Welcome to STRONGWILLED, the multi-media publication aimed at helping survivors of Religious Authoritarian parenting methods reclaim autonomy and build solidarity. After a hellish January, we are BACK with a podcast discussing an Adventures in Odyssey episode centered on Mr. Whitaker’s troubled relationship with his adult daughter. Honestly, we couldn’t have written an episode that is so perfect at describing what it is like to try and be in relationship with religious authoritarian parents if we tried. You can listen to our podcast here in Substack, find STRONGWILLED wherever you normally listen to podcasts, or read the transcript below. As always, this is a reader-supported publication and we appreciate you all so very much!
Note: For those who were not raised in white evangelicalism, Adventures in Odyssey is a radio program put out by Focus on the Family since 1987 that aimed to indoctrinate children (and parents) into a patriarchal Christian fascist worldview. It has been listened to by millions of people, and is the favorite radio show of Mike Pence. It still is on the air and just celebrated 1,000 episodes.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Focus on the (Estranged) Family: A Discussion of A Member of the Family Part 2
Krispin: Welcome back to the Strongwilled podcast. We took a little break over the holidays and beginning of the year, but we are back and ready to continue talking about family estrangement.
DL: Dude, I am so strong willed today.
Krispin: Yeah? I mean, you're wearing what you wore when you were 13, which I love, right? Like the Vans checkers. Is that what you mean?
DL: That's not what I mean, but yes, I am dressed like a 12 year old boy from 1994, thank you for noticing. But I'm just saying I'm ready to talk some shit about religious authoritarians.
Krispin: Ah.
DL: And today we are getting back to our roots. We're discussing an Adventures in Odyssey episode. We gotta do the whole spiel. We gotta really quickly tell the people what is Adventures in Odyssey.
Krispin: Yeah, we started with Adventures in Odyssey eight years ago. This is happy anniversary to our podcast – eight years.
DL: Uh huh, happy, happy, happy. So many good things have happened in eight years since we started it. [sarcastic tone] Anywho. Adventures in Odyssey was started by Focus on the Family, a kids radio program, kind of like Indoctrination 101, trying to get kids all-in on Christian fascism.
The main guy of Focus on the Family's Adventures in Odyssey’s program is Mr. Whittaker, sort of a stand-in for Dr. Dobson, or any white male evangelical patriarch. Every kid is supposed to listen to him. He's the shit of Odyssey, right? This fictional town in middle America, where everybody ends up becoming a Christian.
Krispin: And this radio program has been running for over 30 years. It is the favorite radio program of Mike Pence.
DL: Yeah, and I'm sure Mike Johnson and all these motherfuckers. So it's very popular and we like to poke fun at it. So this is a part two. We talked about part one of this little two-part series that was about Mr. Whitaker spanking his ten year old grandson named Monty. We'll put the link in the show notes.
You can listen to that. You don't have to listen to that to listen to this one. This is the part two where Whit kind of gets into it with his daughter, Jana. So that's my very quick recap. What else do we need to say about Adventures in Odyssey?
Krispin: Yeah, I think that's definitely a good summary. I mean, if you are a fan and didn't know that we did tons of episode recaps in the past, you could just dig back in the archives.
DL: Yeah? They're still there?
Krispin: Yep, they're still there. Back when we were very – I mean we were post-evangelical, but we were very Christian.
DL: That’s such a good way of putting it!
Krispin: Right?
DL: Jesus was still in my head and my heart. So you'll notice that back in the day.
Krispin: Back when we were doing it in our closet.
DL: I love those closet times.
Krispin: Oh my gosh, yeah. So it’s always fun to go back and talk about one of those episodes. I think it is good to–
DL: Yeah it's really fun. [sarcastic tone]
Krispin: Hahaha
DL: So. Fun.
Krispin: Also worth noting, I grew up with this radio program, listening to it every night before bed. So this is like high nostalgia factor for me, even to be honest, the little piano riffs in this episode still like, you know, make me feel like a kid again.
DL: Yeah, and there's Chris who's like the voice that always sums it up in the end, she's real peppy. I know, she says some batshit crazy things at the end of this episode
Krispin: Yes!
DL: which I'm sure we'll get to. But anyways, to recap part one: Whit spanks his grandson and his grandson is magically a perfect child. And it ends with Monty being like, Mom, I want to stay with Grandpa. I don't want to go home because Grandpa loves me more than you, because Grandpa spanks him. Right? So it’s very creepy.
Krispin: Yes, right. And before he was spanked, he called his mom and said, Hey mom, this is horrible here. Come pick me up. So she is driving across the state or whatever, like for days to pick him up while at the same time he's getting spanked and then he's the perfect child and wants to stay. So by the time mom gets there, by the time Jana, his mom gets there, he's like, I want to stay, and Grandpa loves me more than you.
DL: Which freaks her out.
Krispin: Right, exactly. And that's really where this episode picks up, right?
DL: Okay, yeah.
Krispin: So, should I do a 30 second recap?
DL: Do it!
Krispin: Okay, so basically, Jana comes to pick up Monty, gets in this fight with her dad, Whit, about spanking him.
But then they decide, okay, Monty can stay the night, and then she's gonna take him home in the morning. But then Monty runs away, he breaks into Whit's End, which is Mr. Whittaker's ice cream shop. Then when Monty is being scolded by his mom for breaking in, Whit comes in and says, Your mom is amazing, your mom is really great.
