Trad Wife Cults: How Tia Levings Escaped (Pt 1)

Summary

Podcast Summary: We Can Do Hard Things Episode: Trad Wife Cults: How Tia Levings Escaped (Pt 1)
Release Date: December 10, 2024
Hosts: Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle
Guest: Tia Levings

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Introduction

In the December 10, 2024 episode of We Can Do Hard Things, hosts Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle delve into the intricate and harrowing experiences of Tia Levings as she escapes a high-control religious group. The conversation shines a light on the subtle yet pervasive influence of fundamentalist doctrines on women’s lives, exploring themes of autonomy, abuse, and liberation.

Understanding High-Control Religious Groups

Abby Wambach [02:22]:
"There is no one on the planet who is more important to talk to in this moment than Tia Levings."

Abby sets the stage by emphasizing the critical importance of Tia’s story in understanding the grip of high-control religious groups. These groups exert significant influence over their members, often leading to societal and personal turmoil.

Tia Levings' Early Life and Upbringing

Tia Levings [08:27]:
"My parents took us to church on Christmas and Easter and a few extra Sundays... I knew that church was this pleasant place where we went to learn about God and just the average Christian experience."

Tia shares her upbringing in a non-dominant religious household in Michigan. Her parents introduced her to church sporadically, hoping it would foster community and moral grounding. However, the move to Jacksonville, Florida at age 10 marked a significant cultural and environmental shift.

Transition to a Megachurch and Increased Religious Control

Tia Levings [08:27 – 13:04]:
"Jacksonville, Florida, was one of the first megachurches in the country... we were just like little Russian nesting dolls. We were in America within America."

The relocation to Jacksonville exposed Tia to a megachurch environment characterized by large congregations and intense community control. Her parents’ well-meaning decision to embrace a more profound religious life inadvertently led her into a high-control setting.

Marriage under Religious Doctrine

Tia Levings [13:04 – 15:11]:
"We met at a hayride, a Christmas hayride, and we were engaged by the end of the month and we were married within that year."

At 18, Tia entered a hastily arranged marriage encouraged by her church’s emphasis on obedience and purity. The union was based not on love or compatibility but on fulfilling religious mandates, leaving little room for personal autonomy or emotional connection.

Experiencing Abuse and Manipulation

Tia Levings [21:24 – 33:03]:
"In 14 years, I had nine pregnancies, five live births, and four surviving children... I had to be the stable one while also homeschooling and growing our food."

Tia recounts the relentless pressure to conform to patriarchal norms, leading to emotional and physical abuse. The church’s teachings promoted submissiveness, resulting in a marriage marked by fear, vigilance, and manipulation. Tia highlights the pervasive use of corporal punishment as a tool for control within the family structure.

Notable Quote [30:21]:
"When you are in a patriarchal environment, they will use what you want for yourself against you."

Impact on Self-Worth and Parenting

Tia Levings [36:34 – 40:32]:
"There is no point where it's enough. You're never submissive enough, sweet enough, calm enough, obedient enough."

The relentless demands of the religious group eroded Tia’s self-worth, fostering a deep-seated belief that her value was contingent upon her obedience and submission. This internalized shame extended to her parenting, where she struggled to reconcile her innate sense of worth with the oppressive teachings she had internalized.

Women’s Role in Perpetuating Patriarchy

Tia Levings [33:43 – 40:32]:
"The wives have to come out and say that. And so yeah, it's. That's the sum picture up to the umbrella of authority."

Tia critically examines how women within these groups often become enforcers of patriarchal norms, perpetuating the cycle of control and oppression among their peers. This internal policing reinforces the high-control environment, making escape even more challenging.

Breaking Free and Reclaiming Autonomy

Tia Levings [44:29 – 48:35]:
"True Jesus words do not oppress women. True Jesus words are kind and liberating to women."

Tia begins to articulate her journey toward freedom, challenging the distorted interpretations of religious texts that justified oppression. She emphasizes the importance of reclaiming one’s autonomy and rejecting the manipulative use of scripture to control and humiliate.

Notable Quote [48:01]:
"It's not the wolves in sheep's clothing that I had to watch out for. It was the shepherds."

Tia highlights the insidious nature of leadership within these groups, noting that the true sources of control often come from the very leaders who are supposed to guide and protect.

Insights and Reflections

Glennon Doyle [33:43 – 40:32]:
"It's protecting you whether you like it or not."

Glennon reflects on the broader implications of Tia’s story, drawing parallels between high-control religious groups and other forms of fundamentalism. The discussion underscores the necessity of recognizing and dismantling these oppressive structures to foster genuine freedom and empowerment for women.

Conclusion and Teasers for Part 2

As the episode concludes, the hosts express their intention to continue Tia’s story in the next installment, promising deeper insights into her path to recovery and the ongoing challenges faced by those escaping similar environments.

