Radiolab podcast on homeschooler with no identity?

[Daria]

I'd be fine with that as well though. Most private schools do require documentation in various ways and I know that to operate as a school, the private school I worked at the longest had to take documentation from kids, but you're right, probably not all states require it any more than all states require homeschool notification of any kind.

 

Private schools also, usually generate documentation.  I don't actually know whether the private school where I teach requires birth certificates, but we produce student ID's, and report cards, and transcripts, and yearbook with photos, all of which can be used to establish a paper trail and evidence that a child existed.  

 

We also require a shot record, which means that all of our kids have to be seen by a medical professional..  Even if you get an exemption, that form needs to be signed by a medical professional.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

I think the whole "sovereign citizen" thing is bigger than we know, within the homeschooling community. I say that because of the common threads in these abuse and neglect cases. They have no problem threatening authority, believe that parental rights trump all (even the right to beat or neglect a child), are usually heavily armed, and act very paranoid about "the Man."

 

Recently, two local homeschoolers that I knew to be libertarian (in years past) got very angry about some local government issues and let the veil slip...underneath was "sovereign citizen" which, being interpreted as they shared their vision, would lead to anarchy. They kept that extremism well-hidden for years. But having seen what's beneath that veil, now I know why they were always so angry, so nearly manic, over pet topics such as immunization, social programs, and public education. They didn't just have an opinion concerning their own family, or some well-reasoned thoughts toward changes to the general way of doing things in America. No, they were furious. They resented the government on every level, and hated anyone willing to participate in citizenship at all.

 

Just as we had to figure out the hard way that we're inundated by patariarchal misogynists (and figure out how to distance ourselves from them for the sake of our own reputation), we will probably have to face the reality that these people are flying under the homeschool flag, as well.

 

It is a homeschooling issue, because they want checked out of citizenry. And the only way to do that in this country (or the way to do it the most) is to take yourself off the grid in as many ways as possible, have no papers, fly under the radar, hide your children from the state...and how do they do that? Through the freedom of homeschooling.

 

Edited: Just to make this very, very clear -- I know that there are reasons for our right to bear arms and I am not anti-gun. I also know that there are reasons for medical, religious, and philosophical exemptions to vaccinations that are not about some paranoid fear that the government is trying to damage your child for its own financial gain.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Tibbie Dunbar

[Corraleno]

 

Where are you getting all this house of horrors stuff, their requirements for adult children,  and beating a baby stuff? 

 

The information about what the adult children are and aren't allowed to do came from Lisa's blog as well as from statements by Alecia and her siblings — including the ones (Jacob and Grace) who publicly defended the parents when the whole thing went viral. Jacob was posting on FB and on various websites defending the parents' choice not to get BCs for any of their kids, parroting the usual Sovereign Citizen stuff about not being registered with the government, and claiming that the lack of ID would in no way inhibit his ability to live a normal life — although at the time he was 21, living at home, working only part-time at their church, and was not allowed to watch TV or have a phone or internet access.

 

The "Hi Mommy" thing was a blog entry that Lisa posted, then deleted after she started getting nasty comments for beating a baby (which apparently surprised her!). That blog is called LivingMyBestLife, but now it's "invitation only." The Penningtons have been on the radar of groups like HomeschoolersAnonymous and FreeJinger for a long time, so people were discussing (and saving) her posts before they were deleted.

 

Well, maybe, assuming she had that knowledge, that a delayed birth certificate can only be acquired when no original birth certificate had even been filed. 

 

I figure the truth actually lies somewhere in the middle between the daughter and the parents' stories. 

 

It's only common sense that the parents needed to provide this information to adult children anyway so why would any parent resist that?    Not sure why she had to sneak away with Grandma and Grandpa without telling her parents or even a goodbye, when even Grandpa told her to speak with her parents.  It isn't as if the parents could legally do anything about it once she reached 18.

 

I think we aren't getting the whole story. 

 

 

It may be common sense to you that parents need to provide this information, but the fact is that James and Lisa Pennington purposely withheld this information from their children in order to keep them as virtual prisoners— and continued to withhold it even after Alecia went public begging for help. The lack of birth certificates was absolutely deliberate and intentional; this is corroborated by not only Alecia but other children. Only one of the 9 has an original BC, and she only has that because the midwife registered the birth without telling the parents. When the parents claimed that they thought the midwife had registered Alecia's birth, they were lying through their teeth.

 

The reason Alecia had to sneak her grandfather's phone number and text him on an iPod using wifi was because she was not allowed to have access to a phone or internet without her parents' supervision. She was not allowed to drive. Her contact with the outside world was very strictly controlled. And even after she got in the car to leave with her grandparents, her parents got in the car with her, ordered the grandparents to get out of the car, and tried to prevent her from leaving.

 

 

And I'm still amazed she never had to see a doctor even one time for a childhood illness, strep throat, glasses, anything at all. If she had, there would be a medical record. 

 

Her uncle is a doctor. If they ever needed antibiotics or anything, they could have gotten them from him. One of documents she ended up using to get her BC was a notarized letter from her uncle saying that he treated her once when she was a kid and could attest to her age and parentage.

