Preparing Sons: Chapter 6 - Part Two

Welcome back to the second installment of Steven Maxwell's chapter on "Appetites"  in his instructional book "Preparing Sons to Provide for a Single-Income Family"! 

In the first section of the chapter, Steven lovingly detailed how childhood card games, downhill skiing and flying private planes will lead a person into financial ruin.  Ironically, the only example he gave of someone spending money irresponsibly was his anecdote about how he passive-aggressively convinced Teri to let him continue flying private planes when it was negatively affecting their ability to provide for their children.  Clearly,  the problem was with the desirability of planes, Steven's dad's choice to take little Steven flying, and Teri for letting Steven fly rather than Steven acting like a spoiled brat.

This section covers three known evils of modern America - movies, television, and professional sports!  Parents, guard your children!

The section on movies was brief and wonderfully filled with hyperbole.  I have chosen two delectable quotes for our discussion today:

Parents will spend money they don't have to go to movies they shouldn't see, setting a horrible example for their children to follow. (pg. 92)

Truthfully, I'm more concerned about Steven Maxwell's random comma placed after the word "see" than I am about my husband and I going to a movie a few times a year.   I don't view myself as being overly obsessed with commas but reviewing CP/QF books where commas are slung around all the time is starting to get to me.....

I'm curious how people buy tickets to the movies with money that they do not have.  Perhaps Mr. Maxwell is confusing the fact that many middle-class people use debit-credit cards in lieu of cash with the idea that people are using a line of credit to buy movie tickets.  More likely, Mr. Maxwell is struggling to find an argument that sounds plausible to a larger audience that bans cartoons, IMAX explorational films and biopics of exceptional people.   The standard cannard about avoiding swearing, violence and sexuality leaves flicks like "Moana", "Sherpa", and "Hidden Figures" available for families.  Trying to justify sheltering your kids from fraught cultural interactions or positive role models of African-American women is hard and highlights the isolationist, xenophobic and racist contexts of Maxwell's theology.  It's so much easier to blame money as the root of evil in movies.

Create a passion for entertainment in your child and it will be a lead weight, strapped to his back, keeping him from God's best. Give yourself and your children a life-long gift of extra money by starving the appetite to see movies. (pg. 93)

Maxwell has a weird assumption about human nature that he starts to elaborate here.  In Maxwell's worldview people will only do "good" things if they do not have access to "bad" things that will give them more enjoyment than the "good" things.  In MaxWorld, there are three classes of acceptable activities: working (which includes learning for the purpose of a career, housekeeping and childrearing), religious activities (including converting people and reading the Bible), and spending time with close relatives.  That's it; there are no other acceptable activities.    Apparently no one - NO ONE - has the maturity or willpower to do needed activities before doing fun things. 

That life-long gift of cash from not seeing movies is a whopping total of $30.00 dollars in the last two years for my husband and I.   The saddest thing is that $30.00 is make-or-break for a lot of CP/QF families because large to massive family sizes on a single income earner who has not attended college makes budgeting really hard.

Maxwell moves from movies to the next humbug of very conservative Christians: the television!  He regurgitates the standard fears of violence, nudity and bad language before launching into the next quote.

Let's look at one seemingly harmless aspect of TV -- watching game shows. Could it be that the game- show seeds planted through the years are now sprouting into the gambling and lottery craze that has swept our country? The thrill of seeing people "come on down" and win truckloads of wonderful items without having to work leaves a powerful impression. Might a son's desire to work for his needs to be replaced by the fantasy of winning the jackpot? (pg. 93)

*snorts*

I have to give him credit for originality; I've never heard anyone link game shows to the decline of the American work ethic before.

On the other hand, Maxwell has no support for his hypothesis at all.   "The Price is Right!" - alluded to by the "come on down!" reference - has been on the USA since 1972.  If it is causing the amount of gambling and lotteries to increase, that should be easy enough to prove.  A basic graph of number of people watching game shows compared with the amount of people gambling would do the trick or a study that connects the two.  There would also need to be a graph of number of people gambling combined with local unemployment and welfare rolls.   Since all of this is missing, my assumption is that the data doesn't support his hypothesis.

This is an example of a disturbing returning theme in Steven Maxwell's writings.  He consistently devalues the work of women.  Oh, he mentions helping out around the house  but in a later chapter he implies that his sons will not need to do household chores once they are married.   Steven Maxwell expects sons and daughters to be home-schooled by mothers but implies that the real manly work of career training is more important than the useless domain of academics taught by women.  How does this fit in this section?  "The Price is Right!" rewards people for being able to correctly estimate the price of various items from groceries to living room furniture to vacations.  Women in CP/QF families often do the majority of budgeting and shopping for their families.  Steven Maxwell is  so oblivious to the skill set involved in estimating prices on the fly that he claims "The Price is Right!"gives prizes away for free.