Abby Wambach [50:07]:
"When we come back, I want to hear your freedom story and then I also want to talk about the trad wives of it all and what this all looks like right now and what we're going to see coming."

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Key Takeaways

• Subtle Control: High-control religious groups often operate under the guise of community and moral guidance, making their manipulative practices less visible.
• Impact on Women: Women are subjected to extreme measures of control, affecting their self-worth, autonomy, and ability to parent freely.
• Perpetuation by Women: Internal enforcement by women themselves sustains the oppressive environment, complicating the process of escape.
• Path to Freedom: Acknowledging and challenging the distorted teachings is crucial for reclaiming autonomy and healing from trauma.

Notable Quotes

• Abby Wambach [02:22]:
  "There is no one on the planet who is more important to talk to in this moment than Tia Levings."

• Tia Levings [30:21]:
  "When you are in a patriarchal environment, they will use what you want for yourself against you."

• Tia Levings [48:01]:
  "It's not the wolves in sheep's clothing that I had to watch out for. It was the shepherds."

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This episode serves as a critical exploration of the mechanisms through which high-control religious groups exert their influence, the profound impact on individual lives, and the courageous steps toward liberation. Listeners are left anticipating the continuation of Tia’s journey in Part 2, promising further revelations and insights into overcoming such deeply ingrained oppressions.

Transcript

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

Okay, so Pod Squad, My sister and Abby and I have talked for the last couple weeks about how there is no one on the planet who is more important to talk to in this moment than Tia Levings. And there's many reasons why. But right now I think if you're going to listen to this episode which will be about high control religious groups and women and freedom and the lure of fundamentalism, you might think that you don't care about high control religious groups, but I assure you they care about you. And I assure you that we will all be feeling and seeing and experiencing the effects of the power of these groups over the next few years because they are largely behind what has happened to our country and why we're in this moment right now. So this episode is for everyone who wants to understand how we got here.

[Amanda Doyle]

Including the people who believe it right now. Like I. That's what is so amazing about Tia's work, is that it explains it in a way that does not demonize the people who are wrapped up in this, you know?

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah. And I just want to start by saying that, Tia, I understand and have experienced a version of this in my own life, that I am still. I hear whispers of inside me all the time. So I just understand. And for anyone who thinks that a strong woman cannot be lured into and experience all of that, we are here to say that is wrong. That is very, very wrong. But I just know that your work, Tia, has healed and freed so many people. And you're also a freaking genius about understanding our world. And my heart feels connected to you, My mind feels connected to you. My work feels connected to you. And so I'm just really happy and honored that you're here today with us. Let me tell the pod squad, for anyone who doesn't know who you are. Tia Levings is the New York Times bestselling author of A well Trained Wife, her memoir of Escape from Christian Patriarchy. She writes about the realities of Christian fundamentalism, evangelical patriarchy, and religious trauma. She also appeared on the hit Amazon docu series Shiny Happy People, which was so good. And I had to breathe my way through Abby knows and take breaks and just whoa. That really did a number on me. Based in North Carolina, she is a mom to four incredible adults and likes to travel, hike, paint and daydream. Usually I cut those parts out of people's intros. I just want to tell you this because I'm brutal about time, but I felt like that sentence was so important. Like the fact that you like to travel, hike, paint and daydream feels like the opposite of what came before and it makes me really happy. You can find Tia on social media Ialevingswriter and her second book, the Soul of Healing, which I didn't know about and I feel very excited about already releases with St. Martin's Essentials in 2026. So, Tia, thank you for being here with us.

[Tia Levings]

My God, thank you so much. Yes. That is my anti fundamentalism, that line in my bio. So thank you. That's the essence of it. This is a surreal moment because I'm a pod squatter and I know you relate to this because I have been talking back to my phone in so many episodes where I'm like, it's religious Trauma. I want to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me on today. Thank you for this absolutely surreal experience of hearing you not just off of the podcast app, but here in my heart today. This is so meaningful.

[Abby Wambach]

So before we start with your story, are you saying that you listen to me talking about my problems and you think to yourself, this is religious trauma and she doesn't know it?

[Tia Levings]

I say it all the time, particularly to Abby. Yes, all the time. We have dialogues. You just haven't heard them. You haven't been privy to our conversation.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh, wow, that's fascinating.

[Amanda Doyle]

Will you come back and Will you come back and fix Abby with us?

[Glennon Doyle]

I know, maybe, for sure. But, like, when you said that, I knew in my heart that you were talking to me.

[Abby Wambach]

Oh.

[Glennon Doyle]

I was like, oh, yeah, that's right. That is kind of a good answer for all of my struggle.

