You know, they got all their information, and they felt like they knew everything, and yet they still really wanted to be in relationship, I guess.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And so eventually they just said, when I said, "Well, if you have these beliefs, you're going to lose relationship with your grandkids," all they could do was look at me and say, "But we have to be able to agree to disagree," which I was like, "You guys are incapable of that, for one." And for two, I don't want to." You know?
Krispin: Right. Exactly.
DL: And it's not just me. The younger generation doesn't want to agree to disagree when it comes to human rights.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: So I think that's a really interesting thing, like it's all or nothing, yet they say they want to agree to disagree. You know what I mean?
Krispin: Yeah. Uh-huh.
DL: It's just, it's so confusing, but the thing at the root of it is, they have no interest in listening to anyone outside of the cult, and this was baked into the parenting methods, right?
Which is why we've focused so much on these parenting methods, because it's setting up a system for the parents to dismiss, ignore, and spiritually bypass listening to their children.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: You know? Yeah. From, from day one. So of course they don't have those skills for when we're adults
Krispin: Yeah, and I would say that even in a slightly different way, even if there is an interest or curiosity, the way that the religious community, the high-control religion works is you can only be curious to a point, and then you will be brought back in to the the baseline.
DL: So they can use curiosity to try and get the kids back in, you know?
Krispin: Mm-hmm. Right.
DL: Yeah. I don't know, though, if we're almost past that, though. What do you think?
Krispin: Yeah, I mean, I think that probably a lot of folks would say, yeah, we've- had this conversation, they read a book I recommended, they did this, they listened to a podcast. But that was, like, in 2016.
DL: Okay. I'm glad you said that, because for me, this entire conversation, in the back of my head I'm thinking, 2016, 2016, 2016. Because I think that the unexpected silver lining of Donald Trump is that he's really laid bare how immoral, unethical, and unloving many of these people are, and they're willing to be for their cult. You know what I mean? And so I think you just can't really get around it anymore. Like you could, I think, in the early 2000s.
Krispin: Right, yeah.
DL: I think it's pretty clear that there's a reason why a lot of us don't listen to our parents as voices of any moral authority. Does that make sense?
Krispin: Yeah, totally. Yep.
DL: Because they sold it out. They did it themselves. But because they keep being taught not to take any accountability, that's not just about their kids. That's about their politics. That's about all of it. And I think a lot of people are waking up to, like, how do you live in a country where 35% of the people refuse to take accountability for the harms their actions cause? You know what I mean?
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And I'm like, yeah, it's a fricking big deal that many of us have been trying to deal with on this personal level. And there's not a lot you can do for people if they refuse to take accountability because, you know, their god says they don't have to.
Krispin: Right, yeah
DL: So it's a big picture issue. I don't think we would be where we are in America if parents learned to listen to their kids. What do you think?
Krispin: Yeah, I think about that idea of taking accountability, I think another way of saying that is, are they reckoning with the harm that they've done? Right?
DL: Yeah. I mean based on our personal experience and all that, no. Based off of the Facebook pages, what would you say, Krispin?
Krispin: Yeah. Should we, should we dive into like what the Facebook pages are saying why the estrangement is happening?
DL: Let's do it
Krispin: Focus on the Family says, "Parent and adult relationships are fractured for two common reasons. Number one, adults were either too harsh or refused to discipline their children growing up."
DL: Both.
Krispin: “Number two, the child grows up, carries those wounds, and now refuses to forgive or feels too busy to reconnect."
DL: Okay, that's a lot. That’s four.
Krispin: I told you the person that writes these things is a really bad copywriter.
DL: Was it ChatGPT?
Krispin: I don't know.
DL: Probably. A lot of their anti-queer stuff is AI generated. Does that make sense? That's what I noticed.
Krispin: Yeah. Uh-huh. No, I think as I'm reading it, because it says, the underneath it, it says– oh yeah, this is totally AI. Because of the way it's written.
