The chilling truth about the ‘stay-at-home daughter movement’: Woman who was raised in a cult reveals what it was like to be ‘forced into submission’ by her father after being deemed ‘DEMON-possessed’ as an INFANT

Stay-at-home daughters are often a quirky description used for a young woman who can live a lavish lifestyle off her family’s wealth instead of getting a job herself — but it turns out the term has a much darker meaning.

Ashley Easter, who grew up in what she described as a “cult within a cult within a cult within a cult” and was labeled a “demon” when she was younger, recently revealed how vulnerable women are ultimately forced into submission – and that it starts from birth.

“Stay-at-home daughters were basically unmarried adult women who continued to submit to their father until he gave them in marriage to another man,” Ashley explained to host Shelise Ann Sola on the YouTube channel Cults to Consciousness.

She continued, “They would then submit to it [their husband] saying yes to sex for the rest of their lives, having all their babies.”

Ashley, who was part of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB), explained that the group wants to continue their “200-year plan” until the world is populated with their “very patriarchal religious views.”

She described the moment she knew her “body wasn’t safe” – recalling her grandfather buying a white carnation and placing the stem in red food coloring before watching it change color.

“That was a symbol of my turning into a submissive girl, and that moment changed my life,” she recalls.

Ashley, who grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia, said from that moment on she knew what could happen if she stepped out of line.

‘I now knew what could happen [if] I was too rebellious, you don’t deserve anything good and that can be taken away a moment and that as a woman you have no power in this and if you want to survive, ultimately you have to submit,” she noted.

Both of Ashley’s grandfathers were pastors in the IFB church – one in the North and one in the South in Virginia, and she grew up in one of the strictest Christian churches.

“We were actually looking at Southern Baptists and people from Liberty [Baptist Church] or from Thomas Road [Baptist Church] as a liberal,” she admitted.

“We thought they were probably Christians, but they weren’t good Christians because we were so much stricter.”

According to Ashley, the biggest difference between IFB and Southern Baptists is the structure of the church, with Southern Baptists being more part of a larger company, while IFB churches are very independently run.

“So just Southern Baptist, but much more extreme,” she surmised.

She also said that Southern Baptist churches allow women to lead some groups, while that would never happen in IFB churches.

Inside the church, Ashley said the enforced dress code varied from family to family. He described it as “creepy” because the fathers usually set the dress code.

“One dad might be more of a boob guy than a leg guy, and you can almost insinuate that by the way their daughters are allowed to dress,” she said.

Ashley, who described her childhood experience as a mix between Shiny, Happy, People with the Duggar family and Let Us Prey, revealed that the men had so much control that it even permeated the types of music they could listen to.

“We got to listen to hymns and Southern gospel,” she said, adding that the only secular music she listened to growing up was The Beach Boys because her father loved them.

Ashley explained that there were several “movements” within the church, including homeschooling, the patriarchal movement, and something called the “vibration movement,” which is a disguise to reproduce as much as possible.

‘Many people did not use contraception. I personally know people who almost died during childbirth but still continued to have children,” she recalls.

“It’s basically this idea of ​​domination through overpopulation,” she emphasized.

Ashley added that some of the abuse she has suffered in her church and family is “all very predictable from the outside,” but on the inside, she thought it was what “good Christians do.”

“You don’t see many other examples and the ones you do see are portrayed as rebellious or less Christian,” she added.

‘They’re trying to indoctrinate you [by saying] Women need protection from men and so we do this great service by telling them what to do and controlling their lives because men are the protectors,” she said.

As Ashley got older, she said she started to realize something was wrong.

“Patriarchy is a system of abuse, and it is a system of abuse because it systematically places men above women for the purpose of power and control,” she stressed.

Ashely said her religious suffering began while she was in the womb and continued for as long as she can remember.

She was later told that her mother had been unwell when she was pregnant, and that Ashley herself was restless as a child – so the group thought she had a demon inside her.

“Even before they come out of the womb, they are already attributing that evil is happening because of your presence,” she said.

According to Ashley, being rebellious is “like the sin of witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft is an alliance with the devil, and an alliance with the devil will get you thrown into hell,” she explained.

When Ashely was four, her parents sent her to live with her grandparents because she was “too much to handle” and locked in the basement for hours.

Eventually, she came to believe in the oppressive system and began to live by the rules the men in her life imposed on her – even writing a blog in her teens about being a perfectly submissive “stay-at-home daughter.”

“I decided internally that if I want to survive this, I have to be able to work within this system,” she reasoned. “If I can’t preach well, I can sing, if I can’t teach, I can write, if I can’t teach men, I can write a blog for women.”

Ashley said her breaking point came in her early 20s, after breaking off an abusive engagement and befriending someone who briefly attended her church, who encouraged her to talk to other Christians about their lives.

She was introduced to a man who was curious about her religion and asked her questions, which led her to do more research into other facets of Christianity.

“The more I researched, the more I thought, ‘Oh my God, what’s happening,'” she recalled.

Ashley eventually told her family that she did not believe in the IFB’s teachings, which led to a long discussion, but ultimately saw her distance herself from the group.

She met and married her husband in 2015, with her family attending the wedding but describing a sense of relief when they were finally alone.

“He gave me this place to grow and therapy and encouraged me and believed in me,” she said.

Ashley recently gave a TEDX talk about her experiences growing up, where she said her best advice is to trust your own intuition.

“You know, if you listen to your gut, it will lead you down the right path,” she advises.