Family is supposed to be a haven of safety and love, but what do you do when you are stifled with toxicity by this very institution? Do you continue to be loyal or do you, in a quest to be at peace with yourself, damn your sense of obligation and belonging to family? Educated by Tara Westover is a memoir that seeks to answer these questions. It is a compelling account of her wrestle for an education while exploring the themes of abuse, religion, fanaticism, patriarchy, family, strife amongst others.
Tara Westover is the last of seven children born to a Mormon family and community. Her father owned a junkyard and did construction jobs while her mother was a herbalist and midwife. Their family is unique in that they didn’t go to school, get treated in hospitals, have a car, health insurance, or other such provisions of the state. This was due to her father’s firm belief that the government and everything it had to offer was evil. For example, going to school, her father believed, was the devil’s way of brainwashing their minds and derailing them from the path of God. However, he had not always nurtured these bizarre beliefs and had, in fact, seemed pretty “normal” in his childhood and early years of marriage. Because reading the Bible was a necessary exercise for them, they were homeschooled where their mother taught them the basics of reading and simple math.
Their mother, Faye Westover, on the other hand, was never really a believer in the “no school” mantra, so she strived to teach them more than the minimum but their father, Gene, frustrated these efforts. As the book progressed, she was transformed from being the lone voice of normalcy in the household to a complete adherent of her husband’s beliefs.
With the prodding of her elder brother, Tyler, and perhaps her mother, Tara eventually teaches herself, applies to colleges and gets in at the age of 17 with no history of high school education. Thus, she begins her journey into formal education. The memoir chronicles her struggles in school, with trying to fit in, funding, relationships, and ultimately figuring out a way to pass. She eventually gets her PhD despite her family brouhaha and in the process learns to overcome herself.
One thing in the book that struck me is how her father’s open and aggressive expression of his hatred, fear and distrust for the medical establishments and schooling, together with her brother’s abusive behaviour, culminated in a gradual mental conditioning for her, her siblings, and even her mother. One of the many ways this plays out is how she simply refused medical care at different points in her life while in school, like when she experienced excruciating pain from stomach ulcers that prevented her from working or studying.
This lends credence to the fact that whatever one is exposed to repeatedly, especially as a growing child, eventually takes firm root. And the nature of that exposure — i.e. positive or negative — is a major distinguishing factor between who turns out to be a nuisance to society and a problem solver, and even more personally, how kind or cruel one is to oneself.
Despite the challenges and ill-treatment she endured in her home, I like that Tara gives us an objective view of each character, such that no one is labelled outrightly evil. Her father, for example, was irrational a lot of times, exposing them to physical danger — ghastly injuries and whatnot — but we are made to see that his actions, though inexcusable, came from a place of genuine fear, and not hatred, for his family. He truly believed he was doing the right thing. Plus, he always attributed most of these to his faith, even though their fellow Mormons never towed his path. She also had her moments of bonding with her elder brother, Shawn, even though his violent behaviour seeped through.
Patriarchy rears its ugly head through the course of her life, from a onetime conversation with a friend in College who says, “…Women are made differently. They don’t have this ambition. Their ambition is for children” to another with her father where he says, “Who knew we’d have to send you to Cambridge to get you in the kitchen where you belong?” She struggled with this: the conventional role of women that had, for a lifetime, been fed to her and her desires and ambition, her refusal to stick to the status quo.
Her big brother, Tyler, said to Tara at a crucial point in her life, “There’s a world out there, Tara, and it will look a lot different once Dad is no longer whispering his view of it in your ear”. He was a breath of fresh air, a great influence in her pursuit of an education — a world outside her father — while she suffered mental and physical abuse from Shawn. This caused her to believe she had no inherent good in her and that would, later on, take its toll on her school work and relationships.
Although well written, I would have preferred if Tara Westover presented a better chronology of events by including the years the events occurred. One could get confused trying to fit in the exact times some events occurred, an example of which is seen in the first few chapters with Rugby Ridge. And this would hamper a good flow of thought.
Educated is a testament to the fact that learning or getting an education is not just about being in the four walls of a school. It is rather how much you are willing to open up your mind to be pruned, given the information within your reach while in those four walls. Tara explains that “I had come to that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create”. It is a book that shows how hard work, determination and having an arsenal of people who believe in you and will not rest until they see you shine are essential components in achieving anything.
Reading Educated is like going on a journey with so many bumps — you are forced to take breaks to meditate and take it all in. It is very well written and rich with lessons. I would recommend to parents, students, and virtually everyone.
Temiloluwa Adeniyi-Aogo,
400L, Dentistry.
