BOOK REPORT: “Educated: A Memoir” by Tara Westover

The question Tara Westover wrestled with while growing up is whether she could ever forge an identity apart from her family. And I use the term “family” loosely. As Westover narrates in her best-selling memoir “Educated,” her family is more of a co-dependent band of religious fundamentalists that tolerate abuse, stockpile weapons in the ground, fan out any whiff of academic potential, and pass indoctrination off as home-schooling.

You’d think any sane person would flee such a clan at the first opportunity. But that’s not how family works—at least not the Westovers. The unique blend of fundamentalism and psychological manipulation Tara’s parents practiced kept her mind tethered to home—even after she had escaped Buck’s Peak in Idaho and was completing her PhD at Cambridge. For her “uppitiness” and accusations of abuse against her brother, she had been banished ingloriously from the family. But she still couldn’t quit them. She ends her story still yearning to be accepted, welcomed, and loved by her mentally ill mom and dad. It is an acceptance she knows she has little reason to expect will ever happen. But she craves it, still. As we all do.

Westover’s book has sold over 4 million copies. It’s been read and recommended by Bill Gates and Barack Obama. (And my wife and sister-in-law.) After reading it, I know why. It is painful to read, and beautifully written. Dr. Westover needed to write this book for her own soul. She needed the world to reassure her that she’s not crazy or controlled by Satan, as her family has insisted.

But the book is almost too good. I read voyeuristically, judgmentally, with mouth agape at how any father can be so cruel, and any mother so ignorant. I forgot that while good parenting seems obvious to me, it’s not obvious to everyone. I also forgot that I have children, and sometimes I want nothing more than to manipulate them into my way of thinking, my way of life. In subtle ways, I have used my own religion to control them. I have pushed my kids too hard and then turned around and ignored their cries for help. I have made them slaves to my own ego instead of moving heaven and earth to help them become everything they want to be, no matter how far away it takes them. There’s a little Mr. Westover in me.

I also have unanswered questions after reading Dr. Westover’s book. Where do the roots of the Westover family dysfunction lie? Religious fundamentalism? Mormon fundamentalism? Her dad’s bi-polar disorder? What makes parents let their kids suffer physically instead of taking them to a hospital when they get seriously hurt? What would a psychologist say about what was really happening in their home--and what is sadly still happening?

But that’s not the book Tara needed to write. She needed to write down her story so she could turn the page. She needed to tell us what she has so far learned about life, and family, and freedom.

We all have a lot to learn from her education.

-MRH