Close Encounters of the Pearl Kind

Someone finally noticed that I have a discussion board on my Facebook Page.  So far, there is only one discussion there, so far and I found it so interesting, I thought I’d share for those who have not joined Facebook.

This is Stephanie’s story of her close encounter with Pearl’s followers:

With my second pregnancy (1st baby) I got dropped by my midwife. I searched the internet for another and there are not many where I live, I was 35 weeks I think. I met with one and I hired her because ” none of the other midwives like because she is so hands off”. Well, that what she said and that what I wanted. She hosted Centering Pregnancy and Parenting and was a La Leche League leader and also a Bradley childbirth instructor. Anyways after my Daughter was born I went the Centering Parenting group every 2 weeks or so and LLL. She also hosted a bunch of different classes and such and I became friends with some of the people who attended. I noticed that she was ultra conservative, but I don’t like to judge one’s character on political or religious bases. I like to think of myself as open minded and make friends with people from all walks of life and different interests. She said some peculiar things that I just brushed off. Example: when talking to a mother with a newborn that was having trouble nursing “just tell him no and not to do that. I think babies understand right and wrong, whats expected of them.” She asked which church we went to and she said ” I have my own church at my house”

I was becoming friends with a lady that lived down the street from me, we met at the LLL meeting. We had a lot in common, I think, and hit it off. The second time I visited her she showed me this book called Help Meet. She raved about how wonderful this book was and showed me her favorite chapter called “Mommy why am I so dumb?” Really, that’s what it’s called. She said she was starting up a club for this book and would have all her friends over and I was invited. I went. There were a lot of kids at the Help Meet club.

At this club they discussed the book and had extras to pass out. It was defiantly disturbing the things some of the women said. About how the wife is supposed to never, ever turn down sex from her husband. That if a woman is beaten by her husband then it’s her fault and quote “Too bad for her” with a very smug attitude. That it is a sin to wear pants and to ask your husband’s permission to buy anything, including toothpaste or any necessities. I left early and asked to borrow the book out of curiosity and because I didn’t want them to think I was being rude for leaving early. Just because I didn’t agree with it or like some of the women there didn’t mean I didn’t want to be friends with her.

Anyways the woman I was becoming friends with, lets call her Sarah, invited me to her baby shower. I didn’t think I would make it because it was being held at someones house about 30 miles away. But I did. I met lots of other moms and kids. You know I thought that since the women I was hanging out with were Attachment Parenters or similar, because they exclusively breastfed, used slings and the like and bedshared. Anyways halfway through the party a women handed her baby off and grabbed her son by the arm and dragged him off to the stairwell. Three rooms away I could hear WHACK, WHACK WHACK! and then the crying. He was crying so hard. and after he stopped again WHACK, WHACK WHACK! and then the crying. Three times this happened while I was there. I wanted to stop it, I wanted to do something. But everybody around me was acting like nothing was happening. Like this happened all the time. I left. And I felt horrible for leaving that little boy there to be beaten. Something inside me just snapped. I don’t know I just had to get my daughter out of there. I cried on the way home and told my daughter that I would never, ever hurt her. For about three days I dwelled on this, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t stopped it. Finally I emailed one of the ladies that was at the party about it and asked if anybody stopped it and such. The lady I emailed was one of the midwives at my birth. That day I got and call from my midwife, the head midwife the one that owned the business. She told me she was to explain what happened at the baby shower, because the other midwife didn’t know what to say. She talked down to me like How dare I even think about stopping the beating. She said it was the mothers right to her her child and that she knows how hard and how long to hit for that child. And quote she said “I have to practically beat my kid with a bat to get him to listen”. Then she tried to get me to buy her book “To train up a child” I just sat there and listened in stunned silence and finally I said I’m going now and she kept saying I love you and I hung up. I was thinking you don’t know what love is. That night I researched the book, I was horrified. I just don’t get why anyone would ever want to hurt their baby. I kept thinking this goes against very thing the Bible teaches. The phone call was on Wednesday I called CPS on friday just to talk to someone about what happened, but they didn’t want to talk they just wanted info. Apparently CPS and Metro showed up on Saturday at the midwife’s house. I don’t know what happened, nor do I want to know. I do feel horrible about CPS showing up.

As for the kids that I met. The two that struck me the hardest were two of the teenagers I met. One was the 1st born she always had this nervous anxious smile on her face and if she wasn’t doing something she was very antsy. Depressed eyes and a nervous smile. I only saw the boy once, he was sitting at the table doing school work I asked him if there were any trashbags around. Without saying a word he sighed got up and got me one. No eye contact. He definitely seemed depressed to me. Run down, broken spirit. That was my impression of those two way before I even knew what their moms did to them. The kids that I met never really seemed like they were playing like it was a fake play because their moms told them too.

I think the people the buy into these kind of teachings have a serious lack of faith. They lack the faith to believe Jesus can and has touched many lives since his time here. They don’t have enough faith to believe that God is all powerful, more powerful than the devil, so powerful that many, many people believe in him, so powerful that the devil does not rule the earth, so powerful that even I and my brother whom were both raised in the most unGodly home now and have always believed and are both saved. They lack the faith that God is forgiving and compassionate and loves ever single person unconditionally. The most powerfull phrase in the Bible in my opinion, is when Jesus was on the cross, he said “forgive them, for they know not what they do”. He forgave the Jews, the people that beat him and then murdered him. He forgave them with compassion, love and understanding. He didn’t punish them but forgave. These people teach punishment over forgiveness and understanding. God gave us free will, the pearls take it away.

If you have a story to share, please join in the discussion. If you prefer to share anonymously, you may email your story to me or register here under a pseudonym and submit it.

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