The Cautionary Tale of the Callery Pear

on being raised up in "traditional womanhood"

It’s spring where we live. The trees are flowering. Tiny forests of snowy blooms have burst open overnight. They’re marching along our highways and creekside. They fill the valleys. They catch the light in their lacy branches. They highlight the hilltops. It looks as if someone has taken a giant brush, dipped it in white paint and pulled it across the ridges, stroke after stroke after stroke. I’ve never seen anything so ugly. 

Years ago, I would’ve seen the pearly blossoms and called them beautiful. I know better now. What I used to think were lovely spring trees I now know as the invasive Bradford (Callery) Pear. This tree was brought to the United States with the best intentions. The idea was to introduce a fire blight resistant species to help the devastation that blight was causing the commercial pear industry at the time. 

“Once established Callery pear forms dense thickets that push out other plants including native species that can’t tolerate the deep shade or compete with pear for water, soil and space. A single tree can spread rapidly by seed and vegetative means forming a sizable patch within several years. Its success as an invader results from its capacity to produce copious amounts of seed that is dispersed by birds and possibly small mammals, seedlings that germinate and grow rapidly in disturbed areas and a general lack of natural controls like insects and diseases, with the exception of fire blight.” ¹

This species of tree is such a problem that multiple states (sadly not ours yet) have passed legislation to ban them completely. These states have made it illegal to sell or plant the Callery Pear because of how it wreaks havoc on native ecosystems. After learning this, I’ve not seen those pretty little trees the same way ever again. What I used to call good, I now grieve. What I used to view as winsome, I now see as a warning. Where others still see life, I mourn entire ecosystems being choked out. 

It’s the same with my upbringing. 

What changed?

I’ve wanted to tell my story for a long time. I’ve dropped hints and breadcrumbs. And yet, even as I type this I don’t know the “right” way to tell it. In venturing to talk about this publicly, I’m walking a tightrope of truthfully telling my story while carefully navigating how it winds through the lives of people I love. Both my parents are still living. I have five sisters and two brothers. This story is mine but it’s also theirs. The parts that belong to them will stay with them. All I can do is show you what I’ve lived through and let that be enough. 

If you’ve followed me for a while, nothing in this story will be a shock to you (I hope anyway). This isn’t a graphic tell-all of gruesome details I’ve kept hidden for personal reasons. Think of it as me sitting down to have a conversation with the adult version of the homeschooled, modest, submissive girl I was raised to be. It’s me asking her questions and letting you listen in on the answers.

How did those teachings affect you as you entered womanhood?

What's it like to be the “fruit” your parents were working so hard to see harvested?

What do you wish was different about your upbringing and what would you keep the same? 

Why now?

In the past year or so, I’ve noticed an uptick in certain lifestyles and ideologies that I’m deeply familiar with because of my upbringing. These teachings claim with staggering confidence to bring us back to “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood”. They use words like natural, domestic, and traditional homemaking. They cast visions of children guaranteed to grow up and become powerful “arrows” used to advance the kingdom of God. They press into the fear of bringing babies into a broken and busted world and promise that “going back to the old ways” will shield them from the wicked overreach of worldly influences. They set wives and husbands in fixed roles and claim that, because this is what God intended all along, they will be blessed and protected if they stay within those roles. 

I’ve heard the phrase “life is cyclical” and I agree. The fashion trends of the 90s and early 2000s are back in full swing. Denim is everywhere. Wide leg pants, bucket hats, spaghetti straps, plaid jumpers. It’s all returned. And so has the teaching that promises to give these current families with young children the tools to raise up a generation in the “traditional” ways so they won’t fall prey to the “traps of the world”. 

And all the while, a warning bell is tolling in my heart. I’ve seen this before. I lived it.

I don’t want to spend my time calling out a certain person or substacker or the dozens of rapidly growing Instagram accounts who promote the teachings I grew up under. I’m not interested in going to battle against people on the internet I don’t have a personal relationship with. What I am interested in is offering what I stated previously: a conversation with the adult version of Breanne. 