[Tia Levings]

It's just there. It's like they're like a fingerprint, and I've just held it. Because you even have an episode called Religious Trauma, and I've listened to it multiple times, and I do that. I go back and listen to multiple conversations. And your work has been a light to me through the whole thing. I mean, Glennon and I, we go back to a similar experience, even in the writing online world. I remember your early vlogs, and I was an early blogger. It's part of my freedom story. So I just have felt a commonality for a really long time and no vilification for people who are going through a fluid experience. It's. We're at different points in the journey, and my life was saved by people who gave me the grace of being allowed to grow.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yeah, that's good.

[Abby Wambach]

Okay, we want to get to your freedom story. What's the prequel of that? Can you talk to us about how you were raised and how it kind of groomed you to become susceptible to the high control group you became a part of and then talk to us about that high control group? Mostly I just want to be quiet, and I want you to just talk to us.

[Tia Levings]

Yeah. Especially for anyone who's new to my work. It's good to start with kind of the general overview. And I began my book where I did on purpose. I think my first 10 years growing up without a predominant religion. My parents took us to church on Christmas and Easter and a few extra Sundays. I grew up in Michigan, where we had a lot of midwestern type farm work to do. So if we had work to do on Sundays, we were just as likely to stay home and do that. But I knew that church was this pleasant place where we went to learn about God and just the average Christian experience that people think they have without any examination of the deeper themes. You just think you're going there for Bible stories and kool aid and friends and these traditions and institutions that become part of our lay. And then my parents moved when I was 10 to Jacksonville, Florida, which was total incomplete culture shock for me. I had not been in a large city before. I had never seen a black person before. I. I had never gone into a big classroom like my entire. My one classroom was as big as my school when we moved. And this is in 1984. So this is in a time period where a lot of us will resonate with this. There was no vocabulary for childhood depression. You didn't talk to your kids before you shocked them. You just brought them along. And as a highly sensitive, likely, very neurodiverse child, I felt every single aspect of this deeply. I have an ability to kind of anticipate and see clearly what others might not see because they're busy. You know, I'm just intuitive that way, and I've always been that way. So I was flinching from danger that I didn't feel safe, you know, that kind of thing in the transition. And we moved to Jacksonville in the summer, the last two months of fourth grade. I mean, it just. When you stack up the situational stresses of the beginning of my story, children can relate to them. And I think one of the takeaways I hope people get from my story is that we get into these situations through very ordinary and relatable situations. They are not exotic. They are not being kidnapped to the jungles to go hang out with Jim Jones. This is an average American upbringing where I did average American things and my parents did the most normal thing in the world. They decided to take us to church to make friends. And in Jacksonville, that was a megachurch. It was first Baptist church. Jacksonville, Florida, was one of the first megachurches in the country. When I say that, I mean, we had thousands of people on the roll. The church was set up like a stadium. And they were very specific that they were marketing to families. They were marketing to have Christian dominion in the country, that they believed Jesus came to save America and set the city like we were gonna be a city on a hill. And they told parents, you know, bring your kids down here and we'll Raise them right. We'll keep bad outcomes from happening to your children. So the second thing that's kind of unique about my story that I refuse to diminish is that my parents aren't like these big villains that tried to hurt me and didn't protect me and were part of my root traumas. I know that's the story for many, many people. It is not mine. I had well meaning parents that got into this so innocently and I think in very relatable ways. And within a short year, I was going to church six days a week. And this became my upbringing. And my parents and my family and myself, until years later, thought that I had this great upbringing with a wealthy youth group. And we did amazing things and we witnessed for Jesus and we stayed pure. We didn't have sex before marriage, we didn't use drugs, we didn't fratten our eyes with the bad kids at school. We basically learned how to live in a second parallel America. We were right out, like I call them, like little Russian nesting dolls. We were in America within America. And everything that we did taught us how to behave that way and blend in. And Christian girls grew up to be, one thing was a Christian wife and mother, and the other thing I talk about a lot is that when you are in a patriarchal environment, they will use what you want for yourself against you. So I bought into this hook, line and sinker because I was a maternal person. I wanted five children, I wanted to be a wife. So that wasn't at odds. However, I had come from this background where women can do lots of things. We can roll up our sleeves and work with men. We can have careers we like. Having children does not preclude you from having a full life. But in church, that's not how it was. So I learned how to split myself and just kind of tuck the private part of myself away so that I could be pleasing. And that really gets us to the catalyst point of the story when I meet my husband and I marry him very quickly, as was encouraged by our church. So I feel like I'm monologue.

[Amanda Doyle]

You were 18, Tia.

[Tia Levings]

I was 18?

[Amanda Doyle]

Yes, you were 18. And that was a December you met him?

[Tia Levings]

Yeah, we met at a hayride, a Christmas hayride, and we were engaged by the end of the month and we were married within that year.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah. Did you fall in love with him or did you even know what that was? Or were you told that he was the right one for you? Because God doesn't speak to women or girls in the teachings of Your church, Right. God doesn't speak to women. This is very convenient. So God only speaks to the men. So the men tell you what God has said, correct?