And it's sort of this little olive branch between them. So then Whit sleeps that night and thinks about why he fought so much with Jana. He comes back and apologizes for not being there for her in her teenage years. She says, that's great, I need a hug, and then everything's okay.
DL: Yeah. I mean you definitely left some stuff out but you did great for a 30 second recap. Now, the first part of this-two parter series we covered when we were talking about corporal punishment of children.
Now the second part is in our estrangement series because that's what this episode is about. It switches the focus from Monty. Monty is just like hardly in this. Honestly, he's just a weird little Christian fascist robot who just says, yes sir, to everything Whit says.
Krispin: Really these are just these little vignettes of this conversation between Jana and Whit.
DL: Yeah, so it's about Mr. Whitaker, the white evangelical patriarch, having relational troubles with his daughter, right? And, again, when did this episode come out?
Krispin: In the eighties.
DL: Yeah, in the 1980s. And both you and I, when we listened to it, we were sort of like, whoa. This is exactly like conversations that are happening between boomer parents and their millennial kids now.
But again, this is three to four decades old.
Krispin: I told you, in a certain way–
DL: Almost four decades old, honestly.
Krispin: Right, um, I mean, I feel like the first one came out on your birthday when you were four years old.
DL: So, 1988. Okay. So, yeah, it's closer to four decades old. Is it comforting, or is it enraging that it's the same conversation happening?
Krispin: I mean, I told you I actually couldn't have written a better episode.
DL: Yes. I agree.
Krispin: It is actually very accurate to this dynamic. But the conclusions that it is pushing for are really different than what I would come out with, right?
DL: So let’s flesh that out. You’re saying you couldn’t have written a better example of how white evangelical boomers interact with their adult children than this episode, however, this episode at the end is being like, and this is all great. Whereas you and I would be like, uh oh! You know?
Krispin: Yeah, it would be like, oh yeah, these are all reasons that Jana has a very good reason to just be like, Dad, I don't want to hang out with you. I don't want to talk to you. You just criticize me all the time.
I thought it would be good – we won't do this with the whole episode, but I thought it would be good to listen to, along with you listeners, the first interaction that they have.
DL: Oh, so you're gonna play it, okay.
Adventures in Odyssey:
Mr. Whittaker: “Anyway, like I said, he must have been real mad about having to work for his spending money, cause he conned Jimmy down at the store into opening the cash register and just took what he wanted.”
Jana: “Oh, I can't believe he'd do something like that.”
Mr. Whittaker: “Believe it, and believe me, I wasn't about to let something like that pass unnoticed.”
Jana: “What did you do?”
Mr. Whittaker: “What do you think I did?”
Jana: “You hit Monty?”
Mr. Whittaker: “I didn't hit him. I spanked him. That's a big difference.”
Jana: “Well, not to me. You know how I feel about that kind of thing.”
Mr. Whittaker: “Well, you and your brothers didn't come out any of the worse for wear.”
Jana: “Is that what you think?”
Mr. Whittaker: “Now, listen to me. Don't you see? He was testing me, testing his limits. All I did was make sure his question got answered.”
Jana: “And that was your answer?”
Mr. Whittaker: “Yes, it was. Look. He needed some kind of punishment and it's pretty clear that whatever you've been doing hasn't been working too well.”
Jana: “Oh, so now on top of everything else, I'm an unfit mother.”
Mr. Whittaker: “That's not what I said.”
Jana: “Oh, no, of course not. You never actually say it.”
Mr. Whittaker: “Look, Janna, I'm, I'm sorry. I should have chosen my words more carefully.”
Jana: “It's too late for that now. Okay, look. Monty can stay for his party. I'll come pick him up in the morning.”
Mr. Whittaker: “Where are you going to go?”
Jana: “Downtown. I'll get a hotel room.”
Mr. Whittaker: “Hotel? Nonsense. This is your home. Stay here.”
Jana: “No, Dad. This is your home. It's not mine. Not anymore. Tell Monty I said goodnight.”
DL: Oh! Okay!
Krispin: There's a lot in there.
DL: There’s so much. Where do you want to start?
Krispin: I want to start at the top. Which is, there's this element of Mr. Whittaker is like, this is the problem of America today where people just want welfare and they don't want to work for their money, right? Like, that's sort of embedded in this.
DL: Oh yeah, the way Mr. Whitaker is telling Jana what happened, he's making Monty out to be a monster.
Krispin: Right, exactly, and I think part of what's going on here is, Whit, in his evangelical way, is like, Monty is a sinful kid. He is a sinner.
DL: He conned Jimmy into opening the cash register
Krispin: Right!
DL: and took whatever he wanted. I'm like, he took five bucks to see a movie, right?
Krispin: Right, yeah. And setting up this juxtaposition of Jana having this idealized view of her kid where he can’t do any wrong and that’s why she lets him get away with things and that’s why she doesn’t punish him.
DL: It's like you better believe your kid's a piece of shit.
Krispin: Exactly. Right, right. And when we think about this in the ‘80s and this coming out of Dobson’s work, this was Dobson’s big gripe was that society today says that people are basically good, but really they’re little tyrants. They’re little evil monsters.
DL: Yeah. Okay, now can we get into the spanking of it all?
Krispin: Yes.
DL: This is such a perfect example. Again, we couldn't have written this any better. Right?
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: Here's the tension. Jana's like, wait, you hit my child? And Whit’s like, no, I didn't hit, I spanked. Which is completely different. And that really stood out to me.
Krispin: Mm hm. It also is worthwhile noting that Jana’s like, we’ve had this conversation before, that it’s not a distinction to me.
