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Them Before Us Podcast
Them Before Us #84 | From a Cult to Caring about Children's Rights in Spain
00:25:57
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- [00:09]
Jen
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Them Before Us podcast, where we talk about all things children's rights. And we often interview other folks either working in organizations, doing pro family, pro life work. And a few times we've had the privilege of speaking with friends that are interested in advocating for children and their rights across the world. And, and so today we have a great conversation with Rosanna Montez, who's from Spain. Rosanna. And you said I could call you Rosie, right? Maybe in an English accent. So welcome. Thanks for being here.
- [00:41]
Rosanna Montez
Well, thank you so much, Jen, for having me. It's my pleasure.
- [00:45]
Jen
Yeah. Rosie reached out to us via email and you were sharing a little bit of your heart and your background and experience and that you wanted to get involved in some way or have some resources to support people in Spain. But I'd love to just start out, tell us a little bit about how you grew up, and then we'll kind of get into where you are now.
- [01:04]
Rosanna Montez
Thank you so much, Jen. Well, I grew up in a cult. I was born and grew up in a cult that was very isolated from society itself, that we, we kind of like lived in different homes and, and only had contact with people from the community. I can say that my childhood, I was pretty much neglected by my parents. There was a lot of abuse of all kinds, psychological, physical, etc. And, well, that, that made me break with my, my faith in, in God and Christianity and everything. That was my childhood adolescence. And then my parents kind of like they broke out from this cult. When I was around 18. My parents got separated while dad left home and he said everything was going to be the same and, well, nothing was the same. He disappeared after three months. He stopped taking care of us. My mom, that was too much for her and she went back to the cult, leaving me and a younger sister. I was 18, a younger sister that was 15, and an older brother that was 21 living on her own. That always left something inside of me that wanted to do things differently. So I traveled back to Spain because I was living in South America. I started working, I started studying for, to work in childcare. I nursed childcare, specifically from zero to three. So when I finished my studies, I, I worked in a school and I work with children from 2 to 3. And that was quite an experience as well for me because what I lived within the school was like we were treating children like if they were kettle. I lost faith in the educational system, so I stopped working at that school. I lost faith in the profession that I wanted to dedicate myself to. I still worked with children, but I started like a small project to teach English to children in a more organic way. But I would work with small groups. I would even go to, to the, like a, like a private tutor. And I was in a relationship. We were, we were going to get married, we were going to have kids, and we broke up after 10 years. And that was the, the worst point for me because I got lost. I lost faith in, in the profession that I was, that I was dedicating myself to. I lost faith in marriage. So I just threw up myself to, to party. And I got lost in, in. In consuming alcohol and drugs. And that, that was pretty intense for me. Like I was five years in, in another relationship and as well like this world where nothing matters, only your own pleasure or your own gratification. And, and with no point in life. I was lucky enough to have a sister that helped me out of that. And I, and I started to. Well, I quit alcohol, quit drugs, everything to. I actually like, recovered. Something that I think it's so important in life is to have a purpose. And my purpose has always been working with children. And well, I recovered my social education studies, which I'm finishing. I'm doing a baccalaureate and I'm finishing between next year and the other. And well, everything has started like, to flourish in me. So I'm working on two different projects. One to work emotional intelligence with children, with children and teenagers, through art, through theater, through dance, through different workshops. And the other project I'm developing is it's like a round table with parents, with mothers and fathers to talk about the challenges that they see in our society that youth usually like teenagers or young people, are going to have to face. And that's how I bumped into them before us as well, because I was putting my interest in regaining the core values of our Western societies. And the core value is family. There's a lot, like a lot of things that are breaking it apart. And going back to university, I also see it in the speech that teachers have to the students that will be working with children and teenagers is not giving the important place that family has in society trying to break it apart. And well, that has propelled me to actually start this project with the parents to say, hey, this is happening in education, this is happening in, in our schools, this is happening in our universities. So that's where, that's where I am right now.
- [06:04]
Jen
It's so fascinating to me that you experienced sort of this, these really significant institutions breaking down from being a child. Right. So you talked about you're in some sort of religious cult that is using Christianity, but it's not Christianity kind of thing. And you're saying that within that cult it seems like was there maybe poly relationship or just all adults, like the kids belong to all of us kind of mentality A little bit.
- [06:34]
Rosanna Montez
Yes, the, the children's were viewed like that. All adults had right over all the children. But putting their, their wishes first, they weren't really thinking about what children needed. It was what they had to teach. What we had to think was very strict on us. What we had to think, what we had to say, what how we had to act. So there was a lot of, of, of their ideas being indoctrinated into children and children are, are very susceptible to, to anything that, that an adult will tell them.