DL: I love how you're trying to tell me the copy editor is shitty, and I was like, "I bet it's AI."
Krispin: Yeah. Yeah, they talk a little bit about why it's bad to be harsh and not have boundaries. And then at the bottom it says, "Over time, the disconnection grows. Life gets busy. Conversations become surface level, and avoidance feels easier than addressing what's been left unresolved."
DL: Okay, great. Great.
Krispin: So basically, if your kids are pulling away because you hurt them in childhood, right? It's like, then it's saying – And this feeds into that, like, I feel like it's trying to say something about what the parents are saying, which is like, "My kids are too busy for me."
DL: Well, but I mean, that's the conflict avoidant response. Which we don't judge anybody. If you're telling your parents that, that’s fine.
Krispin: Right.
DL: And actually, some of the stuff I've read from like James Dobson's Family Life, in this conversation about estrangement, they actually bring up like, "You know, back in the day, like, people would just move to another city and marry somebody and start their own family."
And it's like, yeah, we don't have as much control over them because they're starting their own family, and they're busy, and they don't have time to talk that much, and that's just kind of normal. But today, though, it's this, this, and this.
And I was like, "Oh, interesting." So that's what I've been saying this whole time too, which is like, estrangement has always been a huge part of life in America, and we just move all the time, that it's very normalized. And before social media, and before this extra pressure of, like, you can see what everybody's up to it was just much more common to be like, "Oh, yeah, I have three kids," and, you know?
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: Nobody really asked you too much about if there was a kid you hardly ever saw because he lived in New York or whatever. So that was fascinating to me.
But one thing I've noticed from the Focus on the Family stuff is they create a space where if a parent is looking to feel guilty, they can find it. If a parent is looking for absolution, they can find it.
So they're, they're targeting both ends of the spectrum of people coming into this conversation. One is, they actually always do create this space for, maybe you just followed our advice wrong. You know what I mean? Maybe you were too harsh. Or maybe you were too permissive.
Krispin: Maybe you didn't dare to discipline.
DL: Maybe you didn't dare to discipline. But the one thing they keep talking about now is if you over-parented, helicopter-parented, then you pushed your kids away. And so really there's no way to do it perfectly, and yet they also say over and over again, "If you follow God's word if you did your best, you have nothing to feel bad about."
Krispin: Right. Because there's no guarantees.
DL: So it's quite the mix there. You know what I mean?
Krispin: Right. Yeah. I was thinking I could do a little rundown looking at the Facebook posts by Focus on the Family, what their narrative is.
DL: About why adult children are becoming estranged? Okay, great.
Krispin: Yeah, so one is rebellion. "So parenting a prodigal can feel like walking through a storm with no end in sight, but his grace reaches deeper than any rebellion." Which is so funny. I see this theme over and over and over again, which is this promise of, like, even if your child has wandered now, they will come back, which just is not true.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: This one, "You can't control your family, but you can control your responses to the things they say or do. God alone can help us speak life and grace in the face of hate."
DL: Hate?
Krispin: So that theme again that your kids are being hateful towards you.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: I'm like, wow, that is… Here's another one is just... Oh yeah, I wanted to read this whole thing because it says, "If your child is walking away from their faith, you are not alone. We hear from so many parents who call us in grief over their child who has left the faith."
DL: Yeah, so okay.
Krispin: Right?
DL: There's our research.
Krispin: Yep. “Satan truly comes to steal their hearts and thoughts away.”
DL: Satan is in the house. He's here. Let's talk about him. Krispin, people don't want to think about this, but…
Krispin: I haven't thought about Satan in years
DL: I was going to say people don't want to think about it, but it comes up quite a bit.
Krispin: It does .
DL: Is that your parents might think you're Satan-possessed.Not even demon-possessed. Full on Satan.
Krispin: Mm-hmm. Yeah
DL: I don't know even how to talk about it Right. But it's happening. So.