[Tia Levings]

Correct. Yeah. There was no toxic chemistry or compatibility. None of that was very important. What was very important is that you stay a virgin until you're married. That you marry who shows up and says they want you. So that's what would happen. Our church had weddings every Friday and every Saturday. And the only thing that would change are the color of the flowers. And they were churning out these weddings to hurry up and get us married because they did not want us to have sex. Before we were married, both of our pastors had had two week engagements. So the saying was, you have the rest of your life to figure it out. So don't worry about it if you're not feeling love. Love is a duty, love is a job, Love is a decision. And I would have told you then that I loved him. I'm sure I told people that I love him. But I know now I was in love with love. And I didn't really know what love was supposed to feel like. I had been in this performative environment for about nine years at that point. And what love was, was acceptance for your obedience. That's when you were loved. It was very conditional and I did not know how to recognize that. So I ended up with somebody who I was trying to kind of retrofit onto my dreams. Like, okay, he says he's God's will for my life. I'm not supposed to argue with that because a man said it and I can do this. We had this song that we used to sing little as much if God is in it. And so I felt like with enough redheaded determination, I can fix this, I can make this great and I will save him and I will help him be happy again. He had so many problems immediately, but I knew, I knew through my hard work and effort, I could make us great.

[Amanda Doyle]

Can I ask one question before there's this little period of time where you're growing up and you're in the church thing, but you have this minute where you're like, I'm not sure, like, you're running around with that one girl who is a lot of fun and is not from the church. Then something happens with a boy and you immediately come back to the church. Can you talk about that? Because that was fascinating to me as far as, like, what we're told, education, what leads you back when you start to stray. Like that seemed to solidify it for you. That's like, oh, I'm done venturing out.

[Tia Levings]

It really did, and I'm glad you picked up on that. This is something I've had to learn in recovery since releasing the book. And this is a great example of how writing your story can help you externalize it and so that you can start to see what's actually the pattern of injury. I wrote that whole book, sent it to editors, and sold it without realizing that the veracity of that sexual assault when I was 13 had been the actual catalyst that put me back in the fear box. I was hanging out with my friend and feeling like myself, and we were doing things that my church said wasn't okay, but that my body felt safe in. And while I was doing these things, I experienced this assault, and I blew kind of past it in the writing. I would have said, it's not the big catalyst in my life. But then readers would be like, I want to talk about that. That's the moment where you really got in line and started obeying. And I was like, it's absolutely correct. That is. That is set me up for it. Taught me this lesson that when you. It's a twisted lesson. I had to unpack it. When you feel good and you're not obeying the rules, you're in danger. And the reverse is true. When you feel good, you're safe. Even if there's danger, if you feel good, you're safe. And so I had to reframe that in recovery.

[Amanda Doyle]

And in fact, it was the lessons from the church. Had anyone in your life been teaching about consent and about that boys are capable of bad behavior and they don't get access to you. You would have had the language to say, I'm safe over here. I'm not safe with him because he is a perpetrator, let me tell you. But instead, you were like, it's my fault. I was out of line. Therefore, to be safe, I have to go back to this place.

[Tia Levings]

Yes. And you know what comes next. You've read the book. So if I had had the language of consent, just that, my life would have been so different. That would have saved so much. I have enough fight and spirit in myself to take information and run with it. That's the first thing they did, was deny me information, because that would have reinforced my willpower.

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Tia Levings]

Hmm. This is. This is a place where you've been with me on my journey, Glennon. It doesn't feel like love. It doesn't feel like union. You have to work at it. You have to work at it. So the marriage was work. It was. It was nonstop vigilance, fear, working to accommodate and keep, protect the environment so that we could keep the peace. I thought I was being a good help meet, so I interpreted all of my manipulation that I was learning to do of my environment and of my children and all of that. I thought I was being a good support to a very erratic man. So my young husband, which we should not forget that he was young, he was 23 years old when he married me at 19. And that's a young man who might look like today's incel. You know, that's the young man you meet online who loves theology, loves to argue, loves to study God's word and learn how to be more holy and really is craving external structures in order to regulate what they cannot regulate inside. That is who Allen is.

[Abby Wambach]

Can you say that again? People who are looking for external structures to.

[Tia Levings]

To regulate their inner selves, they are so disorganized inside, they need external forces to tell them how to behave, tell them how to live, tell them where they're safe, who they're safe with, what they can do in order to earn favor, where their eternal security lies. All of this will come from outside of you. That is the big lesson that I take away from high control religion is that it's a consistent numbing of your inner wisdom. And it is a constant validation of external wisdom which keeps changing and narrowing and becoming more extreme as you go. So they don't start with the final result. You know, like they didn't tell me when I was a little girl, if you marry this man, you're going to get spanked. They didn't say that. They said girls should be submissive. Why? And honor their husbands. And that's in the Bible. And that's what God says with no awareness of how that manifests in families. What actually is being said in these theological books by these pastors, how it works when you put that kind of load on a mentally ill man. None of it was discussed. So my marriage was a constant effort in trying to make a happy life. I mean, I'm A high capacity person. In 14 years, I had nine pregnancies, five live births, and four surviving children. That alone, you know, you can do the math of the. Of the heartbreak that would come on a normal day. And he was unstable through majority of it, so I had to be the stable one while also homeschooling and growing our food and getting involved in the wellness movement at that time. The trad movement today is the same trad movement before we just didn't have social media. So that's what it looked like until it broke.

