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from afflick Monday, February 04, 2008 - 09:13 (Agree/Disagree?) What I like about this article is that it focuses on the Other Abuse. The stuff that is rarely mentioned in the media. While the sexual abuse was horrific, the sort of abuse Esther mentions was much more prolific. It happened to us all and it happened everyday. IMO, the denial of education, denial of medical care, severe punishments, isolation, have just as much impact on our adult lives as any sexual abuse suffered. We should take care to highlight this aspect of our lives in the media (actually, I'm sure we do: it's just that the focus always ends up being on the sex.) While the times I was in sexually abusive situations I can count on two hands (or three!) the times I was denied my rights as a child are innumerable. When I was sick, even really, really sick I wasn't taken to a doctor. I had a little group of three year olds that I slept with, ate with, changed diapers, 24 hours a day when I was 13/14. Then, I was put in the kitchen to cook meals for 50+ people at 14. We are dealing with a situation where our parents did not provide the necessities of life to us, including medical care but I would argue education, too. Education is a necessity of life. Even if one ends up in the most menial position, they still need an education to help them sign a lease, know more about the world around them. It is not ok to drop your teenage girl off with a bunch of people you barely know in a home 500 miles from your own and just go on with life. That is what my parents did. That, while not sexual abuse, is negligence. This aspect of our story may also help us relate to our peers in The Family. While they may say everything was peachy in their childhoods, have you noticed they do not raise their children the way they were raised? While I believe the education they get in their homeschool eduation is inadequate (not that homeschooling is always inadequate), our peers' older children are not being pulled out of it to roam the streets witnessing. In fact, I have not seen 3rd generation Family kids out raising money everyday at all. Besides some of them being organized into singing groups at Christmas, they are kept at home and given school, even the older ones. They have trips out and excursions, they are not corporally punished by every member of the home. In many cases, I do not believe they experience corporal punishment at all. To me, this says that our peers do not agree with the way they themselves were raised. (reply to this comment)

From Kelly Friday, February 08, 2008, 07:01 (Agree/Disagree?) Yep, sex sells. I’m still trying to figure out which was the lesser evil. Was it the sexual or the Psychological abuse or, the fact that our rights were violated? I guess it depends on the individual...and how one views things. Speaking of medical care: I remember them sending my brother’s (the second youngest) X Rays down to England (he had chronic pneumonia as an infant) to help out as evidence (for one of the court cases) that “the cult provided adequate health care to its children.” We were living in Indonesia at the time. My parents were so honored to be able to help. I guess, he was one of the "lucky" ones. (reply to this comment)

From Kelly Friday, February 08, 2008, 08:17 (Agree/Disagree?) and i am not gonna bother with fixing the last paragraph. (reply to this comment)

From cheeks Wednesday, February 06, 2008, 10:24 (Agree/Disagree?) I have to agree and I have been saying it for a while now. While sexual abuse did happen, and happen often, it was a quiet abuse after 94. No one was supposed to know, even if you reported it you were not allowed to tell your peers or you would really be in trouble. However the child slavery for lack of a better word was rampant. There was not one home where the kids escaped. All of us worked and worked at a very early age childcare was a 24 hr job. They usually had one tn on laundry for a home of 50 75 people and I can count on one hand the homes that had a dryer. If you were a tn and you were on laundry and it rained you were screwed. The tns that cooked for 50 to 75 people often were alone. Even in a damn soup kitchen there is more than one cook. And trying to make menus sometimes with the crap we had to cook with was a nightmare how do you feed fifty people with eight chicken legs and thighs. Or make breakfast with a dozen eggs. That was our life we cooked, cleaned took care of the kids, washed laundry, begged on the streets for nothing we were indentured servants, we were damn slaves. Nothing we had we actually owned because if you stepped out of line they took it away from you. Took you down to three set of clothes and two pairs of socks. This they can not deny, they know that we were the work force of the home, the donkeys that turned the grindstone. Oh and I just want to mention while I am at it for all the adults in the Lyon home. When you punished me and put me on laundry I threw away all of your socks, underwear, panties and bras by throwing them in the compost hole that you made E. dig. That is why you didn't have any they didn't really get lost in the wash. (reply to this comment)