Krispin: Yes. It'll come up again later, too. Okay here's something that they say a lot is, you know even if your prodigal has lost touch with you, God is always with them. Which is funny, because then there's like a–
DL: No, thanks, God!
Krispin: Well, there's a few naysayers in the comments always that are like, "This isn't biblically true. When people reject God he rejects them."you know, because otherwise they're kind of promoting a, like, you know, everyone will be–
DL: Once saved, always saved?
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: Well, yeah, we can't even get into the Calvinism of it all, can we?
Krispin: Right. No. But the last thing that I want to highlight from the folks on the Family page was literally the prodigal son. So they do a little post about the prodigal son. “The prodigal son wanted a lifestyle of excess and sin.”
DL: That's right
Krispin: “And the father allowed him to make that choice as an adult. The father didn't cave to the fear of losing his son and compromise to get him to stay.”
DL: He did not compromise.
Krispin: Which, that phrase is a dog whistle, right, for, you can't compromise your homophobic views.
DL: Yes. Absolutely.
Krispin: “In the end, what changed the son's heart wasn't his father preaching at him or pleading with him. Instead, God's spirit used the emptiness and filth of that rebellious lifestyle naturally yields over time to make the son yearn for his father's comfort and care.”
DL: Yeah, so that's why MAGA Republicans want society to collapse. I'm not even kidding, Krispin.
Krispin: Somebody in the comments said that. They said, "This is why we need to stop social nets."
DL: Yes! Krispin, I have felt like such a weirdo for trying to be like, this is what they want. They want everyone's lives to get so miserable that they're forced to turn back to religion. And I think they're making it plain. But one thing that someone said to me about this whole prodigal narrative, it's like we didn't even get an inheritance. Like in the story, right?
Krispin: Right.
DL: The kid gets all this money from his dad, and then, like, leaves. And I'm like, what did we get, Krispin? We didn't get money. Although, we are still using my dad's YouTube TV account. That's it.
Krispin: That's what we got.
DL: That's what we got. That's our inheritance. That's how we watch our Disney movies now. You know what I mean? I was like, we didn't even get financial help from them. I feel ripped off when it comes to being a prodigal. I didn't get any of the money, any of the inheritance to sow my wild oats. And most of us didn't. So I just wanted to say that.
Is this a good time for me to talk about an article I read on James Dobson's Family Institute? Because of course they're talking about this stuff, too.
Krispin: Yes.
DL: And by the way, Focus on the Family has these courses you can take.
Krispin: Oh, right.
DL: Healing the Parent and Adult Child Relationships. Of course, you can buy more Dobson books, you know what I mean, to fix this. So that should be clear it's all a grift, and we'll be talking about that more in our second episode on this.
But okay, this is from June 3rd. So this was last week when we're recording this, and this is from the James Dobson Family Institute's podcast, and then they do the transcripts. But Robert Marsh kind of runs the podcast now. He interviews this woman named Kathy Koch. Now, her name could be [pronounced] Kōch, but we're calling her Kathy Kahk for this episode.
And it's How Parents Can Find Peace and Hope with Their Adult Children. Now, this is part two, and it's talking about resolving conflict, so I'm like, okay, this is interesting. Kathy has some interesting things to say. Now, she studied this, okay? She says the number one reason why bad things are happening between parents and their adult children is because parents made an idol of their kids, and they actually care too much about their kids and not God, right?
So you have to get back to putting everything on God. We'll talk about this next episode, but the prayer stuff is really interesting to me.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: Okay? And she says you know... Well, then Roger Marsh butts in and says that thing I just told you about. Like, you know, before people would just move, and you're like, "Okay, they're starting their family."
But now, he says, "When we say no contact, we're talking about kids who are literally making either some kind of declaration, or they're just, in the vernacular of the day, they're just ghosting their parents altogether and saying, 'It's too much. I need some space.'" So that's how this whole thing is being framed, okay?
So then Kathy Koch says according to her, there's two reasons why we're seeing this uptick in people going no contact with their parents. She says, "One is the influence of social media. Our adult children are following people that you don't know they're following." She's talking to the parents.
