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logans_girl2001) wrote2025-01-21 11:16 am
logans_girl2001) wrote2025-01-21 11:16 am
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Someone on TikTok was talking about how Gen X (of which I am squarely in the middle (1973)) gets mistaken for Boomers (my parents). This got me thinking about why I have 'strayed' (according to my mother) from the church.
I grew up in an uber conservative house. My parents (mostly my mother) had my brother and I at the church all the time. She was so involved that she had a key.
I was raised to believe that Republicans where the only ones who cared about this country and it was my civic duty to vote red. In 2008, I realized that what I had been lead to believe all my life was just not true. So, I voted blue for the first time.
I felt properly ministered to up until my parents and I returned from PA my junior year of high school.
When we left a year and a half before, there were two or three people in the youth group (the church was mostly older couples whose children had grown up and moved away). By the time we returned, it had grown to about two dozen.
At the time, it was common to pick on underclassmen. An example: there was this one guy who told me he was a freshman. I said, 'Ew, a freshman' and got my ass chewed by everyone for it. Keep in mind, this was just moments AFTER someone else had made a joke about him being a freshman. Turns out, he was actually my age but had to repeat a couple of grades for various reasons.
Eventually, the high school girls Sunday School class got a new teacher, she was just a few years older than us and had a preschool age child. Almost immediately I started being excluded. I now realize she agreed to teach the high school girls so she could be one of the 'popular girls'.
The time that stands out the most in my mind was at a slumber party my senior year.
It was the high school and middle school girls. At some point during the evening, it was decided that we would go on a scavenger hunt (I'm sure it was planned just maybe not exactly WHEN we would go).
One of the high school girls had gone to the store with our teacher and when she came back she started going through the house, calling for all the girls. Except for me. I got in her way several times and asked, 'what about me' but she just pushed me aside and ignored me.
I went to the bathroom and while I was in there crying, everyone left. I should have called my parents to come get me right then, or even when that bitch was ignoring me, but I didn't.
When everyone got back, they chewed me out for 'hiding' and said I could have gone with the middle school girls. They then spent the rest of the night telling me everything that was wrong with me and why they would never allow me to be one of them.
After all that, a girl who had been invited by one of the middle schoolers said, 'I'm really glad I came tonight. It's awesome to see that y'all care so much about her to tell her how to correct her behavior.' Except they didn't tell me how to 'correct my behavior'. BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY BEHAVIOR! I didn't do anything that they didn't do. And when I pointed it out, I was told that I didn't know them well enough to joke like that.
That Sunday morning, I felt like the female leaders of the youth group wanted me to apologize to the group at large. Keep in mind that they didn't SAY anything but I was raised with a mother in the choir loft and a father at the sound board. I rarely sat with my parents during the service so I got really good at interpreting what different looks mean.
So, I got up in front of the group and started talking. The youth pastor tried to stop me and one of the women, I think it was his wife, said, 'No, she needs to do this.'
I then got several thank you cards from the leaders of the group. Seriously, they THANKED me for apologizing to my BULLIES.
If I had not been a Christian at the time, this would have totally soured me on Christianity. I guess it's true what they say: there's no hate like Christian love.
Anyway, this was all to explain part of the reason I am now more liberal than how I was raised.
I grew up in an uber conservative house. My parents (mostly my mother) had my brother and I at the church all the time. She was so involved that she had a key.
I was raised to believe that Republicans where the only ones who cared about this country and it was my civic duty to vote red. In 2008, I realized that what I had been lead to believe all my life was just not true. So, I voted blue for the first time.
I felt properly ministered to up until my parents and I returned from PA my junior year of high school.
When we left a year and a half before, there were two or three people in the youth group (the church was mostly older couples whose children had grown up and moved away). By the time we returned, it had grown to about two dozen.
At the time, it was common to pick on underclassmen. An example: there was this one guy who told me he was a freshman. I said, 'Ew, a freshman' and got my ass chewed by everyone for it. Keep in mind, this was just moments AFTER someone else had made a joke about him being a freshman. Turns out, he was actually my age but had to repeat a couple of grades for various reasons.
Eventually, the high school girls Sunday School class got a new teacher, she was just a few years older than us and had a preschool age child. Almost immediately I started being excluded. I now realize she agreed to teach the high school girls so she could be one of the 'popular girls'.
The time that stands out the most in my mind was at a slumber party my senior year.
It was the high school and middle school girls. At some point during the evening, it was decided that we would go on a scavenger hunt (I'm sure it was planned just maybe not exactly WHEN we would go).
One of the high school girls had gone to the store with our teacher and when she came back she started going through the house, calling for all the girls. Except for me. I got in her way several times and asked, 'what about me' but she just pushed me aside and ignored me.
I went to the bathroom and while I was in there crying, everyone left. I should have called my parents to come get me right then, or even when that bitch was ignoring me, but I didn't.
When everyone got back, they chewed me out for 'hiding' and said I could have gone with the middle school girls. They then spent the rest of the night telling me everything that was wrong with me and why they would never allow me to be one of them.
After all that, a girl who had been invited by one of the middle schoolers said, 'I'm really glad I came tonight. It's awesome to see that y'all care so much about her to tell her how to correct her behavior.' Except they didn't tell me how to 'correct my behavior'. BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY BEHAVIOR! I didn't do anything that they didn't do. And when I pointed it out, I was told that I didn't know them well enough to joke like that.
That Sunday morning, I felt like the female leaders of the youth group wanted me to apologize to the group at large. Keep in mind that they didn't SAY anything but I was raised with a mother in the choir loft and a father at the sound board. I rarely sat with my parents during the service so I got really good at interpreting what different looks mean.
So, I got up in front of the group and started talking. The youth pastor tried to stop me and one of the women, I think it was his wife, said, 'No, she needs to do this.'
I then got several thank you cards from the leaders of the group. Seriously, they THANKED me for apologizing to my BULLIES.
If I had not been a Christian at the time, this would have totally soured me on Christianity. I guess it's true what they say: there's no hate like Christian love.
Anyway, this was all to explain part of the reason I am now more liberal than how I was raised.