It is a long-established myth in Christofascist circles that rightly structured families are a form of abuse prevention. That is to say, for many people in rightwing communities, strong families—and by this, they mean patriarchal, nuclear ones where a father leads his female spouse and their children—protect family members from potential negative or evil forces outside the family.
One of the most notable examples of this belief comes from now-disgraced homeschool leader and accused sexual predator Bill Gothard, who founded the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP). Gothard argued there is an “umbrella of protection” over godly families, and by that he meant families which are rightly structured in patriarchal and nuclear form. According to Gothard and IBLP,
As long as a person is under an umbrella, he finds shelter from harsh weather conditions. If he steps out from under the umbrella, he exposes himself to the environment. God-given authorities can be considered ‘umbrellas of protection.’ By honoring and submitting to authorities, you will receive the privileges of their protection, direction, and accountability. If you resist their instructions and move out from their jurisdictional care, you forfeit your place under their protection and face life’s challenges and temptations on your own.
Gothard’s belief system was captured in images like the following:
As I have written elsewhere about these images, they “are all grounded on the idea of authority, on the idea that protection for your family comes from obedience to authority. That authority, of course, is first and foremost God. But not just any God. It is God as Father and Patriarch. It is important to emphasize the gender and role of this God because patriarchy—the rule of adult men over everyone else, including women and children—is at the core of this parenting system.”
Gothard is not the only advocate of this idea of patriarchal, nuclear families being more protective against abuse than other families. Calvinist teacher John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, California, has made similar arguments recently in his 2024 book The War on Children: Providing Refuge For Your Children In A Hostile World. In Chapter 8, “The Attack on the Family,” MacArthur argues that the patriarchal, nuclear family is under attack like never before. Due to the 2015 Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges, which declared queer couples have the right to marry just like heterosexual couples, a family can now be “whatever anyone wants it to be.” MacArthur describes this expansion of the definition and meaning of family as a “great act of terror” that rivals violent terrorist attacks. Because queer couples can now legally have families, MacArthur claims “they have effectively destroyed the family” (p. 143-144).
This is bad because, according to MacArthur, “families provide a sovereign unit that acts as a barrier against the corruption that dominates this world.” When you remove that barrier, “it removes all the guardrails God put in place,” thus opening children up to negative and evil forces. “Without the protection of the family,” MacArthur warns, “children are turned over to influences that encourage them to question all forms of authority and even doubt the obvious facts of their own identity” (p. 146).
But all this begs the question: are families truly safe havens? Or is the idea that families are safe a myth that lulls us into dangerous complacency?
I explored this concept a bit in a 2023 article I wrote for Religion Dispatches about forced birth advocate Lila Rose and her promotion of the malicious myth of queer people being child predators. One of the many problems with the myth of predatory queer people is that it distracts us from the real threats to children: family members and other trusted people involved in children’s lives. Children are not often abused by strangers, whether they are transgender people in bathrooms or drag performers at story hours. Children are abused by people they know.
In my Religion Dispatches article, I cited David Pittman, a professional child abuse prevention educator who serves as the Director of Together We Heal and a Safeguarding Trainer for Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE). Pittman told me why this myth must end: “It’s dangerous to all children because it reinforces a myth that lulls parents into thinking their kids are safe around heterosexual adults,” when in fact, “being from a ‘traditional’ nuclear family (male parent, female parent, and children) has nothing to do with preventing sexual abuse.”
Patriarchal, nuclear families, in reality, are where most child abuse occurs. As I wrote in the aforementioned article, “The traditional nuclear family has been the site of the majority of child abuse—with parents as the primary perpetrators. Benjamin Marsh, Pastor of First Alliance Church Winston Salem and the Board Chair of the trauma-informed service provider Monarch NC, states, ‘Most abuse has occurred in the context of marriage and traditional childrearing. The urge to dominate and hurt—and the kind of twisted psychosexual fulfillment sought by pedophiles—is never fulfilled by marriage and is [in fact] often camouflaged by marriage.’”
Concerns about patriarchal, nuclear families are not the result of demonic or satanic influences, as people like Gothard or MacArthur claim. Rather, they are justified based on the data we have. For example:
- The most dangerous place for a woman to be is in her home—where the majority of murdered girls and women die at the hands of men.
- Pregnant people are particularly at risk, as people who are pregnant or who have recently given birth are more likely to be murdered by their partners than to die from obstetric causes.
- The most dangerous place for a child to be is their own home—where immediate family members are the most common perpetrators of child abuse.
- More than two-thirds of child sexual abuse images are made at home, with the victims’ biological father (58%) or stepfather (41%) most likely to be the primary perpetrator.
- Three times as many children are shot in domestic violence incidents as in school shootings and eight times as many die. The majority of these children are intentionally shot by a parent, stepparent, or guardian.
Not only are families the primary site of child abuse, but child abuse that occurs inside families is also more damaging and long-lasting than child abuse that occurs outside them. For example, research has found that children abused by nuclear family members are more likely to become parents as children: “Individuals who were abused by a nuclear family member were 3–12 times more likely to become a teenage parent than victims who were abused by other perpetrators.” Additionally, children abused by nuclear family members are also more likely to be forced into child marriage: “Abuse by a nuclear family member, as opposed to the perpetrator being a stranger, increased the odds of early marriage.”
Based on these facts, one could easily argue that families are dangerous and we should thus abolish them. Indeed, some progressive advocates of child liberation promote this argument. While I am sympathetic to family abolitionism for all of the above reasons, I am not making that argument here. I am making a much more modest argument: that it is foolish to argue or act like fathers, parents, or the nuclear family are silver bullets we can use against child abuse, domestic violence, and other familial threats. Rather than silver bullets against abuse, they are most often the perpetrators of them.
Gothard, MacArthur, and the many other rightwing advocates of patriarchal, nuclear families are dead wrong. Fathers, parents, and nuclear families are not magical umbrellas of protection. We will never make families safer until we acknowledge this fact.