I really can't imagine what it was like for single women with children. It must have been really terrifying at times. All the chatter about one wife really only meant someone else was to take care of the leader’s children and do it as well, or better than they did their own. It truly never worked the other way.

We had a girl in one of our homes with one child and PG with the second. She was just sort of dumped, on us with the one wife argument while her husband went off to his new young and cute, no kids yet partner, (by then no one was marrying, just hooking up). He was a hot shot in the Paris Show group and I guess she was just a burden with those children. She was cute enough. Who knows.

She was so confused and frightened. At first I think she sort of expected that we would just adopt her in and all would be well. We tried but we were a road colony with no home at all and she was about to give birth and no one gave a hoot. We called all the local leaders and shepherds and tried to find her a home. I had 3 children and was PG with the 4th and we were barely surviving. I went with her to the very-public state hospital (about 100 women in labor in one huge room), but was not allowed to stay. We had no place for her to come home to with a new born. We were sleeping on some king’s floor.

She was finally and begrudgingly bounced to another home that had an actual place to live after the baby was born, and they kept calling asking for us to buy her diapers and send $. We did for a while but then we were sent to another city and I don't know what happened after that. I just remember sensing her desperation and sense of abandonment and all the "revolutionary" rhetoric seemed like such crap. We wanted to help more and felt such guilt when she was moved off to somewhere else. We did all we could at the time, but I really felt a lot of anger at the dad. No phone call (not even when his son was born), of course no child support check, though he was living quite well, there was no net to catch her and those precious children, and he didn’t give a damn if she died or not.

You single moms were really vulnerable and your children as well. You are so right when you said:
The nature of the Family is to tear the soul out of a family. Parents shouldn't trust or love each other more than the leader. Children are separated from parents at early ages and, well, weren't we all in effect pitted against each other should any of us begin to think rationally?

The longer I am out of the COG the more I see how deep and insidious was Berg’s BIG LIE. It affected every part of our lives and thoughts, and left us helpless and unable to even know how to seek God when we finally got away from Berg’s puke. But wasn’t that Berg’s idea, to become our God. To set his words above all other voices so as to have total control over our every action and reaction, to leave us feeling afraid, ineffectual and dependent even when we were out of Berg’s venomous clutches? I remember after I left, wondering if I could ever make a competent decision again.

I still find myself apologizing to my kids for all of their problems, even if it’s my fault or not. There are times when I think it all was my fault. Then I meet some wonderful parent with all the advantages, who apparently did all the right things and their children are really screwed up and before I can find that empathetic bone, I have a long sigh of “good, I’m not alone”.

When George and I did leave it was amazing to find all the organizations and people, all those "systemites" and "religious Pharisees" over whom we felt so arrogant, who lovingly made a way for us to survive and rebuild.

I’d imagine it is really hard when you do leave the COG to combine the burdens of raising a family, starting from square zero, as far as skills and education go, and trying to imagine thinking about any other aspect of your life, much less spirituality. Maybe when the kids are grown you’ll have some time for that. I am aware that the world out here is not always too sympathetic to single moms, but there is a whole heck of a lot more support than in the COG.

Would you mind letting us know how you left the COG, and how did you manage when you did?

"Spiritual serial killer." That's a good one!