Of course, I was fourteen  — that was literally half a lifetime ago. Very few of us are doing now what we said we’d do in junior high. But my course wasn’t changed by a growing and maturing, but by the jarring new philosophy presented in a book I read, called So Much More. In it, the authors (who would later become dear friends), presented a picture of the daughter, not as an individual agent, but an integral part of the family dynamic. Why would I go off to college and do my own thing when I could become part of my family’s incredible mission in the world? It got me. Hook, line, and sinker. 

I’ve been told more than once that I’m shockingly normal.

Not because I have three heads or a third eye or a tail, but because my dad wrote books about strong, godly families and people are curious to see how his strong, godly daughter turned out.

I tease my husband that my childhood dreams of becoming a world-renowned author would come true the minute I committed to a tell-all book. What was it like growing up in the “perfect homeschool family.” How holy am I as a result of it?

The answer is, I grew up in a wonderful, imperfect family. And I could be holier.

I really am pretty normal, apart from being a huge dork. But when people ask me if there’s anything about my upbringing that I regret, that’s when things get a little weird.

A MOVEMENT I REGRET

I’ve already written about the stay-at-home daughter thing. It’s not something I talk about really often, frankly because I’m really embarrassed by it.

I’m not embarrassed by the fact that I chose not to move out until I got married. I’m not perfectly content with it either, but I’ll write about that in a moment. I’m embarrassed because I consider making staying home until marriage into a righteous movement instead of one valid option among many is a mistake that has caused myriad ripple effects of shame and insecurity in so many lives. Including my own.

I’m no Josh Harris but I relate to so much of his I Kissed Dating Goodbye reflections. Writing books at twenty, when life is so much simpler than it will be at thirty, is a perilous undertaking. I wish I hadn’t.

THE DECISION THAT I HAD

My relationship with the entire stay-at-home daughter phenomenon is complicated.

First, it didn’t start with my parents. My dad is not an abusive, overbearing ogre who dictated every decision in my life until I said: “I do.” Whenever he preached at colleges  — from Dartmouth to Cedarville  — he would take me along and we’d talk about what I might want to do someday. As the back of my book declared, I used to want to go to NYU and study journalism or screenwriting. I wanted to experience all of the excitement and independence that life had to offer me.

Of course, I was fourteen  — that was literally half a lifetime ago. Very few of us are doing now what we said we’d do in junior high. But my course wasn’t changed by a growing and maturing, but by the jarring new philosophy presented in a book I read, called So Much More. In it, the authors (who would later become dear friends), presented a picture of the daughter, not as an individual agent, but an integral part of the family dynamic. Why would I go off to college and do my own thing when I could become part of my family’s incredible mission in the world?

It got me. Hook, line, and sinker. And my parents  — the first generation in while to have a strong, Christian family dynamic with a dad at home  — thought that sounded just lovely.

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