If he's really worried that his son is dreaming about making a ton of money off game shows for no work, there's a fine article from "Cracked" that will set the kids straight.  Problem solved.

The last pet-peeve o'Steve for today is professional sports.  This first quote shows the danger of uncontrolled hyperbole:

Sports seem to be the number one passion of the American male, in and out of the church. Is there anything truly beneficial about spectator sports? It is extremely hard to come up with any benefit gained from watching sports. At best sports are an absolute waste of the precious time we have on Earth; at worst, idolatry. (pg. 94)

Here's the issue.  The Maxwell Clan has all sorts of shticks for luring in people to convert. 

They use the tried-and-true "Bother Service Workers Who Can't Get Away" method.  (As a former cashier,  I hated people who used the fact that I couldn't run away or cuss them out to give me tracts or lectures on being saved.) 

They hit up the neighbors yearly under the guise of caroling - but at least they bring baked goods, too. 

Their youngest daughter helps children worship idols.  No, seriously.  The fourth picture from the bottom is of Mary with her arm around a boy who she painted KC Royals logos on each of his cheeks.   The caption states that those logos were really popular. 

Apparently, supporting idol worship in children is a minor price to pay for the off-chance that face-painting will morph into a chance to share Jesus with people.

This last quote is amazing:

By watching and attending spectator sports, consider the appetite you will be giving your son to want to be a sports star. He will spend his time dreaming towards and perhaps even preparing to be a professional athlete. His hours could instead be used for learning productive life skills and in Christian service.

If you shelter your son from alcohol at home, what happens at sporting events? Your child will watch those around him enjoying their beer with great gusto. Might he possibly develop a secret appetite for what is "forbidden" as he quietly observes his fellow sports fans? Consider what such an appetite will cost him financially should he indulge it once he is no longer under your authority. Would a Christian father really want to expose his son to the possibility of developing this appetite? (pgs 94-95)

Maxwell wants parents to save their children from the pie-in-the-sky dream of being a professional athlete!  I never dreamed of being a professional athlete because when I was a kid there weren't any professional women's sports teams - but I did dream about playing sports in high school and college.

 Take a wild guess what cured me of my athletic dreams.

If you answered "playing sports" - you're smarter than Steven Maxwell! 

Playing team sports tends to give most people a realistic ranking of their skills compared to other athletes the same age.  I learned quickly that in middle/junior high school sports my absolute lack of natural athletic talent could be overcome through extra practice, determination, and working as hard as I could.  By 7th and 8th grade, I realized that my volleyball, basketball, and softball skills were not strong enough make a high school team even if I trained year round.  My soccer skills were good enough for me to make the freshman soccer team but I was weak enough that I would need to focus solely on soccer year-round and retrain as a defender instead of a goalie to make the junior varsity or varsity teams. 

Why doesn't Maxwell bring this up?  Mainly because he hates kids playing team sports with a passion better reserved for real issues like poverty . 

Maxwell's horror story of how professional sports will lead to alcoholism and financial ruin is wonderfully overwrought.  The family I grew up in made a 6-pack last for months.  My dad would grab one when one of his brothers was coming over for a weekend visit.  Each adult male would drink a single beer while watching a football or hockey game, then fall asleep in their chair.  Occasionally the women would drink a beer or a wine cooler but they'd often be off looking at antiques, quilting or simply making fun of the guys for falling asleep after part of one beer.  Eventually, my parents would use the remaining 4 beers while cooking or another family gathering would roll around.

We were also exposed to professional sports.  My parents also took us up to Muskegon once or twice a winter to watch one of the Red Wings' feeder teams known as the Muskegon Fury play a hockey game.  We had so much fun!   I suppose there were people drinking there but I don't remember anyone getting drunk near us - mainly because I wouldn't have known what a drunk person looked like until I was in high school.    I do remember seeing drunk guys at the Fury or the White Caps when I was in high school - but honestly they looked more gross than anything else.

Long story short:  I'm extremely skeptical that kids coming from a family that drinks little or no alcohol are suddenly going to take up drinking alcohol in copious amounts simply because they saw people drinking at a sports event.

For our game:
3.Movies = D. Bankrupting, Terrible Example to Children;
4. TV Game Shows = H. Undermines US Work Ethic;
5. Professional Sports = F. Leads Children to Drinking and Financial Ruin

The next post in the series will be devoted to exploring the soul-sucking ruin that is youth team sports.

I am going to be traveling with my son to see family in Pennsylvania this weekend so my posting schedule might be disrupted....or not.  It really depends on how the baby travels :-).