Too bad you keep on switching from personal experience to generalizations. For the latter you might need a base of information broader than just your own viewpoint.
The mass exodus of your generation… isn’t that rather an indication that your generation got the kind of training that would enable them to stand on their own? (Especially since comparative cults did not show any similar movement.)
And then you attribute the collapse of TFI to your mass exodus… I would be much more pragmatical: the shedding of dead weight started with your generation and then continued with the older ones. After all, there is more money in a business that caters to the world rather than to a band of so-called rebels. I think the transition was gentle enough to put everyone on their own feet. It’s time to grow up…
Julia (or is that Jules?), might I start by pointing out that this is a blog, ergo, my opinion and viewpoint, not an academic paper with empirical findings. However, a mass exodus of my generation and whether or not my generation got the kind of ‘training’ that would enable them to stand alone in the world do not necessarily bleed into each other and were not the point of my hypothesis to begin with. I do not think my generation were given any help or adequate education/training to stand alone in the world, but to be sure and supply you with a broader base of information for this, I will start a poll here to ask SGA kids from TFI whether or not they feel their time growing up in TFI adequately prepared them for life on the ‘outside’.
The collapse of the TFI was from waning membership. The second generation were meant to carry on the mantel, but saw through the bullshit (most of us anyway), called a spade a spade and left. Since no new members were joining thanks to a very very tarnished image that is completely irreparable, this did in fact inadvertently contribute to its collapse since the older generation left are going into their 60s and can no longer continue to raise money to keep the ship afloat and the leader’s bank accounts fat.
Perhaps you were one of those final few who made the ‘gentle transition’ which the mass exodus of your peers enabled? Most of us weren’t put on our own feet, we made a leap into the dark with nothing to catch us. Fortunately, most of us landed upright. There were plenty who didn’t.
Just an update for Julia, I set up a poll on a facebook group for ex-Family kids asking whether they felt they received adequate training/education in The Family International which enabled them to stand on their own after leaving the group and prepared them for life outside the group. The results are as follows:
Of the 37 individuals who participated in the poll, 33 answered ‘no, we did not receive adequate training/education’, 3 answered neither ‘yes or no’ and only 1 answered ‘yes, I received adequate training/education’. I hope this clarifies the aspect you felt was generalized upon.
@Julia I’d find your criticism of this article acceptable if you yourself had something relevant and unbiased to say. But listen to yourself:
“The mass exodus of your generation… isn’t that rather an indication that your generation got the kind of training that would enable them to stand on their own?”
Here you are repeating what Juliana wrote, but twisting the idea in order to make the cult’s training look positive and intentional. As Juliana’s article made clear, The “training” received by second generation members was (blatantly) intended to make them better members, not to help them “stand on their own” and adapt to life outside the cult. The capacity for rebellion may have been an unintended side-effect of the cult’s particular methods of “education”. If TFI meant to train their kids to rebel and leave in droves, would they have published countless missives condemning and threatening “backsliders” with God’s wrath? “Standing on their own” came later, and was something the kids had to do by trial and error without any help from the cult.
As for your second statement, you compare the mass exodus of second-generation members to the “shedding of dead weight”. Could your internal viewpoint as a current member of said cult be any more transparent? At least you realize that money is the prime motivation of TFI’s leaders these days.
But what amuses me most is when you write “I think the transition was gentle enough to put everyone on their own feet.” I wonder how “gentle” it felt to those young people who were thrown into a world that they were completely unprepared for without a basic education. I wonder how “gentle” it feels to all those older members without income or health insurance who are just beginning to realize that they gave over 30 years of their lives to an organization that has essentially ceased to exist and won’t pay them a single years worth of retirement money.
But you’re right, it’s time for them to “grow up”…just like their kids have done.
I enjoyed reading this, Juliana. And I think you (and your sister) might’ve hit the nail on the head with the rebel-gene theory. As an ex TFI kid myself, I have to agree that the cult most certainly did not intend to, nor did it, prepare us to stand on our own two feet outside of the cult; a fact which I feel some, if not many, FGAs have regretfully come to realize far too late (at least for it to be of any significance to their older children) and which has most certainly contributed to its downfall.
I wonder if the SGA suicides’ ever felt as though the “transition was gentle enough to put [them] on their own feet”? They certainly didn’t live long enough (like many of their counterparts who died from the abuses and neglect they suffered) to really grow up…
And, how exactly, shall we analyse the SGA who, with their stellar cult-given life-skills ended up as prostitutes, escorts, porn actors/models, strippers and other sex workers? You know statistically people generally end up in the sex industry when they’ve experienced great trauma and upheaval in their lives, right? NOT because they come from well-adjusted, parentally-supportive and educationally broad backgrounds.
Maybe, as someone so open minded, Poster-Julia, you should do a little growing up yourself and stop playing apologetics for a group of adults who systematically ruined thousands of young lives and damaged so many more. Your arrogance and pontificated idiocy is offensive.
Wow great stuff, I agree with most of what you have to say. When I first left I knew I was far behind my peers, but then with college and practical application of knowledge,I now feel a bit superior in my understanding of socio-economic and political conditions of the world.
Davina
September 11, 2011 @ 07:54
This article is right on! Summed it all perfectly!
Julia
October 3, 2011 @ 22:48
Too bad you keep on switching from personal experience to generalizations. For the latter you might need a base of information broader than just your own viewpoint.