From Esther Friday, February 08, 2008, 13:58 (Agree/Disagree?) Everyone has the right to speak out..Good on ya!(reply to this comment)

From Randi Tuesday, February 05, 2008, 08:41 (Agree/Disagree?) Yes Really!! Also seeing our parents, in particular, our mothers, prostitute themselves, is unforgetable and horrific. Seeing weird, horny men coming over to sleep with your mother is not a healthy experience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I remember it made me feel so sick inside... but I didn't quite understand why... which is even worse. Being made to go out witnessing on the streets, selling, busking all that instead of education and normal healthy social activities... was a crime. Our parents dragged us around from shore to shore, with no money, security... Nothing. And yes, the lack of health treatment was insane and highly abusive. I remember being so sick with like food poisoning, and just begging to go the doctor... even after a week of pain and severe vomitting and etc... they didn't budge, and all the while I couldn't so much as call my parents as I didn't even have their number. If carma exists, wow, most of these morons are coming back as highly disturbing creatures... the ones at the bottom of the food chain... perhaps they might end up a child of a violent and sick cult like the family...offering our type of childhoods...Maybe then they will finally learn something..... Gain a sense of compassion... but it might take several rebirths.(reply to this comment)

From rainy Monday, February 04, 2008, 12:32 (Agree/Disagree?) I completely agree with you Afflick. Nearly every aspect of the way we were brought up was abusive. The child labour and lack of education, but also lack of free thought and access to ideas and the world at large. Being punished for 'daydreaming' (using a child's imagination), being told you would never grow up, being told the world's blood was on your hands if you didn't witness to them, being told you were expendable, intended to wear out, being asked if you would be willing to die for the Lord, etc, etc...I think pushing all these concepts on children -who should only be concerned with imagining and making friends and learning in school- was abuse. How can a child develop normally with all that foisted upon them? Being told "Revolutionaries never ask questions", when you're curious, and getting in trouble for not being "One Wife" enough when you express a need to have your biological family around you, being accused of flirting when some dirty old uncle takes a fancy to you...all of this stuff, imposing fucked-up adult ideas on small children. How much would it horrify you to have your own child subjected to ANY of that? It's absolutely incredible we've managed to get past it. I agree that these issues are not told enough. This is reality as we knew it in our childhoods. This is the mental abuse we all grew up with. This is the stifling of our creativity and imagination and development that happened to all of us. It's a horrible tragedy, so many childhoods ruined, and it needs more attention.(reply to this comment)

From Esther Monday, February 04, 2008, 13:53 (Agree/Disagree?) Thanks everyone for your imput and thoughts on the letter.(reply to this comment)

from rainy Monday, February 04, 2008 - 01:07 (Agree/Disagree?) I have also never gotten over my memories of the adults trying to cast demons out of your brother when he had his fits. I hope he is okay. (reply to this comment)

From Esther Friday, February 08, 2008, 13:56 (Agree/Disagree?) He still suffers from fits but it seems to be more under control with the help of medical canabis.It might not work fo everyone but it does for him. (reply to this comment)

From Esther Friday, February 08, 2008, 13:48 (Agree/Disagree?) To tell you the truth,he was really screwed up for a very long time.He was very angry and got treated badly by other children after we left and he went to a public school.He never fitted in because they could see he was different.He has never been able to really trust anyone and still has alot of anger and hurt inside him because of the abuse he copped in the family by a number of members.The emotional scars have never healed.No-one ever said they were sorry to him or us.(reply to this comment)

From He never fitted in? Friday, February 08, 2008, 19:01 (Agree/Disagree?) --angry hypocrite (reply to this comment)

from DeeJay Sunday, February 03, 2008 - 23:03 (Agree/Disagree?) We've been trying for a long time. Uh, good luck with that though. (reply to this comment)