- [07:12]
Jen
Right. Well and if you're stripped away from sort of the connection to your biological parents and all these adults get to tell you what to do and they're, you know, know very strict. And we, we just talk a lot about adults that are not biologically related to children are more dangerous to children, whether that's physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, all these different things. So the cult strips that away. And then you said even when your parents left the cult, then you get stripped of that next level which is then your parents separate. So remind us again, how old were you when they separated?
- [07:45]
Rosanna Montez
I was 18. I was like, I, I was in an age that, you know, I should be an adult, but all the 18 years old that I know they are, they're still children and they're still, they're, they're, they're going to adulthood. But they, but it's still intense to not have parents to guide you all the way and to support you and.
- [08:12]
Jen
Right. Well, and you're. We, we talk about a phenomenon we've written at them before us called gray divorce. Like the color gray. And that's when adults divorce much later in life. And the, the ramifications for their children, even if they're adults. We have people who've been in their 40s who say when their parents got divorced in their 60s, how difficult it is for the child. Well, now I can't go to one home and see my mom and dad anymore. Now my mom and dad are pitting us against each other. Now our finances are all broken apart and our. Well now we had the family home that was going to stay in the family and the family beach house and we were building wealth. Now it all gets shredded apart because mom and dad, you know, want to be broken up. So that still impacts even much older adults. But like you said, an 18 year old is still trying to figure out their way in the world. And you said you had a much younger sibling and maybe an older sibling or you had like 21, 18. Anyway, the ages. But it impacts all ages differently, even though you're not a small child.
- [09:14]
Rosanna Montez
Yes, of course. And, and well, I had, I have more siblings. We're seven in total, so. Oh, wow. So there were younger ones that went with my mother and as well they went back to, to that environment. I had myself an unique situation. Like I had homeschooling, but it wasn't exactly homeschooling because I was in, I was in a, in a, in a home with a lot of adults. It wasn't my own parents that were homeschooling me with their values. It was values from a whole group. Not that that they were defending their, their values, but that came from, from a bigger enterprise.
- [09:52]
Jen
Well, and so now you've, you didn't have the, the safety of the institution of your biological family. You didn't have the safety of the institution of, of a genuine faith. Some people might see Christianity that way, but like you and I talked about when we met, I think Christianity, I think by definition doesn't work if you try to force it on someone else. You actually cannot force a submission of the mind and the will and some other religious perspectives sort of think you can do that. I think the Christian perspective is sort of, you actually can't do anything about it in your will, in your mind. It's all, only that God does something about it. And so if someone's misrepresenting that and having kids in a room and you don't know you can't be with your parents and just you're the kids that belong to the community. It's kind of like that's not a genuine Christian faith. But you don't have these big institutions and now you're trying to, to move on and have romantic relationships and thinking about marriage and family and then those things aren't working either. I mean, do you feel like it, it feels kind of hard to have that steady foundation to stand on to try to go get married and I want to have my own family because we don't have a lot that we can look at in the past and say, I want to do that. Have you found that to be true?
- [11:10]
Rosanna Montez
Yeah, of course. I, I actually, I found myself in that long relationship that I had. It was like trying to build something that I had no idea what it was. I Had an ideal in my mind, but I truly didn't know what a family was and the, and the importance of the values that a family, that a family can perpetuate. I didn't have the core values of a family and I was dreaming of having a family, but I didn't really understand what a family was until I looked deep into my values and reviewed myself. The fact of the importance of marriage or even the importance of relationships. I feel like, wow, in, in when I was in the 90s, it was already getting lost. What a father and, and it's his attribute, his manly attributes can give to a home and what a mother can give to a home. I think that nowadays, even talking in university about this, it's hard. Like I, I've had. I, I'm 38, so I'm not the age of, of my classmates. They're all between 19, 20, 20 something and well, talking about Judeo Christian values nowadays, they want to demonize everything that comes from our past. Talking about the differences between men and women and how important each role is and how men cannot be like woman and women cannot be like men and, and standing in, in, in our own skin and knowing, knowing the importance of, of. Of the mother figure, like a mother figure is nurturing. The mother figure cares, cares for everyone in the home. The father's protecting and sustaining the family. Just saying this, it's like, like I'm a witch just for saying this. It's, it's very difficult to, to, to bring out the core values of our civilization, of our Western society. But I believe that someone's got to speak up the, because the children won't, the children will grow up. They will have their traumas. If they're lucky, they will get, they will, they will get a depression and they will get over it. If they're lucky, they will be able to get out of there. So I feel that we have to give the importance to the family and to, and to the children that grow in the family. We have to, we have to protect them and see and, and see that their racing is the best that we can give them and give them the best of our values as well. When are we putting our children into school? When I worked in child care, they would put babies with three months into childcare. Three months, six months, a year, even, even so for them, it's, it's crazy. It's crazy for those children to be sharing the space with, with other children that are not with their parents, with people that of course we do the best we can, but not all of them. When I was working in a school, we had to follow a strict schedule and those children had to follow that strict schedule. We had to have breakfast, make the activity, take a picture, wash your hands, brush your teeth. And children all at the same rhythm and at a pace that we could, that we. That is not the pace that children need. And well, yes, I think it's very concerning how we're putting our priorities as adults before the children's right to have a decent racing.
