In terms of propaganda, I think the Maxwell's family ministry of "Titus 2" does a great job of presenting a wholesome face to draw viewers through their blog while hiding the more toxic - or just bizarre - aspects of their beliefs deeper in the website.
Scanning through their recent blog posts, the posts are filled with muffin recipes and pictures of large family parties. Who wouldn't want to be part of a family where grown siblings gather with their families to celebrate birthdays and enjoy an ever-expanding crew of nieces and nephews? The quirks of the family seem fairly harmless; yeah, they do a nearly-identical round of events yearly - but that's not a crime. Perhaps 25 year-old Jesse would like to open his birthday presents without his nieces and nephews 'helping' him - or maybe he enjoys how excited the kiddos get more than he'd enjoy opening presents himself.
The Maxwell family blog is harmless enough; but the weird, strange and absurd beliefs of the family are on display in Article section of their website. Take this gem from Steven Maxwell's "Seriously Dad" newsletter published January 30th of 2019 titled "Man to Man":
Steven Maxwell is much more confident about what other blogs his followers read than I am! I am certain that I don't read weekly articles about being a great Christian mom - not even the newsletter written by his wife. I am nearly as certain that my husband has never read an article on how to be a great Christian mom...because that's not an interesting area of reading for either of us. Outside of my husband and me, I've got no clue!
Let's say for argument's sake that my husband and I started reading the Maxwell's articles weekly. I'd likely compare my husband to the ideal husbandly type put forward by Maxwell, but I find my husband to be a much more appealing husband than Maxwell_Pro_Husband. My husband manages to juggle spending time with me, with our son and working on his career without needing to be reminded to do so by a newsletter. He totally 'wastes' time (in Maxwell's opinion) on watching television or playing games - and thank God he does! We've learned a lot about the world by watching tons of documentaries together. Playing computer games is a fast, portable, and cheap way to relax from the stresses of working and raising a toddler. We suit each other well and reading a blurb by a random Christian blogger is not likely to change that.
But - for the sake of continuing the argument - let's assume that I read something in Maxwell's article that'd I'd like to see my husband do. A married woman should be able to talk to her husband about changes she'd like to see in their lives together. The changes may not be possible; a husband may be unable (or unwilling) to make a given change - but an adult's first response to a situation shouldn't be to sulk in a corner brooding over the shortcomings of their spouse!
I don't share the same assumptions about how marriages work that Maxwell does - and I find his assertions to be a sign of excessive pride. After all, Maxwell is implying that his views on men's roles in marriages are so correct and so deeply foundational to a healthy marriage that a woman's comparison of her husband to Maxwell's uber-husband can - and will - destabilize functional marriages. His revealed knowledge is so potent that women must avoid his articles lest they set their husbands and marriage up for failure. Communication between spouses is so poor compared to his insight that couples who can manage raising a passel of children on a shoestring budget will be unable to reach a mutual understanding of Maxwell's writings.
For those of us outside of his family-based-cult, this level of self-importance is humorously sad. He knows nothing of the joy of giggling over absurd writings with your spouse. He fails to recognize that a good spouse knows the shortcomings of their spouse - and accepts those shortcomings because we all have shortcomings that come with us into a marriage. He can't even imagine that most women prefer not being married to her spiritual director.
In Maxwell's defense - he's never described himself as a 'totally stable genius', either - so I guess we have something to be grateful for.
I find this super bizarre. Why is he so worried about what's happening inside other people's heads? Has he gotten some kind of feedback that marriages are falling apart because women read his articles? (I would be surprised if he did). Either way, it's just freaking WEIRD to worry about who is reading what he's writing.
ReplyDeleteIt's also very telling that he's convinced either party will read his posts and become discontent. Why wouldn't he imagine that it's just as likely that they read his posts and find their spouse surpasses Maxwell's set of expectations (like you said about you and your husband). You're right, it's some serious hubris going on there.
I find it hard to follow what he's saying when he says "encumbreth the ground". What even? Is he telling people to unsubscribe? Is that the deal? He would seriously rather people just unsubscribe from his list than chance a wife reading it? Freak.
Possibly, Maxwell - along with every other male CP/QF enforcer - receives emails from women bemoaning how their husbands don't measure up to the standard set by Maxwell et al. I'm of two minds about those emails. I hope the emails are mostly imaginary - but if they do exist, it's a heartbreaking commentary on how isolated some marriages are in this system.