DL: Yeah, she says, you know how I feel about that.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: And, so Whit just being like, no, it is different, with zero awareness that that doesn’t cut it for anyone outside of your evangelical child-abusing circles. Just because you say it's different doesn't mean it's different.
Krispin: Exactly.
DL: And then he goes on to use the phrasing that Dr. Dobson fucking loves: Monty was testing his limits. Monty was asking for it. Therefore hitting a kid is not wrong if the kid was begging to be hit.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: I’m just saying what is actually happening!
Krispin: Uh huh!
DL: And Jana is like, yikes. And then she’s like, you know how I feel about that. And then Whit is like, well I did it to you and your brothers and you turned out great. And Jana’s like, mm? Mm?
Krispin: Right. She’s like, is that what you think?
DL: So this is the crux of this rift between them, I believe, and she is saying I did not enjoy being raised by a dad who talks to me in a scary, angry voice, which he is, in that clip, and who hit me as a kid, and now you're hitting my kid. And think what's kind of confusing for me is at the end she's like, okay, fine, Monty can stay. So that was kind of odd.
Krispin: Uh huh, yeah. I mean, I think that there are these, like, elements of her being reactive as well, where she's like, I'm not gonna say goodbye to Monty.
DL: Which is so weird.
Krispin: Yeah. I mean, the other thing is this piece of him saying, yeah, basically, somebody needs to parent him,
DL: Punish him.
Krispin: Punish him, right. But I think within that is that implicitness is like, you know
DL: That’s what real parenting is.
Krispin: Right, yeah, and that's what she's saying: you're saying I'm an unfit mother.
DL: Oh yeah. So that, I guess that is the second piece of the argument. Whit is always criticizing her parenting. And what comes up later in the episode is all her life choices.
Krispin: Right, yeah, she's like, you criticized my marriage, then you criticized me when I got divorced, you criticize my career, you know? And I'm like, yeah, I believe it, because Jana is a woman who works, who decided that her marriage did not work for her, and made that decision for herself.
DL: And doesn’t spank her kid.
Krispin: And doesn’t spank her kid.
DL: Yeah, so Whit’s like, check, check, check. Bad, bad, bad.
Krispin: Exactly. Right, and so we really need to hold on to that. That is, that is this dynamic that is going on between them, where Jana feels her whole life Whit is criticizing her, and I'm like, totally believable, you know. That sounds like Mr. Whittaker to me.
DL: It really does to me as well. And I feel like I've asked you this and I know you're not really an Adventures in Odyssey expert and the people listening who are are going to be screaming at their phones or whatever when I ask this but, Jana's not a huge part of the Odyssey world, right?
Krispin: Correct.
DL: And so, can we assume that she is basically somewhat estranged from Mr. Whitaker? Even though this episode ends with them happily together? But from ‘88 on, is Jana a huge part of this?
Krispin: No.
DL: No. So, I'm like, hey, Mr. Whitaker has kids who are in low contact with him. Okay? Let’s just say that right now.
Krispin: And they wrote that into–
DL: They wrote that into this in 1988. They knew! Y’all, they knew that these parenting methods created estrangement. They knew and they were planning to profit off of it and use that estrangement to further entrench people into this worldview.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: That’s my personal belief.
Krispin: Mm hm. Totally. Yeah. So, moving on to the next scene, is Tom and Whit. Tom is Wit's best friend. He's another patriarch in the town.
DL: Another white patriarch.
Adventures in Odyssey:
Tom: Hi, Whit. Got Monty all bedded down for the night?
Whit: Yeah, yeah. Here, let me dry some of those.
Tom: No, no. I got it. I got it. But you can't help me put ‘em away. I still don't know where everything goes around here.
Krispin: Right, he’s, you know, a good old boy. He has a twang to his voice.
DL: He got a little southern accent. [in a southern accent]
Krispin: Actually, there's part of the scene that I like from Tom, and part that I don't like.
DL: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Krispin: Part of it is like, Whit is so mad at Jana, and he’s complaining about her, blah, blah, blah.
DL: He’s also a slightly embarrassed, I believe.
Krispin: Yes. Uh huh. And he says some stuff that is abusive, that abusive people say. He says she's unpredictable, she’s dangerous. I'm fine until she gets to me.
DL: Yeah. He's trying to make sense of like he does get angry around her, and he’s blaming her for that. Right?
Krispin: Yeah, and it’s kind of wild to be like, she’s unpredictable and dangerous.
DL: and I mean really loves you and he's blaming her for that. The kind of love
Krispin: love when somebody puts you in the and it's kind of wild to be like, she's unpredictable and dangerous. You know,
DL: To Mr. Whitaker's sense himself as a really good human being, she is dangerous. Does that make sense?
Krispin: Mm. Mm hm.
DL: She's dangerous to his sense of self that he is built up in this little town of being the god of the town.
Krispin: Right. Uh huh.
DL: Right? Because even at one point she says something like oh, is it time for one of your little speeches? Which I loved.
Krispin: Right, yeah! She knows about the Whitsplains.
DL: She knows about the Whitsplains. She's been getting Whitsplained her whole life, you know?
And she's the only person who has ever said anything like that to him. The rest of them are, for one, kids, who just have to take it, unfortunately, and reflect back to him that he’s God’s gift to the world. You know?
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: And Jana is dangerous to him for that reason. So he gets angry and then he is like, oh shit, I have human emotions. You know?
Krispin: Yeah. But I love it because he's complaining about Jnna, Whit is saying, she just twists my words. And Tom's like, well, why would she do that? Like, you know, like, let's slow down,
DL: Right. Tom’s like, something is happening here.
