Maidens of Virtue: Scrapbooking Hell

I have a confession to make.  I hate scrapbooking with a passion that I generally reserve for important matters.   My mother-in-law made one good-hearted and genuine attempt to sell me on the joys of making scrapbooks soon after I married.   She loves scrapbooking and hoped it would be something we could do together.  I made it clear that was never going to happen.   I have a hard time explaining exactly why I hate it - but let me give it a shot.

• With mild cerebral palsy, using scissors to cut little shapes out of colored papers is physically painful when the muscles in the palms of my hands cramp up and exasperating because I will have a spasm that causes the scissors to cut in the wrong place destroying the shape.  
• I like looking at photos.  I like arranging and curating descriptions for photos if needed.  Adding a bunch of doo-dabs and frills around the photo distracts from the photos themselves in my opinion.  
• Those doo-dabs and frills seem insanely expensive especially since the final project must be carefully protected from all forms of liquid or oil or light. 

I think most of these issues boil down to the fact that I arrange my home on utilitarian principles. That's my fancy way of  saying I don't like knick-knacks or purely decorative items that require more care than being hung on a wall and dusted every few months.   I add color and interest by purchasing or making visually interesting functional items.  I crocheted a three-color interlocking block patterned afghan made with 7 bold colors to add a splash of color to my beige apartment; it looked good and was warm.   I made a wall of metal hooks in our kitchen to hang pans, skillets, strainers and oddly shaped utensils; it's visually catching and freed up a lot of space in the cupboards.  The central decorative focus in bedrooms is a brightly colored or intricately patterned quilt; they are easy to swap out for guests and provide lots of warmth in an old farmhouse.

Keep this in mind as we slog through the scrapbook section; it's pretty close to my version of hell.

The scrapbook appendix starts with a nostalgic fable about how current maidens will someday show their scrapbook of purity to their grandkids:

"This is the scrapbook your mother and I made together during our Maidens of Virtue study. She was 14 and so full of questions. I felt terribly ill equipped to teach her since no one had ever taught me. As God faithfully revealed his truth to us both, I learned what it means to be a true maiden of virtue by watching God create one- your mother."

Elizabeth hugged her grandmother tightly. " Grandma!" she cried, " I want to become a maiden of virtue just like Mommy was. Do you think that's why Daddy wanted to marry her so much?"

" Yes, Elizabeth, I think your mother's purity and virtue probably had quite a bit to do with your father's interest in her." She smiled. (pg. 195)

First, I enjoy how Stacy McDonald manages to imply that Grandma was a sexual pervert; after all, Grandma had never been a "Maiden of Virtue".  (Also, I read "Maiden of Virtue" in a combination superhero-Oprah voice which makes the entire experience more pleasant.)

Second, don't marry a guy who is interested in your "purity".   That's a sign of abnormal psychology and you don't want to get into that mess.

Third, my husband's grandmother who recently passed away had been married to Opa for 66 years.  He first saw her on a boat passing under a bridge in the Netherlands.  He turned to a friend of his and asked "Hey, who's woman with the great knockers?"  (*After many detailed discussions with native Dutch speakers, the general consensus is that the closest English terms for breasts would be "tits", "knockers" or "hooters" depending on region.)  The well-endowed woman was the friend's younger sister - and Opa lost his ride home.  To this day, he swears it was worth walking 4 miles (and pissing off his friend) to find out who that lovely young woman was.   Their marriage survived living in two different countries where they didn't speak the language, four children and the problems of farm life - so I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the importance of "purity" in a marriage partner.

Virtue, on the other hand, is important - but only if it includes the virtues of patience, forbearance, courage, justice, faith (in the broader sense of believing in goals larger than self), hope and love.  If virtue is being used as a signal word for "I'm sexually inexperienced, see the third section.

