May 14, 2026 · 1 hr 8 min · 18 segments
Writer and podcaster DL Mayfield (they/them) joins us to unpack the deep harms of religious authoritarian parenting and the legacy of evangelical culture in America. DL grew up as a homeschooled…
For me, that encompasses white evangelicalism, Mormonism, um, Jehovah's Witness.
It actually encompasses a lot, but it's this blending of a situation where you have people, a group, a community that is very into authoritarianism, right? There's one leader and everybody obeys.
Then when you add religion onto that, and I, you know, mostly deal with Christian religion, but there's other religions that also utilize this.
When you add on this element of your religion and your God is the ultimate authority, it turns into this huge toxic mess, especially for kids.
But this is where it's really been pushed in the United States, specifically-- I mean, we can trace it in the publishing indust-industry from the 1970s on.
... prominent Christian family life pastor, you know, guru was like, "You have to parent your kids in this specific way if you want them to be good, godly people to continue this on." And they said they were loving.
But in reality, it was just religious authoritarian parenting methods that were actually extremely cruel, extremely rigid, and very abusive.
And the end goal is that the parent will retain control over their child for the entire life of that child.
So on this podcast, you know, I think we can see very quickly, like, gender is one of the first things, right, to come under this-
Once you're born, your parents are like, "Oh, it's a girl or a boy," then you're on that track the rest of your life, and you cannot get off.
Now, I, I grew up in a home where, you know, in an evangelical home where women couldn't be pastors, women couldn't be elders, women couldn't do hardly anything.
And I was a pretty intense, like I said, really into God kid, and it was so confusing for me 'cause I was so much more into it than any boy I knew, and yet there was zero spaces where I could go except, except to be a missionary.
And that's just, like, one example of how this religious authoritarian parenting methods, they shape almost every element of a child's life when they're born into these homes.
I hear a lot about church hurt or religious trauma in general, but me and my partner Crispin have just noticed there's very little-- although it's, it's happening more and more, there's very little out there about how these specific parenting methods were actually so much more pervasive than we wanna believe, and they encompass such a larger percentage of Americans than I think we even know.
For me, that encompasses white evangelicalism, Mormonism, um, Jehovah's Witness.
It actually encompasses a lot, but it's this blending of a situation where you have people, a group, a community that is very into authoritarianism, right? There's one leader and everybody obeys.
Then when you add religion onto that, and I, you know, mostly deal with Christian religion, but there's other religions that also utilize this.
When you add on this element of your religion and your God is the ultimate authority, it turns into this huge toxic mess, especially for kids.
But this is where it's really been pushed in the United States, specifically-- I mean, we can trace it in the publishing indust-industry from the 1970s on.
... prominent Christian family life pastor, you know, guru was like, "You have to parent your kids in this specific way if you want them to be good, godly people to continue this on." And they said they were loving.
But in reality, it was just religious authoritarian parenting methods that were actually extremely cruel, extremely rigid, and very abusive.
And the end goal is that the parent will retain control over their child for the entire life of that child.
So on this podcast, you know, I think we can see very quickly, like, gender is one of the first things, right, to come under this-
Once you're born, your parents are like, "Oh, it's a girl or a boy," then you're on that track the rest of your life, and you cannot get off.
Now, I, I grew up in a home where, you know, in an evangelical home where women couldn't be pastors, women couldn't be elders, women couldn't do hardly anything.
And I was a pretty intense, like I said, really into God kid, and it was so confusing for me 'cause I was so much more into it than any boy I knew, and yet there was zero spaces where I could go except, except to be a missionary.
And that's just, like, one example of how this religious authoritarian parenting methods, they shape almost every element of a child's life when they're born into these homes.
I hear a lot about church hurt or religious trauma in general, but me and my partner Crispin have just noticed there's very little-- although it's, it's happening more and more, there's very little out there about how these specific parenting methods were actually so much more pervasive than we wanna believe, and they encompass such a larger percentage of Americans than I think we even know.
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