Scientology Parenting and Hollis Andrews

Taryn Teutsch’s Mother’s Day video was filled with fictional delusions of maternal love. Painting a wistful portrait of close, unbreakable mother/daughter bonds, Teutsch gushes that Cathy Bernardini was “always, always there”.

Both Jenna Miscavige Hill and Janis Gillham Grady blow this fantasy of familial bliss out of the water with their first hand accounts of life in Scientology’s Sea Org.

More recently actress Hollis Andrews revealed another look into Scientology parenting (or the lack thereof) when she shared a nanny job description from 2013.

Response to her revelation by the cult has gone as expected. Thus far Andrews has earned two Stand League articles attacking her for bigotry and hate.

Jenny Good writes, “Her tweet started out like this: ‘In 2013, I interviewed with an (unbeknownst to me at the time) Scientologist family to be their nanny.’ Now imagine if her tweet said this: ‘In 2013, I interviewed with an (unbeknownst to me at the time) Jewish family to be their nanny.’

Yikes.

Why did she think it was acceptable in one context, but not the other?”

Scientology Parent Tad Reeves says, “The ‘story’ here is that a Hollis Jane Andrews decided to share on Twitter that a full eight years ago she almost took a nanny job until she found out the family’s religious beliefs.”

Andrews was given a written list of expectations should she accept the position. Contained within this detail are multiple words and phrases unique to Scientology. Had the actress shared the job description without explaining its origins her audience would have been left confused.

Hat Write up?

Housekeeper Hat?

Basic body rudiments?

Touch assists?

How confused she must have been seeing requirements she knew nothing of.

Explaining that Scientology was involved isn’t hate or bigotry. Andrews was most likely attempting to anticipate the same confusion in her followers that she felt.

Had the family been Catholic and (assuming Hollis isn’t) one of her duties was to prepare junior for CCD on Sunday she would have had the same confusion.

For clarification, CCD stands for Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. It’s a fancy name for Sunday School.

Hollis Andrews explains that it wasn’t until later that she discovered the family was part of Scientology.

Reeves’ attack that Andrews refused the position because of religious bigotry disappears in the face of the truth.

What both Stand League sycophants fail to address is that Hollis Andrews’ tweet clearly states she was overwhelmed by the outrageous demands presented to her, not because of any belief system.

“They gave this absolutely BONKERS list of responsibilities…”

Hollis does say being expected to practice Dianetics was the deal breaker for her. But is this a sign of bigotry?

Not necessarily.

Andrews already said she didn’t know the family was part of Scientology. This indicates she was not at all familiar with the cult, including what Dianetics was.

Most only have a vague idea that the book has something to do with self help techniques.

One might reasonably argue that with no idea what Dianetics was, Andrews was not in a position to carry out the duties expected of her.

Once this simple idea is understood, it completely demolishes any reason whatsoever for the Scientology outrage.

No foundation exists for Stand League/Scientology to attack Hollis Andrews for hate and bigotry.

It must be noted that in Reeves’ Stand League article attacking Andrews he intentionally altered her statement in order to make her look bad.

What she tweeted was, “In case it wasn’t clear, I did NOT take the job the minute I saw the word ‘dianetics’.”

Tad Reeves writes, “Andrews decided to share her indignation at the print-out of duties she claims she was given at the time adding her discriminatory snark about how, ‘In case it wasn’t clear, I did NOT take the job the minute I saw’ that the family were Scientologists.”

If you have to create a lie in order to publicly attack someone it says everything about your character.

Empty, baseless attack addressed, the question arises: what is Scientology trying to deflect attention from?

Taryn Teutsch describes a close, supportive, loving relationship with her mother, Cathy. Yet the phraseology in this list reveals something vastly different.

First the parents refer to their children as though they were a nuisance.

An inconvenience.

“The main focus is to ensure their basic body rudiments are kept in, so that they are not crying/upsetting the rest of the house.“

Focus is not on the children but on the parents and their need to be distraction free.

Taryn’s saccharine video aside, it has been well documented by former members that Sea Org or even staff are expected to put duty above anything else. Including their children.

A fact clearly underlined in this job description.

“Both of us work and whilst we do our jobs no matter what, it is best done distraction free. This means, if I am training I don’t want to hear crying or tantrums or headbutting. If the boys are at all noisy, take them OUT of the house.”

Any parent working from home needs a distraction free environment. This however sounds almost one step away from consigning the children to the attic.

It is obvious that these youngsters are experiencing behavioral issues which can only stem from the lack of parental love and support. At least one of these boys is so small he needs to be taught to brush his teeth and has yet to master spitting, yet already there are tantrums including physical violence.

Is it reasonable to expect a toddler to be constantly silent?

Tad Reeves attempts to defend the excessive job description by stating “Extremely detailed write-ups of suggested scheduling and duties have nothing to do with religion and are actually REQUIRED to write and file if you want to employ an au pair from another country.”

Interesting that he turns to the law when it suits him all while Scientology is notorious for violating U.S. Labor Laws.

That employers are also required to pay their nannies overtime certainly explains the tight time schedule.

Hollis Andrews’ tweet shines yet another light on the mindset of Scientology parenting and priorities. It supports this writer’s contention that Teutsch’s Mother’s Day pretense is just that.

Pretense to disguise another snarky attack on her father.

Finally, one last irony must be pointed out.

This crazy job description looks to be written on the same, goldenrod paper that Scientology Declares were handed out on.

Once one has been declared, disconnection follows.

These parents already sound like they’re well and truly disconnected from their boys.