Help me find the thread on "Created To Be His Help Meet

[runninmommy]

so I don't have to irriatate a bunch of you by rehashing this topic. I found the topic on "The Pearls" about child rearing but not on marriage.

 

TIA

[Free Indeed]

I did not see a thread on it, but I love the book and if you want to PM me with a question please do. :lurk5:

[SapphireStitch]

I don't remember the thread, so I don't know how that discussion played out.

 

I have the book, I've read it, I liked a few parts of it, some other parts I hated. I can see value in SOME of it, but I wouldn't hand it to a friend to read without discussing it first.

 

I'm guess this must have been a hot topic here at one time? If so, I don't want to rekindle any fires. PM me if want me to elaborate on my opinion.

[Holly IN]

I remember the thread that talked about it but it wasn't the main title. I remember a lot of fighting going on in that particular thread. Maybe it got deleted??

 

Holly

[*********]

I just received my copy two days ago in the mail. While I'm enjoying it, and learning a lot, I can see how that book may cause quite a bit of controversy around here. I just finished reading The Excellent Wife, which I enjoyed, too. Both VERY challenging books.

 

I haven't seen any threads about Help Meet in particular, but I have read quite a few comments in various threads about the Pearls. Both in support of and, um, not in support of. :D

[Carol in Cal.]

She had seen the Pearls, and wrote about how they talked about marriage.

 

I think that that was in a really, really long thread that was mostly about child raising.

[KellyGirl]

I seem to remember that a seperate thread developed on "Helpmeet" (and like Holly said, the book title wasn't in the thread title), but I couldn't find it either. Kelli in TN did have a lot to say about how the Pearls view women and such. I did locate Gardenschooler quoting Kelli about the seminars on p. 12 of the "Can We Talk about the Pearls" thread.

[Carol in Cal.]

Originally Posted by Ellie:

"I don't think anyone can comment on the Pearls who has not read their books.

 

I have read their books and receive their newsletter. I wish I had known about them when my dc were little (or that I'd had the sense they did).

 

IMHO the Ezzos' materials are abusive, not the Pearls'. "

 

Replied to by Kelli in Tn. as follows:

 

That's fair.

 

I've read a couple of their books, met both of them personally and suffered through all four sessions of a seminar starring them.

 

So I can comment, right?

 

When I read the first book I was at a place in my life where I was very open to their message. I was excited to have this wonderful fool proof formula that seemed like the ticket to the magic train that led to the land of perfect family life. We were going to tie heart strings and we were going to apply the switch and get those attitudes straight.

 

Fast forward a couple of years and life is awful. Truly awful. I have lost the heart of one of my children, thanks to a toxic combination of damaging punishment based parenting on my part and a real mental glitch on the part of said child. The craziness of the Pearls "wisdom" and a touch of Ezzo here and there masked the fragility of this child's psyche. It was a heartbreaking scenario, as I look back over my shoulder at those years.

 

The church we were attending at the time hosted the Pearls and we committed to attend the whole dang thing. I was nearly tingling with excitement. They would have the answers we needed, I just knew it. We would come out of that seminar better parents and we would fix the broken places and God would heal our family and someday it would be our letter of gratitude in their newsletter! And the birds would sing in perfect harmony and the skies would be blue all the time.

 

The first session of the seminar Mr. Pearl explained how to set your child up by leaving something tempting on the counter, cookies perhaps, and then when the child succombed to the temptation, sneaking up with your handy switch and administering blows to the back of the the child's legs. He demonstrated the proper hitting technique with a switch (it was not a plumbing line, just a thin wooden switch). He also demonstrated how to sit a child on your lap to read a story to him or her. During this sweet bonding time it is very important to make sure you have your handy dandy switch nearby because as soon as you the child gets the wiggles you need to be ready to immediately swat a couple of good ones across his legs. Because you are the parent and by golly he is going to enjoy story time with you whether he likes it or not. This was demonstrated to us with a chair, the doll, the switch, and of course, Mr. Pearl.

 

The second session dealt with teens. He explained to us how to deal with teens who express disappointment. Using his youngest daughter as an example (and she was there and had spent the afternoon playing ultimate frisbee with the youth of our church, so I am sure she was delighted to be the example in front of these new friends), he shared that sometimes she liked to go skating. Sometimes they said yes. Sometimes they said no. Pretty normal. However, if they said no and her face registered any disappointment then she was grounded from skating for 6 months. He also shared a story about using a tree branch to administer a spanking? beating? to his teenage son as his teenaged friends looked on. I don't know precisely what he meant by tree branch, he did not have a visual during this session, but my imagination leads me to believe it was probably a pretty big thing.

 

The third session dealt with being better wives. Good wives never expect anything from their husbands and want to have s#x all the time. Good wives never question their husbands. He used a story about a young girl who found herself married to a man who it turns out liked thinks a little kinky (in a way that was uncomfortable to her) and suffered from some hygiene issues. He also chewed tobacco and expected big kisses even with his mouth full of chaw. Mr. Pearl was proud to point out that thanks to the mentoring of Mrs. Pearl this young girl came to accept her lot in life and realize that she needed to change her attitude about this man, but she had no right to expect any changes on his part. And they lived happily ever after. Forever. Or maybe it just felt like forever to the poor girl.

