There’s been a lot of discussion on the intertubes about Deborah 13, a BBC doco about a UK 13 year old raised in an uber-Christian family with no contact with the outside world. This film pushed the buttons of many, with an impressive 642 comments on Richard Dawkins’ site. It’s on YouTube: Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6
Deborah’s parents keep to themselves, home-school their 11 kids & do Bible study with them. Deborah listens to creationist sermons while she sleeps. She has no friends her age. At night she evangelises teenagers who are out on the town. The theology she’s inherited from her family is very close to Ray Comfort’s, the absolute worst of the worst. (Have you ever told a lie? If so what does that make you? So how would you as a liar fare on the day of judgement?) The doco’s provoked a large outcry about how her parents are committing child abuse and that we’re supposed to be very scared when watching is.
But instead I grew hopeful. I did see a girl abused by having her head filled with nonsense. But I also saw a girl who’s lively, confident, intelligent, assertive and eager to learn. She “[doesn't] mind offending people” and is genuinely interested in engaging those with other points of view. She’s a caring girl (although terrified that if she doesn’t convert you, you’ll get hit by a bus the next day and go to hell). And she actually has a personality of her own, and a point of view — how many 13 year olds can say the same?!
It’s the documentary makers I was mad at. The interviewer shows Deborah doesn’t know about reality TV or Britney Spears, as if that’s supposed to be some sign of deprivation. Deborah stays with her brother at his uni to get a brief taste of outside life. He takes her to a frat party, a rave party and shopping; again as if that’s supposed to be some pinnacle of what the “secular lifestyle” has to offer. I wonder how much of this was set up by the documentary makers in their good-vs-evil narrative. The only heartbreaking part is when she breaks down about how much of a sinner she is and how great Jesus was to die for her. But again this just shows how much her story is manipulated.
The extent of her brainwashing can be seen on her blog. But studying the Bible is better than not using her brain at all. I saw actual thoughts in her head, thoughts that will hopefully lead to her freedom. There are probably hundreds of thousands of families as religious as hers in the UK alone. To theb be most shocked that she doesn’t have a TV is insane. To see her as some messed-up damaged Other undermines the doco makers’ own humanity. What shines from the film (despite their intentions), is hope. Deborah developed her personality even in the harsh environment of her parents’ nonsense.
11 comments ↓
I agree 100% with your comments. I listened to (part of the BBC) interview and was annoyed with questions like “have you watched reality TV?” or “do you know who Britney is?”, which were used to “prove” to the listener who deprived Deborah is.
Well, in the same sense, I am also deprived: I never owened a TV, I did not know of Britney until I saw the photo of her bald head on a tabloid, and have never watched reality TV. What a bunch of nonsense! Do these people mean to say that if you substitute religious catechism with TV brainwashing then you get a normal child?
It is very sad that Deborah has been brought up in a fundamentalist environment, but I don’t know if it is sadder than the case of a teenage girl who grows up drinking diet coke, eating crisps for dinner and getting pregnant at 13, losing her teeth at 18 and being a mess and drug addict at 21. They are both extremes and neither is better than the other.
C’Mon, man! How terribly ‘warped’ can she be? OK, she has a worldview and outlook radically different than yours – but no more so than the Levellers that waged the British Civil War to free England from Kings and establish a government by the people, right? Those guys outlawed Christmas as being ‘too likely to encite love of material things’.
Do I agree with how her parents raised her? No, not really. But it is in details. I homeschool my 4 kids; religious education is very much a part of their training. But we have a TV, a PS3, etc. They have other Catholic homeschooled kids as friends.
In general, they reject the ideas of rave, a fair fraction don’t have TVs, and some are Creationists. Some of those kids (grown a bit already) are mathematicians, chemists, and roboticists. Some are becoming priests that read, write, and speak Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and German (the ‘traditional’ languages of a Catholic theologian) already. My 12 year old can tell jokes to his friends in Latin and has a grant for research in bioregenerative life support systems; my 9 year old is in 2nd year algebra; my 6 year old reads at a 4th grade level. My 8 year old is doing original research into carnivorous plants. They all test out of American standardized tests in the top 0.5% of students.
And they aren’t unusual among homeschooled kids. Even if they are so ‘brainwashed’ as to agree with Isaac Newton in the existence of God, or with Copernicus that the Catholic Church teaches truth these kids still, somehow, manage to have a rather firmer grasp on math, science, and history than their more open-minded peers. Even in the field of biology a religious person who, like Gregor Mendel, accepts the bible as real and true, can still muddle along and perhaps do as well as, perhaps, Francis Collins (head of the Human Genome Project and a practicing Catholic).
Having parents that, because of their beliefs, decided to spend their own time to train and educate their many children themselves in such a manner that they have so far become (your words) “lively, confident, assertive, and eager to learn” is something that makes me conclude, contrary to you, that her ‘environment’ isn’t very harsh at all.