Krispin: So I appreciate that. But then Tom is also like, you're so wise, you'll figure it out.
DL: Pbbthhht.
Krispin: And within that, in this little scene Witt says something that comes up later too, which is like, if I knew why she was so angry, I would do something about it.
DL: I would do something
Krispin: I don't understand. She just seems so uncomfortable around me. She’s so angry.
DL: I was like [guttural noises of frustration], she literally said she thinks spanking is hitting children! And you know, we can extrapolate from there!
Krispin: Mm-hm. Right. Exactly. So she tells him multiple things in this episode that are clear messages about why she does not like the dynamic in their relationship, and he just continues to come back and be like, I don't know, it's just always been this way and I don't know what it is, you know?
DL: Okay, can I, I don't know if this is the right time to say this, but one thing: I was listening to this episode, and just trying to be aware of [the fact that] Whit doesn't talk about God to Jana, and Jana never mentions it.
Now Whit did when talking to Monty. Right? Explained how this is how God wants it. For kids to be punished to keep them safe or whatever. But Whit doesn't do that with Janna. So part of it is like, is underlying all of this, the reality that Janna is not a Christian. So Whit can't Whitsplain her using God. He can't control her using God. And all he has left is like, Monty had to be punished. Right?
Krispin: I think that is definitely going on. I think that there are some subtle hints that Jana is godless. Even by the fact that she's divorced.
DL: Exactly. And works for a bank.
Krispin: Right! Yes. She’s an exec. [both laughing]
So, there's this idea of Whit is like, I have these God given parenting principles that work because God instituted them. And they work whether you're a Christian or not, but I'm going to–
DL: I think they only work if you're a Christian.
Krispin: I…disagree, and I think that Dobson, when he started, if I understand some of the historians, Dobson actually was trying to keep a little bit of distance from Christianity initially, and just say, here are the right parenting methods for America. I don’t know, we could disagree about it.
DL: Oh my God, I totally disagree.
Krispin: I feel like it’s that element that evangelicals do, that whether you’re a Christian or not, this works. This is the way God designed it.
DL: I think that Dobson, early on knew that the Christianity part added an extra element of control.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: So he went for that.
Krispin: Hm.
DL: You know? And eventually he also recognized – ‘cause he’s sort of a grifter, right? If he could talk to churches and Christians he gets such a better reception. Now of course there’s conservative-leaning people, authoritarian-leaning people in the wider world but as we see even in the past eighteen years it’s really accelerated into the Christianity part is sort of central because it just adds the extra layer of control. Therefore, I think this episode's really interesting because Whit can't use that form of control on Jana, but he is using it on Monty.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: And it's very destabilizing for Whit to be like, I can't argue, like, this is God's way, which you would expect him to say. That's what he told Monty, that's what he talked to Tom about, but he can’t say that to Jana.
Krispin: Mm-hm.
DL: So then it's just like, well your kid needs to be punished. You know?
Krispin: Right? I mean, it's really interesting. So if we move ahead to the next scene, basically it's a very simple scene. Jana comes to pick up Monty in the morning, but she and Whit get into this argument. And he's like telling her what to do, right? Like, don't do that, you know? And she's like, what? Like, are you going to spank me?
DL: [audible gasp]
Krispin: With a belt?
DL: [louder gasp]
Adventures in Odyssey:
Whit: “Look here. I've had just about enough. If you have something to say to me, say it. If not, I'd appreciate it if you'd keep a civil tongue in your head.”
Jana: “Oh, what are you gonna do, Dad? Pull out a belt and spank me too?”
Krispin: Which is like, interesting because like you were just talking about, what are his options for controlling Jana? Jana's sort of stating, you don't have a way to control me anymore.
DL: So yeah, so again, he can't bring up God. And–
Krispin: Sorry, what were you going to say?
DL: I just found it very thrilling when she was like, what are you gonna do? Spank me? You know? And I was like, [happy noise].
Krispin: And then how he responds is you see him grasping for ways to control her. He says, well, if you didn't want me to spank him, then you shouldn't have left him with me at all.
DL: Yeah, it's your fault. He’s under my care.
Krispin: It's your fault. You shouldn't have gone to this banking conference if you didn't want him spanked. Now he's putting it as a favor to her, not like,
DL: Right, and it’s her fault. Her fault. Her fault. So he’s not taking responsibility.
Krispin: Right, and there's no question in here about like, Whit being like, do I want to spend time with my grandson?
He's, he's not framing it like, oh, it works out well. You get to go to your conference, I get to spend time with my grandson. He's like, I was doing you a favor. He's really a burden. Like, I mean, that's the implicitness of this message. But really what he's doing is he's just being defensive and saying, fine. If you don't want me to spank your kid, then just don't leave.
DL: Well, and Jana's kind of saying, this is all you know how to do.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: Is to hit kids to get them to obey you. Right?
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: And, so for me, that part of the episode is so like, Oh my god, it's happening! We're confronting, you know, the abusive parenting methods! Which again, is so weird because this is an Adventures in Odyssey episode. So you know that Mr. Whittaker has to end up the hero and all that.
But they put that in there!
Krispin: Right. Like I said, couldn't have written it better.
DL: Couldn’t have written it better. How many of us wish we could tell our parents when they raise their voices at us, like, what are you going to do?
Krispin: Right?
DL: Spank me? I hit back now, just so you know. You know, it's kind of wild.
