From Lorie Richards, February 6, 2007

I don’t watch the Montel Williams show, because I don’t watch much TV at all. For the most part I feel I have better things to do with my time. For a little entertainment, I’ll have at most one show at a time that I follow. Right now it’s “Lost”—how unusual and original, I know. All that to say, I haven’t seen and won’t be watching the program today, but when I happened upon the advertisement blurb posted on their web site, and saw some of the allegations being aired by former Family members, I felt I ought to say a few things via whatever platform I could.

I don’t know the three young women being interviewed on the show—Caryn, Davida, and Amy. I have, however, lived in the personal household of Maria for several years. I know that a person as caring, as compassionate, as personable and as motherly as she is would not have tolerated an environment where anyone was mistreated in any way.

I grew up in the Family International and had a beautiful and almost-too-good-to-be-true childhood. I’ve had a great 10 years of adulthood now as well, also in the Family, and during my 31 years I’ve been in about as many countries and considerably more Family communities (Homes). I’m no expert in psychology or sociology but I have eyes and ears, like we’re all blessed with, and I have seen and heard a lot of good and seen a lot of happy people, and have seen none of the sinister and morbid things such as are being alleged by some former members.

I don’t have children yet myself, but nearly all of my friends—in their late 20’s and early 30’s—are parents of young children, who they are raising in a loving family environment within the Family, with the utmost attention to every detail of their children’s care, education, happiness, protection, and well-being in every way. I think about them and how intensely they provide for and protect their children—a couple of them, almost to the point of obsession—and I know that those kids are some of the luckiest ones in the world. I certainly plan that when I have children they’ll have that same privilege of growing up in an environment where they’ll have not just their basic needs supplied, but will have the security of knowing that they have parents, a household, a community, where they will be safe, where someone will always surely stand up for them, where they will be vigilantly guarded from harm of any kind. That’s what my home is like. That’s what my family—the Family International—is like. Get to know some of us and you’ll understand.

–Lorie Richards

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