ownedgirlie
Posts: 9184
Joined: 2/5/2006 Status: offline
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My sister is not Jewish, but ultra conservative Christian. She wears a head covering, always. Only her husband sees her hair (beautiful, lusciuos, golden hair). She dresses extremely modestly. She is following a rule book that she professes to believe in, and professes is the way to live. She is a very unhappy woman. Her children are not bright, happy souls, they are raised with a lot of rules that are, in my opinion, stifling. Anything they witness in our out of their home that does not abide by the rules they are raised with, scares and stresses them. The littlest nephew (6) is fascinated by my toenail polish, and that I wear jewelry. The older one (9) is afraid of me for it...he thinks I am evil. I am not denigrating their life choice, nor did I see hejira denigrate her brother. We are both entitled to opinions that have us feeling such a way of living is limiting. Perhaps her choice of words is what confused people, in thinking there is not much "freedom of expression" in that lifestyle. The posters of this thread are correct - these siblings are free to express themselves as they wish, and this is their choice of expression. My nephews, however, are not. They can't go swimming (publicly or privately) without being fully dressed (modesty is a must). The little guy's favorite color is pink, and he is not allowed pink things because he is a boy. They are not allowed to talk about magic, or watch TV or listen to anything but Christian music. My cell phone once rang over there, and it was an up-beat, kind of rockish tune. The little one's eyes got wide and said, "That's the Devil's music!!!" So tell me, are those boys free to express themselves naturally? The little one is showing a LOT of feminine traits. So they have him in counseling to "de-gay" him. This is the kind of thing I believe hejira was speaking of, regarding no freedom to express oneself. I am mostly interested, however, in what her OP was originally about. For some reason, everyone felt the need to jump on board the "You are wrong!!" train, and veer completely off course from her OP. Maybe it's because most of the posters here were not raised in unconventional environments so can not comment on them. I know I wasn't. I was raised in a Catholic home - we went to church every Sunday. Once a year the priest would come and do a rosary with us and bless the house and family. We went to catechism. My oldest brother & sister went to Catholic high schools. We said Grace every night before dinner, and our prayers every night before bed. As adults, one brother became born-again, then later returned to his Catholicism. One sister became Hindu, and then Atheist, and has recently married a Catholic man who has brought her back to the Catholic church. My other sister is the ultra conservative, my other brother is raising his kids Catholic in a Catholic school, but doesn't deeply believe in Catholic doctrine, and I have turned from my Christian faith and find more peace and reality in Buddhism and the Tao. My Dad once said kids will eventually return to the beliefs with which they were raised, so he wasn't concerned that we all grew away from it, as he had faith we would eventually come back. So far, 3 out of 5 have done so. Perhaps that is because we return to where we are comfortable, and the beliefs we are raised with end up being the most familiar. I really don't know. I'd love to see this thread get back on course, though. It's an interesting topic.
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