Krispin: Oh my gosh, yeah. So, ending that scene, Jana's frustrated, like, I'm just gonna go get Monty, we're gonna leave. Then she realizes Monty has left through the window. You know, has run away.
DL: Because he heard them fighting.
Krispin: Mm hm. They quickly find out that, um, that Monty has broken into Whit's End.
DL: But for why?
Krispin: I know! That did not make sense to me. He's running away, I guess, because then he can stay at his grandpa's house? I don't know. But, basically, he gets picked up by the police, so then they go pick him up at the police station.
DL: Oh, and the police are besties with Mr. Whittaker, of course.
Krispin: Right.
DL: And there's a very insidious little sentence in there about how Mr. Whittaker takes care of things.
Krispin: Right, yeah, they're like, do you want to press charges? And he's like,
Adventures in Odyssey:
Officer: “Whit, you gonna press charges?”
Whit: “Not the kind you need to be concerned with, Fred.”
Officer: “Had to ask. Well, all you need to do is sign right here.”
Krispin: It feels so insidious, and also glib about, like, the criminal justice system.
DL: It's bad.
Krispin: Yeah. So then, Whit and Jana have another argument about, you know, Jana needs to be a better parent. Jana is like, let me handle this, this is my son. And Whit is like, no, let me talk to him. Jana's like, no, leave us alone. Let me talk to my son. So she's talking to him and talking about what's going on. And then Whit comes
DL: Barges in.
Krispin: Right? And is like, your mother's amazing. She loves you so much. Like, Whit saves the day, right? And then even after that, Jana's like, thank you. And he's like, yeah, I guess you do appreciate my meddling sometimes.
DL: Okay, so we need to backtrack because basically his Whitsplain is like, Your mother's amazing and she loves you and you need to listen to her. Obey her. Stop talking disrespectfully.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: And then Monty's like, Okay, Grandpa. Yes, sir. And then listens to his mom. It's so unbelievable. And then Jana's like, Oh my God, my dad said I do love my kid, so everything's fine. Then, we get to the ultimate Whitsplain. That was just the prelude.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: Cause Monty doesn't matter in this story. Kids don't matter anymore, you know? Now we're back to the estrangement issue, and I really want to dive into this part. Whit has been up all night, Krispin. He couldn't sleep. He can't believe that there's this rift between him and his daughter. He has no idea why.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: He has no idea why. Why is there this rift between him and Jana? Nobody's ever told him why. [sarcastic tone] Jana's never told him. You know, she's never said a thing. Jana's just so unpredictable and he has no clue why.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: So he stayed up all night thinking and he came up with why. Do you want to say why?
Krispin: So we need to get into the weeds for a minute here. This is me puttin’ on my Adventures in Odyssey expert hat.
DL: I love it.
Krispin: I mean, again, this was written in, in ‘88. So, Whit's son, his oldest son was drafted to the war in Vietnam and was killed there. There's actually this whole episode about right before he went to war.
Jerry is his name. Before Jerry goes to war he and his friend have this talk, and his friend escapes to Canada to dodge the draft. He goes to war and does the right thing. And Whit has always valorized Jerry.
DL: And, you know, service to the US military.
Krispin: Right, exactly. And so what he says is, yeah, Jerry died, and you were 14, and we were all grieving, and my younger son, Jason, I realized – Jason is the youngest, so Jana was 14, Jason was like 9. He's like, I realized that as Jason was getting older he might get drafted and killed too, so I just really focused on my relationship with him, and you got left behind.
DL: That’s where all this is coming from.
Krispin: And that's why, because I wasn't present with you during your teen years, that's why we have such a bad relationship. I figured it out, finally.
DL: I figured it out!
Krispin: And this like, I didn't mean to, I was really grieving, but looking back on it now, I see how it was hard for you.
DL: Yeah, so that's what Mr. Whitaker comes to the conclusion of. Now, we learned a few interesting things in this Whitsplain. The most interesting thing to me was that when Jerry died, Jana became an anti-Vietnam war activist at age 14 and went to protest. Now that really stood out to me, Krispin!
Krispin: Uh huh. Another note for being godless.
DL: Another note for being godless, but also Dr. Dobson was obsessed with anti-war protesters and how they were the ultimate sign that permissive parenting was taking place in America because these white raised-Christian kids were growing up to protest the US military, which is the ultimate sign of disobedience.
And Dobson has written about this. Lots of people, Hoover, you know, all these right-wingers, they were obsessed. So Whitaker is saying this is as sort of like an aside, but we know! I've studied what these men have written about anti-war protestors. Like that's the ultimate sign of rebellion and disrespect.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: So there's that. Number two, is that Whit’s like, yeah, we moved to the middle of America to get away from the war. And I'm like, what?
Krispin: Right?
DL: This doesn't make any sense. Like if you're grieving this, then you need to grieve the US war machine that killed your son. But instead they’re just sad he died even though Whit’s like, he did the right thing, he was obedient to the US military and to God. You know? So none of it makes any sense to me.
Krispin: No. It does not. Yeah. It does not not hold up in the Adventures in Odyssey universe that Whit was like, I just had to get away from the war, it was horrific, it was horrible, it ripped our family apart. That is not the story he tells in the rest of the episodes about that topic.
DL: Yeah, so this seems to me again, he's just trying to come up with a way to be like, this is what happened to Jana that I don't actually have to take any responsibility for, except to say, oh, I'm sorry, I was less controlling than I should have been during your teenage years.
Krispin: Uh huh.