Apparently, a major part of making the scrapbook of a "Maiden of Virtue" is forcing yourself to enjoy one specific style of femininity as evidenced by this strangely detailed list of ideas for page decorations:

Antique engravings or illustrations from books beautiful, feminine images cut out of old stationary, calendars, or greeting cards ( examples: flowers, babies, leaves, herbs, dresses, ladies, carriages, perfume bottles, bonnets, Victorian-style letters and graphics, teacups, teapots, baking scenes, and cottages) (pg. 197)

Yeah.  The Victorian Era - especially for middle/upper class women - is my version of hell.  I can visualize what that scrapbook page looks like and I want to consign the page to a bonfire.

What is the purpose of idolizing this anyways?  A young woman can fill a scrapbook with pictures of hoop-skirts, ball gowns and bonnets, but she's not going to spend her life wearing them especially if she's from the lower income levels of CP/QF.  I enjoy flower arranging, growing herbs and cooking - but making a scrapbook page of those things doesn't increase a girl's skill level in those areas nearly as much as actually doing those things.

Probably not allowed to make the babies look like they're getting drunk on perfume bottles that look like tiny flasks, huh?  And yet....that's what mine would have looked like.

Final note: Please don't destroy real books to make a scrapbook; that's gross and short-sighted.

The next series of projects is categorized under "Memory Making Projects" - but one of the projects feels a lot like a biography report I did in 4th-6th grade:

Memory making projects

Read a biography, or glean information from the encyclopedia or Internet about her life. Make sure you use the sources and take plenty of notes. Write down specific anecdotes or sketches from her life. Was she married? How many children did she have? Will she persecuted or murdered for her faith? What makes you think she was a Godly woman? (...)

Lady Jane Grey

Katie Luther

Corrie Ten Boom

Sarah Edwards

Susanna Wesley

Anne Bradstreet

Elizabeth Prentiss

Florence Nightingale

Your mother or grandmother

a Godly Titus 2 woman in your life (pgs. 201-202)

Good luck finding a biography, reference book or online encyclopedia on your mother, grandmother or that nice lady from your church. 

I ran quick internet searches for the other ladies - there's plenty of information on all of the women (especially if you recognize "Katie Luther" as Katharina Luther or Katharina von Bora) except Sarah Edwards.  She was the wife of Jonathan Edwards who preached "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God".  All I could scratch together on her was the fact that she was married to Edwards who was impressed by her piety and that they had eleven children.  I suppose Mrs. McDonald may view that as an adequate amount of information to scatter on a page among pictures of children playing with flowers in carriages with Gothic font - but I wouldn't send a kid off after such a scantly researched person.  Of course...she might have meant Esther Edwards Burr.  The third daughter of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, she left behind a series of letters in a journal that describe her life and theological leanings.

I wonder if it is by design that the two women who were unmarried and childless were Ten Boom (who is about the only person on the list I would recommend a kid research because she's awesome) and Florence Nightingale.  I've got no beef with Nightingale - but I doubt McDonald has really looked into her actual life accomplishments in statistics, epidemiology, and professionalizing nursing compared to the romantic myth of "The Lady with the Lamp".

Mrs. McDonald has a thing about baths and cleanliness being next to godliness.  Enjoy this insanely detailed outline of how to make a page about the joys of bathing.

Powdered and perfumed

Create a "Powdered and Perfumed" page. Find Scripture verses pertaining to cleanliness and purity, and place them in hand-drawn "bath bubbles." Write out short statements that were meaningful to you during the section of study. Be sure to communicate why you think cleanliness is important.

Use graphics, photos, stickers, or drawings of things pertaining to the bath. Decorate further with dried lavender, rose petals, or decorative soap wrappers.

Graphic or drawing suggestions:

Old fashioned bathtub, shampoo bottles, perfume bottles, herbs, soap, towels, bubbles, bathroom, Victorian dressing down, vanity table, slippers, rubber duck, scrub brush, water faucet, clotheslines, wash bucket. (pg. 203-204)

I can see an immediate problem for me.  I do not own and do not want to own decorative soaps - or the wrappers they are sold in.    I'm sure there are ways to place decorative soap wrappers in a scrapbook tastefully, but mine would end up being crumpled messes held in place with Scotch tape.  Eventually, the wrappers would drop into the lap of unsuspecting victims like a mis-sized glitter bomb.