I heard a lot of buzz about this video but didn’t have the heart to watch it.
My family (I have two children) is thoroughly secular but I often find myself on the same side of this conversation as my fundamentalist parents – rejecting American excess and superficiality.
Our differences aren’t even that great in what activities we choose in place of pop culture, mainly my parents insist on calling them “Christian” values – family, service, hard work, etc. – which I find annoying
DeepThought — I’m not sure how this connects to what I’m saying.
I did not say she was warped — in fact the word doesn’t appear in my post and I looked for similar words in case I missed something and found none.
I didn’t say there was anything wrong about her being homeschooled per se (but in this case the fact that she is homeschooled means the knowledge she has access to is even more restrictive).
I didn’t say religious people are brainwashed and I don’t think specific examples of brilliant people who were religious has anything to do with Deborah and her life.
The reason her environment is harsh is because her parents taught her nonsense and have traumatised her emotionally by the idea that absolutely everyone is going to hell and that she’s such a terrible sinner. The fact that the family is homeschooled and isolated only makes the nonsense more harmful to her — if she had interactions with more kids her age (including those outside her faith) this would make her environment far less harsh. Similarly if they taught her whatever you teach your kids I would think the same.
Anyway of all the posts I thought you’d agree with this one the most (I assume you don’t think they’re teaching her good theology from your perspective?)
Michael, you say:
I didn’t say religious people are brainwashed and I don’t think specific examples of brilliant people who were religious has anything to do with Deborah and her life.
This is precisely my “problem” too. Specifically, I know many examples of bright religious people (and, likewise, stupid nonreligious ones, say stupid atheist scientists). So, the partition of the world according to religious/nonreligious is not the same as the partition smart/stupid, contrary to what some people may want to infer by reading, e.g., Dawkins.
I am still searching for (i) an explanation and (ii) references to support my views.
Phaedrus — I recommend you do, there are only a few cringeworthy parts in 60 mins so it’s not too bad.
Takis — do you have a specific example where Dawkins partitions the world in this way?
Michael,
First – I am sorry. Mainly for being really unclear and also for over-reacting. Mea Culpa.
What I was *trying* to say is that – she’ll be fine. Kids raised as hard-core Communists or Objectivists are at least as skewed in their world-view and they are turning out OK. She will probably live a great life.
The theology is pretty messed up – the good thing is, it tends to extinguish itself over time. It is hard to train someone in Comfort’s modified Calvinism AND to read the bible and not have the ‘once and for all’ fade over time.
Sorry about the antagonism which I now see in my previous post; it wasn’t meant for you. I just got back from a homeschooling conference and man! The antagonism from some of the people towards homeschooling was weird. Sorry I carried that over.
Michael: Not at the moment. I am just basing my comment of some people’s interpretation of “the God Delusion” book, i.e. that religious = stupid vs. scientist = smart. Very naive on multiple grounds…
Deep Thought — I think she may or may not be ok, some people brought up in hardcore ideologies never shake it. I think you and I can both agree that she could well have the strength to shake the excesses of her upbdinging in which case she’ll be fine.
What’s this “once and for all” that you refer to?
Takis — I used to be quite anti-Dawkins until I realised that he is often very misinterpreted and people seem to read into his writing (and into the writings of some of the other prominent atheists) a simplistic worldview that they don’t really have. I think a lot of people have this stereotype of this flaming atheist that they use to interpret real people like Dawkins even if it doesn’t fit. And I have seen very few examples of this stereotype actually show up in public debate or my real life.
Actually Deep Thought — if you say you over-reacted I’m keen to know why. Was there some expectation that my opposition to religion would be more simplistic than it is? From your comments on some of my other posts, you seem to interpret what I say as a lot more “shrill” than I intend it to be.
Part 1 was enough for me (or does it get better?). The “journalist” does a terrible job of portraying her relationship to the outside world by trivialising the latter to popular culture, adolescent sex and parties with kids your own age. Even at schools some kids take a long time to befriend kids their own age. The environment of the playground is more open, but can often be far from superior to a home-school.
The issue is whether a child like Deborah has the opportunity to discover other ideas; whether she would be allowed to put certain books on her shelf; and how distraught as a person and a family member she might be if what her parents had been hiding from her so long appealed to her at some later stage.
Agree on the 1st too points as being trivialising but not parties with kids her own age — wouldn’t you say that these are pretty important? And yes the playground isn’t always great but for someone who is home-schooled there should at least be a good [better?] substitute provided by the parents.
The doco does get better in portraying her in a more balanced light, since she’s pretty sympathetic. (On the note of people taking time to make friends, she is quite sociable and looks like she’d have no problem so it is one thing she’s being deprived of.)
And yes, the setting-up-for-probable-devastation is probably the worst aspect of what her parents are doing.
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