- [15:00]
Jen
Rosie, it's so fascinating because as you're saying that I sort of just connect these dots picturing adults in a room with a bunch of kids that aren't biologically theirs, keeping them very strict, keep indoctrinating them with whatever the values happen to be that aren't the parents values per se. And you think about when a child is getting dropped off at some kind of child care at three, six months, anything like you said, between zero and three years old, they don't know mom or dad is coming back at some of those younger ages, right. You see these videos of the kids sobbing, crying when the parent finally shows up again at the end of the day because the child doesn't actually know if you're coming back. But it's fascinating how similar that sounds to what you shared about your experience growing up in a cult where the kids belong to all of us. Right? But you know that from a personal experience and now you've seen it as an adult and just can recognize that this is not how children should be raised. That's not to demonize a single mom who has no other option. But there's a lot of people who have two incomes and mom and dad just don't want to sacrifice, go down to one car or they don't want to put one of those vacations off or for mom to work less hours so she can be home with the kids because she's like, hey, I worked my way up to a career and we see that children are paying that price. I wanted to ask you too, you just can see that the breakdown of those institutions that you should be able to trust probably kind of led to you thinking, what is the point of all of this? Why should I live maybe this like very straight and narrow life when I could just hey, have a good time, live and then die. I'm so thankful though that you know, you said your sister helped you and you, you regained sort of that feeling of purpose and kind of left the substance abuse and those things in the past. But I just want to say it's very, it seems very common and normal. Of course, all of us, I didn't turn to those things, but I turned to my own things. That's like I need something to fill me up and make me feel better about the feelings that I have from my parents not being able to meet all my needs. So that's happening to all of us. You know, like you're saying it's just going in a cycle until we can help parents understand how important they are to their children. And so that can kind of lead into these projects. So when you, oh, I also wanted to say, you know, these kids, you're interacting with your peers. At college, we, you and I were talking a little bit about the divorce rates in Spain. We looked it up. It's 85 and a half percent. So out of 100 marriages, 85 of them over 85 will end in divorce. So, so when you talk to kids in college, hey, the best thing is marriage between a man and a woman. Think about how many, how few kids know what that means. And of course they're like, I'm not anti gay, I'm for whatever. But they don't have that stability of experiencing mom and dad together. So why would they think that matters in a society, you know.
- [18:01]
Rosanna Montez
Exactly. I believe that, that as even taking my own experience, I didn't have that, that role. Like I would look at marriage and I had my ideal, but I had nothing to follow. And I believe these, these children have, or my peers in, in, in college, they, they've, they've grown up to, to see no purpose to marriage. And everywhere they're telling them it's because it's not only the example they see from their parents. Everywhere they're telling them that free love is the thing now. And, and a woman can have, can, can act like a man that I don't know why a man would, would act in that way. Like any, you know, just look for your own pleasure, look for your own, your own career, your own. And marriage is not important. But then we have a drop in, in, in marriages. Like since, since 2003 and 20 years it's dropped like 100,000 in marriages. And, and divorces have increased. Right from 2003 to two now. Well to 20, 23. That's the statistics that I, that I searched for. The divorces have increased 45,000 divorce. Now we have 80,000 divorce. So what you were saying like 85% divorce from marriages. And I believe that, that it's very difficult not only for the example what I was Saying that they see from their parents, but as well, marriages everywhere, every institution in, at least in education is telling you, hey, it's not important. It's not important any, anyone can be a family. You choose your family. And I believe that the only thing that, that does is separate the separate, separate man and woman, separate family, make the individual every time more, more lonely, more individual and more easy to control. You take them away from that. And that is a, that is a person that can be easily manipulated, easily controlled and dependent on an other people that are not the, the, that are not either blood related. They're, they don't, they're not blood related and they don't care. In the same way, when we have a strong family, like when I say that our western civilization, the core of it is the family is because that's how it started. It started, started with family. Family. Then when, when men started recognizing the woman and the child that, that he, that, that they had together, that's how, when family started. And then that's that different families made a community and communities grew up and well, we have the civilization we have today. Well, not today because family has been broken up into little pieces. Like it's not important. Family, you can get divorced anytime. You, you can. If you don't like this, you, you say goodbye and that's it. You can have a new family and don't worry the child, it's going to have two homes now. And, and, and the effect, they, they, they don't really see the effect. But then we have a problem with mental health issues like growing and growing and drug abuse and, and so many things. But what I see is that we are not giving the value to what family really means.
