International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017 9
of this new life event. Participants explained
how parenting in a nuclear family was very
different to parenting at Centrepoint, where
parenting was a collective responsibility. Some
narratives emphasised the experiences of neglect
that children had experienced at Centrepoint and
talked about how having a child themselves had
provided the impetus to work on their own
psychological difficulties or to try and to
identify the way they wanted to parent
differently.
The experience of having a child also evoked
anxieties about sexual-abuse experiences
participants had at Centrepoint. Having a child
or having their child reach the same age as they
were when they were abused at the community
made participants newly aware of the
significance of the sexual abuse at Centrepoint,
as the following participant describes:
Looking back, it’s like [my child’s age]!
You know, it’s like, geez, I couldn’t
imagine, younger than [my child] and
yeah, just like all the kids, all the girls
from [my child’s] classroom or
something, it’s just quite bizarre that. ..
Some narratives expressed a fear that
participants’ experiences of abuse at Centrepoint
may have had some impact on their capacity to
parent their own children:
[You] want to fix the damage not only
to yourself but to your child as well.
Because they’re like a sponge they
absorb everything you say. They’re
being affected by the way you were
influenced, too.
But in contrast to these negative representations
of Centrepoint and its impact on adjustment to
parenting, other narratives highlighted the
advantages of having a range of parenting
models at Centrepoint. One male participant, for
example, spoke about modelling his parenting
on the men he had known at Centrepoint. He
explained that the community allowed
considerable scope for fathers to be involved
with their children and, in spite of the abuse that
had taken place, there had also been good
fathering role models:
‘Cause, I saw a lot of real, yeah, just
very nurturing fathers, good fathers that
spent lots of time with their kids.
Becoming a parent was an important adjustment
area for former Centrepoint children. Themes in
participants’ accounts included those that related
to increased awareness of the significance of
child abuse at Centrepoint and fears that
corresponded to the growing awareness of the
inter-generational effects of abuse (Frazier,
West-Olatunji, St. Juste, &Goodman, 2009).
But in spite of these concerns, some were
determined to use the parenting failures at
Centrepoint as the impetus for developing better
parenting skills themselves. Other narrative
threads highlighted the value of having a range
of parental role models at Centrepoint. There is
no existing research that examines the effects of
cult/NRM experiences on parenting. This is
important because those who were children in
the communities that proliferated in the 1960s
and 1970s may now be in a position to reflect on
their own parenting experiences.
Establishing Livelihoods
The resource arrangements at Centrepoint were
intended to shift values away from individual
responsibility for livelihood to collective forms
of responsibility. Its belief system emphasised
the importance of sharing resources and
responsibilities, and members were expected to
participate in the work required to keep it
running. Even the children were expected to
engage in collective tasks at Centrepoint:
Every Saturday morning was a working
bee, which was “Everyone go and clean
the windows, go and do the toilets,” you
know, and all of that sort of stuff. And it
was really great, worked really well, and
everyone got stuck in and had a really
good time.
In practice, however, while members may have
felt a sense of responsibility for the day-to-day
functioning of the community, the broader
financial arrangements were taken care of by the
leadership structure. One participant explained
how his mother had described the advantages of
living at Centrepoint:
of this new life event. Participants explained
how parenting in a nuclear family was very
different to parenting at Centrepoint, where
parenting was a collective responsibility. Some
narratives emphasised the experiences of neglect
that children had experienced at Centrepoint and
talked about how having a child themselves had
provided the impetus to work on their own
psychological difficulties or to try and to
identify the way they wanted to parent
differently.
The experience of having a child also evoked
anxieties about sexual-abuse experiences
participants had at Centrepoint. Having a child
or having their child reach the same age as they
were when they were abused at the community
made participants newly aware of the
significance of the sexual abuse at Centrepoint,
as the following participant describes:
Looking back, it’s like [my child’s age]!
You know, it’s like, geez, I couldn’t
imagine, younger than [my child] and
yeah, just like all the kids, all the girls
from [my child’s] classroom or
something, it’s just quite bizarre that. ..
Some narratives expressed a fear that
participants’ experiences of abuse at Centrepoint
may have had some impact on their capacity to
parent their own children:
[You] want to fix the damage not only
to yourself but to your child as well.
Because they’re like a sponge they
absorb everything you say. They’re
being affected by the way you were
influenced, too.
But in contrast to these negative representations
of Centrepoint and its impact on adjustment to
parenting, other narratives highlighted the
advantages of having a range of parenting
models at Centrepoint. One male participant, for
example, spoke about modelling his parenting
on the men he had known at Centrepoint. He
explained that the community allowed
considerable scope for fathers to be involved
with their children and, in spite of the abuse that
had taken place, there had also been good
fathering role models:
‘Cause, I saw a lot of real, yeah, just
very nurturing fathers, good fathers that
spent lots of time with their kids.
Becoming a parent was an important adjustment
area for former Centrepoint children. Themes in
participants’ accounts included those that related
to increased awareness of the significance of
child abuse at Centrepoint and fears that
corresponded to the growing awareness of the
inter-generational effects of abuse (Frazier,
West-Olatunji, St. Juste, &Goodman, 2009).
But in spite of these concerns, some were
determined to use the parenting failures at
Centrepoint as the impetus for developing better
parenting skills themselves. Other narrative
threads highlighted the value of having a range
of parental role models at Centrepoint. There is
no existing research that examines the effects of
cult/NRM experiences on parenting. This is
important because those who were children in
the communities that proliferated in the 1960s
and 1970s may now be in a position to reflect on
their own parenting experiences.
Establishing Livelihoods
The resource arrangements at Centrepoint were
intended to shift values away from individual
responsibility for livelihood to collective forms
of responsibility. Its belief system emphasised
the importance of sharing resources and
responsibilities, and members were expected to
participate in the work required to keep it
running. Even the children were expected to
engage in collective tasks at Centrepoint:
Every Saturday morning was a working
bee, which was “Everyone go and clean
the windows, go and do the toilets,” you
know, and all of that sort of stuff. And it
was really great, worked really well, and
everyone got stuck in and had a really
good time.
In practice, however, while members may have
felt a sense of responsibility for the day-to-day
functioning of the community, the broader
financial arrangements were taken care of by the
leadership structure. One participant explained
how his mother had described the advantages of
living at Centrepoint:
