On Watching Shiny Happy People
“All you have to do is obey God. Submit to your father. Wait patiently on the Lord. Persevere through suffering. Pray more. Keep quiet. Serve others. Die to self. And one day God will bring you a husband. One day God will reward you in heaven.
“All you have to do is stay here.”
These are only a few of the words that bound me to a life I didn’t choose. The life of a stay-at-home daughter. These words were bolstered by scripture verses picked carefully by leaders and theologians and my own father.
“Your heart is deceitful. Your heart is desperately wicked. Children, obey your parents. Women, submit to your husbands.”
These are the words that reverberated yet again through my memory as I watched the documentary Shiny Happy People (on Amazon Prime) about Bill Gothard, the IBLP, and the Duggar family.
Growing up, I was not directly inside the IBLP world (I was in the very similar and overlapping Vision Forum homeschooling community), and the documentary did not use the term stay-at-home daughter. But I recognized my own experience in Jill Duggar’s story. In the stories of all those raised female in Christian patriarchy. I was homeschooled, isolated, my spirit nearly crushed.
We were taught that our destiny was to be women of God, which meant, very specifically, to be compliant daughters, submissive wives, stay-at-home mothers, keepers of the kitchen. To bear as many children as possible—a “quiverfull.” Before marriage, women like me were sometimes called stay-at-home daughters, serving our fathers while we waited for God to bring husbands into our lives.
When 19 Kids and Counting was on television, TLC viewers saw the courtship practices of the Duggar family and perhaps thought it was quaint—how wonderful to have a father invested in his daughter’s future. But I saw a reflection of my own life: trapped at home, not allowed to move out or get an education or date people I chose for myself. My desires didn’t matter. Only God’s. Only my father’s. Patriarchy was not a vague concept to me. It was the framework of my entire life.
The Duggar children were framed as individuals giving consent, but anyone who grows up like we did knows that there is no true consent when you are under coercive control. When, from a young age, you are given the unbendable rules of the hierarchy: fathers first, mothers second, children last. You have no choice but to stay home as a daughter when you have no way to make your own money, no education on how to live alone, and only limited information about the outside world. You have no choice when any act of rebellion could lead to excommunication from your church, being kicked out of your home, cut off from your family and friends.
This is why I didn’t leave until I was twenty-five and desperate. Until life under this patriarchy was unbearable.
It’s been a decade now since I left, and in so many ways, I’ve moved on. My life looks nothing like it used to. Strange how the fundamental change from dependent to independent can set your soul free.
So I’d been anticipating this new docuseries with a mix of anxiety about revisiting the past and eagerness to see the shadows of patriarchal lifestyles exposed. I know a few people who were interviewed, and I wanted to be a witness to their stories. I wanted to be present for them, but also for myself—the younger me who needed people to pay attention to what was really happening behind closed doors and in plain sight.
And yet, I still had a physical reaction to the footage that was played—abuse of all kinds happened within the IBLP, so similar to what I experienced and witnessed growing up. As I watched, I felt the familiar symptoms: nausea, stomachache, headache, fatigue. Our bodies remember what it is like to live without personal agency, without real consent. To be used as a tool for the vision of a few religious men.
Too often I’ve heard people say, “Not all homeschoolers” or “Not all Christians” when faced with the truth of those abused within the homeschooling and church communities. But this only minimizes the stories of those harmed and perpetuates the problems. Of course, not every homeschooling parent or Christian is an abusive narcissist. But I’d challenge everyone in a community that is facing a history of abuse to confront their own complicity, intentional or not. To examine the doctrines and practices that create environments where the vulnerable are stripped of their voices and their agency and left to bleed out with forced smiles on their faces.
Confronting the truth is the only way forward if we want to create safe and healthy relationships and communities.
I’m so proud of every survivor—both those in the public eye right now and all those who hold their stories close—you are working against toxic cycles of abuse and trauma. You have made it so far. You are not alone.
After writing this, I read Tia Levings’s most recent newsletter about the grief of complicity; so much of what she writes about this grief resonates with me. She speaks so poignantly to the pain of regret and the fight for self-compassion:
“I look back at that young mother as if she were another person and see someone who was trying, despite great pain and confusion. I see her kindly. I know her heart. I’m filled with the compassion that I know she needed then, the wise voice she craved to hear. And this is important because kind compassion is essential for healing.”
We are here and healing, learning together. We are not alone. We don’t have to be chained to our past. We are capable of change and compassion—I have this hope for all of us.
Connect with Tia and these other survivor-advocates below to learn more about IBLP and the harms of Christian patriarchy and to find solidarity and resources if you’ve experienced abuse:
Tia Levings (she/her)—author of A Well-Trained Wife, out in 2024
Heather Heath (she/her)—author of Lovingly Abused, available now
Eve Ettinger (they/them) and Kieryn Darkwater (they/them)—hosts of the Kitchen Table Cult Podcast
Katherine Spearing (she/her)—founder of Tears of Eden and host of the Uncertain podcast
Check out this podcast for information about Amazon Prime’s Shiny Happy People.
Cait West is a member of Tears of Eden’s Editorial Board. She focuses on writing about the patriarchal movement and how patriarchy influences Spiritual Abuse. Find her at caitwest.com and on Instagram and Twitter at @caitwestwrites.