DL: Because that's kind of what he's saying. I should have been controlling you more by spending time with you. Now, this is the kind of spending time you and I grew up with, right? Connect with your teenager to make sure–
Krispin: Right, that they don't grow up to be a bank executive who's divorced.
DL: Hang out with your teenagers if you want them to grow up and emulate everything you train them to, right?
Krispin: Mm hm,
DL: And so that's another thing Dobson and Focus on the Family, they always put the blame, right, on the parents. If something goes wrong with your kids it's because you didn't indoctrinate them enough.
You didn't spend enough time pressuring them to believe just like you and getting them to check in with Jesus and getting them, you know what I mean? And so that's kind of the sad undertone of all of this is they gave parents these quote unquote “tools” that led to rifts with their children and then they blamed the parents and the kids, never the system.
Krispin: Yeah. Listening to this I was like, actually this feels very familiar. Because at one point in my mid twenties, my dad came to me and was like, oh, I realize why we have such a bad relationship.
DL: Oh do you, Matt?? How interesting! [sarcastic tone]
Krispin: Hu huh. He was like, when you were a teenager, I became a principal and I just worked such long hours. And it was because I'd been fired for not working enough before, so I just was really anxious and I was really stressed and I was, you know, so there's this whole like, here's why I did it.
DL: I’m sure he stayed up all night wondering, and he came up with this.
Krispin: Uh huh. But he's like, I realized that I was really absent. And when I look back on that time, I spent so much of my childhood, because of these same things, [him being] critical, [me being] afraid of being spanked. Like I was just scared of my dad. He was not a source of comfort, not someone I wanted to be around.
I remember when I was a teenager and he started working all the time, I was like, this is such a relief. I'm so glad that he is, you know, focused on something other than me for once. So, yeah, it's very interesting to me that like this parallel, this exact parallel, right?
DL: That is kind of wild!
Krispin: Where Jana is like, yeah, I didn't like being spanked. I didn't like being criticized. And I'm like, hear, hear! I feel the same way. And then a dad that's like, oh, it's because during your teenage years, I was absent.
DL: I bet this has happened to a lot of people, you know what I mean? And, I just, to be perfectly honest, I'm sure my parents are also concocting reasons why we have distance in our relationship, and it's gonna come down to we didn't indoctrinate you enough during your formative years, which, that was not the problem.
They invested plenty of time in me. So I think, that's so interesting, and Whit coming up with this story that he will cling to the rest of his life to explain the distance between him and Jana, like, you don't even have to talk about the end of this episode. Jana's like, I've just been, yeah, you're right. Like, I really needed you. I thought you didn't like girls.
I thought that was interesting that she said that, because misogynists don't like girls, and Whit is a misogynist.
Krispin: Right, which comes out in this episode.
DL: He's like, no, no, no, no, no! I love girls!
Krispin: Right! He says, multiple times, Jana is so unpredictable, dangerous, emotional, reactive. All of that to me really feels misogynistic because it is.
DL: And that part, kind of like, not triggered me, but it stood out to me if you are socialized as female in this world and anytime you're like gosh, this seems kind of like not great for girls or women And then the patriarch’s like no, no, no, no, no, no, I love you. I hate that.
Krispin: Yeah.
DL: But basically the main takeaway I want to say is I just spent a lot of time thinking about Mr. Whitaker concocting this false narrative of why the distance is and it's like, he will never be able to hear Jana, right? She's already told him in this episode, it's because of the spanking, it's because of the judgment, it's because of the critical lens. But Mr. Whitaker is so wedded to his ideology and his view of himself as a good, righteous person who follows God, he cannot, ever, self reflect on his parenting methods, right?
Because they've been intertwined with God. Which is why the Christian piece is so important to me, going back to our earlier fight, our fight we had Krispin on this podcast! And so I'm like, because it is baptized as God's way, you cannot self reflect on that. It's untouchable. So you come up with these other narratives, right?
I somehow didn't do enough. And to me, this is like the inherent tragedy in conversations of estrangement with people who come from like a high control religion or an evangelical family, something like that, our parents, the vast majority of them, will never be able to hear us or be able to self reflect because it is so bound up in their religion.
Krispin: Right, yeah.
DL: And they can't do it. They just can't. They've invested too much time, energy, money, self-esteem. You know what I mean? The list goes on and on and on. So they literally can't hear from their kids. If the kid's like, well, this, like, godly way of parenting really hurt me. The vast majority of parents can't even hear it.
Krispin: Right. And that idea even just of having an opinion on your kid's life and decisions and stuff, that's all baked into Christianity, which is, or at least evangelicalism is that idea of like, well, there is a right way to live. And so like, why would I not tell you my honest feelings about you getting divorced. Right?
DL: I mean, God hates divorce, Jana. I gotta tell you that. All the time. So, I'm sorry. That's just what God wants me to do.
Krispin: Right
DL: Now, we can still spend time. You can come to my house and hang out with me. You know?
Krispin: Going back to that first thing where they have this huge fight and Jana was like, I'm going to stay somewhere else. And Whit’s like, why aren't you comfortable staying here at my home, at our home?
DL: I'm so confused! I'm yelling at you, but why are you not wanting to stay here? You know? And again, this is all so familiar to me.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: And I think the end of this episode is a little soul crushing, right? Cause Jana basically, like, capitulates, hugs her dad, is like, everything's great, maybe we'll come visit you again. And Whit is just chortling with happiness.
Krispin: Yes. It is awkward chortling.