Krispin: Uh-huh.
DL: Okay? She says "There's certain personalities that they've been following, and they have been told and manipulated by these personalities that they've been abused or that their life couldn't have been that good," talking about growing up Christian,
"And they're beginning to believe that, which is just so sad. Rather than standing up for their parents and their family background,” the adult children, “they're agreeing with people they don't even know to say, 'Oh, yeah, you must be right.' So there are people who are being lied to and children who are not standing up. I think they want an excuse for their bad behavior.
“They want an excuse for their negativity. They want an excuse for their sin. They want an excuse to say, 'Oh, that's why my life has been hard. I wasn't parented well.' So they're believing the lie that they can kind of defend their choices."
Krispin: Uh-huh.
DL: I found that so fascinating. Remember, she's the expert on how to repair your relationship with your adult children. And that's us, Krispin! We are the personalities she's talking about. Do you understand me?
Krispin: Yes.
DL: I had no idea.
Krispin: Dear listeners, do your parents know that you're following us on social media?
DL: Don't tell them. First of all, I had no clue we were so influential.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: I had no clue we could just say a few things and that would make fully grown and formed adult people be like, "Oh my God, you're right. Everything was bad." I had no clue. I basically have the power of Satan in my screechy little voice. Do you understand me?
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: It's us. So me and Kathy Koch, we are enemies. Okay? But sometimes I read interviews with people like her and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to keep podcasting because these people are out here, with much larger audiences than me, so I'm just going to keep going." Then I think it's kind of sad to say, like, they just want to sin.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And then the second reason, again, she's the expert here, the second main reason that she believes adult children are separating from their parents is the helicopter mom. So she puts all the blame on the mom, and they ruined everything by being too invested in their kids and expecting that same level of control and investment their whole life. So I was like, that's quite the spectrum of answers. Right. But the first one–
Krispin: Right. Yeah. Okay, you want to talk about the first one first?
DL: I mean, I want to hear from you.
Krispin: I think, about the helicopter parenting, I think that, conservatives really criticize that, right? They're like, you know–
DL: Yeah, I don't think boomers were helicopter-based
Krispin: No. But what she's describing is, there's a version of that which is the enmeshment, right?
DL: Yeah, yeah.
Krispin: Just this view of, you are going to be so close to your kids, you're going to know what's in their hearts 'cause you're going to be spiritually connected. You're going to have this ongoing influence on them.
I mean, that, that was something I saw in a lot of the articles was like, yeah, you raise your kids imagining that you would continue to have influence over them into their adulthood, and it's upsetting 'cause you don't and you should, you know?
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: So it's, it's interesting to blame helicopter parenting.
DL: Moms. She says moms.
Krispin: Yes, right. Whereas I think it's just a different form of enmeshment.
DL: Yeah. So I think, even sort of a nice way to start to wrap up this conversation is just looking at what she said. You know, our adult children are following people, and they've been manipulated. And I just think that goes back to that bigger piece of they don't view us as being able to have autonomy. And so whatever happens from here on out, it's because of Satan or being manipulated or being lied to or being deceived.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And it's just so hard to be in a relationship with people who view you like that. Does that make sense?
Krispin: Right. Yeah, exactly.
DL: And it's much more a mirror of what's going on with them, if I'm being perfectly honest. And that's the tension so many of us who've had to set boundaries feel. Like you are trying to be in a relationship with people who have been so deceived, and are basically showing no signs of being able to self-reflect or take accountability because of the level of their deception, right?
Krispin: Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally.
DL: And we can unpack all the psychological reasons why that happens, but it doesn't change the reality that so many of us are actually living through.
Krispin: Right. I want to name something, which is this binary thinking. Because when I think about that, I think about, yeah, this idea of, like, you're being influenced. But I remember having, say, conversations with your parents where they're like, "Well, we, you know, we see things differently and we each have our own sources."
