Tara Westover’s childhood story might seem so far away from that many people don’t identify with it, however, the abuse she suffered at the whim of her father, Gene, is a story that many young girls experience: even if they’re not aware of what is happening to them as being abnormal, or unhealthy. Since Tara is so young at the beginning of this book she has been born into a world of normalized abuse, unfair power dynamics, and isolating fear of social institutions that could potentially help her, her siblings, and her mother. It is problematic that her father uses fear in order to keep his family in line, and since she had been likely experienced this irrational fear since birth, or since very young childhood, she sees it as completely normal, it has become part of her mythology, and she likely believes that this sort of concern should be equated with love. She is also living in an unhealthy power dynamic of being dominated first by her father, but also by her brothers; her mother in the first chapter is almost not mentioned out of the context of work and mothering. This is a typical patriarchal system, which is innately unfair. Lastly, the abuse she and her family are suffering could be remedied, or prevented, as it is a perfect example of social dysfunction; however, they are prevented from receiving help from the social institutions available to people living in society, but they do not view themselves as part of society, and therefore do not receive any help. Due to the paranoia of her father, Tara suffers without truly suffering, for she does not know what it is like to be treated in a healthy way.
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”
A family is a small society in itself. Tara’s family is no different, and may, in fact, be viewed as a fringe society-- or at very least-- an agricultural one. They have been isolated by the rest of society, for the most part, so their set of archetypes is very different than the rest of modern society. Her father home schools them, and teaches them out of their family bible, interpreting it as he chooses: he controls the way they see the world. They are isolated from any other opinions, or ways of doing things. The only outside influence from Gene would be nature, which Gene might regard as God’s Will. This is the very basis of Tara looking at her father’s behavior, or her brother’s fear, or her mother’s silence as being normal when in reality, none of these things are normal. Society at large has developed away from being fearful of everything. We have less to fear because we understand so much more. However, Tara’s family has effectively remained a pre-industrial society, with all of the naivety, and religious fervor of a pastoral society. This is due to fear itself, which is largely isolating, and paranoia which is in essence quite contagious. Fear has a way of making itself the only true reality, even if it is not rational. We see this with the Thomas Theorem: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” (The child in America: Behavior problems and programs. W.I. Thomas and D.S. Thomas. New York: Knopf, 1928: 571–572). This means that we make our own reality and in the case of Gene’s family, the fear comes as abuse, abuse which would prompt social justice by the very social institutions Gene fears most: a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The world that Tara has grown up in was an unfair one. The men took priority over the women for their strength and ability. Her household was strongly patriarchal, however, it might be seen as more unfair that she’s been raised in a house where children are made to be quiet and obedient, not curious or creative. They lived completely under the assumption that her father was right about everything. This creates an incredibly unequal power dynamic where her father has all the freedoms, and she has none. He makes the decision that milk is sinful, and so they have to eat their breakfast cereal with water. He can make even slight decisions that change everything, and no one has any right to question it. Aside from that, he holds situations that have never happened over their heads to make them fearful. We see this with the story he tells about the neighboring family who gets surrounded by the ‘feds’ and shot at whenever they try to eat or retrieve the body of their son. There are parts to that story that sound too extreme to be true, but no one in the family questions it. The wife is fearful of her husband, and the children having not experienced anything else in the larger world, are fearful that this story is true. Gene uses this fear as leverage to get them to work harder. The fear-provoking stories are actually a cracking whip. The neighboring family wouldn’t have been in this situation if they would have canned more peaches. Tara knows that canning more peaches isn’t really going to help them, but she doesn’t question him. “Then again, if we were going to take cover on the mountain when the Feds came, I didn't understand why we were canning all these peaches. We couldn't haul a thousand heavy Mason jars up the peak. Or did we need the peaches so we could bunker down in the house, like the Weavers, and fight it out?” (Educated: A Memoir. Tara Westover. Random House 2018). Tara doesn’t know she is being exploited because this sort of abuse comes across as having her best interest in mind: survival. However, she still understands that something is not logically right. Had anything been different in this situation, such as the children having exposure to mainstream society, or a more even power dynamic, this exploitation may have never taken place, but that is the nature of paranoia: people are only afraid of power because they don’t want to be without it.
"That is the nature of paranoia: people are only afraid of power because they don’t want to be without it."
From the outside looking in, Tara’s family might be viewed as a dysfunction. They are a family living in relative squaller, the children are being abused, and they don’t trust or pay into the rest of larger society. However, they are a sickness that refuses to be healed, a broken bone that will not mend. They avoid the very social institutions that are designed to help them. They are almost paradoxical in the way that they attempt to split from the rest of society. The dysfunction of this circumstance would be the fact that they will not cooperate with society. Gene believes that the school system will brainwash his children; when in reality, the school system will educate his children so that they can go on and have successful careers in order to help themselves, and the rest of society. Gene likely believes that allowing his children to go to school in the worst-case scenario, will provoke the government to take his children away from him. In the best-case scenario, they will still ultimately leave him, to have careers and families of their own. It is problematic to try to avoid society because we are born into it, therefore owing it. Gene was no different, in fact, his sisters ultimately left the property and went on to have presumably healthy lives. Truly the dysfunction here is Gene, who disallows his family from leaving him for the betterment of themselves. If Tara had known from the beginning what her life could have been like if she had left, she likely would have.
Tara Westover is a victim of abuse at the hand of her father, without either of them fully realizing it. The unequal power dynamic, the fear-mongering, the exploitation, the avoidance of social institutions implemented to help was all abuse due to paranoia which became part of her symbolic understanding of the world. It was unfair in the way that it set her up to experience this and think it to be normal for the rest of her life unless cautiously practiced otherwise. Abuse is normalized in many families across the country and was much more common in pastoral and agricultural societies where families would have children just to use for labor. That is a cruel thing to do: bringing a person into this world simply to work. This is where cycles of abuse come from, being exploited and worked, worthless otherwise, and powerless. That person can grow up to be just like their abuser: it has worked its way into their mythology, their history, their epigenetics. It takes someone becoming educated about this cycle in order to break it.
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