Joyfully At Home: Chapter Three - Part Two

In one of the great ironies of Michigan winters, we didn't receive enough snow for me to cross-country ski last week.  The good news is that we're finally getting the few inches of lake-effect snow every week that I remember from my childhood winters.  Plus, we've got two solid storm fronts moving out way - including heavy snow with accumulations of 6-12" on Monday.   Hopefully, I'll be out on my skis or snowshoes soon.

Reading this chapter in Jasmine (Baucham) Holmes' book "Joyfully At Home" causes me to think back on what my life was like in the years between when I finished college and when I got married.  I was able to start teaching as a long-term sub within a few weeks of finishing student teaching and that job turned into a full-time position. 

Once I had a full-time position with the security of having a contract for an entire year, I got my first apartment.  Even the process of picking an apartment was quite a learning experience!  I figured out how much I could spend on rent.  My job had a really weird schedule where I was working from 7am-9pm three days of the week with a few random 3 hour periods off, one day where I was working from 7am-3pm and one day where I was working from 8 am to noon.   Because of that strange schedule, I wanted to live within a 10 minute drive to the school so I could run back to my apartment during my 3 hour down times.   There were three complexes that I looked at.  One was lovely - but it was at the top of what I could afford and I was nervous about that.  The second one got thrown out when the sales people refused to understand that I was serious that I would only consider building with secured internal stairwells - and all of the "special" rent discounts are not worth the stress of going up dark stairwells that anyone had access to at night.   I moved into the third place - reasonable rent, pretty grounds, decently maintained and internal stairwells behind a locked entryway door.

Living myself was cool and tiring.  I had to balance a fulltime job and keeping my own place.  My cooking skills improved a lot because I could make whatever I wanted - but I had to eat whatever I made.   I learned that I liked batch cooking all of my lunch and dinners at once on the weekend so I could just pop the meals in the microwave during the crazy week.   I became an excellent budgeter.  My teaching job paid ok - but not great.  My bigger issues was that my therapy bills had to be reimbursed by the insurance company.   The teacher's insurance company was awesome - but there were times where I had a few thousand dollars that I was waiting on from MESSA.   That lead to some sucky months where I had something 60 dollars available for gas and food for two weeks - and I needed $40 for gas.   In those two week periods, I fell back on ramen noodles with lots of  frozen veggies broken up with pasta mixes along with lots of veggies.

I benefited greatly by living independently of my parents prior to marriage.  In CP/QF lore, living independently prior to marriage turns your first years of marriage into a battleground between spouses - but that was not my experience at all.   My husband and I were able to set up a combined budget for our new household that covered everything without any surprises because we were both living on independent budgets before.  We both had enough experience in romantic and platonic relationships to know what our personal needs were within a relationship.  I had moved through the hardest first years of establishing a career.  My husband was more inexperienced in that area - but my experience has been helpful as he's switched careers.   We had both been around enough kids as adults that we knew we wanted and could care for kids of our own.

The good news is that Jasmine (Baucham) Holmes agrees with me as a real adult that never living independently before marriage can be harmful.

That change in opinion shows massive growth because 19-year-old Jasmine Baucham had a whole raft of reasons for encouraging girls to live at home:

Part of being a good daughter to our fathers is submitting to their protection and guidance in the area outlined by Scriptures. We can do this by seeking their advice in our everyday decisions. We shouldn't become pests, expecting our busy fathers to have the time to micromanage our every move (part of helping our fathers is being confident enough to do so without constant supervision); however, we should develop a habit of evaluating our decisions as a team.

This is in so many ways counterintuitive in our day. In the time where a potential suitor seeking a daughter's hand in marriage from her father has become no more than an empty tradition that smacks of the same insipidness as roses and chocolates, or a father giving away his blushing daughter at the alter (sic) is merely an empty symbol, a daughter who truly submits to her father and delights in his protection is going to be a strange sight. (pg. 48)

My parents understood the importance of having adult children moving towards independence on all fronts.   I lived at home during half of my college experience and while I was student teaching.  My parents expected me to help out around the house, be either going to school or employed and to be respectful of the other people in our house.   Outside of that, my parents did not expect me to bounce my everyday decisions off of them - or to make those decisions based on the 'vision' of my father. 

Dependence on my parents' vision would have been bad for me, but I believe it often fails in the CP/QF world as well. 

In the modern world, women marry men who work in different careers than their father all the time.  The Botkin Family always blathers on about how many skills the girls have gained by working in their family's media/ministry business - but what's the likelihood that either daughter would marry into a media/ministry family?  The Duggar daughters who have married have not married into a commercial real estate business and there are four married daughters.   Similarly, the Maxwell daughters are probably not going to marry computer security or website design gurus.  Jasmine Baucham was raised in a ministry family; she married Philip Holmes who works in financial planning and insurance.   Heck, when we married, my husband was a farmer - a business where family members working on the farm together is part of the American mythos.   My husband was very clear before we got married - he had no expectations that I would ever work on the farm.   Or - as he said in his adorably blunt way - "I'm looking for a wife, not a milker."

"But" - a random person might object - "most CP/QF women will be mothers within two years of marriage.  Shouldn't they be ready to submit to their husband in the ways he wants his house run?"

In answer, I laugh derisively. 

Has this CP/QF husband been spending his life learning how to keep a house, cook and raise children?   Does he have your personal housekeeping quirks filed away in his head?  Does he know which recipes are your go-to recipes when it's a busy day?  Or when you have a sick kid?  Or a recovering toddler who needs to make up the calories he missed? 

More importantly - did he marry a wife or an employee? 

Spouses need to be on the same page about the big issues in life - but marriages work best when they contain two adult partners.  I assume my husband can manage his career; he trusts I can manage my own career.  He assumes I know more about cleaning than he does. I know he's a better cook than I am.  I'm more experienced in child development and medical communication; he rocks at home remodeling and sussing out what model of equipment will work best for us.  At no point do we need to discuss all the details of how we get things done or how said things expand our family's vision.   Ms. Baucham's views when she was a teenager will set young women back in terms of becoming women ready for marriage.

As for the second paragraph, that's standard CP/QF snobbery.   Flowers and chocolates may not be the most unique gift - but they show that a man is willing to spend money on a relationship.   Having my dad walk me down the aisle was a sweet moment in my life - and that sweetness had nothing to do with the state of my hymen, thank you very much.

The next post in this series discusses the importance - and pitfalls - of really understanding your family's vision.