The mass exodus of your generation… isn’t that rather an indication that your generation got the kind of training that would enable them to stand on their own? (Especially since comparative cults did not show any similar movement.)
And then you attribute the collapse of TFI to your mass exodus… I would be much more pragmatical: the shedding of dead weight started with your generation and then continued with the older ones. After all, there is more money in a business that caters to the world rather than to a band of so-called rebels. I think the transition was gentle enough to put everyone on their own feet. It’s time to grow up…
Juliana
October 4, 2011 @ 13:40
Julia (or is that Jules?), might I start by pointing out that this is a blog, ergo, my opinion and viewpoint, not an academic paper with empirical findings. However, a mass exodus of my generation and whether or not my generation got the kind of ‘training’ that would enable them to stand alone in the world do not necessarily bleed into each other and were not the point of my hypothesis to begin with. I do not think my generation were given any help or adequate education/training to stand alone in the world, but to be sure and supply you with a broader base of information for this, I will start a poll here to ask SGA kids from TFI whether or not they feel their time growing up in TFI adequately prepared them for life on the ‘outside’.
The collapse of the TFI was from waning membership. The second generation were meant to carry on the mantel, but saw through the bullshit (most of us anyway), called a spade a spade and left. Since no new members were joining thanks to a very very tarnished image that is completely irreparable, this did in fact inadvertently contribute to its collapse since the older generation left are going into their 60s and can no longer continue to raise money to keep the ship afloat and the leader’s bank accounts fat.
Perhaps you were one of those final few who made the ‘gentle transition’ which the mass exodus of your peers enabled? Most of us weren’t put on our own feet, we made a leap into the dark with nothing to catch us. Fortunately, most of us landed upright. There were plenty who didn’t.
Juliana
October 10, 2011 @ 09:58
Just an update for Julia, I set up a poll on a facebook group for ex-Family kids asking whether they felt they received adequate training/education in The Family International which enabled them to stand on their own after leaving the group and prepared them for life outside the group. The results are as follows:
Of the 37 individuals who participated in the poll, 33 answered ‘no, we did not receive adequate training/education’, 3 answered neither ‘yes or no’ and only 1 answered ‘yes, I received adequate training/education’. I hope this clarifies the aspect you felt was generalized upon.
Janice
October 4, 2011 @ 14:51
@Julia I’d find your criticism of this article acceptable if you yourself had something relevant and unbiased to say. But listen to yourself:
“The mass exodus of your generation… isn’t that rather an indication that your generation got the kind of training that would enable them to stand on their own?”
Here you are repeating what Juliana wrote, but twisting the idea in order to make the cult’s training look positive and intentional. As Juliana’s article made clear, The “training” received by second generation members was (blatantly) intended to make them better members, not to help them “stand on their own” and adapt to life outside the cult. The capacity for rebellion may have been an unintended side-effect of the cult’s particular methods of “education”. If TFI meant to train their kids to rebel and leave in droves, would they have published countless missives condemning and threatening “backsliders” with God’s wrath? “Standing on their own” came later, and was something the kids had to do by trial and error without any help from the cult.
As for your second statement, you compare the mass exodus of second-generation members to the “shedding of dead weight”. Could your internal viewpoint as a current member of said cult be any more transparent? At least you realize that money is the prime motivation of TFI’s leaders these days.
But what amuses me most is when you write “I think the transition was gentle enough to put everyone on their own feet.” I wonder how “gentle” it felt to those young people who were thrown into a world that they were completely unprepared for without a basic education. I wonder how “gentle” it feels to all those older members without income or health insurance who are just beginning to realize that they gave over 30 years of their lives to an organization that has essentially ceased to exist and won’t pay them a single years worth of retirement money.
But you’re right, it’s time for them to “grow up”…just like their kids have done.
Nina
October 4, 2011 @ 21:57
I enjoyed reading this, Juliana. And I think you (and your sister) might’ve hit the nail on the head with the rebel-gene theory. As an ex TFI kid myself, I have to agree that the cult most certainly did not intend to, nor did it, prepare us to stand on our own two feet outside of the cult; a fact which I feel some, if not many, FGAs have regretfully come to realize far too late (at least for it to be of any significance to their older children) and which has most certainly contributed to its downfall.
Cristina
October 7, 2011 @ 06:47
I wonder if the SGA suicides’ ever felt as though the “transition was gentle enough to put [them] on their own feet”? They certainly didn’t live long enough (like many of their counterparts who died from the abuses and neglect they suffered) to really grow up…
And, how exactly, shall we analyse the SGA who, with their stellar cult-given life-skills ended up as prostitutes, escorts, porn actors/models, strippers and other sex workers? You know statistically people generally end up in the sex industry when they’ve experienced great trauma and upheaval in their lives, right? NOT because they come from well-adjusted, parentally-supportive and educationally broad backgrounds.
Maybe, as someone so open minded, Poster-Julia, you should do a little growing up yourself and stop playing apologetics for a group of adults who systematically ruined thousands of young lives and damaged so many more. Your arrogance and pontificated idiocy is offensive.
Cristina
October 7, 2011 @ 07:35
Also, “pragmatical” is just a terrible adjective choice, often replaced these days by either, “pragmatic” or “practical”. //linguistic.shudder//
Abe
April 26, 2012 @ 18:56
Wow great stuff, I agree with most of what you have to say. When I first left I knew I was far behind my peers, but then with college and practical application of knowledge,I now feel a bit superior in my understanding of socio-economic and political conditions of the world.