[Abby Wambach]

Okay. And for the person who's listening, who doesn't know what. Talk to us about what your particular sect was, what your religion was, and then would you talk to us about how that was set up? Like the umbrella of it all? The umbrellas.

[Tia Levings]

The umbrella.

[Abby Wambach]

And then I just want people to understand what the teachings were and then what that manifested in your daily life as.

[Tia Levings]

Yeah, I think that's really important. So the evangelical church that I went to, my pastor was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. So if you're familiar with evangelical Christianity, that comes with all the mainstream veggie tales, Lifeway, Christian bookstores, True Love Waits movements, ccm, all the like. Mainstream Christian living was part of my upbringing. By the time I get married and we're not supposed to use birth control, we're supposed to. They were kind of light cell on the quiverful stuff. In mainstream church. Quiverful refers to a verse in the Bible, says happy is the man who has this quiverful of arrows. As children are like arrows unto weapons of war. So you want to have as many of them as possible. And this was kind of a light sell at church. But then when I got married and was quickly pregnant, I had my first miscarriage three months into the marriage, and then I was pregnant again at six months. I really had a volatile situation on my hands and I needed wisdom, I needed guidance, I needed to learn how to be a good wife. So I did the thing that they told us to do, which is based on Titus 2. Let the older women be teachers to the younger and how to be keepers of the home, to love their husbands. So I went to a mother who had 10 children, and I said, would you please teach me how to be a good moment? I knew how to take care of infants, but I didn't know how to make the baby cooperate to keep the household smooth. So I went to this professional mother, unbeknownst to me, did not know we had these. I called them special Christians in our church because they were a little Extra devout. They were willing to have lots of kids, wear prairie clothes, be hyper modest. They homeschooled. Before it was a movement, it was still very fringe. And I just noticed they're a little like, extra. They got a lot of respect in our church because they were willing to step out of society a little more than the rest of us, and they were tolerated.

[Abby Wambach]

Tia, would these be like the. These would be like the Michelle Duggars?

[Tia Levings]

Yes, very exactly like the Michelle Duggars.

[Amanda Doyle]

Because Michelle Duggar and Michelle Duggar was your group, right?

[Tia Levings]

Same group, different church.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah.

[Tia Levings]

And I didn't know about her until 2003. So on the timeline here, we're 1996. And so the IBOP, which is Bill Gothard's Institute of Basic Life Principles, this is what was covered in shiny, happy people would hold these large conferences, like stadium events, like Billy Graham stadium events. And people would come from all different walks and different denominations to study the Bible. And so they didn't think that they were belonging to any kind of single group. They were just being extra biblical, similar. Later would come the Promise Keepers, and that's another similar movement. And then they go back into their churches and they recruit from within. So I didn't know I was playing into a greater narrative. When I asked her for help, she was also looking at me and saying, here's a needy young mom. I'll bring her under my wing. And I became an IBLP mentee without ever having attached myself to a conference. I never paid any money to the iblp. I didn't know that I was joining that kind of mindset. I just thought I was asking an older woman for advice. And she took me seriously. We had meetings at her house, sometimes one on one, sometimes as a group with younger women. And she taught me how to run a quiverful, how to give up birth control, how to submit to my husband, how to discipline my children, Skip the doctor, skip educating my daughter, how to parentify my daughter so that I. Because I needed a little helper. All of those kinds of things came through her instruction.

[Abby Wambach]

Okay, so let's stop there. My understanding is that the way that there's corporal punishment is an extremely important part of disciplining not only children, but wives. So can you talk to us about that?

[Tia Levings]

Yeah, That's a really important, key piece of this entire thing. So when I looked out and saw this woman with 10 children and these families that were being so respected in our church, the reason why is because their little darling ducklings would follow in a very perfect line right behind Them and everyone wondered, how do you get your children to be so behaved? And you know, these are working moms, people who are struggling. They're like, I can hardly keep up with two. I don't know how you take care of eight. That how you do it turned out to be through high control spanking. So there's a material out there called to train up your child by Michael Pearl, and it teaches us system called blanket training. I cannot believe this stuff is still in print, still for sale on Amazon. But unless more of us don't talk about it, you know it's going to continue. Blanket training teaches you to take an infant and you put it on a blanket and you switch it with a. With a rod of correction anytime that it starts to move off the blanket. So you start teaching the child. Pain will ensue if you do not do what I say.

