What It’s Like Growing Up in a Scientology Family
I was recently asked by a student what it’s like getting raised in a Scientology family, and what it was I liked about it. Being a second-generation Scientologist myself, I figured I’d try to summarize the subject – not only from the viewpoint of how I raise my own children, but how I was raised as well – and what about that I could attribute to Scientology religious belief and practice.
Have a look at the video here, or read below while I attempt to summarize.
Being Raised Around Scientology
I grew up in New England, with my first 10 years lived in rural mid-coast Maine, in a little village near Camden. We lived on a 10-acre wooded plot, with my dad (a Master Electrician) running his business from the garage, and my mom working as a nurse in Obstetrics. They had both found Scientology a few years before I was born, so it was always a part of my own life even if it was somewhat new for my parents.
I’d say that much of what I experienced growing up was about the same as any other kid growing up away from the big city in that time: a lot of freedom to maraud around the property, and biking a LOT seeing as the nearest friends’ houses were all over a mile away down a long rural road.
The first exposure I really had to Scientology that I remember, though, came in the form of L. Ron Hubbard‘s quotes that I found around the house on a couple of plaques. One of them, which I remember to this day as speaking to me deeply, was a plaque they had entitled PERSONAL INTEGRITY. It led off with a quote saying,
“What is true for you is what you have observed yourself. And when you lose that, you have lost everything.
“What is personal integrity? Personal integrity is knowing what you know. What you know is what you know and to have the courage to know and say what you have observed. And that is integrity and there is no other integrity.” – L. Ron Hubbard
That in and of itself summarized a lot of the approach my parents took in raising me. Yes, they could answer questions here and there – but the best bet would be to crack and book and find out an answer that makes sense to YOU.
The other one that bookended this was a quote called THE JOY OF CREATING. And it read:
Force yourself to smile and you’ll soon stop frowning.
Force yourself to laugh and you’ll soon find
something to laugh about.Wax enthusiastic and you’ll very soon feel so.
A being causes his own feelings.
The greatest joy there is in life is creating.
Splurge on it! – L. Ron Hubbard
OK, so as a little kid I had to ask them what “wax” and “splurge” meant, but aside from that the main gist of it is that A BEING CAUSES HIS OWN FEELINGS.
Meaning, take those two quotes, and you end up with basically my understanding of life at that point: that my own personal integrity was monitored by being able to observe things for myself, and that I was completely responsible for my own acquisition of knowledge, as well as my own feelings.
Aside from the standard fare in parenting like “clean your room” and such, little was dogmatic at all for me growing up. I wasn’t told what to think or feel about things, and my parents really, very badly wanted my sister and I to thrive as individuals, to make our own goals and have the tools and know-how needed to be able to reach them.
Please give the video a watch, and let me know if you have any other questions about what it was like growing up in Scientology.
Hi Aaron!
I do love you and your videos.
But when you are in the group videos, you override everyone else’s responses and it make it hard to hear the others.
Also, is there anyway the 3-5 of you all can label/name your joint videos with the same names?
It’s so hard to go between channels to give thumbs up to each of you.
I’m most certainly not Aaron, but thanks for commenting!