And I'm like, "Yeah, on this topic, I've read, like, five different views. And I've read multiple books on this topic."
DL: And they read Preston Sprinkle.
Krispin: And they, yeah. Right. Exactly. And so I think that there's this idea in, especially if you're in a cult, it's like there's two views. There's the cult's view, and then there's the other view.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: And so they're like, "Yeah, you're just getting one source, and I'm getting one source." Because I think sometimes people are like, yeah, you know, they're saying I'm brainwashed, I'm saying they're brainwashed. What's true? But I'm like, let's actually look at this.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: If you're listening to this podcast, you probably have come to your conclusions through a variety of different voices and sources.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: Which is really different than everything comes from the evangelical/conservative establishment that really just forms around the same thing.
DL: Yeah, which is interesting. We probably can't get into the weeds of it here, but this is so what all the centrists and the right-wingers have been saying for forever. It's that leftists and progressives, like, it's all group think, and you have to be woke or you're cast out.
I'm like, again, that's you guys. You're projecting that onto us. In leftist spaces there's a wide variety of people talking. You know? Like, and saying things. And you have to wrestle through what you actually believe.
But again, the way Kathy Koch is kind of saying it is like, people just want to sin.
Krispin: Right.
DL: That's why they're doing this. And when she says they want to sin, what we are hearing from the people living this in their actual lives is they want to be seen and loved and accepted for who they are. That's it. And that's being labeled as sin.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And so for me, I'm like, I don't know how to move forward. It's very painful to come to that realization, and you get to respond in your own way to that. There's a million different ways, a million different boundaries, a million different reasons why people do what they do when faced with that reality.
But we're just trying to point out, this is how it's being laid out. That's being seen as sin, manipulation, and Satan, and it's this cosmic battle, when in reality we're just like, "Do you want to know who I actually am?"
Krispin: Right. Yeah.
DL: And most of the, most of our parents are saying, "No. We don't. Unless it mirrors exactly what I believe about the world and who I envision you to be." You know?
Krispin: Yeah, right.
DL: Bummer city. Let me say that.
Krispin: Yep, the old role coercion. That's Lindsay Gibson's term.
DL: Okay.
Krispin: So you know, where it's like your parents expect you to be who they expect you to be.
DL: Yeah, and once you have your own kids and all that, you're like, wait a minute. That's kind of a shitty way to go through life. Although a lot of people do it.
Krispin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
DL: You know? It's not a small part of the population that believes that way, but there's many other ways to be a parent, many other ways to be a person. and these kinds of viewpoints are just naturally going to lead to estrangement.
Hence why Focus on the Family's getting so many calls about it. And hence why we're doing this series.
Krispin: Right. Yeah.
DL: Okay, so now we're going to do a rapid fire unhinged comment corner. If you don't want to hear from the estranged parent community, this is your chance to hop off, to skip, and hey, if you want to financially support us as we do this work, that would be great.
You can support us on Patreon. You can support us by becoming a paid subscriber to strongwilledproject.com. You can share about this podcast. You can share about our work. We just are doing this because these are topics that need to be talked about. These are realities that are happening. But Krispin has a lot of comments he wants to share, and we'll be jabbering about them, so that's going to be the next little while of this podcast.
So Krispin, you've been in the trenches. Not just reading the articles, but you've been in the comments. And by the way, I've been in the comments section.
Krispin: Mm-hmm. Literally posting.
DL: I've been commenting, and I’m one of Focus on The Family's top commentators now. If anybody needs to blow off steam and this is your personality, I'm seeing more and more people jumping into these comment sections, and it's kind of amazing.
Some of them will depress you, and then some of them you'll be like, hey, good for you. Good for you. You know what I mean?
Krispin: Right, yeah. Okay, yeah. I think, first of all, I have to mention the, it seems like the number one reason that this is happening in the, according to the comments section is Satan driving the estrangement epidemic.
DL: God, Satan again.
Krispin: Yeah. I mean, one person just wrote, "The reason is the woman and the devil's schemes."