[Amanda Doyle]

And this is at four months old.

[Tia Levings]

At some point, at four months old, as soon as they start to be mobile. It's not something I could do to my babies. Was too like that root system that I spent some time setting up. That's that root Tia, who has this wild streak in her and this identity would come through and say, I'm not spanking my infants. But they did, they did spank their income infants. They did it in the. At church, in front of people. They were not afraid of being held, you know, responsible for this. And she gave me instructions on how to pick my switch and what kind it should be and where to do it. And they coach you on how to do this. The idea is that if you switch your children well enough now when they're little, they won't misbehave when they're older and they don't tell you. The reason why they won't misbehave when they're older is because you will have broken them. They will have nothing to fight you with when they're older.

[Abby Wambach]

But it's also, they won't have desire if they learn young enough that the second they have agency or desire or want to leave the blanket, that they will be punished.

[Tia Levings]

Yeah.

[Abby Wambach]

If your body, when you're tiny, is trained with that kind of conditioning, you will not leave the blanket when you're older.

[Tia Levings]

You won't. And it manifests in many ways. You won't think for yourself. You won't defy and push your own will at the table. You won't eat what you want, do what you want, think what you want. You're completely shut down. What this actually turns to, I mean, if we listen to survivors. We have lots of evidence of how this actually manifests in families. We don't have to wonder what it's like or listen to just psychologists. We can listen to survivors. And what we hear of is rooms full of spankings that, you know, hours long, hundreds of switches. It does go into years because the offenses that you're getting spanked for, they extend. You looked at me wrong. I think you have sin in your heart. I read your journal. Those are all things that children have been switched excessively for. And then if you notice, take a real careful read of all of these parenting materials. There's no age limit on it. So again, let's turn to survivors. Older daughters being spanked in their teenage years, daughters being turned over their father's knee, women being spanked. And this was my big secret for a long time. When my husband started spanking me, I thought there wasn't another humiliation I could have possibly suffered that was greater. I submitted to it to protect my pregnancy. And my will was completely broken. And for a long time I thought, I'll never say that out loud. I will never let anyone know that this happens. The reverse turned through. And I'm not, I'm not sorry for a second that I tell about it, but because I hear. Me too. And as soon as I heard my first MeToo, I was like, all right, let's burn it down, let's go. Because no one's going to believe they're spanking their wives unless they listen to the wives. The wives have to come out and say that. And so yeah, it's. That's the sum picture up to the umbrella of authority. You mentioned that the Bill Gothard authority model, the patriarchal authority model that's still being used across the board in Doug Wilson, he's out in Idaho. Joel Webbin has talked about this recently online. It's a top down power structure under nice terms at the table. They like to call it complementarianism. It means that men and women have different strengths based on their genitals and that the power is up top. The man is in charge, the woman serves, the children are the labor force. And it's meant to protect you. But then when you say, what are you protecting me from? It's them. So it's.

[Abby Wambach]

Exactly.

[Tia Levings]

It doesn't really work.

[Amanda Doyle]

It's protecting you whether you like it or not.

[Tia Levings]

Yes, exactly.

[Abby Wambach]

Is that what it is?

[Tia Levings]

Fundamentalism can be in anything. The evangelicals do not have a corner on it. It's just how this particular brand of fundamentalism is manifesting in our government.

[Amanda Doyle]

Why is it important in the churches to have a quiver full?

[Tia Levings]

Yeah, Dominion.

[Amanda Doyle]

And this means all the children to have 10 children to have 12 children to have whatever. Why is that pushed so hard as your goal?

[Tia Levings]

The real reason is political dominance you through population. And this is where the white supremacy comes into play. They are threatened by their numbers and they need lots of white babies. So they need us to stay pregnant as much as we can. You can quickly multiply a congregation. If 10 adults decide to have 10 children, you now have quite the population. So that's the idea behind it. Said you're baby makers. Also, when you're busy making babies, there's lots of other things you're not doing. So some of those pesky problems like female employment and childcare and the things that we gripe for in modern society, they just go away because the women are busy at home having babies. It takes care of itself.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah. Tia, I want to ask you about what happens when. So you're in this family and in this marriage and in this culture and you are feeling that something is wrong. Now, what listeners need to understand is that when you're in one of these cultures and you feel that something's wrong, you know what that is, and that's the devil. You're taught that your heart is wicked. You're taught that you know, if you say, my heart hurts. You're taught your heart is wicked, don't listen to it. If you say, I don't understand this. This doesn't make any sense. I don't think this is right. You're told, do not lean on your own understanding. God is mysterious. If your body is hurting or you're yearning or you're desiring something different, you're told that your body is wicked. So it is a complete and total separation from all the innate wisdom that God has given you. Right. It's a complete hijacking of the God in you. But when you think, why don't you get out? It's because of that sort of brainwashing. I mean, Abby knows this is like, I can't believe this, but I have found journals of my own from this time when I was in a high control religious group and I was married to my ex husband. And I cannot believe what I was saying to myself in those. I was saying, please, God, help me be quiet. Please, God, help me be sweet of spirit or gentle in spirit. Please, God, help me let Craig lead. Help me let Craig lead. Help me be like, just. And then I remember, Tia, like, there Was this writer back then who used to tell you, I won't say her name, even though I'd love to, but she used to write these books about how particularly you pray for your children so that nothing bad happens to them. And I remember sitting on this particular morning, sitting on. I used to try to write down every single bad thing that could ever happen to them because I was told, you have to pray this particular way for each of your kids. And if you don't do it, it'll be your fault all of these horrible things were happening. And I just remember being in this family where like, honestly, I was the leader in the family. Like, that was what we signed up for, right? Like Craig was like, wait, what the. Like. But then I was shaming him to like step up and lead because that's what the church was telling me, had to be. So is that what you called self subjugation? I want you to talk to us about how. What is self subjugation and what is self gaslighting and how do those things keep you where you were?