DL: Because, you know, he's gonna have this illusion that he is a good person, things are okay between him and Jana and Monty, he did the right thing by spanking Monty. Whit’s view of the world is intact, and yet, do we have any evidence that Jana comes to visit him and stays in his house?
Krispin: No.
DL: No! We don’t. And that’s the reality. This is the power we have.
Krispin: So I'm like, yeah, this has, was written perfectly, except I would have to add one extra scene at the end
DL: Okay! Okay, oh!
Krispin: So, yeah, and another thing that's worth mentioning is Jana also says, I want a hug from you. You haven't hugged me since I was 14.
DL: Puberty.
Krispin: Yes. Mm hm.
DL: Which, again – creepy!
Krispin: Whit is like, I've hugged you, and she's like, not a real hug. So anyway, there's that thing.
But that's what she sort of volunteers as the problem as well, right? But, yeah. Scene 8 is Jana goes home. And then reflects on it for a couple of days and realizes she was so desperate for things to feel good between her and her dad because that's a really important relationship.
DL: That’s what kids are biologically designed to want.
Krispin: Right, and he was apologizing for something. He was conceding something. And so, in that moment, she was like, yeah, I forgive you. And then, two days later realized, wait a minute. But we didn't even talk about, like, the criticism stuff. But I just sort of lost that in the moment because I wanted things to be okay between us.
DL: Or, just the betrayal of, Dad, you know how I feel about corporal punishment, and you used it on my kid. You know what I mean? Like, they don't even get into that. That's a huge boundary violation, right? That she can't even discuss, because he's like, well, what? You let him stay here. So I didn't actually break your boundary. So messed up.
So hopefully in this last scene, Jana remembers that too.
Krispin: Right. Yes, totally. Yeah. And maybe that's what happens. Maybe that's why. I mean, the only other time I can think of is an episode called Monty's Christmas, which I don't know when that is, if that's before or after this, but yeah, there's very, very few times that Jana comes to visit.
DL: Yeah.
Krispin: And there's that element of like, if you're not open and you're saying, Whit is saying, here are my terms. He could have just said, hey, Jana, things have felt really bad. Can you tell me about what it's been like for you and what you're upset about? But instead he's like–
DL: Oh, he doesn't want to know. That's the truth of it.
Krispin: Right. He's like, here's the story you have to, you can take it or leave it.
DL: That is the pressure so many of us are facing right now. And it could be over a number of Issues or reasons, but that's the underlying tension is our parents are coming up with these reasons for why we might be putting distance between us and we have to capitulate to that because they do not want to hear the real reasons.
I mean, that's the honest truth.
Krispin: Right. And they could ask.
DL: They could ask. They don't want to know and that's, you know, a hard pill to swallow. But you kind of have to, at some point, you know, take reality for what it is. Now, shocking lock of God in this episode, honestly. We got all the God stuff in part one, I suppose, about why spanking is what God wants you to do. But, Chris does show up at the end to give us
Krispin: I was gonna say, we gotta make sure to talk about Chris.
DL: to give us a bit of the old God stuff. You wanna play that for the people, Krispin?
Krispin: Uh huh.
Adventures in Odyssey: Happy endings are wonderful, but as we heard today, they don't always come easily. Healing from emotional wounds takes time. One reason that it can be so difficult is that our pride gets in the way. We don't want to admit when we're wrong or that we've been hurt. So it's easy to blame someone else. Well, that's how little problems turn into big problems.
The most important part of dealing with pain is forgiving the people who have hurt us. And to ask forgiveness for hurting others.
DL: Oh my God. “The most important way to deal with pain is to forgive the people who inflicted it upon us. Especially if they're your parents. You must forgive. That's the only way you'll ever get over it is if you forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive. Cause you're not perfect either.”
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: Okay, that's my summary of what Chris said.
Krispin: Right! Oh my gosh, yeah. Sometimes the way to deal with pain is to set boundaries. But no.
DL: Let's redo it. What, to you, you're a therapist. You're a fucking therapist. I'm not. I can say whatever I want. What do you think is the most important thing when it comes to dealing with pain? If someone has inflicted pain with us, what's the most important thing you can do? My thought is you have to feel the pain.
And rushing to something like forgiveness, which is sort of a meaningless concept, honestly, is just a way of not having to feel the pain. So you gotta feel it, you gotta go through that valley of feeling the depth of pain, which is part of what we're trying to do at Strongwilled. Nobody wants to do it, so I get it. But quickly rushing to forgive those who did it to you is not anywhere on my list.
Krispin: No, and I would say that is an evangelical Christian culture idea that is actually pervasive throughout society. And in a lot of trauma circles people are talking about this idea that there's always been this kind of statement like, well if you are going to heal from especially abuse or trauma, you have to forgive your abuser. And a lot of people have been saying wait a minute. Actually, that's not true to my experience as a trauma survivor. It’s pretty peripheral, honestly.
Krispin: Right. But it really is really helpful to abusive systems.
DL: Exactly. That's what abusers say. And that's why abusers flock to a situation like evangelical Christianity. And so sometimes when we listen to things like Adventures in Odyssey, I'm like, oh my god, of course abusive people are drawn to this, and you can just look, you can look at our society, what celebrities are drawn to Christianity? People who have allegations of abuse, right?
They love this, like, well you have to forgive me, it's the only way, you know, is to forgive, and it's just like, no. I don't have to actually. And, you can be in a relationship with people – because so often, right, when they say forgive, they mean forget and never bring up again, and never hold people accountable for their actions.
