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Laurel: Laurel spent 16 years in the same cult as Anne. As a self-described “free-spirit,” and
having some fear of the childbirth process, Laurel had not planned on having children.
However, when a committee in the cult directed her and her cult-arranged partner to do so,
she agreed. The child had a traumatic delivery and was born with developmental problems.
When the child was 2, the cult leader informed Laurel and her partner that they would have
to either leave the cult or abandon the child. Laurel‟s partner left with the child, while Laurel
made the decision to stay. Later, Laurel entered into another arranged relationship within
the group and adopted a child. Laurel left the cult along with some other members, but
immediately joined an intensive personal-growth training group.
Janie: Janie spent 4 years in a Christian group that grew out of the “hippie Jesus
movement.” She was married in the cult, (atypically) without the cult‟s approval, and had
her first child. She had always wanted to have children and looked forward to being a good
mother. For much of the time she was a peripheral member, known in the group as a
“backslider.” She left the cult when her first child was a year old, and with her own self-
esteem as a mother badly damaged. She had three more children after leaving. Years later,
Janie‟s husband became involved with Amway, and Janie recognized many of the same
patterns of behavior as they had encountered in the earlier cult experience. Janie then
sought out an ex-cult-member support group, and she and her husband are only now, 7
years later, beginning to understand the impact of their cult experiences.
Jill: During high school Jill became involved with a religious cult that blended Reorganized
Latter Day Saints doctrine with Native American rituals. The cult finally went “back to the
land to escape the Russians,” living in tents and rudimentary houses without modern
conveniences such as electricity or running water. Jill met her husband in the group and had
two children. At one point the cult leader persuaded Jill to give up her baby daughter for 6
months. He also separated Jill and her husband twice. During one of those separations Jill‟s
husband left the group. A few months later Jill followed him with the children. They have
been out for 6 years.
Helen: While in high school Helen got involved in a bible-based group led by a man from
India. When Helen was 19 the leader arranged her marriage to a man in the group. At age
20, Helen had her first child. The group did not believe in birth control, and by the time
Helen left the group 10 years later, she had seven children. Prior to joining the group Helen
had had plans to go to college and had not yet started thinking about having children. Even
though she left the group and her husband stayed, they continued to live together until his
death in an auto accident a few months later. Helen believes that her husband‟s death was
related to his cult involvement --either as a suicide or as a result of sleep-deprivation and
overwork. She is now raising her seven children on her own. She has been out for 9 years.
Mary: Mary spent 5 years in a semi-militaristic, left-wing political cult on the West Coast.
Her children were 11 and 13 years old when she joined the cult, and both were living with
their father. Her relationship with her children was very difficult at that point due, among
other things, to her coming out as a lesbian. She did not see her children for the 5 years
she was in the group. She finally left after becoming disillusioned with the organization and
because she wanted to reconnect with her children. She has been out for 13 years over
time and with some difficulty, Mary has rebuilt a positive relationship with her children.
Methods of Control
The bond between mothers and children is controlled in multiple ways in a cult. This can be
done through the following means: control of conception and pregnancy discouraging the
mother-child bond control of time spent with the child actual or threatened removal of the
child from the mother monitoring and judging the relationship between the mother and the
child and generally directing the mother‟s child-rearing practices. The control often starts
well before pregnancy, for example, by manipulating the parents‟ relationship through an

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 30
arranged marriage. Once the child arrives, “cult parents in essence turn over the custody of
their children to a third party, so that the leader or the group becomes the actual custodian
of the children.” (Singer with Lalich, 1995, p. 261). The methods of control are more fully
described below.
The decision for a woman to conceive a child is frequently made by the cult leader, or at
least requires the leader’s approval. One woman waited years before receiving permission
to have a child. She said, “I really want children, but I know I‟m not ideologically developed
enough yet.”
The cult may influence both the physical and psychological aspects of pregnancy. In many
cults being pregnant is an esteemed position. As Laurel said, “It was clear to me that this
child was going to be a guaranteed recruit --it was by inheritance.” The mother may be
encouraged to feel proud of her role. Unfortunately, this esteem does not translate into
actual privileges such as adequate rest, nutrition, and prenatal care, all of which are
notoriously absent within most cults. Helen described herself as “being pregnant and looking
like walking death --I was emaciated.” She both fasted and nursed during pregnancy (in
her group, members ate proper meals only 2 or 3 times a week, living on bread the rest of
the time). Helen had prenatal care during only her first pregnancy, and for 10 years after
that neither she nor any other cult member went to a hospital or clinic. Conversely, when a
miscarriage occurs, the woman may be blamed for “ideological murder,” or, as in Janie‟s
case, for not being “faithful.”
Mothers are often discouraged from having a special bond with the child. In the cult I was
in, we were told: “Children are not your private property” or “You have too much value in
your children.” In The Wrong Way Home, Deikman (1990) describes several cult members
saying to Clara, a fellow member, “Your family is the whole world ...[your son] David is just
one of the many children you are responsible for” (p. 22). In groups such as the
Sullivanians or the Branch Davidians (see, among others, Singer with Lalich, 1995) or the
earlier Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Connor, 1979), children barely know who or
what parents are.
Mothers may spend very little or no time with their children because of the demands of the
cult. In the early years of my cult involvement, parents saw their children only an hour or
less a day. The rest of the time children were in the group‟s child care center. About her
experience, Mary said: “It was like being a workaholic with meetings and fund-raising and
political work day and night. It consumed our lives. I knew the children would never
understand --nor did I want them to. It was assumed that we would give 100%.” In a
similar vein Janie said: AI decided I should wean [my son] early because that would leave
me freer to be involved in the group. There was pressure to be right and faithful and to give
100%.”
In many cases the child is physically taken from the parents. Nancy, a child raised in my
cult, spent 4 of her early teen years away from her parents, living with other “cadre”
members. Supposedly to “help her” while she recovered from a breakdown induced by the
stress of cultic life, Jill was persuaded to give her 6-month-old baby to a childless couple in
the group (the leader‟s brother and sister-in-law). The leader secretly promised the couple
that the baby would be theirs forever and assured them that Jill would never get well. Six
months later Jill was living in the cult‟s primitive encampment when the couple wheeled the
baby back to Jill in a wheelbarrow. The surrogate mother told Jill that she realized Jill and
the baby were bonded and the child could never really be hers.
Mothers’ behavior toward their children is carefully monitored. This monitoring may be in
the name of science, devotion to God, or personal development. The purpose, however, is
to control the relationship between the mother and child. In my group, for example, every
child‟s behavior was to be recorded on Observation Forms, the less-than-scientific results of