[Tia Levings]

That is, there's so much happening in the. What you just shared. And yeah, that is the heart of it. It is how we make ourselves systematically smaller. Ever smaller, ever smaller. It has taken me years to reclaim that. I was trying to be good. I was trying to do it right. I would take their advice so deeply to heart and I would do every single thing that they said. Why? Because I wanted it to work. I wanted to be satisfying and happy and. And if they were telling me this was right, I didn't spend any time questioning if it was right. I said, okay, I love you, I trust you. I believe you. Let me help you. But I was always the problem. I was always too vocal or too creative or too loud or too opinionated or I would have a. Have a doubt. And so then I would take myself to my prayer mat and I would go into my quiet room and I would self flagellate because clearly I'm the problem. It's me. This is me. This is the thing. And I need to beat it out of myself. And if I could just be. Oh my goodness, if I could just be a little smaller, a little sweeter and goodness gracious, I mean, back it all up. I was born with a tooth. I've had red hair. We moved to Florida. I don't tan. I have never fit in a day in my life. So there is no get with it sweet enough. I can't be the big hair blonde girl. That's the kind, the type I Can't do it and I can't pull it off no matter how hard I try. So I mean, it was just meant to be me. And here I was trying to put myself into this little box and get smaller. And there was no small enough. That was the big heartbreak of Christian patriarchy is there is no point where it's enough. You're never submissive enough, sweet enough, calm enough, obedient enough. There will always be more. And that's why my metaphor for it is a vacuum, not a box so much. Because the air squeezes out and you get smaller and smaller as the air squeezes out and you can't breathe and you can't be and there's no space for you. This is the thing. And we're taught to do it to ourselves, which is so convenient for them. They get to go lead the world. Meanwhile we're over here trying to figure out how to help them go be free. Like I wish somebody was spending that much time helping me be free. Like doing all the labor so that I could be free. No, that's not, not. It's so upside down. And so this is what I think of when I see women perpetuating the patriarchy. Woman to woman. They're the man. This is very complicated too. In deconstruction is you don't always see a man teaching women how to forcefully obey. You'll see women coercing the way we're taught to manipulate from down here, below the head and the neck level, coercing other women to get into the box. Come here. This is what trad wife content does. It's lulling you. Just come in here. You don't need those rights. Don't worry about childcare. It's just too hard out there. Come over here and make your cheese crackers with me from scratch. If we don't even stop to question it, that's what's happening. And at this point in my story, I was Calvinist by then. So if you're familiar with Calvinist doctrine, it's all based on how wormlike you are. You are a worm. You are disgusting. You are so gross that Jesus had to come save you, but you are so disgusting you're not even worth saving. And that's after he saves you, you're still nasty. So the self hate, the self loathing, I mean I remember coming out of that into recovery and being told I needed to have a healthy self esteem, that one of the problems was that I had no self worth. And I just looked at my therapist like she had five heads. Like having a self worth is sin number one yes. And number two, how in the hell would I have ever had a self worth when everything around me for 30 years is telling me that you are disgusting. You are. You are gross and Jesus had to shed blood for you and it still wasn't enough.

[Glennon Doyle]

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[Abby Wambach]

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[Tia Levings]

Okay, I have to say something.

[Abby Wambach]

And it was an older woman and she was revered in the church and I was freaking so confused. So please say whatever you want to say.

