Ex Scientology Kids

Continuing on from the posts about how the parent/child relationship is considered unimportant or non-existent in the Sea Org, I thought I'd write about a story that I'll always remember.
When I was in charge of security and ethics at the HGB, a women came to me really upset because her daughter who was at the PAC ranch (cadet org) had been having suicidal thoughts. She wanted to go see her daughter. The ranch was about a 2 hour drive away where all the sea org kids were kept. I told her she should go and she went to get her senior's permission. Well they turned her down, told her she could not go and it was not her 'responsibility' to handle her daughter, that it was the cadet org's responsibility, she should not get involved. I know, even I can't believe it as I am putting it into words. She came back to me devestated. I didn't know what to do, I empathized with her and thought she should go. I think I told her to go back and ask permission again. Anyway, she ended up going to her daughter without permission. She got into huge trouble, was told she had blown, she had to do lower conditions, make amends, etc. She was sent to me for an ethics handling. I told her that she should try to help her daughter. Soon after this, her and her husband left the sea org. But I always remember this, even not being a parent at the time, I remember how wrong it seemed. It also stood out as she was one of the few sea org parents I knew who didn't back down when it came to her kid... she did the right thing. Now, being a parent, the one thing I can't wrap my mind around is how some of these other parents, my mom included unfortunately, can turn on their kids, give up their relationships, how that parent-child bond can be manipulated and destroyed. I think that the effect scientology and the sea org has had on individual families is the worst thing about scientology.

Thanks for posting your thoughts, Outlander. It is good for me to hear your thoughts. I grapple with it to this day, as a parent now myself,, to understand how this 'incredible journey' looked to my parents when they embarked on it.

My parents joined and we followed them in. Since I was raised in Scientology and didn't find it on my own, it's hard for me to envision how it might have seemed to them. For me, I can't imagine anything that someone could say that would make me willingly give up my parental rights. We had two parents. Great parents. Both sane. How could giving over their preschool and preteen children ever made sense?

Convincing them that families were merely the down tone considerations of genetic entities, and getting them to transfer their loyalty and sense of purpose to the Sea Org, must have done the trick. I know they believed in the Utopian view of the Sea Org that was prevalent at the time, where everyone in the SO had superb ethics and operated on only the highest purpose line. And I'm sure it gave them never ending sense of pride to have made such a valuable contribution. Like when a child is selected as a child goddess, how could the parents refuse such an honor? I do wonder what they would say if we could talk about it now.

Back when Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman adopted their two children, there was chatter that they were the babies of Sea Org parents forced to give them up.

It sounds like it's possible given all I've heard of Sea Org policies. Does anyone have any facts suppoorting this chatter?

Viewing your children as totally unimportant, and justifying in all sorts of ways like "they are just adult thetans in a small body" or whatever, carried over to Scientology parents as well.
I'll never forget one of my younger friends, whose parents were not in the SO, dropping him off at the org for 2 weeks with no food, no money, no place to sleep. He needed to go on course, and she was too busy to take him there.... I think she went out of town.
I made sure he was taken care of, but now I wish the authorities had gotten involved. Of course at the time I didn't think anything of it. I mean that literally, I didn't think about it at all. I didn't spend much time thinking when I was in the SO, it wasn't a good thing.

It really is shocking.

How can an organization that devalues family to the point of being considered irrelevant, or even a liability, really think they can be helping the world in any shape or form?

Imagine a world where parents all abondoned their kids and turned on their own parents... That is what scientology would create.