The tiny girl who was taught to depend and umbrella herself under “male headship” for everything is three decades older now. The child who wore her hair long because it was feminine and “set apart” has grown up. The young woman who was told to dress modestly so “men didn’t stumble” over her body is half way through her 30s. The little Breanne who was encouraged to pursue whatever she wanted to do (as long as she was a stay-at-home wife and mother first) isn’t little anymore.

I’m inviting you to sit down and listen to her story. 

Take it or leave it. Just be tender .

If I decide to venture into these topics here on my substack, know that it’s not prescriptive but descriptive. Don’t read my story and hear what I’m not saying. 

I’m not saying I’m “right” and others are “wrong”. I’m not saying the families currently being raised in the 2024 resurgence of complementarian “traditional” teaching² will be wounded by it in the exact ways I was. If what I share about my personal story makes you uncomfortable, all I (gently) ask is that you examine why and take it to the Lord so He can be your safe space to wrestle through it. 

And know that this story is coming from a woman who is currently homeschooling her children and has never “worked outside the home” in our 13 years of marriage. I’m not an outsider looking in. I was raised to be the poster child for “traditional biblical womanhood”. I’m broaching these subjects as someone who speaks the mother-tongue and, as a result, has had to spend years of my life learning what it means to use my own voice. 

After gaining perspective as an adult, I’ve not seen my childhood the same way ever again. What I used to call good, I now grieve. What I used to view as winsome, I now see as a warning. Where others still see life, I mourn the stage being set for entire generations to be choked out. 

Kill your Bradfords.

The valley across from my house is now blanketed by the invasive Bradford pear tree. Everytime I look out my kitchen window, my heart crumples all over again. Before educating myself on how harmful this tree is, I would’ve seen all the white blooms and felt joy, now it fills me with dread. If I owned the property instead of my county, you’d 100% find me out there with a chainsaw shredding those trees to bits before they spread and do more damage. But from here, I’m forced to watch my homeland's ecosystem flail under the influence of something that was planted to save it and has done the opposite. 

All I can do now is beg people to stop planting Bradford pears and rip up the ones they have by the root. It might look like a bright spring tree in your yard now—one you planted or allowed to grow with only the most wholesome intentions—but what if you could talk to someone who’s 20 years further down the road dealing with an infestation that’s killing everything in its path? Would it change the type of trees you plant? Would you tear out those pretty saplings before they do further harm?

I wish someone had for me.

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This is part one of a series on my substack about my religious upbringing. You can find the other three parts linked below:

Black Panthers and Goth Nails

Honeysuckle and Unresolved Trauma

Walking Wounded

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Thank you for reading this free post from The Redemptive. Some of the future—and more personal—posts from this upcoming series will be behind a paywall. By becoming a paid subscriber you’re giving tangible support to me as a writer and helping me to continue the work of making this substack a place where we can seek the redemptive work of Jesus together. Thank you for being here.

1. https://www.invasive.org/alien/pubs/midatlantic/pyca.htm#:~:text=Callery%20pear%20was%20imported%20multiple,devastating%20the%20commercial%20pear%20industry.

2. I realize theological phrases like ‘complementarism’ or ‘traditional family roles’ or ‘biblical womanhood’ can be confusing. It’s all too easy to get lost in the weeds of our own personal definitions and experiences with these terms. For the sake of my own story, let me communicate how I was raised to define them and have since deconstructed from (even though it barely scratches the surface):

Brief overview of how I define ‘complementarianism’ or ‘hyper-complementarianism’:

• Men and women have equally valuable (but entirely separate) roles in God’s kingdom and to deviate from them is to dishonor God’s design.

• Women are in submission and (to be led by) their fathers, husbands and pastors at all stages of life.

• Husbands and wives have clearly defined roles within the home. Men = protect, provide, lead. Women = nurture, domestic household labor, birth children.