[Tia Levings]

I mean, so just to honor what just happened, I want to delineate and say this little box over here. True Jesus words do not oppress women. True Jesus words are kind and liberating to women. What's happened in the Jesus tradition and the Christianity and the absolute blaspheme of his teaching is what we are talking about today. The advice that is given to mothers that harms their own children is how we perpetuate patriarchy ourselves. The first thing it does is make you complicit in their system so that you will feel ashamed and you will feel guilt if you take a step out. Because now not only are you concerned and worried for what will happen, but you are part of it. This happened because you chose it. This is what you did. And that guilty woman voice, you know, that shames you and keeps you in line is what happens way before the men get you. You know, like the Gilead men are not first line defense. They're way up in the offices. It's this women that censor other women and don't encourage you to be the parent that you need to be. And I think that this is part of my story so passionately because while I didn't have any self worth, I did think my children were worthy. I did think that they were vulnerable and needed me. And I was the only person who was home with them most of the time. So if anybody was going to keep them safe, it had to be me. That ultimately became the conflict I couldn't solve.

[Abby Wambach]

Yeah, that's so amazing that it's always what happened to me a few weeks after that moment with that mother. But I walked into that school, it was a Christian school that was very rigid. And I walked in and saw Matish. She was in kindergarten and she was in line. All I remember is that she was in line. She was in a little line. She was in one of the ducklings, in a line behind a teacher that I knew was very rigid. And there was something about seeing her in that line.

[Tia Levings]

I'm getting chills thinking about it.

[Abby Wambach]

I grabbed her. I grabbed her. I went to the principal's office. I said, get the older one who's always in there, in here anyway, because he's always getting in trouble. He's always asking you, God, are you sure God's a he? And then I get the call, and then he tells the teacher, my mom does yoga and have tattoos. I'm back in the office. Anyway, I grabbed him, grabbed Tish, grabbed Emma, who was tiny, tiny. And we walked out. And I actually remember it was a dark school. Like, everything was very dark. There wasn't a lot of light in there. And I remember opening the door and my little ones following behind. And it was just brightness. Like, I don't know what we did next, Indy. We just. Brightness, just like freedom from that place. And when you said that Jesus words are freeing, I, you know, I think a lot about all the people who have excused hurting their children. I don't. I'm just here to say, like, it's not okay. It is absolutely never okay to hit a child. There is no excuse. There is no teaching. It is not okay. And it should stop everywhere.

[Tia Levings]

Card. Stop. Hard stop.

[Abby Wambach]

Hard stop. They always say, spare the rod, spoil the child. Spare the rod, spoil the child. This is what we. This is the scripture. And every time I hear the rod, I think of what the rod would have been back then, which would have been a shepherd with his rod gently guiding. The rod was not used to hit the sheep.

[Tia Levings]

Right.

[Abby Wambach]

The rod was used to gently make a path so that the. That the sheep moved in a certain way. Because the energetic use of that rod was loving guidance.

[Tia Levings]

Yes.

[Abby Wambach]

It's always hijacked. It's the rod of guidance turns into hitting children and women. That's. There's like this tiny element of truth. In it that then is just taken and used to oppress instead of free. But that's the trick, right? There's always a little tiny truth in it.

[Tia Levings]

That's the trick of every cherry picked scripture that there is. They take that little element and they malform it. They're counting on your lack of education and ability to question and that you're just going to swallow it. I liken the rod to a guardrail. A guardrail that's meant to make you feel safe. You could jump it if you need to, but it's there to tell you where the line is so that you'll feel safe and comforted. One of my very first reels when I first started speaking out about this online was to share that it was not the wolves in sheep's clothing that I had to watch out for. It wasn't even the other sheep so much, it was the shepherds. It was all. It's been the leadership that I needed to question the hardest. Because that's where the rot is. It's up high. It's in the power seeking, the power aligning. That's why they're using their oppression on the ones down here. And I don't want to be suspicious of my fellow sheep and I also don't. The wolves never manifest as real scary, you know, as you know, wolf pack. It's like they're the good, these are our people. And we're like here in this moment with our fellow Americans. And I just will not get in line in an us versus them Braveheart war. Forget that. That's not what's gonna happen here.

[Glennon Doyle]

That's right.

[Abby Wambach]

I wanna stop here because we're gonna start again. We're gonna start another episode. Thank God. Because I think it's fascinating and beautiful that it was the women who groomed you and kept you there, but it was also women who helped free you.

[Tia Levings]

That's right.

[Abby Wambach]

So when we come back, I want to hear your freedom story and then I also want to talk about the trad wives of it all and what this all looks like right now and what we're going to see coming.

[Amanda Doyle]

And what I want to hear about is the. When you're talking about how this fundamentalism, whatever it is, does not attract bad people, it attracts good people who are so afraid and are so desperate for an answer to keep them safe from chaos and a formula to provide an alternative to the world out there that is so scary and so hard which see election results. Yes. All of that. We have a lot to do next time.

[Glennon Doyle]

Yeah. I do want to talk about how you recovered from the shame of it all. Yes, that's what I'm here to listen to.

[Tia Levings]

I'm glad we have more time.

[Abby Wambach]

See you back here. Fun. Bye. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the POD helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on Follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you there very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our Executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman and the show is produced by Lauren Legrasso, Alison Schott, Dena Kleiner, and Bill Schultz.