DeleteMaxwell is always skating the line of hubris; his first paragraph in "Raising Great Conversationalists" about how his family wrote this book to remedy the fact that the family has a hard time finding people to talk to at conferences they attend - but don't have problems talking to each other - so clearly the solution is to train everyone else to be a Maxwell. And let's be honest - who or what would stop him? He's the master and commander of his four adult children who live at home and involved in 3 out of his 4 married sons businesses. The saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is true on micro-scales as well as macro-scales.
The "encumbreth the ground" bit is his attempt to shoe-horn a verse into the body of his article. He ends the article with a KJV verse about how a house divided cannot stand - but neither of the verses seem like a good fit. Plus...it's KJV. I've got a high lexile level reading ability and excellent command of the modern English language - and I can barely make sense out of KJV except to line it up with a modern translation. I'm assuming the modern translation is something like "leave behind" or.....I have no idea. It's not a long enough tag for me to find it so we're just going to have to live with some uncertainty unless someone recognizes it.
I found it kind of ballsy that Maxwell threw down "If you are not going to do what I say, unsubscribe!" - but I also think he doesn't expect that anyone would actually cut off his wisdom.
They family dynamic may seem very sweet and wholesome, but I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that there's some serious enmeshment going on there. I know you've done a lot of reading about fundamentalist families and philosophies and would be interested in hearing your thoughts on how common family enmeshment seems.
ReplyDeleteThe leadership families where the dad made decent money off of 'ministry' - like the Botkins, Bauchams, Phillips etc. - seemed enmeshed as a matter of principle. The most stark example for me is that the daughters in the Botkin family exist as one unified voice of "Anna Sofia and Elizabeth" rather than two separate people. That's an unhealthy dynamic that can occur in twins if parents prefer treating the two kids as a single unit - but it's pretty dang rare in kids born two years apart unless the parents work at it!
DeleteThe Maxwells wanted to become ministry leaders - but the family's super-extreme forms of sheltering have managed to isolate them even within CP/QF society. (I honestly have no idea what I could have a conversation with a Maxwell about. They watch no modern media, rejoice in being ignorant of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction outside of career and bible works, and wrote an entire book on how other people's conversational skills suck.) The entire family including 4 married sons live within 0.7 miles of the original family home. The three unmarried daughters still share their childhood bedroom - with Anna and Mary sharing a bunk bed. Even the rare forms of rebellion are tame. For example, Joseph and Elisa seem to be forming their own family unit and are not featured in the blog posts nearly as much as Nathan/Melanie and Christopher/Anna. Similarly - and this is my favorite if I'm honest - John and Chelsy named their son Axton for no other reason than they liked the name. At no point did they try and justify it like Nathan/Melanie did with Deborah Carole's name by claiming that Carole is a virtue name meaning...song.
The worst conditions for enmeshment seem to happen when 1) the family is small or small by CP/QF standards, 2) the parents are well-to-do financially, and 3) there are more boys than girls. It all boils down to finances. A small, upper-middle-class family with a few girls can afford to keep the daughters at home while keeping the boys on a short leash until they are established in a career and married. As families get bigger, poorer and more female, the families have to send the kids out to earn money earlier which exposes them to a broader world - and the daughters have to work outside the home.
I get how Anna Sofia and Elizabeth can be so enmeshed. There was a similar difference in age between myself and my younger sister. For a while we were in the same extracurriculars and because I was retained a grade, the same class. My parents used to refer to is as "the girls" if we hadn't been allowed to pursue our open interests and go to different high schools and colleges we could be much like them. And since the Bodkins don't go to school and only allow a narrow range of interests for girls the speaking with one voice thing makes a lot of sease and is also pretty sad.
Delete@Minda - Yeah, I've seen dynamics like that before when people raise twins - especially if they refer to the kids as "the twins" all the time. Thanks for filling in how it could happen with siblings!
DeleteI guess it is kind of like how trade and industry magazines run articles and adds that they probably wouldn't want the end consumer to read. If you're trying to convince a store to stock your product, you'll emphasise the profit margins they could earn. But they also want the customer to think the product is cheap.
ReplyDeleteHere they are trying to sell the benefits of their system to men, so they really don't want women to read it as well.
Oooh, I hadn't thought of that! Hmmm...that's a fascinating concept. I had just assumed it was Maxwell control-freaking about other people - but maybe there is some small basis in reality for why women shouldn't read it.
DeleteIt seems like a typical, arrogant way to keep thinks divided into "pink and blue" categories among comps, but it's also old-fashioned arrogance; Michael Pearl said the same thing years ago to wives about one of his CDs for men.
ReplyDelete