- [21:27]
Jen
Yeah, that's so good. Well, one of the reasons we wanted Rosie to come on the podcast, and we know. I was just looking up a comparison of the size of Spain to the size of the United States. Have you ever been to the states, Rosie?
- [21:39]
Rosanna Montez
No. I wish.
- [21:43]
Jen
Yeah, you gotta come.
- [21:44]
Rosanna Montez
Okay.
- [21:44]
Jen
You'll come to the Seattle area, you'll come hang out with Katie and I. But the size of Spain, we have a state called Texas. Spain is about the same size or smaller than Texas, which is one of our biggest states. And I do. So I, we run the risk a little bit of me saying like, hey, if you're in Spain, contact Rosie, and you guys could still be hundreds of miles away. But it's about the size. I mean, it takes me about five hours to drive out of my state one way. Three hours to drive out of it another way. How, how long does it take you to get from one side of Spain to the other?
- [22:17]
Rosanna Montez
Well, okay, so I'm in Catalonia. It's like very like the nearest community to France if you go up and downward because then you can go, if you go from, from east to west, that would be like eight hours.
- [22:36]
Jen
So the larger point though is if you are listening to this and you're someone who follows them before us and you're passionate about, hey, you know what, I live in Spain or I'm from Spain or I know friends, have friends or family in Spain. We're trying to start thinking through how can we start building communities of folks who want to advocate for kids in the different countries. So that's just the point is we want people in Spain to get connected. So to, to just finish up. Rosie, can you tell us a little bit more about. You mentioned, I think two projects trying to equip and educate parents the importance of family. But can you just talk a little bit more about those, those, the projects you're working on.
- [23:18]
Rosanna Montez
There's one project that's directly directed to children and adolescents. Okay, so that is, that is very simple. What we, what I try to do is work on, on their emotional intelligence. What just like a summary what emotion. What we work is to be able to work on a team to achieve goals, to, to know themselves, to know themselves in the different, like different arts. Because that boost is your, your yourself, your sense of identity. What I like is like, okay, so you, you, you know, you, you're good at arts, you're good at this. Or you, you've tried, you know that you've got different abilities so you won't try to fill without with things from outside. What. Because you will be full with what you have inside. And then I have like another developing project which is very small now. It's like a small seed, but with the intention to grow as big as possible. And this one is like the latest, the, the newest one for me. And it came a little bit because of my entrance into university and seeing that, that it's so necessary that we start talking about the issues that no one wants to talk about. That the. Where the core problem is because everybody wants to be tolerant with everything and we have to see and say out like this is not okay. This is not okay. It's not okay for you to teach our children this in school. It's not okay for you to put young people against each other. They're teaching our children to get against each other, women and men against. Instead of putting us together and showing us our strengths and, and our differences as something good. They're using it to separate us. So we have to start seeing what is around us and take responsibility and say, okay, now we can't go on this way. We have to see what's the problems that we have and we have to take action, not wait for, for our politics to solve it. It's time that we as adults take responsibility.
- [25:14]
Jen
That's so well said. Well, Rosie, it's too bad you're not passionate about it at all. I'm just kidding. Yeah, I can feel your passion. And that's the people who get the things done right. They believe something's broken here and I'm going to help fix it. And that is so amazing. So thanks so much for your time. Hey, if you want, if you're listening and you want to get in touch with Rosie, email us at them before us.com and we'll get people connected to you if they have any Spain connections. And I'm sure we'll be staying in touch and hearing more from you in the future. Thanks so much for joining us.
- [25:43]
Rosanna Montez
Oh, thank you Jen. You've been so, so kind and I love how you put together the dots. It's amazing. You do a great job. Thank you so much.