Michael Pearl: Don’t Let Your Kids Play with Public School Kids

Last updated on: January 26, 2016 at 9:40 pm by Libby Anne

Michael Pearl: Don’t Let Your Kids Play with Public School Kids 2016-01-26T21:40:05-04:00 Libby Anne

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“In our church, every family homeschools. If someone came into the church whose children go to or have gone to public schools or church schools, their younger children would never be allowed into the inner social circle with our kids. There would be zero fraternization, even on the church grounds after meetings. We have built community and will not allow it to be corrupted.”

Michael Pearl “Functioning Community” June 15, 2011

This quote is startling, isn’t it? It comes from an article titled Functioning Community, published by fundamentalist homeschool leader, child rearing guru, and self-styled mountain man Michael Pearl. Interestingly, this article actually gained widespread praise by many and was used by Pearl defenders as “evidence” that the Michael was willing to stand against the isolation and dysfunction of extreme fundamentalist homeschoolers, and was thus clearly not as bad as his critics made him out to be.

Here are the relevant quotes backing up this positive perception of the article:

I have now lived long enough to have observed the entire process and can document the results of various proffered solutions to the problem of raising up righteous, overcoming children. One panicky approach that has failed miserably is retreat and isolation. It illustrates a dilemma: children must be raised in a functioning community, but community is generally depraved. If we retreat and throw up barriers to the world, our community may become so small as to cause the children to feel trapped and deprived, resulting in their longingly looking beyond the artificial walls to the exciting world beyond. They must feel that all of their needs will be met within their community—spouse, home, work, entertainment, worship, entrepreneurship, individual expression, education, etc.

I have observed too many isolated families produce angry, resentful children that flee into the arms of the world at the first opportunity.

One of the outstanding marks of the family that isolates itself and criticizes those on the outside is that the children fail to get married. They will have eight children, half of them over 25, with several still living at home.

The girls, more than the boys, get bypassed for marriage. The guys are prone to take flight and satisfy their hormonal urges, but the girls just wait and wait and wait for that miracle to happen—but the prospective grooms are just not shopping at their little boutique. Even when the girls venture out into the light of day where guys will see them, they are often bypassed. I have asked the young men why they are not interested in such a lovely, disciplined, hardworking young lady, and they just shrug and try to put their thought into words, and then I realize again that they have no thoughts regarding the young lady, no opinion, no interest—she just isn’t there. She lacks personality, vivaciousness, charm, attractiveness. She reflects the small, dull world in which she was cloistered. She is a nun fresh from the convent.

Note the emphasis on marriage. Michael seems concerned about raising children in too much isolation because they might never get married. (For the record, I know families like Michael is describing.) Still, Michael was seen as coming out against the cultish family formations found among followers of Vision Forum and other extreme patriarchal leaders, and he was lauded for it.

I have to wonder whether those heaping him with praise hoped no one would read the end of his article. First look at this bit, where Michael proffers his solution—and one that doesn’t look half bad at that—at least initially:

[Y]ou need to join yourself and your family to a fellowship of believers that share your goals and perspective. Build community. This takes on different forms to different families, and I cannot tell you exactly how this should occur in your unique circumstances. But you must have a circle of daily acquaintances with whom you can share your life.

But then Michael adds this:

Never allow your children to play with kids that were not raised in the Spirit as are yours. Think of the darkness in other children as ten times as powerful as the light in yours, and you will stand a better chance of them not being exposed to pornographic images or talk.

You must create community that is protected and sanctified while ministering to the world without. Two or three families does not make a community. Arrange your job, the location of your residence, your church life, the schooling of your children, and your social engagements so as to maximize righteous community for your children. If you send your children to public or Christian school, you have relinquished all control and allowed them to form community without you. Their schoolmates are their community and will be the determining factor in their development. You have placed their souls in the hands of other children.

In our church, every family homeschools. If someone came into the church whose children go to or have gone to public schools or church schools, their younger children would never be allowed into the inner social circle with our kids. There would be zero fraternization, even on the church grounds after meetings. We have built community and will not allow it to be corrupted. The stakes are too high.

The amount of fear evinced by Michael and others like him is startling. He writes that parents should “think of the darkness in other children as ten times as powerful as the light in yours.” Is Christianity so weak that it is so easily subverted? If the only way to keep children in the fold is to cut them off from contact with anyone at all on the outside—including other children—one wonders at the fragile nature of the fold.

I can’t help but think of my six-year-old public schooled daughter. As a public schooled child, she would not be allowed to play with the children in Michael Pearl’s church. But what threat does she pose, really? She would introduce Michael’s grandchildren to Minecraft, have a ball playing dress-up with them, and introduce them to her latest historical hero. She might suggest they color together, drawing pictures of stick figure people standing by colorful houses. She might ask them if they want to go ride scooters outside, or draw with chalk on the sidewalk if the weather is nice.

Do you know what the real danger would be? My public schooled child has learned self-confidence. She is confident in who she is, and in her ability to say “no” or contest decisions she seems as unfair. She expects to be treated with respect, and to be given some level of autonomy and freedom. I suspect that it is this sense of self that is the real danger public schooled children pose to children in Michael’s circles. God forbid children in Michael’s church learn to expect to be treated with respect, or to be given some level of freedom! The sort of parental control Michael teaches is easier to maintain when children don’t know they have a right to safety, or healthy boundaries.

And that, perhaps, is why I am so puzzled when I see Michael praised for opposing the cultish family structures that often occur in cases of extreme homeschool isolation, as though what Michael describes is not also very cultish indeed. Michael advises parents to cut their children off from contact with any children who are not being homeschooled and raised with the same standards and expectations, to ensure that their children will not be “corrupted.” The fact that he sees children outside of his circles as such a threat alone should be a blaring warning sign.

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