 

The fourth session was the most fun. It was about being a good husband. Mr. Pearl went around the church to each wife and gave them a piece of paper and a pencil and asked them to write down three things that they would like to see their husband do differently. He took up the paper and then spent the next hour or so talking about how to be a better husband by sanctifying your wife by having a lot of s#x. Or something like that. There were a lot of smiling men. Then he read the slips of paper one by one and made fun of the heartfelt requests of the wives as the husbands did their best to guess which one was written by their wives. My husband guessed and he teased me and it was a very dark place in our marriage for a little bit. It was humiliating and I was not the only one who left feeling shamed.

 

I think they are dreadful people. I think their books, their website, their newsletter, and their seminars are dreadful. I base this on what I have personally heard and read from them. None of it is based on second hand information.

__________________

Kelli

 

Mom to Robby (22), Bekah (20), Sarah (18), Gabriel (13), Shalom (11) and Justice (9)

 

Rod and Staff Grammar, Horizons Math, MEP, BigMathTime, Teaching Textbooks, IEW, Smarr, Apologia, SOTW, Notgrass, Spielvogel, Aleks, DiscoveryEducation, Netflix videos, library books; these are a few of my favorite things!!

 

 

Kelli in TN

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[flyingmommy]

Wow, Kelli. That's all I can say. That, and that I am not surprised having come to a similar opinion years ago regarding the Pearls. But, Wow!

 

I will be praying for you and for the child whose heart you feel you lost. Please never give up on that child. Children always need their parents even when they're sure they don't.

 

:grouphug:

 

Jeannie

[Joanne]

I feel it's imperative to post a warning that for women in an abusive (not limited to physical abuse), the Pearls' approach to "marriage" serves only to keep the woman in the abuse dynamic. I have issues with their material in general, but to a woman suffering with abuse, their book is simply more abuse.

[Free Indeed]

I have seen tons of marriages saved by their ministry. I agree with their book and some times what we consider "abusive" is just a frustrated man. My dad was an "abusive" husband, and when I saw that mostly it really was my mom's fault -no he should not have hit her, and he tried to walk away, but she followed and yelled, and would not let up. Anyways that is sure to start something so that is all I will say- not every situation that "we" want to call abusive really is.

[OH_Homeschooler]

I have seen tons of marriages saved by their ministry. I agree with their book and some times what we consider "abusive" is just a frustrated man. My dad was an "abusive" husband, and when I saw that mostly it really was my mom's fault -no he should not have hit her, and he tried to walk away, but she followed and yelled, and would not let up. Anyways that is sure to start something so that is all I will say- not every situation that "we" want to call abusive really is.

 

Wow, sorry but there is never any reason to get physical with a spouse. If she yelled, he still should have kept walking away. I'm sorry this is your model of love.

[Joanne]

I agree with their book and some times what we consider "abusive" is just a frustrated man. My dad was an "abusive" husband, and when I saw that mostly it really was my mom's fault -no he should not have hit her, and he tried to walk away, but she followed and yelled, and would not let up. Anyways that is sure to start something so that is all I will say- not every situation that "we" want to call abusive really is.

 

This is truly a scary perspective. No woman ever asks for or deserves to be hurt by her spouse. Ever. End of story.

 

I hope that someday people who grew up with this model get help to understand the whole abuse dynamic, including the behavior of the abused spouse.

[5kidsforME]

I have seen tons of marriages saved by their ministry. I agree with their book and some times what we consider "abusive" is just a frustrated man. My dad was an "abusive" husband, and when I saw that mostly it really was my mom's fault -no he should not have hit her, and he tried to walk away, but she followed and yelled, and would not let up. Anyways that is sure to start something so that is all I will say- not every situation that "we" want to call abusive really is.

 

I understand what you are trying to say........BUT if he felt that way he should let the wife know how he felt and say, if you will not stop doing this (yelling at him and following him) we need to be seperated until we can work it out.

 

There is NEVER EVER a reason for abuse. NEVER.

[sassenach]

I have seen tons of marriages saved by their ministry. I agree with their book and some times what we consider "abusive" is just a frustrated man. My dad was an "abusive" husband, and when I saw that mostly it really was my mom's fault -no he should not have hit her, and he tried to walk away, but she followed and yelled, and would not let up. Anyways that is sure to start something so that is all I will say- not every situation that "we" want to call abusive really is.

 

Wow. Just wow. No sweety, hitting is not frustration, it's abuse. Always. Now it's true that a dynamic usually exsists between abuser and abusee (I know, not a real word), which brings an abuse cycle full circle (I've heard it called the dirty dance), but that does not change the fact that it's still abuse. I'm so sad that you would think any different.