DL: The devil's schemes. I'm going to make a list of T-shirts I'm going to be making. The devil's schemes.
Krispin: But it's interesting, because I expected a lot of like, "This is such a trend," but whenever someone said this is a trend, they said things like, "This trend of adult children pulling away from their parents is absolutely a tool of Satan."
DL: Yeah, Satan.
Krispin: "I know it's a growing epidemic, and it is purely the work of Satan, who loves to kill, steal, and destroy." Okay. But a lot of parents had questions. Or, you know, kind of comments. So I was like, let's do this in an advice column format. I mean, you give your impulse, back. Okay?
DL: Okay.
Krispin: So DL.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: “What if you're hanging with your atheist child and their spouse gives you anxiety? What if they keep rubbing their beliefs in your face?"
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: “Their comments always catch me off guard. They wear clothing that is offensive to me."
DL: Oh my God. My shirts that I make?
Krispin: “I've been running away from them. It is too much pain. Trying to not offend them and keep being kind. Super hard.”
DL: Oh. How does the clothing affect them?
Krispin: I don't know.
DL: Is this a man or a woman writing this comment?
Krispin: I think a woman.
DL: Oh, God.
Krispin: Okay. I'm going to skip to the next one.
DL: Yeah, I was like, I have no advice. Sorry.
Krispin: "While in college 20 years ago, my son said he was no longer a Christian. I've prayed warrior prayers since. Now we are not allowed to give his sweet children any books about Jesus, nor mention his name."
DL: Yes.
Krispin: So sad.
DL: Good job, adult child.
Krispin: What about, "It's so hard when your prodigal goes to a church that encourages rejection of family if they don't share the same extreme views."
DL: That's your church, bitch.
Krispin: Right.
DL: Sorry. My God.
Krispin: I just think that's hilarious.
DL: Every progressive church I've ever gone to has really said that. Right, Krispin?
Krispin: Exactly. Yep. “Being unsaved is one thing. Being shut out of their lives while they think they're being obedient to God is also a level of torture. But I've learned to put it in God's hands.”
DL: Tortured for Christ.
Krispin: Okay, here's another one. "I have a young 23-ish-year-old niece who, in true cult fashion, was deceived and convinced to cut off all contact with her parents and sister, and that she was a lesbian who needed to be more manly to be good enough. I pray fervently for her. Occasionally, she will text me."
DL: Oh my God.
Krispin: That was the end. “Occasionally, she will text me.”
DL: I hope that person is living their best masc lesbian life possible.
Krispin: Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, one of my favorite ones was, "My husband and my daughter got baptized on the same day. She has now turned her back on the Lord. She follows science now, as she is studying to be a marine biologist."
DL: That's what they warned us about.
Krispin: Right.
DL: Don't ever become a marine biologist, because then you follow science and not Jesus.
Krispin: Right. I like that, “she doesn't follow Jesus anymore, she follows science,” as though science is like a religion.
DL: She got baptized in the river of marine biology. I wonder how old she was when she was baptized. I think that's another really annoying thing about these communities is they're obsessed with us when we were six years old.
Krispin: Right.
DL: Like, get over it.
Krispin: This one says, "I'm trying with my oldest daughter, age 19, who went from growing up in the church, asking to be baptized at 11,"
DL: Okay.
Krispin: and then starting to turn at 14 through high school into a crazy liberal, blue hair, bull nose-wearing, anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, anti-conservative who voted for Mamdani as the mayor in New York City last fall."
DL: Yes! Well, basically, this person's a Muslim now. So what are you going to do?
Krispin: Okay, this last one–
DL: But how sad that that parent views their kid like that. Just sucks. So many of us experience this. It's freaking sucks. I mean, one of the number one hate comments I get now which I think is funny, is I'm called a blue-haired.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
So this is, like, a very common insult right now in these communities. I was like, hello, I have orange bleached hair. It is not blue. Krispin would divorce me if I made my hair blue. He's told me. You guys help me. Help me.