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Corraleno

[TranquilMind]

You can,it's just not a good idea. They sell essential oils, and I am sure they "treated" medical problems with them. And prayed. Who needs a doctor if you have oils and prayer?  :cursing:

 

I knew some people who never used medical care.  Their teen son had an appendix burst.  When he passed out in church, even the pastor told them to go to the ER. 

 

Except for that incident, of course, their kids never went. Some got braces as young adults though.  

 

[ktgrok]

I knew some people who never used medical care.  Their teen son had an appendix burst.  When he passed out in church, even the pastor told them to go to the ER. 

 

Except for that incident, of course, their kids never went. Some got braces as young adults though.  

 

 

yup. It happens, and so I can believe it happened in this family. 

[Anne in CA]

It is so weird to me that they had anything to gain by keeping a 23yo hostage. The sick control issues these people have are so far off the map of the human psyche that I have no reference for them. My MIL's parents did not want her to drive. They were nuts about not allowing her to drive. Her mother drove, but her parents did not want her to learn to drive. When she got married (at 17 to escape them, duh) her husband taught her to drive and they were quite unhappy about it. They complained about her "bad driving" until they died although she never had an at fault accident or fender bender. They had serious issues and after they died she read some of their correspondence and discovered that they were really not the well intentioned parents she tried to picture them as. But the Penningtons are WACKO.

[LucyStoner]

My mother never saw a doctor until she was only enough to get to the ER herself. My grandmother didn't take her. Ever. For anything. As a result of untreated chronic ear infections, my mother reached adulthood mostly deaf. She had nearly no hearing in one ear and poor hearing in the other. Nor was she taken to the doctor when she started having epileptic seizures. Because. You know, that was not a medical priblem. It was a demon that needed to be banished. Actually it was too many blows to the head, but it's not like my grandmother would admit to that.

 

There are kids who are healthy enough that they just don't need to go to the doctor. There are also parents who won't go for ideological reasons or because they are trying to conceal abuse.

Edited September 4, 2016 by LucyStoner

[FaithManor]

The doctor thing is easy. People who don't believe in them simply do not take their children to them. We have a decent size grouo of christian scientists locally and their children do not see medical professionals when sick or injured.

 

My own niece who has not allowed her five year old daughter to have any vaccines or see a doctor from until last month allowed her child to come close to permanent damage from whooping cough because she wss convinced that good nutrition and essential oils can cure everything. Literally e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. she even told my dad that his lung, removed due to cancer, would grow back if he inhaled frankincense oil.

 

She isn't sovereign citizen either. There are a fair number of anti medicine, anti science people in our culture.

[MrsBasil]

My mother never saw a doctor until she was only enough to get to the ER herself. My grandmother didn't take her. Ever. For anything. As a result of untreated chronic ear infections, my mother reached adulthood mostly deaf. She had nearly no hearing in one ear and poor hearing in the other. Nor was she taken to the doctor when she started having epileptic seizures. Because. You know, that was not a medical priblem. It was a demon that needed to be banished. Actually it was too many blows to the head, but it's not like my grandmother would admit to that.

 

There are kids who are healthy enough that they just don't need to go to the doctor. There are also parents who won't go for ideological reasons or because they are trying to conceal abuse.

 

Yeah, my kids go for check ups, but they've never had the flu, strep, ear infections, chicken pox, pink eye, or anything that would necessitate visits. My son has had a GI bug once, but it was a 24 hour one so we didn't have to take him in.      We go for check ups partially just to have medical care documented. 

[Crimson Wife]

Private schools also, usually generate documentation.  I don't actually know whether the private school where I teach requires birth certificates, but we produce student ID's, and report cards, and transcripts, and yearbook with photos, all of which can be used to establish a paper trail and evidence that a child existed. 

 

If she had attended a private religious school affiliated with a whackadoodle movement, the administrators might've seen Alecia Faith as still being under the "cover" of her parents and disobedient for wanting to leave. There is no guarantee that they would be forthcoming with records in that type of situation.

 

Let's not forget that the FLDS had their own private schools so simply attending a B&M school does not protect the children being raised within abusive cult-like movements.

 

[staceyobu]

This really surprises me.  All we had to do is show up at the Health Department with the baby so they could see it, and they issued birth certificates.

It was pretty crazy. I mean, I had an obvious newborn. But, someone official had to say that there was a baby.

 

I know of some others who have struggled to get proper paperwork with out of hospital births. States don't always make it super easy to accomplish. Instead of all the threats to jail parents or make it mandatory to get a bc, maybe they just need to make it accessible to get one when you want one. I mean, I know they have to make it hard to claim to be someone you're not, but there has to be some middle ground.

[Daria]

This really surprises me. All we had to do is show up at the Health Department with the baby so they could see it, and they issued birth certificates.

How did they ascertain that it was in fact your baby? What is to someone from claiming a baby as theirs, or from acquiring 2 birth certificates for the same child for nefarious purposes?

 

There must be some middle ground.

[TranquilMind]

How did they ascertain that it was in fact your baby? What is to someone from claiming a baby as theirs, or from acquiring 2 birth certificates for the same child for nefarious purposes?

 

There must be some middle ground.

 

We told her the birth story.  She believed us.  I think I had some notation from the midwife in a notebook, now that I think about it.