And I'm like, no, I don't have to hate you 24/7, think negatively of you, but I am going to hold you accountable, not trust you, set boundaries, not have my kid be around you alone if you're going to hit them every time you feel frustrated with them. You know, that kind of stuff.
Krispin: Right, yeah! I mean, you asked me as a therapist – When it comes to repairing ruptures in relationships, the way that that works is for the person that’s been hurt to get in touch with their pain and identify with it, and the other person to be able to step into their shoes and say, oh my God, that is really painful, I’m so sorry I put you through this.
DL: Well, that's depressing, because as this episode shows, the whole system is designed to ensure that parents don't do that to their kids in white evangelicalism, into anything that baptizes their parenting methods with God's stamp, you know,
Krispin: Yep. Yeah. So that's based on the attachment injury repair model.
And yeah, and it's not about forgiveness or even apologizing. At least when it comes to these big relational ruptures, apologizing and saying, I'm sorry, isn't the thing. It's like, I want to know that you understand my experience.
DL: Gosh, that again is depressing. I understand what you’re saying, I understand that that is
Krispin: What the research says?
DL: what the research says, and yet it's not something I can ever hope for with my own parents. I don't think you can either, and that's true for a lot of us who grew up in a religious authoritarian parenting home.
And so, that's kind of our work, is to feel that grief, and to just be like, I guess I will have to show up for myself, and I will have to validate like, wow, that was really shitty, what happened to you. And that's sort of what we're trying to do for you. I'm sorry your mom and dad won't ever do that, but me and Krispin will!
Krispin: Yeah!
DL: You know? Like, that's kind of all we got.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: I don't know, Jana is a really interesting person, a really interesting character, I can't believe they put this on the air.
Krispin: It was very interesting that they put this on the air. And I think in a certain way–
DL: And they keep re airing it. It's not like this is in the vault.
Krispin: Right! I think it is sort of this preemptive strategy. It's this thing that happens in fundamentalism where they actually present the argument of something that is logical and then they say, but this is false. And it sort of is a vaccination against it.
DL: Okay.
Krispin: In a way of – right?
DL: Innoculating people.
Krispin: Right. Like, hey, your kid might come to you and say these things that are actually really valid.
DL: And say, like, oh, you’re hitting kids. “No, I’m spanking.” You know?
Krispin: Exactly. So it is interesting that it's so realistic, but I think it benefited them for it to be realistic because it's teaching people to respond in the way Mr. Whittaker does. And in their head, Chris is saying, good job. You know?
DL: Yeah, so it inoculates parents against taking responsibility, and it teaches children that there's no point in being honest about the real causes of pain and distance in a relationship, which is, people like Mr. Whitaker, it's obvious that he's not emotionally intelligent, right?
Krispin: Right.
DL: He gets super angry and upset. He hits kids because he has no other recourse, for, whatever, you know? And he's not able to listen to his own child when the child is saying, you keep judging me and it's really hurtful. So I'm like, wow. Wow. And yet, the end result is, no, he's good. He's the town god that we must all follow at all times. And we must let our children be alone with him.
Krispin: Mm hm.
DL: I hate it. I hate it. So much, so much, so much.
Krispin: And you were gonna say something?
DL: I was going to say something. Okay, so, a little bit of shop talk, Krispin. I just want to say thanks again to all our Patreon supporters, crunching the numbers, y'all have really kept this thing afloat. We want to thank you very much. You can join for as little as 4 a month, get our little monthly updates. We just did one on New Year's resolutions, sort of, looking back at 2024. We are also starting to shift away from social media platforms that are not cool, not cool at all, including Facebook and Instagram.
So we are in the process of starting a Discord and information about that we will be sending out to Patreon supporters. And actually, if you already are on Patreon, they have a really easy way to connect your Patreon accounts to Discord. And we are going to drop the full audio of The Adventures in Honesty episode about Janet and Whit into our Discord to hopefully get some of y'all trying out this new platform.
Okay, the youth love Discord. Okay? Our 14 year old is very impressed that we're gonna start one. You know what I mean? Which is hilarious to me.
Krispin: I just realized I might need to figure out, because I think they have mine. Like, they have my email registered to their Discord.
DL: Oh no. Oh dear.
Krispin: Don't worry. By the time–
DL: We will figure it out! A new social media platform. And if you're feeling anxious and worried about that just know we are too. And we’re going to make it fun. I need a place to put all the weird religious art I'm doing. And y'all make a lot of weird religious art too. Discord is actually a place where we can share that.
We can hang out, our new more fun projects we can share about there. And we can drop like the whole audio of this episode we're talking about. So you guys can hate-listen along with us.
So, best way you can be informed is to join our Patreon for $4 a month. If you appreciate our content, appreciate the work we're doing. That's great. We're going to keep putting out podcast episodes. We have more chapters to come at strongwilled. substack. com, but we want to say thanks. Thanks for keeping us afloat. It really means a lot to us.
Krispin: Yeah, we really, really appreciate it. We do really enjoy doing this work and I just hope that it really helps people understand their own experience and put words to it.
Even just listening to this episode, I was like, this is just a great episode to talk about. Tough, but a great example of what we see happen over and over again. So.
DL: I couldn't wait to scream about it with you. Always a pleasure, Krispin.
Krispin: I know you were blowing up my phone–
DL: Always a pleasure!
Krispin: while, while I was in therapy and you, you were on a walk.
DL: Ahh, I’m sorry!
Krispin: I mean, you just texted me being like, oh my God, this episode.
Thank you all so much for listening. And we'll be back soon.
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