Krispin: I just said green.
DL: Anywho.
Krispin: This last one was, like, both ridiculous and hilarious and also upsetting.
DL: This is the last one?
Krispin: Yeah, the last one.
DL: Okay, good. I can get through it.
Krispin: It's sort of, I just want to give you a heads-up. It's sort of heavy because it just is the dysfunction on full display.
DL: Yes, yes, yes.
Krispin: "We never rejected our youngest daughter, but instead told her, 'You never earned my love because you didn't have to. I loved you before you were ever born, and I will always love you no matter what you do. But I can't affirm your life choices, which you know are sinful.
DL: Ugghh.
“That is when I realized God's love for me. Until I said that to her, I never understood that concept of God's love in application to me."
So it's this important spiritual moment.
DL: Mm-hmm.
Krispin: “But that is when she stopped talking to us. I don't even remember how many years ago that it's been, but she's 30 years old now and nothing has changed."
So just to put this on the internet, that, like, this spiritual moment is also...
DL: That's when she realized what God's love was like for her, is when she said something so awful to her kid that her kid was like, your love is so conditional, I have to move on, because trying to chase after conditional love is excruciating in every way shape, and form. And now this woman's like, No, that was a, that was an important spiritual moment for me.
Krispin: Right. And there's more.
DL: Oh.
Krispin: “Same with my older two children."
DL: What?
Krispin: “They only come around when they need something, but when they don't get it, they go away mad, and it's been years now for that. We don't have any contact information for any of them. They saw to that. But you know what? It's been a rest and a relief because I only have to put it into God's hands this way and not worry about the details at all, because I don't know any of them, and that is God's protection. I wouldn't have it any other way." I told you this is–
DL: My flabbers are gasted, honestly.
Krispin: Someone responded underneath, "The Bible wasn't kidding when it said we may have to choose between God and our kids. The hardest decision ever. Still walking the same path as you are, and used exactly the same words and got much of the same reactions. However, we do have some contact, and she does speak to us, but it's very limited and at arm's length.”
DL: Ohhh.
Krispin: I know.
DL: Okay. Well, I'm a little depressed now. fun times. DL is gone. And honestly, I think it's okay. I think it's okay to sort of even end here. As much as I want to tie it up with a bow, it's like, this is what's happening to so many people, and they're putting us in an impossible situation, and they will, you know, come up with their own narratives about why that's happening.
However, it's not really based in reality, and that's just kind of what we're trying to do here, is normalize and kind of situate it in a social political reality that estrangement is happening and the reasons why these parents think it's happening are, are not true.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And there's really no way to argue with them, you know? So what we do is we just expose it, make fun of it.
Krispin: Right.
DL: Process it. Grieve it. I hope everybody has some good coping skills to get back to today when you're done listening to this.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: And I also hope you know you are not alone.
If you have set one tiny boundary to being no contact, wherever you are in trying to be yourself in these times, especially if you came from an RAP home, you are not alone. This is happening to so, so many people. And eventually we're going to get to all the positives that come from setting these boundaries, but that's not what today was about, was it Krispin?
Krispin: Nope. Yeah. Again, I think it is a really heavy topic, and just being able to look at it and laugh at it, I think is also a way of kind of ... because I think that this is me speaking for myself, but I know going through it, I just had so much second-guessing myself. And so I think looking at the stuff and just being like, yeah, it really is not something to be taken seriously.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: You know?
DL: Totally.
Krispin: So yeah.
DL: Yeah. Well, I think to end this, I'm just going to, we're going to ask each other a quick question, and then we're going to have you guys who are listening kind of ask this about yourself, too. I'm springing this on you, Krispin. So sorry about that. My question is, you know, what's a way you've been re-connecting to your true self in the past little while?
What's something you've been doing? What's something that has made you feel a bit more like yourself in these tumultuous times? Because if you grew up like this, with parents like this, you're probably going to have a hard time trusting your intuition, connecting to yourself, and even connecting to your body.
