Wednesday, 14 August 2013

The deliberate spread of misinformation

When my siblings and I were children, my parents deliberately misinformed us about the world. I am still not sure what the overall goal was. Some of it makes sense. The ideological nonsense that contributed to psychological control makes sense, such as the misinformation about lust, reproduction, and consequences, but some of it really doesn't make sense. 


My parents taught us some strange theories about food, which I believe contributed to a lot of food and weight issues in our family. They told us that calories were a lie, and that potatoes and rice were vegetables. They didn't teach us to have a treat or two and then healthy food, to make choices. They didn't teach us that you could have a certain amount and maintain, lose or gain weight. They taught us that when food was available to eat it. There was always food, but sometimes it was just rice, for breakfast lunch and supper. So when there was tasty food available, we really wanted it. We weren't taught moderation and we were taught that there was only ever starvation or overindulgence. 

For the purpose of this writing I finally did some quick googling about lactose in milk. It doesn't matter now and it didn't matter then, no one in my family is lactose intolerant. But my parents told us that butter didn't have any lactose but margarine does. This, as I learned today, is very outdated (50 years or more), because margarine is now normally prepared to be lactose free, and butter is often 'enhanced' with other dairy products. Pure butterfat is lactose free, but that is very difficult to achieve. 


My parents taught us that everyone outside our circle wanted to harm us. They taught us that foster parents are bad people and that social workers want to hurt children. They taught us that non-religious children are mean and selfish and would steal our stuff. It was only after going to high school that I learned that non-fundamentalist teens are great people. Sure they aren't perfect, but they really don't judge other non-perfect teens either. 



They taught us that spending money on something that you do not need to the point of failing health or death is wrong. This extended from food to shoes to glasses. I was given a pair of glasses when I was nine, at which point I learned that stars are real (I thought people were lying about seeing stars in the sky) and stores in the mall have signs above them so you know which store it is - I thought people guessed and I couldn't see in, and I never had the courage to ask what I was missing. My next pair of glasses came when I was 15. After there were about six of us I don't think my parents ever bought shoes or clothes, not even from second hand, instead depending on other families to give us their cast off underwear and shoes and other items. 

These are just some of the ways we were misled about daily life, not to mention the religion-based untruths. Further to the idea of not buying items that weren't life preserving, we were taught that desiring things was wrong, and that god would judge us for jealousy if we wished for more of anything or asked for what we saw other children receive.


My parents taught us that girls weren't as valuable to parents as boys were, because boys could grow up to be powerful successful people one day, unlike girls. They taught us that the women's role was to support the men in whatever the men wanted to do, and we weren't supposed to have any dreams of our own because it would hinder the goals of our future husbands. 

I know that at this point I have been able to gather knowledge and counteract the misinformation I received, but I still have siblings in that home that are receiving a similar level of false information. I took it upon myself to give some information to my siblings, especially regarding female health, because there was a real worry that misinformation could cause harm. And I thought my sisters should know that tampons didn't take your virginity. Lying to your children like this should be criminal.


  1. I grew up in an extreme fundamental, Patriarchal family and my parents told my siblings and I many of the same lies your parents did. I guess the part that bothered me the most though, is that we were taught that to challenge their view by questioning or trying to think for ourselves was sinful, and we would be punished by God. So I never dared to "sin" by questioning many of the lies I was taught until recently.

    1. I think that part of the most shocking part for me, in hindsight, is how long it took for me to become a knowledge seeker. I think I was partly afraid to find out what was true and what wasn't. It's the ultimate control, isn't it, to tell a child what to think and what to believe, and that even thinking of other ideas is sinful.