Preparing Sons for Single Income: Chapter Four

Chapter Four  - titled "What Does It Take to Make Ends Meet?" - is Steven Maxwell's fleshing out of how life choices affect budgets.   The chapter presents obvious, basic budgeting advice, potentially ruinous financial advice, judgmental condemnations of people he knows and family stories into a fun read.

The first anecdote shames a random couple that Mr. Maxwell knows:

I know young wife, Beth, who acquired a taste for nice jewelry. Tommy, her husband, loves her very much and wants to please her. Guess what Tommy buys Beth? Jewelry - - beautiful, expensive jewelry. Even though Tommy earns a good income, it isn't sufficient to support extravagant purchases. The couple has chosen to rely on credit cards to feed Beth's jewelry appetite, and they have amassed thousands of dollars in high-interest debt. (pg. 39)

How does Steven Maxwell get all of the dirt on couples he knows?  Personally, I wouldn't be telling anyone outside of my spouse, a financial adviser or possibly a close confidant that my family was deeply in debt from buying jewelry.  Do people write to him about their personal problems instead of someone helpful like Dear Abby or Santa Claus? 

 There's an important detail missing from the story.  Maxwell never directly states that Tommy and Beth are struggling to pay off their jewelry related debt.  Since Tommy's making a good income and the debt is in the $1,000-9,000 range, the couple is (presumably) making the payments monthly in good order.    The implication of the story is that buying jewelry is immature, ruinous, or immoral - but that's a bit of a stretch in most middle class families.  Looking at pictures from the Maxwell blog, the women in the Maxwell family don't wear much jewelry - and that's fine.  The problem comes when a personal preference is conflated with a moral absolute.  The Maxwell family members may well prefer to give each other gifts of technology, clothing or trips rather than jewelry - but there's nothing specifically stated in the Scriptures that purchasing a lovely piece of jewelry is worse than buying any other non-essential item.

Christians are bound to God's word as the standard for their lives. As such, we remember how God has said that he considers we have only two needs ----food and clothing (Matthew 6: 30). We must look at all other purchases in light of that. It doesn't mean we can't spend money on other things; however, we must exercise caution when we do so. (...) Clearly in our modern era, we would say that we have "need" of housing as well. Even though the Lord doesn't call it a need, we can have confidence that he will not ignore it. (pg. 40).

This is ....awkward.  His proofreader didn't double-check his verses for him.  I've linked both the KJV and NSRV versions of Matthew 6.  The verses that he wants are Matthew 6:31-32 - although I disagree completely with his interpretation of the verses.  Matthew 6:25-34 tell people to avoid pointless anxiety over what will happen tomorrow and rely on God to provide what they need; it's not a description of what peoples' needs are.  If we read it as a literal list of needs, Maxwell missed life (with the implication of avoiding illness) on the list.

The fact that Steven Maxwell overlooked medical care brings me to my next point.  The Maxwells are doing well enough financially that can cover food, clothing and housing with enough left over that unforeseen medical bills haven't broken them.....yet. His oldest two sons are members of Samaritan Ministries.  This is an ACA-exempted "cost-sharing" ministry where members send their monthly payment directly to another family to cover medical needs that have been submitted to Samaritan.  The issue is that Samaritan Ministries has lots of holes in what they cover.  For example, an insurance plan that is acceptable under ACA must cover no-cost well-child checkups.  Samaritan doesn't cover routine medical issues. 

The other issue is that catastrophic medical issues can quickly overwhelm the benefits available from Samaritan.  Nathan and Melanie Maxwell's first daughter was born with catastrophic brain damage after a complicated pregnancy under medical supervision.  The second article I linked mentions that she had a $110,000 medical bill that was reduced by $85,000 by the hospital (IOW, the hospital had to eat the cost of her care) and the remaining $25,000 was covered by Samaritan.   Ignoring the fact that most of the cost of her care was covered by un-named hospital donors rather than Samaritan or the Maxwells, this sounds like a success story; the issue is that Susannah hit 10% of her total amount that could be covered by Samaritan in three days.  Their second daughter Abigail was in the hospital for 10 days.  That's 33% of the total benefit - and she was born at 34 or 35 weeks gestation.  A friend of mine had a baby born at 32 weeks that would have used up all of his Samaritan a day or two before he would have come home.    My son was born at 26 weeks gestation and was in the hospital for 108 days.  Assuming he had the same costs as Susannah, we'd had $650,000 in bills left after discounts and after Samaritan. (That doesn't even start to cover at-home care that was covered by Medicare for things like his monitor, oxygen concentration and medical equipment.)

As we look at a family's needs, it becomes obvious that these needs will mostly be driven by the size of the family and where they live. The more children we have, the greater our needs for food and clothing. God may choose to supply those needs in many ways; not all provision comes through a paycheck. As we were beginning our business, the Lord led one sweet woman to give us the clothes her son outgrew. My younger sons were delighted at the very nice clothing they were receiving. Over the last 25 years God has regular chosen to meet our needs through others. There were times when our clothing purchases were practically zero. (pg. 42)

The hypocrisy kills me.  The Maxwells specifically state that they like cost-sharing medical networks because they "know the money is going to other Christians" - but like most large CP/QF families they mooch off non-CP/QF families directly and indirectly.   Getting "discounts" as uninsured patients is indirectly mooching off of non-CP/QF families who have donated to nonprofit hospitals.  Most families like the Maxwells get in-kind donations - like clothing - from other non-CP/QF families and then rationalize it by claiming that it's "God's providence".   The reason that families have nice clothing that they can donate to the Maxwells is because not all families have 8 or 10 or 19 kids.  The average US family with 1-3 kids can donate clothing because the clothing is not completely worn out after being used by a few kids rather than 5 Maxwell boys.

