Right now the biggest drama swirling around my Facebook page is about the Naugler family. There are many many articles online about the court case right now. A quick internet search can give you a brief idea about what is happening with the family. I´m not going to go into long detail about the family, just go over a few details to give background to my post. Nicole Naugler with her husband and ten children have been living ¨off the grid¨ in what the state of Kentucky decided were unsanitary conditions. The Nauglers were ¨unschoolers.¨ Some of the Naugler children also do not have birth certificates or social security numbers, Nicole Naugler is offended because the state is asking her to provide her children with birth certificates and social security numbers. Her defense is that the way they leave their life, her children don´t need any form of identification.
I agree with Nicole Naugler on one small point. Yes, to continue their current lifestyle, her children do not need their identification paperwork NOW. The first obvious questions is are what about when they want to get a driver´s license or marriage license? But even that is not what I'm concerned with. My burning question is what if one of those children don't want to continue their current lifestyle? What if one of those children want to be completely different from how their parents are? I hurt inside for those children just because I know how it feels to want to be different but my parents had worked so hard to make sure I wouldn't be different. Sure, it may be legal to not give those documents to your children, but it is SELFISH on your part to not. Why are you not giving your children their documents? Because YOU say they won't need them?! Why do you get to have the say in their lives. Sure, you are entrusted to take care of them for the first 18 years of their lives, but your duty is to TAKE CARE OF THEM. Your duty is to do the best for them that you can. Your duty is not to turn them into little you's. Their happiness is what matters, not yours.
Another thing that bothers me is the status quo at the house. I don't have insider information on exactly how it is in their home but I have a pretty good idea based on my own experiences. They have almost nothing. They are dirt poor. The kids spend their time taking care of the land and playing on the land. They don't go to school or even learn from books. They probably don't have many traditional friends. They are socially secluded. And yet amongst all of that proverty and seclusions, their mother keeps up a Facebook page and a blog. She has a phone because she has mentioned on her Facebook page that some of the pictures came off of her phone. She has communication with others. She has an escape. What about those children? Do they have Facebook accounts and blogs? Are they even allowed on the computer?
Let me tell you how it was in my home... I remember I first laptop was probably around 1998. My Mother was very into the Y2K conspiracy theories. As New Years 2000 came closer, my Mother spent more and more time on the computer blogging and following blogs. I was around 8 at the time so I don't have an accurate measure of the time but I know many times she would be on the computer from lunch time to dinner time (which was usually a 5 hour span). Us children were always in charge of cleaning up from lunch and usually we were also in charge of prepping dinner. My Mother would neglect her household duties to be enthralled with the online life. The irony of it all is that never once were we allowed to go on the computer. Never once were we allowed our own escape. We were sheltered and kept in our secluded little world. The internet had bad influences so we could never go on the internet. But yet somehow Mother magically could spend hours and hours a day on the internet. As I got older, the internet was still forbidden. Finally at the age of 16 and 17, I would sneak out to the living room at night to open the computer and get online. Because a 17 year old girl could never "discern" the information on the internet.
One question that really eats at me is at what point would I have magically transformed into one of those people that could have full access to the full world. I was sheltered my entire life. I was kept safe because Mother would do it all for us. We were never told when we would hit that magical age when we could think on our own or do anything on our own. What made me so inferrior in my judgement than my Mother? What makes me so inferrior MY ENTIRE LIFE from my Mother. Yes, she gave birth to me, but she gave birth to me to raise me up and not to always be superior to me.
My story is why my heart breaks for these children. Sure, there might not be anything extremely wrong with keeping them in their lifestyle (except for the unsanitary conditions, of course), but at what point can they become actual people? At what point will they ever be equal to their mom? At what point will they have choice in what happens in their life?
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