Page 9 - San Diego Woman interactive pdf

Women of Distinction

Believing Lies Shaped My Life—

Until I Learned to Ask the Right Questions

By Patty Bear

ntil I was eight years It never occurred to boys and men I knew and ity. People who have been
Uold, we went to me I was being indoctri- didn’t see that they were trained in these sound-
church every single Sun- nated or that the things any smarter, or wiser, bites begin to parrot them
day. As a little girl growing I was hearing might not or kinder. It made no without questioning them
up among the Plain People be true. I accepted them sense to me that Eve was and naturally reinforce the
(Amish and Old Order because everyone else responsible for Adam’s be- intended indoctrination.
Mennonites), I would sit did, and because we were havior or that the miracle As a female in the
in the pew beside my three “the one true Church.” of birth would be given as Reform Mennonite
sisters and my mother To question anything the punishment. community and military
on the women’s side of ministers said meant that At first, nagging I landed squarely in the
the church—segregation I would burn in hell for all doubts chipped away at inferior camp. But as a
that served as a persistent eternity. In fact, my child- the rock-solid, four-hun- white woman, as a leader,
unconscious reminder of like belief was so strong dred-year-old ancestral as a pilot, and in other
how different my future that I begged my mother traditions and their wall privileged roles I have
would be from that of my to let me officially join our of dogmatic certainty. been recruited to the
two older brothers. Church at a precociously But soon enough, these superior side of this lie of liberating questions I
I didn’t think much young age. I had already questions opened a flood too. Yes, the early violent have learned to ask:
about that then, though. I determined as a child of clarity, sweeping away suppression I experienced
was far more interested in that I would grow up and hidden walls and leading initiated the questions that 1. Is that really true, and
watching the slow parade live a life identical to my me out of the cloistered would eventually pierce what does the evidence
of cloud shapes as they mother. It was all I knew, world of my ancestors to the lie (and the prison) show?
passed by the window, or and it was what I believed a wider, freer world, and of female inferiority for 2. What else might be
the bees playfully chasing I wanted with my whole toward a destiny I could me. But it was my father’s true?
each other. So I paid little heart. have never imagined. dogmatic challenges of 3. How am I participating
attention to the drip, drip, Before my request As a girl among the everyone except himself, in a lie of either superi-
drip of the ministers’ could be fulfilled, a Plain People, and later as his obstinate insistence on ority or inferiority?
words as they fell on my traumatic turn of events an Air Force Academy his entitlements, and the 4. What else might be
sisters and me. led me to begin question- cadet, a woman in the needless isolation and ru- possible in this situa-
While most Sundays ing what I’d been raised military, and a female ination it brought to him tion?
the sermon featured a par- to believe: my father pilot, observing the habits and his family that served 5. What is true of me?
ticular focus, there were was excommunicated of highly indoctrinated as a lifelong caution to me
few that did not eventually and shunned. Shunning cultures became a survival about the tempting lie of Ultimately, questions
touch on familiar territo- is a biblical practice skill. superiority and the prison are a quest for the truth—
ry: the proper role of fe- among some Mennonites In my experience, ev- that it, too, created. the whole truth—as well
males in our culture. The meant to bring wayward ery indoctrination has one What came from as a bid for freedom. Once
ministers would quote the members back into the central lie: you belong to being on both sides of this we begin navigating via
scriptures, telling us how community’s fold. In my a superior group or to an experience was an awak- curiosity, it doesn’t take
women were never to hold father’s case, it backfired: inferior group. Assigned ening in me of the power long to witness the melting
positions of leadership in an attempt to enforce a “natural” fate, these two of navigating via curiosity, away of prison bars we
over men, that we were his “rights” and tighten groups are trained to as- and the thirst for inner hadn’t noticed restraining
supposed to be silent, sub- his grip on his wife and sume either unquestioned and outer freedom that and limiting us. And when
missive, and obedient to children in our hyper- postures of entitlement questioning brings. Now, that occurs, vistas we nev-
our husbands, and to ac- traditional culture, he and influence, or one of in any number of situa- er imagined come readily
cept this cheerfully as the launched a crusade that he subjugation and invisibil- tions, these are the kinds into view.
natural order of things. took to the state Supreme
Every contrary thought Court and that was cov-
or uncertainty we might ered by national, and even AB O UT
entertain was to be firmly international newspapers. Patty Bear rose out of the cloistered world of the “Plain People” of Pennsylvania,
muzzled so that no pro- But instead of stifling me where voting and serving in the military were strictly forbidden and where women were
test, however mild, should further, this upheaval expected to be silent, submissive, and obedient to their husbands. She was catapulted out
ever escape our mouths in had an unexpected effect: of that world due to a scandal her father initiated that captured the nation’s attention
public or private. Without it opened the door to for more than a decade in prominent media outlets, such as: the New York Times, The
it being spelled out, we liberation. Washington Post, People magazine, Good Morning America, and many more.
understood that we were My father's behavior Her escape chronicled in From Plain to Plane: My Mennonite Childhood, a Nation-
second-class citizens ruptured our family, and al Scandal, and an Unconventional Soar to Freedom, chronicles her improbable journey
because we were second in the violent chaos that out of a centuries-old culture to freedom and much bigger life. This path would lead her
born, created from the rib ensued, I began to ques- to graduate from the US Air Force Academy, serve as an aircraft commander in the first
of Adam. Further, the ag- tion everything I had been Gulf War, and become an international airline captain. This path of liberation Patty
ony of childbirth was our taught. Was it really true embarked on as a child has been a lifelong reminder to her of what is possible when we
punishment for tempting that men were superior follow the Call of the Wild Soul.
Adam and our responsi- and should rule over us?
bility for original sin. I looked around at the
9