The Maxwells are hardly alone in this.  The Anderson Family has received some really nice gifts from blog readers like an embroidery sewing machine worth around $1,000 plus embroidery threads.  The Duggars have a notorious episode of TV where they buy out the local thrift store of all the clothing that was in good shape - regardless of if it fits a kid currently or not.  There are also plenty of stories about the Duggars circulating about the family asking for meals and items comped because of the "publicity" that a store or restaurant receives.  Child-hoarding adoption families routinely beg home renovations from blog readers and other "non-Christians".

In addition to the number of children God has given a family, the area where they choose to live will greatly affect the amount they spend. By choosing to live in rural Arkansas or downtown New York City, your son will be directly impacting what he spends on his family's needs. It is possible to be frugal in both locations and lower what is spent, but the bottom line will vary significantly between the two. As costly and painful as it may be, ministries and companies will even move their headquarters to a new location to minimize the cost of living. (pg. 42)

 Yeah....about that.  Cost of living is a lot less in rural Arkansas - but there are not that many jobs available in Tontitown for high school graduates and the Duggar Family has gotten most of those.  The average pay is also substantially less in the Great Lakes, Midwest, Inland West and South than on the East and West Coast.    Mentioning the fact that businesses will relocate to decrease costs is more than a bit ironic; as near as I can tell, Wilcox Electric was in the process of relocating out of Kansas when Steven Maxwell decided it was time for him to start selling printing and computer forms in his home business.   I suspect that the "immoral" activity that he alludes to in his weekly newsletter - but never explains in any detail - is something related to "move the family to a different state again".

I have often heard a dad say there is nothing further he can do to lower his family's expenses. However, what he means is, there is nothing more he wants to do to cut expenses. Any additional cuts would affect their standard of living and would not be acceptable. Christian family must be committed to living within God's provision even if it involves simpler living. (pg. 42-43)

That's an easy enough judgement for a man who worked in the corporate world for 20 years to make on other people.  Teri and Steven only had three kids for a long period of time which would let them build up a lot of equity and assets on a single professional level income.  They had 5 post-reversal kids, but at that point they had the adult-level labor of Nathan, Christopher and Sarah to work in the family businesses for little or no income.

Compare that to the average CP/QF family in my area.  Both parents have a high school degree.  Either the father works at 2-3 jobs to earn enough money to barely support his family or the father works 2 jobs while the mother works an additional job while home schooling the kids.  The family has to buy everything used and everything they own is on the verge of breaking down.  Their home is overcrowded and is in need of basic home repairs that they cannot afford.  Food is never abundant and the family goes through times of needing to use food pantries or (hopefully) using food stamps.  These families have times where they cannot cut expenses.  They don't have an entertainment budget or an extra car to sell; they are already living extremely simple lives with no room left over.

Finally, Maxwell gets a swipe in at his dad:

When I was quite young, my dad used to ask me to get him a " beverage" out of the refrigerator. He would offer me a sip, and I acquired a taste for it. Is it a wonder that as a teenager, prior to being saved, I enjoyed drinking? Think about what an expensive and damaging appetite that could have grown into. (pg. 44-45)

CP/QF parents use the Biblical injunction to honor parents as a near-idol - so why is Maxwell bashing his father?

My parents did the same thing, fyi.  My family doesn't drink much, but my parents would have a beer or two when at outings with extended family.  Starting when we were old enough to talk, we'd indicate that we wanted to try some of the beer they were drinking.  My folks didn't have a lot of money so the beer in question is something like Old Milwaukee or Pabst.  One day when I was about three, my dad looked at me and said, "Sure, you can try some."  Like most kids, I liked sweet drinks and assumed that beer was sweet-tasting.  I took a sip and decided that adults were INSANE - it tasted like what I assumed puddle water tasted like.  I did not drink as a teenager because my family told me about the history of alcoholism in our extended family and that it would be prudent for us kids to put off drinking until we were older.  In the same vein (although this was not planned per se), the only people we saw regularly who smoked when we were young were our elderly, frail grandparents.  To this day, I associate cigarette smoke with sick, broken-down elderly folk so the idea of smoking seems weird and unattractive to me.
I've been crabby about his chapter - but this next quote makes my husband and I laugh every time:

After Christopher bought his first car at age 19, he decided there were several preventive maintenance tasks he should perform. Even though he had no car-related experience, he chose to do the work himself, since none of the jobs required special tools. At one point while changing the transmission fluid and filter, he encountered a very significant problem. With a little encouragement from Dad, he continued to work and pray until he finally succeeded. It was a marvelous lesson in the benefits of determination. Our children's training is not complete until they are men of character. (pg. 44)

The burning question that keeps Nico and I up at night is "What was the very significant problem?"  I'm dead serious on this - changing the transmission fluid and filter is not that hard.  Here's our list of tongue-in-cheek "super serious" issues that we brainstormed:

• He didn't have a wrench that could remove a hex bolt.
• He lost the hex bolts.
• He drained the transmission fluid without putting a pan underneath to catch the oil and drained it onto himself leading to a laundry emergency.
• He forgot to buy more transmission fluid before he drained the old fluid.
• He forgot to buy a new transmission filter.
• Purchasing all of these item plus responsibly disposing of transmission fluid required him to interact with people outside of the carefully vetted of people usually allowed near Maxwell children.

I think doing routine vehicle maintenance yourself is admirable if that's something the owner or operator of a vehicle likes to do.  On the other hand, playing up the difficulty of a basic fluid change is just plain silly.