So I put all of that into one thing. So Krispin, that's my question to you. I can answer myself first if you're still thinking. Yeah,
Krispin: Yeah, why don't you start?
DL: Basically for me, I've had to go back to some of the physical stuff, and just thinking about what feels good for me to release tension in my physical body.
And for me, it's just really weird little things, and I know I've talked about this before. But, like, dancing to Daft Punk, man. Like, finding a weird way to get movement into my body has been so helpful, and you know, I walk my neighborhood all the time, but sometimes you need to just dance really weirdly to whatever music floats your boat. So that's what I've been doing.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: What about you?
Krispin: I don't know how much this falls into... It, it was an experience that felt like I connected with my authentic self, which was–
DL: Oh, are you going to talk about this?
Krispin: listening to Michael W. Smith's album I'll Lead You Home on VHS tape on a tape player.
DL: It's not VHS, it's a cassette. But yes
Krispin: Oh, sorry, cassette tape, yeah.
DL: I couldn't believe it when you wanted to buy this at the antique store.
Krispin: Uh-huh.
DL: And I was like, I cannot be in the room while you're listening to Michael W. Smith.
Krispin: Uh-huh.
DL: But you did. And how was it?
Krispin: It really helped me get in touch with who I was when I was like 11 and 12, and why I loved it.
DL: And you loved the religious ballads, didn't you?
Krispin: And I did. And I mean, this was before he went all worship, you know, forward. So it was like him being like, "I feel so depressed and I need God, and what about people that never hear about Jesus? Are they going to hell? And like, what if God doesn't exist? Like, what if we're fools?"
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: And it was interesting to be like that that little bit of – and who knows, I mean, I'm not going to give Schmitty a lot of credit, but–
DL: Don't call him that.
Krispin: But I think reflecting on me as a kid and being like, yeah, this was really important to me, 'cause I was a deep feeler, I did question things, and so I really resonated, especially in this, like, evangelical bubble, with anything that felt a little bit authentic. So yeah.
DL: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's kind of precious and kind of wonderful. I think just to wrap up this episode, and as we prepare to talk next time about the advice being given to these parents and how it's not great, I want to say, in this entire conversation today, we didn't actually talk about the parenting methods that were utilized when we were kids.
Krispin: Right.
DL: Even though our entire project is about how they are abusive, we're not even talking about that today, because what we've talked about today is how parents are responding today.
Krispin: Mm-hmm.
DL: Does that make sense? I'm like, that kind of is wild to me.
Krispin: Right, yeah. I mean, I think a lot about Dobson always said, parents that negotiate with a child will raise a child that thinks that he can negotiate with God, you know, at the end of his life. But I'm like, parents who don't negotiate with their kids then raise kids who feel like there's no way to have a conversation with my parents.
DL: There's no way to have a conversation. So yeah, so that's the truth of it. It's less about my parents spanked me, my childhood was horrible, I want nothing to do with my parents, although that could be true for some people. I'm not judging that. But really it's about this bigger issue of you can't be in real relationship
with people who... somebody said this in our Discord group. By the way, our Discord group is amazing. And you can join it by joining our Patreon. And they were like, to be born into a home where the parents utilize these methods is to be someone's ideological project instead of a human being.
And that's kind of the bigger issue here. It's like you can make mistakes as a parent and still have a relationship with your adult child. You know? But not if you're viewing them just as an extension of yourself or as needing to fulfill their role and everything else is Satan, you know?
Krispin: Right. Yeah.
DL: Okay, I gotta stop talking now.
Krispin: Yep. We gotta wrap up. Thank you all for listening. Thanks for those of you that are supporting and joining over in that conversation about the developmental impacts of growing up in a community like this. And yeah, we'll be back next time to talk about, what's the advice parents are giving.
DL: The Prodigal Parents.
Krispin: Uh-huh. So yeah, we'll be back next month with that. Thanks so much for listening!
DL: Bye!