Earlier, Mrs. McDonald rightfully pointed out that floral material needs to be stored in waxed paper envelopes within the scrapbook.  Decorating the bath section with rose petals and lavender will both hasten the breakdown of the scrapbook from acids within the plants and attract a fascinating series of mites.  (Ask me how I know...)

The repeated descriptions of lotions, soaps and powders are making my skin itch.....

The best way to normalize a new, strange ritual is to include descriptions of a daughter pledging her heart to her father over and over and over:

A daughter's heart

Compose a poem or letter to your father describing your trust in his guidance. Let him know by your words that you are committed to remaining pure and are thankful for his protection and leadership.

You could take the idea from chapter 18 and plan to give a symbolic " heart" to your father as a gift. www.jamesavery.com has various unique and reasonably priced heart charms to choose from. Ask your mother if she is interested in contributing to your project by buying a chain or pin from which the charm can dangle. It will be a great blessing for him to have a reminder that you have willingly surrendered your "heart" to him.

Make a "kingly protector" scrapbook page. Fill it was father-daughter momentos. Include poems, letters, photos, postcards, or other reminders of your relationship. Be sure to include special photos of the giving or receiving of heart charms, promise rings, or other symbolic gifts. (pg. 204)

I laugh every time I think of the poor fathers whose daughters stumbled into EmoPure themselves who get this insane letter from their daughters.  I suspect that if I had handed that letter to my dad, either he - or more likely my mom - would have had a serious sit-down talk with me about....dunno really.....growing up?  Being an adult? Not letting fear control my life?  The creepiness of an Electra complex? 

Much to my surprise, the www.jamesavery.com site is still fully operational - but hardly what I would call affordable for most CP/QF families.  The cheapest heart charms are $30.00 each.  I also cannot find any masculine jewelry that could hold a heap of heart charms. 

How many letters can you fit on a scrapbook page?  One?  For families in which the father doesn't do long distance travel, how many letters or postcards do dads write to their kids?   Of course, mine would be decorated with scraps of theatrical lighting gels that I purloined interspaced with Canadian coins and bills. When I was a kid, I was fascinated by lighting gels - but I wasn't allowed to play with them because the oils on hands can degrade the material... so I collected the tiny scraps leftover from burnt gels from my Dad's productions.   Dad took a yearly trip to Stratford, Canada with his high school students to watch a well-done Shakespeare play.  He brought us back souvenirs - but my favorite was always the far-cooler Canadian coins.   Long live the loonies and toonies!

Courtship and marriage
 Write a short letter to God indicating your trust in him and that you are committed to remaining faithful to your future spouse (whether a husband or the Lord, if God calls you to remain unmarried). Decorate it with beautiful fonts, stickers, flowers or other embellishments, and place it in your scrapbook. Include Scripture that relates to purity, trust, faithfulness, contentment, and joy. Pray that God will guard your future husband's heart and help him to remain pure in thought and deed for you as well. Ask the Lord to bless your womb and give you children to train up for his glory.

Warning! Be careful to guard your heart against of obsessing. Remember that God is sovereign and it is possible he may call you to single maidenhood. Remember, God will not only equip and give you special grace for whatever he calls you to do, he will also give you joy in it! Therefore, be content. Ask your mother if she feels it is wise for you to do this project. If it might cause you to fall into temptation, it is better that you skip this one. (pg. 204)

Warning!  This is a bad idea.  If young women are following this advice literally, they are stuck writing a strangely divided letter that declares their trust in God who will decide if they should marry or stay single - but the girl would really appreciate it if God keeps her future husband's heart pure...and blesses her womb with kids....unless she's going to be single. 

I don't know which would be worse - coming upon this letter years later as a SAHD in her late thirties who expected to be a mother celebrating her 15th anniversary by this point or coming upon this letter as an unhappily married woman who is feeling trapped because of her large family and few job prospects.

We have one post left in this series: A series of ridiculously shallow questions on the great classic novel "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte!