Babbling Botkin: "What if My Husband Dies?" - Part Ten

 Hello and belated Merry Christmas!

I've been very busy the last few weeks.  Spawn is old enough now that he has some idea that Christmas is a fun thing so I've been helping set up a Christmas tree, making ornaments for his teachers and wrapping presents.  I've also been enjoying having a relatively low stress Christmas since we have no outside obligations this year!  

When I got Spawn up Christmas morning, I realized that he was expecting Santa in our living room right now.  Thankfully, Spawn was very gracious when I explained that Santa had a very, very long day and night last night and was asleep at the North Pole with some tired reindeer.  

Spawn has grown into a little boy instead of a toddler this year.   As he's gotten older, I find him more and more fun to play with so I've definitely spent a few times where I meant to write a blog post playing on the floor with him.   He got a present from my brother that was a tractor and airplane that came with working toy drills.  He is currently "fixing" the floor and the couch using the drills which is adorable once I block out the continual whine of the drill sound.

As soon as Geoffrey Botkin brought up apprenticeships in his video "What If My Husband Dies?", I knew he'd bring this into the video:

[00:10:55]   You know in the State of Virginia you can actually do an apprenticeship to become an attorney. You don't need to go to law school.  You can actually do an apprenticeship to learn that trade which is how they viewed it in Virginia and it is still possible to be able to do that. 

Can you become a lawyer through an apprenticeship in Virginia? Yes.

Can a person follow the Botkin-approved methods of home schooling and self-study only and become and become an apprentice to a lawyer in Virginia?  Nope.

How long did it take me to determine that?  Under 30 seconds on the internet.  I googled "Virginia Law Apprenticeship Program" and found the Virginia Board of Bar Examiner's Law Reader Program website.  The first requirement for applicants is that they possess the correct moral character and fitness to be a lawyer.  No problems there - but the second requirement is that the applicant has finished a bachelor's degree from an accredited university.   

That's not happening unless you are Jasmine Holmes nee Baucham.

For argument's sake, let's pretend there's a College Plus graduate who lives in Virginia who has decided to give the apprenticeship route a shot.   

Finding a supervising attorney for the apprenticeship sounds hard.  

• The person needs to have a broad enough legal career for the Bar to be assured that the lawyer can design the correct curriculum. 
• They also need to have enough professional teaching experience that the Bar deems them capable of teaching.  
• The person needs to have practiced law for at least 10 years and 10 of the previous 12 years in Virginia and is currently practicing law.  There is a loophole for Circuit Court judges to be the supervising attorney while retired - but only if the judge worked for at least 10 years on the Circuit and has been retired no less than 5 years.
• The supervising lawyer needs to have a large enough law library that Bar can be certain that the apprentice can have unrestricted access to the law library during the three year program.   

There's a limited number of active lawyers who fit each of those descriptions.  Assuming a Virginia lawyer got through undergraduate work at 22, went directly into law school immediately, and spent the first ten years of their career working in varying legal fields, the earliest a supervising lawyer could take on a law reading apprentice is at age 35.   

Is that likely?  I doubt it.  A safer assumption would be that a supervising attorney would likely be closer to 50 years old than 35 - and that winnows down the field quite a bit.  

The Bar limits the number of law readers per supervising attorney to one - presumably because otherwise the attorney would be running a law school.   Because of that limitation, our legal eagle who was ready to be a supervising attorney at 35 would be able to supervise 10 law readers during a 30 year career.  The safer assumption of a supervising attorney beginning at age 50 would have 5 law readers during the remaining fifteen years of their career.   

But what about those retired Circuit Court judges?  Well, they can supervise a total of two law readers if they start one reader immediately on retirement and the second reader as soon as the first reader is done.

Finally, the supervising attorney is adding a whole lot of work to their lives - while still maintaining their legal career outside of the apprenticeship.    During the three-year program, the supervising lawyer needs to produce 40 weeks of curriculum yearly that keeps the student reading law occupied for a minimum of 25 hours a week.  For eighteen of the twenty five hours a week, the supervising attorney needs to be in the same physical location as the reader.  The reader is guaranteed to have 3 hours of one-on-one time a week with the supervising attorney to discuss the work the reader has completed - which means the supervising attorney needs to read and critique the law reader's work at some point.

Personally, I can see this system working fine for a former law school professor who wanted to leave academia but didn't want to entirely give up teaching.   That professional would have experience setting up curriculum, have colleagues from their former institution to get support from, and would possibly find the demands of a single law student refreshing compared to dealing with several classes at once.

For other lawyers.....it's a heaps of work on top of a busy career.   

Tl;dr - Botkin didn't bother doing 30 seconds of reading before bringing Virginia's legal apprenticeship system into his fantasy world.   

But really - is that the worst thing?  Oh, no.  No, the worst thing is that he dumped this strange, half-baked fever dream in the middle of a podcast for a woman fearing widowhood with four sons still at home.    That's a far bigger travesty than Botkin's usual methodology of ignoring reality.

Babbling Botkin: "What If My Husband Dies?" - Part Nine

 

We survived the first week of distance learning with Spawn!  

I do not want to homeschool my kid - but during a global pandemics - needs must.   Thankfully, he's young and doing fine on traditional literacy and numeracy skills so I can use most of the time to focus in on PT and OT skills.   I do some skills most mornings that way Spawn has a little more consistency in a world that has changed a lot from his point of view.  This morning - which is Saturday in case this takes me longer than a day to write - we went outside to plant some daffodil bulbs. 

Does anyone else wonder what percentage of floral bulb exports end up being thrown out or composted after sitting in someone's car or front entry way for nine months?  Is that just me? 

Anyways, I had picked up a pack of 35 ruffled pink/white daffodils in September and managed to bring them in from my car before they were roasted or frozen.   Spawn declared that he was a farmer and managed to do a very respectable job of moving dirt around considering my hoe and shovel are adult-sized and Spawn's an average sized nearly four-year old.     I thought he'd be willing to touch the bulbs but balk at touching dirt.  I was totally wrong; he handed me a few bulbs, then made a dash for the dirt which he played with quite happily.     After we got them planted, he and I moseyed our way over to look at the cows and the skid steer that was cleaning out the barn.   I figure both of those are plenty of PT work - doubly so since the tools required a lot of balance practice and motor planning - and we'll get some OT work in by coloring, taking beads out of playdough or doing a puzzle later today.

The bit that turned out to be more exhausting than I expected was keeping track of the one virtual class meeting, one virtual small group meeting, one in-person PT meeting and one in-person Speech/OT meetings on top of our usual schedule of events.    I felt like I was always on the move during a week where I had more hours than usual at work - but I think that will settle itself out with time.

We are over halfway through Geoffrey Botkin's video monologue titled "What If My Husband Dies?"  The last section was about how critically important it was for boys to be around their fathers to learn how business works.  Boys also have to be around their dads at work to learn diligence, perseverance and skills.   Apparently, there's no other way to learn these skills outside of shadowing your father at his self-owned business.  Nope.....the rest of us are out of luck.  :-)

Onward to the next jarring moment:

[00:09:34] So all boys need to be getting everything they can from their fathers in the way of character by watching them in every single age of life.  If your sons do lose their father try to find some way the mentoring process can continue with other responsible men in your community.  Now, that's, that's a hard ask, I know.  But as long as you're getting to know men and - maybe you and your husband can even talk about it - who are the kind of men you would like your sons to be around?

 Wait - exactly how isolated is the proper CP/QF wife and mother?

Doesn't she know men from her church or her home business or her family?   

I would view a male relative as a safer bet for a long-term mentoring process than some guy this woman is just starting to get to know in her community.    I don't mean that as a "Any guy interested in a fatherless kid is a predator" way; it's just that families tend to stay in contact with each other over decades more effectively than people in the same church or neighborhood do.

The woman can certainly talk with her husband now - but this isn't going to be something that he can plan in great detail prior to his death.    Life circumstances change over time.  Elder Joe is a great guy today - but in five years, he's going to have to move across the country for work and comes back once a decade after that.   At the same time, the mom is going to meet a really nice older woman at her job who takes her under her whole family under her wing.  They never planned it that way - but the coworker's husband teaches her boys lots of important lessons about doing what is right while taking them fishing.

Keep your sons around kind men.  That's the most important lesson - taking time to help out others who are in need.

 [00:10:03]  You know, really good responsible men who might take an interest in them and take them under their wings and help them learn and grow and prosper and develop.  So, this,  this really practical point I'm going to make is this: keep your eye open in your community for honorable men of character who might be able to do short apprenticeships with your sons as they get older.

How old are these kids again?   

This is excellent advice if your sons are in their teens and an exercise in futility if your kids are under 5.

Now - this is some crazy talk, I know - but your regional public school district may well have access to concurrent training in various trades for high school students.   

Plus, if the woman lives in an area with a history of unionizing, there are very likely trade unions or trade halls that offer paid training in skilled trades.   We are so short on skilled trades in Michigan that the local combined services hall that does training in HVAC, steamfitter/pipefitter, plumbing, and welders offers free apprenticeship classes combined with a $24,000 a year stipend.  Apprentices take classes in the morning and work for local contractors in the afternoons and so have ready-made connections for a job after they've become journeymen.

There's really no need to reinvent the wheel while dealing with a major loss.  

[00:10:27]  I've, you know , I've brought in some guys who do apprenticeships.  I've let my..... a couple of my sons go out and do apprenticeships with really good older and trustworthy men and you know it's to provide them some of the skills that I might not have been able to give them.  It's been good for them and it was a good experience.  They weren't very long periods of time. Maybe just a few months and then and then back home again.  Maybe a couple of years and then back home again but it's it's uh it's something that can really help.

I'm fascinated about the idea of sending a young man to do an internship with Botkin.   What exactly would he learn?   How to write bizarre blog articles about British politics?  How to use the more popular writings of your daughters to keep the family finances afloat?   

There's a weirdly long pause as Botkin tries to remember his kids going on apprenticeships. Yet, Noah or Lucas had to have learned CNC methods from someone.  Presumably Ben got some guidance in composition from someone.  But both of those apprenticeships - if they happened - were ones where Geoffrey Botkin wasn't the central focus so it's all a blur for him.

 How long is the apprenticeship?  A few months is very different from a few years.  Is this some kind of weird open-ended contract?  "Your son will remain in my home until I feel he has correctly articulated how to start, undermine and lose a media station.  This process could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 years.  Please bring your own camera, computer, appropriate clothing and a 3 month supply of weaponry."

The important thing, though, is that your kid comes home again.  No one is allowed to separate from the home commune.   Even if you get a few years of freedom - you must come home!   

My two-cents: If the LW has not done so, get her kids enrolled in a public school this spring when they reopen.  If her husband makes it through COVID, the kids can go back to homeschooling.  If he dies, at least the kids won't be dealing with entering a new school while grieving.   

I know of where I speak; the most common cause for my former homeschooled students to end up in my classroom was the death of their mother.   It's so terribly hard to reacclimate to a traditional school while grieving; enrolling the kids in school as soon as it is safe would at least mitigate that stressor.

Good luck - and don't ask Botkin for advice.

Maxwell Mania: The emotional importance of dogs compared to sisters

 I've left Sarah Maxwell's Moody Book series well enough alone on this blog because the PDF's are mind-numbingly boring.   

If you overlook the complete lack of characterization, conflict or character arc, you are left with repetitive, derivative sermons.    That's understandable.  Since Sarah Maxwell has stuck to writing what she knows, monotony interspaced with sanctimony has birthed ten dull children's books 

On the other hand, we all need a hobby and writing books where being completely unobjectionable trumps interest is certainly fills time better than wondering what the next 50 years of being one of three spinster virgin aunts does.   

Sarah Maxwell, however, has spun off into the "Hill Top Adventures" series of books.   Rather than sticking to mundane Maxwellian topics like "Oh, no!  Our pet sitting client has a rat rather than a dog!", she's moving into deep waters.    

The first book "Finding Change" involves a child's move, the father's potential loss of a job, the main character feeling bad that she's not a super-Christian like her neighbor and refusing to ever forgive her Aunt Nicole for accidentally killing her little sister. 

 Surprise! There's nothing like a cliff hanger to keep people reading! 

Except....this isn't a soap opera.  Emma is gonna forgive Aunt Nicole because otherwise Emma would be a horrible person.  Accidentally killing your niece is bad - but the real crime is lack of forgiveness!

Her newest book "Learning Lessons" combines an instantly forgettable title with this charming plot line:

Emma’s world takes on a new sparkle now that she’s a Christian and learns to forgive Aunt Shannon for the accident that took her little sister’s life. But trouble is brewing with Landlady over Taffy.

The autumn days fly by with adventures at the coffee shop job, helping with Hunter’s leaf business, Hill Top’s city-wide yard sale, and a day at the library. All the while, tension builds with Landlady, and when Emma is faced with her biggest fear, what will she do?

Now, I'm not planning on reading either of these ever - but I'd be much more likely to if there's a huge plot twist when Emma finds out that Aunt Shannon really accidently killed her sister instead of Aunt Nicole......but I doubt it.   That kind of twist requires being allowed to read fiction books or watch films or see plays - and the Maxwells do not do any of those things.   

Instead, we've got a copy error?  A sloppy confusion of character names?

I really truly did lose a much loved little brother to a medical misdiagnosis of septic shock thirty four years ago.   I've spent a lot of time in my life processing the loss of David and looking at how that tragedy affected and affects my life.    

Maybe it's because I'm not the right kind of Christian - but I can't write a sentence that includes the word "sparkle" and the mention of a child's death.   

Actually, that's probably because I write what I know.  I'd probably make equally crazy mistakes if I tried to write a children's story about giving out religious tracts. *rolls eyes*

I also loved my pets very, very much - but my parents were great at making sure we could keep the animals we adopted in our homes before we adopted them.  

Emma's parents - on the other hand - apparently don't have a lease....or decided to get a dog against the lease....or won't move if the landlady changes their lease at the next renewal.....or simply suck at adulting.

At least my parents recognized that my anxiety around change and loss stemmed from my brother dying.   Poor Emma seems stuck with two non-parents and a manically cheerful theology which is a pretty sad commentary on how she was raised.  

Poor thing.  Poor things, really, because Anna and Sarah can't feel great about learning that the thought of giving up Ellie.... I mean....Taffy...... is more stressful than either of them dying. 

Writings give us glimpses into the author's soul.   I'm very frightened of what the Maxwells have done to their kids. 

The Battle of Peer Dependency: Chapter Four - Part Nine

Hello!

Wow, did life get busy on me!  Jeepers.

A week and a half ago, my son's school had one student test positive for COVID.   Contact tracing determined that a few kids in the class should quarantine, but other than that everything was fine.  

Early this week, one teacher and another student in a different classroom tested positive.  This put 58 kids and 7 staff members out on quarantine.    I ordered a few books online for my son since I figured homeschooling would start soon.

Right now, substitute teachers can't be gotten for love or money.   High income districts that could take their pick of subs can't get a single sub to cover; a rural, fairly high poverty district like my son had no chance at finding 7 subs.    

Monday, we found out my son's pre-K - 4th grade school was closing on November 11th  until November 30th to try and contain the outbreak.    Public opinion was mixed - but a vocal minority wanted the rest of the district closed as well.   The majority of people seemed to think the school was overreacting - but then cases appeared at the other schools.  Now everyone is virtual only until after Thanksgiving.  Mask wearing is still not as widespread in my community as I'd like to see - but I see masks now - which I often did not before.

I've got a bunch of materials from the school - plus a section on "Weather" I've made for my son since he's been our family's weatherman for six months now.   He found the "Weather" felt board I made for him and realized that I missed "Thunder" and "Fog" - so I've got to make those up tonight.   

So if my posts get less regular, I'm probably taking a walk with my kid talking about clouds....or doing PT on some playground equipment.....or practicing patterning.   I hope the school will reopen for a bit before Christmas Break - but our case numbers in Western Michigan have become dangerously high so I'm planning for a few weeks to a few months of classes at home.   

In fun news, Spawn will try using forearm crutches next week!  He's been showing plenty of strength while walking, but still needs help with balance.   He also wants to venture off of paved paths.  So far, he's been muscling his walker over uneven ground - but he can only do that on fairly flat ground.  Forearm crutches should give him better freedom to explore the world - and I'm very, very excited about it!

I'm excited about my son gaining more freedom of movement so reading "The Battle of Peer Dependency" by Marina Sears feels more crazy every time I open the book.   In the next quote, Mrs. Sears - who homeschooled her kids - demonstrates poor understanding of teenage motivations alongside a profound misunderstanding of the use of person in the English language:

Listening to young people dependent upon their peers the greed of self and the fulfillment of personal agendas can clearly be seen. A parent might hear, "But, I don't want to go. I have other plans. My friends and I are just going to play volleyball. Everyone else is going." Count the number of I's in the next conversation you have with your young person to see if they are following the direction God has given to you as a family, or if they are "pecking" at that direction. (pg. 57-58)

 How is playing volleyball with friends more selfish and greedy forcing your children to be living examples of God's Providence to widows and orphans?    Dumping that burden on your kids is cruel.  In the last four years, I've been amazed by the kindness, love, generosity and compassion afforded to me and my son.   I'm grateful for those acts of caring.   I don't force my kid to be a walking advertisement for God's Love, though!   He's almost four - and he's quite happy being a dinosaur, thank you very much.   Spawn also likes being a firetruck - so I'm pretty solid that he's doing what God wants a preschooler to do - be a kid.

Teenagers, like preschoolers, are learning how the world works as nearly-adults.  Most homeschooling families allow their teenagers to spend time with other teenagers.  Teenagers, after all, are going to spend their lives with people of their age cohort as they form families, raise children, and work.  Letting teenagers find out how people their own age interact is good parenting.   

Forcing teenagers to remain ensconced in their family of origin means that the parent is sacrificing the future of their kids for the wants of the parents.    

Counting the number of times a teenager says "I" in a conversation is a poor sign of the greed or selfishness of the kid.  It just means the kid is speaking first-person which is normal for native English speakers.

The last quote for this post shows how Mrs. Sears has moved the goal posts of success for her kids beyond God's requirements:

Upon studying the Scriptures, the root problem of peer dependency became very clear. As I looked at the lives of my children, there seemed to be little difference between them and children being reared in homes without God. Many young people without God have themselves on the throne of their lives. They seek activities, materialism, or various forms of stimuli: such as drugs, alcohol, and sex to fill the void of God and the desire to fit in. My children were saved, and on their way to heaven, and even though their activities were seemingly innocent and moral, self and pleasure where the center of their focus. The salvation experience is just beginning for every person. Allowing God to be the Lord of one's life is the essence of the Christian walk. One of the greatest struggles facing me was in the understanding that my sons had trust in Christ as their savior, but not as the Lord of their lives. My plea to the Lord was to find out if there was anything I could do to help them love Jesus more. Can one individual do anything to change another's heart? As a parent, having a good, saved, moral child was not my goal. Having children who were " Mighty in God's spirit" was what I as a parent was trying to achieve. (pg. 58)

 John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that he gave his only beloved son so that whoever believes in him may not die but have eternal life.

Marina Sears' sons had fulfilled that mandate. 

They were saved. 

They believed.  

God accepted Chris and David - but that is not good enough for their mother.   

God gave us ever so many innocent, moral pleasures.  Going for walks.  Chatting with friends.  Playing volleyball.   There is, in fact, no section of the Bible that forbids volleyball - even if the people playing volleyball are teenagers.     

No, Marina Sears is creating a dictatorship where her whims are justified as making "Mighty Warrior" - but that's not what God asked of parents.

Babbling Botkin: "What If My Husband Dies?" - Part Eight

 Fall has been fun.

My son is old enough that we got him into a Halloween costume for the second time in his life.  We dressed him up as an elephant when he was 11 months old.  At nearly two and nearly three, he flipped out at the idea of being dressed in a costume.   This year, he enjoyed being a "fire dog" when he dressed up as one of the characters from Paws Patrol.  

For the first time ever, I did all of my fall chores for my garden during the fall!  Crazy, I know - but I do like knowing that the past production plants are turning into compost as we speak.   

This next section in "What If My Husband Dies" by Geoffrey Botkin published on his YouTube channel gives a great example of privilege-blindness in CP/QF and how said blindness leads to horrible advice:

[00:08:33] I knew a.....knew a man who was a big executive at a large uh IT firm.  And he didn't have any time with his family. He realized that was wrong. He totally quit.  He came home and what he started with his boys.  He was making a lot of money at this job, this corporate job.  He started a small engine repair company with his boys.  Just so they could be with their dad.  The dad could be with the boys.  They could learn about business.  They could learn about good customers, grumpy customers, dishonest customers um difficult challenges, hard jobs, good work ethic.  And it it didn't make a whole lot of money but it made enough money,  But it gave those boys a powerful legacy and inheritance of wisdom and knowledge of how you do business.  And so by the time they were teenagers, and then older teenagers, they have a lot of knowledge practical knowledge about how how you do business in the real world with imperfect people.  That's really valuable.  So all boys needs to be getting everything they can from their fathers in the way of character by watching them at every single age of life.

When faced with so many assumptions in one place, I think the best option is to move sentence by sentence for discussion.   

Botkin knew a guy who was a "big executive" at a large IT firm.   What does that mean?  Was he a C-level executive or a manager?   How much was the man making a year?  How long had he been working at this large IT firm at a high rate of pay?  Did his earnings include access to company stock?  All of this matters because the total risk in starting a small business depends a lot on the owner's assets prior to starting the business.  Botkin's acquaintance had a small risk in starting a business since he had high income potential customers he knew from his former job plus a salary with stock options that he could leverage to set up the business and pay for his family's needs while the new business grew.

Compare that to a young married man from a cash-strapped CP/QF family or a man with 4 sons and COPD in the middle of a pandemic.......

I find the idea that the man  who had the soft skills needed to be an executive "totally quit" without having a solid plan in place.   I'd bet good money that the man planned out his exit strategy so that he was ramping up his business while working at his former employer prior to leaving.

We can safely assume this is not an option for the family writing Botkin for advice.  If they had the resources to weather the possible untimely death of the father, the wife would not be writing to Botkin.

The idealized dad set up his own small engine repair business.  Granted that the father probably had a non-compete agreement with his former company - this is still a rather huge change of career on top of starting a business.  Where did he get the cash for all of the tools and materials he needed for that?  How much start-up money did this take? How long had the father been doing small engine repair as a hobby or for personal use before he started this business?  Please tell me that he didn't quit his job randomly and start a business in an area he had no experience in; that's a horrible trope in CP/QF stories that rarely ends well in real-life.  Where did he get customers from?   How did he market his business?  How much did marketing cost upfront?   

There's no way most CP/QF men could leverage a full small engine repair business from scratch; it's just too much risk for a bank to take without assets or income.  How the letter writer in the video would pull this off is beyond me.  

The business also managed to make "enough" money without making "a lot" of money.  That construction leaves the change in economic status wide open.  A small family who was willing to drop in economic status from upper middle class to average middle class may well be fine on a small income from the business plus assets acquired prior to leaving corporate life.   A larger family who lived frugally and saved a lot might not notice the difference if they tapped into savings until the business got going.  The problem comes when faced with the reality of CP/QF families.  Most of these families are not making "enough" money to start with.   They can't afford to lose any part of their current income stream because they don't have enough left over to put money away or acquire much in assets.   Their most likely asset is their home - and betting a house on a business venture is a bad idea.  The LW is presumably in that category and cannot afford to fund a business while increasing her husband's risk of infection to COVID-19.

The weirdest bit to an outsider is Botkin's implication that the executive-turned-small-engine-mechanic's kids had a huge leg up on other kids because they understood business from watching their dad.   Plenty of other kids understand how business works thanks to getting a retail or food service job as a teenager.   Those jobs will teach a teen plenty about customer service and problem-solving skills.  Now, the teenager will not be involved directly in the nuts and bolts of making staffing choices or seeing how various actions affect margins - but every place I've ever worked will explain at least the rationale behind how those choices are made.   Equally important in my eyes is the reality that the teenager will be watching how a successful business is run.   In a family business, the teenager might be watching a successful business - or watching his father flail around because he's missing the real problems and solutions in his business.

All of this seems to have turned out well for Botkin's acquaintance - if he existed - but a single anecdote is poor support for risking everything a family has.

Good luck - and don't write to Botkin for advice.

The Battle Of Peer Dependency: Chapter Four - Part Eight

Good morning, readers! 

 I've had an eventful day - and it has barely started.   

I've been working a lot more than usual for the few weeks due to a coworker having an unexpected death in the family.   I took a few of her shifts on top of my own so instead of working 25-30 hours, I worked 44 hours.   

I was really tired last night, so I set my morning alarm for the wrong time.   I had 30 minutes to get myself and my 3-year old fed, dressed and on the road to drop Spawn off at school at the right time.    Thankfully, our morning routine went well and I thought I'd be just on time or maybe a few minutes late dropping him off which is no big deal since the kiddos play on the playground at the start of the day.

I get out to our minivan and the driver's side slider won't open.   I can open the driver's side door- but not the slider.   I try locking and unlocking all the doors.  No change.   I try manually opening the door and nothing happens.  I try starting the car - and I can't open the door.   Spawn is starting to freak out a bit - he's not fond of change or stressed mamas - when I realize that repeatedly trying to open a stuck door in hopes it will open on the 6th, 9th or 20th time is literally Twain's definition of insanity.

I regroup.   I get Spawn settled in the living room with some books, some toys and a television show.    I start searching the internet for solutions.   I find a few pages about the actuator in the door failing - but that doesn't sound right.   I can hear the motor that automatically opens the door engaging and the door moves a bit- it's just that the door seems stuck in the locked position.

I try a few tricks to see if I can reset the lock and the key fob by pulling on the interior door release while using the fob to lock and unlock the doors.  No dice.    I can't really see if the position that I'm moving the interior door release is the unlock position so I walk around to the passenger side slider to climb across the captain chairs to verify that pushing towards the front is unlocked.    

The passenger side slider will not open either - and it's doing the exact same thing as the driver side slider.    

That was an unexpected problem - but I realized in one of those flashes of insight that the problem was probably not with the doors - but with something else like the onboard computer.    The chances of both doors having identical mechanical problems at the exact same time is pretty much zero - so I needed to reboot the computer.   

Well, I looked up the steps online - disconnect the battery for 10 minutes, reconnect battery, and turn car to "On" without starting and the computer should reboot - and started the process.   Actually, finding a wrench to remove the battery leads took the longest time, ironically.      

During the wait time with the battery disconnected, I contacted Spawn's school to let them know he wouldn't be coming in today due to car trouble.   Spawn was happily watching "Grizzy and the Lemmings" while piping up "Mama, fix car!  Mama, try!  Mama, try again to fix car!" whenever I left the house and "Mama on 'pewter' (computer)" when I was in the house.

I reattached the leads and turned on the car.  

I hadn't realized how little hope I had that rebooting the computer would work when I tried the slider - and it opened!   I whooped happily - and got a late take-out breakfast for Spawn and me.

Parenting has been a wild ride.  I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants while not being a hundred percent sure I know where I want to end up - let alone how to get there!   It reminds me of the first few years I taught.   The one advantage of teaching in traditional schools, though, is that teachers have a few years of classes about teaching behind them, a student teaching experience and other teachers to trade tips and tools with.    One of the tips I remembered was trying to avoid assignments that could be extremely stressful for some students.   In Biology, an example of this is not requiring students to make a family pedigree of traits based on their actual families.   A college professor I was working under assigned that over Thanksgiving because the students would be at home with their families.   I pointed out that that assignment would really suck for adopted kids, refugees without family at home, and large families (mine would have required a few pieces of posterboard just for my first cousins on both sides of the family).   When I assigned a "make your own pedigree chart", I let the students do any creature, traits and inheritance pattern they wanted.   Occasionally, a kid would do their own family - but I also got dragons, aliens, unicorns......you get the idea.

With my background, you can imagine how cringe-worthy I found this next section:

One day during English class, Chris was asked to write about a wonderful time he had experience with his father. As he read the assignment, I watched his face and waited for his response. As he finished reading, he looked up at me and the tears begin to flow. "Why did God have to take Daddy?" was his question.

I called him over to my desk and sat and talked to him about the many possibilities as to why it was time for Daddy to die. We talked about people who had come to know Jesus as Savior, marriages that were strengthened, and the many ways in which God had become real to us as head of the home and the father to the children. All of these things were wonderful, but they didn't help heal the hurt in his heart. (pg. 56)

One advantage of homeschooling that makes sense to me is the ability to specialize curriculum to the needs and strengths of family members.  Your kid likes dinosaurs?  Use that hook!   Your kid's dad died in a tragic car accident when he was seven?   Rewrite the essay prompt to "write about a wonderful time you had with a family member?  Boom!  Homeschooling at its best.

Instead, Mrs. Sears was either not paying much attention to the essay prompts she was assigning - or she was mining her kids for tragedy.   I hope it was the first - but based on some stories from later in the book I suspect she likes to mine other people's tragedies for her own purposes.   Especially when her initial response to her son's heartfelt expression of anguish over his father's death is to make a list of all the great things that happened after Jeff died.

That's sick - and it shows how much Mrs. Sears has been consumed by proving that God takes care of widows and orphans through her life.

I finally asked him, "Do you want to tell God that you miss your daddy, that you wish he wouldn't have died, and that you don't understand what is going to happen in the future?" He nodded his head yes.

I told him, "It is alright to tell God these things. Can you also tell God that you are going to trust Him that your daddy is where he needs to be, and that you are exactly where you need to be?"

As he bowed his head and spoke these things to the Lord, I saw the invisible baggage of hurt and responsibility which he had been carrying, fall to the ground. His pain, left alone, would have turned into rebellion and further devastation in this life. (pg. 56)

This quote distills everything I dislike about CP/QF prayer at once. 

 Prayer is communication with God.  For that to be true, believers need to be able to discuss everything with God - not just how great everything is all the time.  Mrs. Sears takes the obsession with forcing everything in life to be great to palpably absurd lengths when she explains to her sobbing son that his father's tragic death was a good thing since random people have stronger marriages - but that insane response drives home the inherent fakeness of that style of prayer.  

My parents are alive and well, but I do remember my younger brother dying when I was four.   Mrs. Sears' blithe assertion that her son was fine after a single agonizingly botched conversation about his father's death feels unlikely to me.   

Maybe Chris was a rare kid who needed a single moment of compassion from his mom to completely heal. 

I worry, though, that he learned never to bring up anything serious about his emotions with his mother ever again.

*Sorry for the delayed post!  I thought I had published this last Monday - and life continued in a standard, crazy fashion - so I didn't realize I missed publishing posts until today.*

Babbling Botkin: "What if My Husband Dies?" - Part Seven

Hello, readers!

Can I take a moment to expound on the virtues of the public school system?   My son has been back in school for six weeks now and I'm blown away at how far his speech has bloomed being around other small kids and adults outside of our immediate family.   A year ago, my son was speaking mainly in one word phrases with occasional two word phrases.  Now he mainly uses complete sentences.   

With his increased communication skills, I'm enjoying my time with him more and more because we can play more advanced games.   He also says the funniest things.   We were driving to see my parents last week after I picked Spawn up from preschool.   We went a different route than normal and drove by a school bus.   Spawn  sees the bus, whoops from the back of our van and yells, "Samuel got off the bus!  Yay, Samuel! See you tomorrow!"  Samuel is the name of his little buddy in class who also uses a walker - and that was not the school bus that takes Samuel home - but there was no way I was going to burst that bubble.    

For added fun, my son will be having a student teacher who uses a service animal.   The service dog is a large golden setter - and my son is nervous around dogs because he doesn't like it when dogs bark.   The student teacher let us have a few adorable pictures of her and her service animal so we can talk to Spawn about what a good dog she is.    

This sent me into giggles because not only has our local district given me freedom from being Spawn's untrained physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist, feelings coach and early childhood educator they also provided a highly trained big yellow dog for Spawn to work on his anxiety around dogs!   This is making my life downright simple.

One of the reasons I send Spawn to school is for him to be ready for adulthood.   Schools teach lots of academic skills and give students a place to practice living their values.   As a former teacher, I think students pick up most of their values from their families of origin.   Parents and other adult relatives model what values are important to a family.   Teachers can reinforce some values certainly - but parents model how much a family cares about truth, justice, patriotism, generosity, hard work, patience, forbearance, trust, honesty and fair play.   

I say this because I take values seriously.   I take families seriously.   Even so,  I find this next quote by Geoffrey Botkin in "What If My Husband Dies" amusing as the mother of a nearly 4 year old:

[00:07:01] So one of the most helpful things you can do to inspire your sons to be good mature men is this: even while your husband is still alive speak continually of your husband's best and most courageous attributes.  Show them what a good strong solid marriage really looks like. I mean, that can be part of an inheritance that is totally invaluable because they will have such a good idea and vision for what...what kind of marriage to contract with a young lady once they're old enough.  They....they've....they've seen this in your home what it means for a wife to be loving and respectful.  What it really looks like for a husband and a father to be loving to his family. This I mean that is a powerful wealthy inheritance.  So inspire your sons to be like their father and honor his memory by the ways that they keep his values alive. This will not only give your sons a vision for responsible manhood but also for what a healthy marriage looks like. 

Geoffrey Botkin has highly stereotypic roles for men and women.   Women are supposed to be nurturing mothers gently rearing a huge brood of children while men provide and protect their women and children.   This stereotyping drips into his spontaneous speech when he declares that we should talk of our husband's most courageous attributes.    

But what if our husband's best traits don't fit that mold?  

My husband is much calmer than I am.  At times, this trait drives me crazy - but his easygoing temperament compliments my driven temperament.    My innate speed is "Let's go!  Solve the problem!  Do a thing! Do another thing!  Accomplish! Strive!"    We idolize that temperament in the United States - but it's a personality trait that fails miserably when confronted with problems with no easy solution.   

Staying sane when Spawn was in the NICU - during all of his first year, really - required me to adapt my husband's more mellow flow.   There was nothing I could do to speed the process of Spawn growing into a term-sized baby.  His lungs were going to heal and fix themselves - and I would need to wait for that to happen.   Sure, my drive-based personality worked well at getting Spawn the care he needed - but most of the day-to-day events involved keeping Spawn stable and growing.

My husband and I suit each other - but the way we suit each other may be very different from how another healthy marriage looks.   Everyone knows marriages that are visibly solid - but would be miserable to be in yourself.   I know couples who love entertaining people at home; I hate doing that and thankfully so does my husband.    I will take a detour to look at a historical marker at any time I see one and have time; that would be a legitimate reason for divorce for some people I know.

My husband and I came from families with healthy marriages - but our marriage is different than either of our parents' marriages.  My in-laws espouse a fairly traditional gender role separation in marriage; my husband, on the other hand, has been integral in caring for our son and keeping house.  My parents bicker gently with each other 24/7 unless someone is having a rough time; my husband and I try to keep things pleasant.    

Final point: how good are kids at knowing how healthy their parents' relationship is as kids?  Pretty poor, I imagine.  Kids are highly cued in to how adults treat them; they really aren't nearly as aware of how adults treat each other.

In the next quote, Geoffrey Botkin makes me wonder what he thinks the word 'character' means:

[00:08:01] So now, the second point - character - uh this is best learned from a dad by watching him work.  If the dad has a good work ethic and good character he's making hard decisions every day.  He's explaining these to the sons. I mean if there is some work which can be done with dad it is like a dress rehearsal for life.  Try to find out what that is.  You know.  That will provide a basis and a foundation for daily mentoring that's really good.  Just average business no matter what it is. 

Remind me how often we practice patriotism at work?  How about chastity?  How about justice?  Humility?

I do wonder how successful a business is if the proprietor is making hard decisions every day.  That sounds like a business that is dying rapidly.   

Perhaps I'm interpreting it wrong. 

Maybe the owner is simply abjectly miserable at the stress level of running a business and needs a healthy dose of fortitude and forbearance to get out of bed and work every day.    

That might not send the message to his sons that Botkin is intending, though.  

Most of us pick up values without shadowing our parents at work daily.  Keeping a family running requires plenty of virtuous behavior by parents without forcing everyone to join a family business.

I just realized, though, that I've missed the bigger point.   This isn't being written to me - a college-educated working mom of one whose spouse is healthy..   This is being written to a mother of four whose husband has COPD in the middle of a pandemic - and winter is coming.  

If she ever reads this blog, now's a great time to see a financial advisor to figure out how to put away as much money from your current cash flow as possible.   

Good luck - and as always - don't ask Botkin for advice.

The Battle Of Peer Dependency: Chapter Four - Part Seven

Hello, dear readers!

We've had a run of cold, wet days here in Western Michigan.  The kind of days where everything outside feels slimy because nothing has a chance to dry before the next band of rain makes it through.  I've been trying to keep my tomato and pepper plants going by keeping them covered with a makeshift plastic tent.  The tent worked fine in dry weather, but is alternating between blowing off and sagging under the weight of the water now.  I've ordered some PVC pieces and a few landscape timbers from my local hardware store to see if I can make a low tunnel. Hopefully, that will shed water better and with fewer blowdowns once I've got the plastic sheeting under rope lashings.  

We are somewhere into the never-ending slog that is Marina Sears "The Battle of Peer Dependency".  Chapter Four has been a disjointed, confusing and boring march through the evils of friendship and spectacularly bad discussion of the Bible.    The poor scholarship continues on pages 49-55 - but it is so bad that I'm not going to discuss it point-by-point.   Instead, I'm going to give a simple paraphrase of 1  Samuel 14 and 15:1-23 to demonstrate how badly 1 Samuel 15:23 is being used out of context to force children to be always obedient to their parents.

1 Samuel 14:1-13:  Jonathan and his armor-bearer skirmish with the Philistines and take out a group of twenty soldiers. 

1 Samuel 14:14-23: God causes the Philistines to panic.  Saul sees the panic and does a head-count.  He realizes that Jonathan is missing.  There's a bit involving the Ark of the Covenant.  Saul and his men attack the Philistines (who are doing a good job of decimating themselves).  A bunch of Israelites who had deserted return.   Israel pushes the front back.

1 Samuel 14:24-30: Saul's vow that no one could eat that day has made everyone hungry, weak and angry.   The Hebrews come upon a forest dripping with honey.  Most soldiers fast because of the oath made by Saul - but Jonathan does not.  When reminded of the oath by another soldier, Jonathan tells the soldier that the vow was stupid and the Philistines would have been routed even more if the Israelites had been allowed to eat.

1 Samuel 31-35:  The hangry soldiers begin to eat captured livestock without ritual slaughter or the correct sacrifices.  Someone tells Saul.   Saul tells the troops to knock it off, builds his very first altar, and correctly sacrifices the captured livestock so everyone can eat. 

1 Samuel 36-46: Saul gathers his generals together and asks about pursuing the Philistines through the night.  The generals have no objections, but the priest reminds Saul to ask God.  God refuses to answer Saul so Saul starts throwing divine lots to figure out who sinned.  When rolled for Saul/Jonathan or the generals, the lot says that the sin was with Saul/Jonathan.  The second lot says that Jonathan sinned.  Jonathan admits to eating honey against Saul's oath and is ready to be killed.  Saul agrees.  The generals object and Jonathan is ransomed.  The Philistines escape back to their land.

Ironically, Mrs. Sears missed a great lesson about obeying your parents in this section.  After all, Jonathan ignored his father's vow, verbally disrespected his dad and was nearly killed as a scapegoat because of that!   That actually works....kind of.....well, as much as any of this is going to work when the premise of "Family first - friends are evil" is severely flawed.   

1 Samuel 47-52: A mishmash of verses reminding us of how many enemies nations Saul had surrounding him, the fact he was pretty good at defending Israel from them, a fast genealogy of Saul's kids and how Saul is related to his generals, and a reminder that there were a lot of wars going on.

1 Samuel 15: 1-8:  Samuel tells Saul that God wants Israel to completely destroy the Amalekites by killing all the people and animals. Doing this would avenge when the Amalekites attacked the Hebrews as they left Egypt.  Saul tells the Kenites to flee since they had protected the Hebrews during that attack and begins to destroy the Amalekites.

1 Samuel 15:9:  Actually, they kept the good animals.  They killed the people and weak animals, but they kept the good animals.

1 Samuel 15:10-11: God is very angry with Saul because of his continued bad behavior and lets Samuel know that God regrets making Saul king.   Samuel spends the night praying.

1 Samuel 15:12-16: Samuel goes to confront Saul in the morning and finds out that Saul is busy building a monument to Saul's greatness in another location.   Samuel travels to find Saul.  When Samuel arrives, Saul swears he followed God's instructions perfectly.  Samuel points out that he can hear the captured animals bleating.  Saul attempts to punt by swearing that the animals were captured to be sacrificed to God - and that really pisses Samuel off.

1 Samuel 15:17-23: Samuel makes one last ditch effort to call Saul out on disobeying God.  Saul declares that HE obeyed God; it was just his soldiers who disobeyed God.  Samuel replies that Saul has turned his back on God - and that God has turned his back on Saul.

Alright.  After all of that, Ms. Sears' attempt to make 1 Samuel 15:23 into a general commandment for all people rather than a specific discussion of Saul's wrongdoings feels forced:

Samuel then makes a very profound statement. One that many Christians can quote but may not fully understand. Application seems appropriate for the teenager who is wearing a leather jacket and chains, or has had trouble with law enforcement, but would any parent ever consider the Scripture for themselves or their six or seven year old blonde haired, blue-eyed angel. " For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou has rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected thee from being King." ( 1 Samuel 15:23) (pg. 55)

I don't see myself ever using this quote with a troubled teen because the quote sounds patently insane outside the Biblical context.   

I don't see myself ever using this quote with myself or my spouse because we'd end up arguing how sinful stubborness is compared to iniquity and if that is different than comparing stubbornness to idolatry - and which one of us gets to be King if the other one is dethroned.  

I don't see myself using this quote with an elementary school kid because I doubt the kid knows what iniquity and  idolatry means - and I highly doubt a 7 year old has the same level of cognitive development as Samuel or Saul did during this whole scenario.

But most strangely - why on Earth did Ms. Sears describe the 7-year old as a "blonde haired, blue eyed angel" instead of simply a young angel?  Are Nordic kids more angelic than kids of Iberrian, Mediterranean, Hispanic, African, Asian, Pacific Islander or First Nations descent?  

Ugh.  This book is just toxic.  Don't use it to raise kids, alright?  Thanks!

Babbling Botkin: "What if My Husband Dies?" - Part Six

Hello, dear readers!

The atmospheric haze of smoke and soot carried from the Western wildfires has reached Michigan over the last week   The first three days reminded me of how the sky looks in very humid summer weather where sky is bright blue overhead and fades to a white-gray along the horizon.  The sun was also haloed when it was overhead.  It felt odd because the humidity is fairly low right now and highs are in the mid-70's so the sky would normally be crisply blue.  

The haze has increased markedly over the last 24 hours.  The light is red-shifted though the day so that direct sunlight between 10am-4pm looks yellow instead of white and the rest of the day has red-orange light instead of yellow light.   Sunrise and sunset has vivid colors - but not the usual set of colors we see.  For a few minutes last night, the western sky was a rose-pink with a red sun.  As the sun rose this morning, it was red until 7:30 in the morning, shifted to orange around 8:30am and finally shifted to yellow-white around 9:30.  The intensity of the sun feels decreased as well.   

We are nearly six minutes into Geoffrey Botkin's discussion of "What If My Husband Dies?".  In the last post, Botkin let a woman with four children know that sharing stories about hallowed ancestors is going to be a critical component of supporting a family if her husband dies.   Needless to say, I'm skeptical of that advice.  

Today, the video dives into the importance of a family-based business led by the father.   Now, every time Botkin talks about business, I immediately replay the scene in "The Muppets' Christmas Carol" where Samuel Eagle lectures a young Scrooge about entering "Business!".     This next quote makes me wonder the exact ages of the letter writer's children:

[00:05:50] Maybe your husband has had some highly developed dreams for the future and you know does your husband leave these to be fulfilled by the boys.  If so, I mean this could be a legacy more valuable than most families realize.  You know, a business plan. A business strategy for things that could be done with the family.  If the dad is taking into account and you are taking into account all the different uh gifts and abilities and talents that each of the young boys have. You know . How can those be kind of woven together to build some kind of a business structure or business idea that works for your family.  

In case anyone was wondering, Geoffrey Botkin has highly developed dreams for his kids.  Botkin himself wasn't able to fulfill those dreams - see the absence of any sons-in-law for more info - but his kids can totally fulfill those dreams over the next two hundred years or so.

Because of that fascinating quirk, Botkin assumes that everyone has sat down and planned out their kids' lives in great detail.  The obvious problem is that 1) not everyone thinks parents should plan  their kids' lives and 2) the plans often fall apart miserably.  

Based on that, I find a detailed plan of a future family business laid out by the dad - but not executed by the dad - to be highly suspect.  That is, in fact, the form of hell that Dorothea Casaubon rejects after her husband dies prior to starting his epic - and massively flawed - "Key to All Mythologies" opus.   

The age of the kids involved matters a whole heap, too - and Botkin is strangely silent on that.  This is a family that could have four kids under the age of 4 or quadruplet 16-year old young men.   My son is three going on four.   Based on his interests, we need to start a company that designs and manufactures combination heavy equipment cleaning machines.  He's specifically fascinated by his wrecking-ball-crane-mop, but I'm sure this will be followed by the equally thrilling firetruck-duster, digger-dishwasher, and the perennial favorite chopper-broom.   I have to question, however, if anyone would be as enthusiastic about those expensive and strangely designed machines as we are.

Some 16-year olds have more formed interests; others not so much.   I've known plenty of high schoolers who genuinely believe they will be music stars, pro athletes, or fiction writers who are very far away from the skill set needed to fulfill those dreams.    I have known several teens who got fairly successful small businesses off the ground - one kid was an ace at small electronic repairs; another was a talented drummer - but the level of success each of them reached wasn't enough to support four people.   

I also knew teenagers who were supporting themselves and either dependent children or members of their family of origin.   They did that by working multiple part-time jobs while going to school and were always stressed and exhausted.|

This next section pretty much undermines Botkin's entire rhetoric about a small business being the salvation of a widow with small children:

[00:06:28] And I mean that could be an extraordinarily powerful thing which which starts off small  and grows small.  It's not a get rich quick scheme.  It's it's a get rich slow scheme. I mean, you know and if your husband is helping to craft one of those things into place and you're able to start little now with what you have with the boys being young.   This is one thing that we did in our family and and it built the kind of character and that's what we'll get to in a second and into the boys that they were  then able to take on more responsibility and then more and then more and more.  

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Come on, man.     All of that requires the dad to be alive and capable of helping to build the business. 

  The title of the video is "What If My Husband Dies?" with the implication that he'd die soon - not "What If My Husband Dies in Fifteen Years After Successfully Launching A Small Family Business?"

At least Botkin is being honest-adjacent.  Building a small business from scratch takes time.  It takes investment. Botkin has already admitted that the family is not likely to have life insurance and may have crippling bills from the father's COPD treatment, and that getting COVID would be really bad for the dad - so how exactly is this family going to launch a business?    That's ignoring the obvious as well; the middle of a pandemic is not a great time for most small business launches.   

More broadly - what small business is Geoffrey talking about his family building?  In the 1990's, he was involved in a fundamentalist Christian politics think tank in DC.  At some point, he hooked up with Vision Forum and failed to launch a conservative newspaper in Christchurch, NZ in the very early 2000's.   My understanding was that funded his family based on VF events until he decided to launch the Western Conservatory of Arts and Science around 2012-2013.  That was good timing since VF imploded in 2015 when Doug Phillips molestation of a live-in nanny become public knowledge.    For the last five years, he's been fairly silent online.  Now, at some point, the decently successful business T. Rex Arms was launched by one of the Botkin sons - but Botkin himself was never mentioned in even the earliest versions of their site.   

Building a small business is hard.  Doing so while a respiratory pandemic disease is circulating that could easily kill or maim the main breadwinner of the family is both dangerous and irresponsible.  

Good luck - and as always - don't write to Botkin for advice.

The Battle of Peer Dependency: Chapter Four - Part Six

Welcome, dear readers!

We've gone from summery weather to mid-October weather overnight.  We've had three days of rain, wind, and temperatures in the 50's.  I'd enjoy the weather a bit more if I had already unpacked everyone's winter clothes.  Instead, I'm wondering how my son can have a million jackets in the house when the weather is 80 - and they are all missing in action when the weather is chilly.   

After a break, I'm slogging back into "The Battle Of Peer Dependency" by Marina Sears.  We ended the last section of Chapter Four with Mrs. Sears complaining about how other homeschooled families didn't raise their kids exactly like she raised hers - so they needed to cut off the other families because Jesus.

The remainder of the chapter is a weird, semi-coherent slog through 1) why Jonathan and David's friendship was different from standard friendships and 2) how King Saul's disobedience to God's Commands to not take spoils in a war means that kids are required to obey their parents unquestioningly.    For anyone who has not read the book, my paraphrase is much more coherent than the actual chapter. 

  First, Mrs. Sears decides that it is time to take on the fact that the Bible has a perfectly good example of peer-to-peer friendship between Jonathan and David.  Now, there are other examples of plenty of people who hang out with non-immediate family members all the time - Ruth and Naomi, Mary and Elizabeth, Jesus and ALL of the disciples - but we ignore all of those.   Apparently, David and Jonathan made a covenant - which Mrs. Sears argues we are unable to understand or emulate today - so kids can't have friends. 

 Personally, I think that's crap.  Plenty of people have long-term friendships that involve sacrifices for the good of the relationship.  My best friend Jessica and I were best friends from 1st grade through when she was killed in a car accident at age 28.  Knowing that I could maintain a friendship for years through long-distance moves and major life changes made me felt much more comfortable about getting married - the only covenant Mrs. Sears views as valid now - because I knew I could work to keep a relationship going in difficult and easy times.

Mrs. Sears seems to be aware how shaky her argument is - so she dives right into explaining that Jonathan can make covenants because his relationship with his father.  She explains that Saul disobeyed the prophet Samuel's dictates of when to offer a sacrifice - and God was very, very angry.   

Duly noted.  Not sure what this has to do with Jonathan and David - but whatever.

Mrs. Sears then argues that Saul's disobedience to a prophet - in circumstances that actually made a lot of sense - is the same behavior as everyone who disagrees with her ever:

One aspect of peer dependency is the developmental behavior of having what I want, when I want it. This takes on many forms in Christian circles today. It is very common to see individuals define holiness or worship from their perspective, rather than coming to God by His standards. Rationalizing truth is a deadly trap, and to avoid it one needs discernment. Children have a great capacity to rationalize truth in order to get what they want, when they want it. It is a parent's responsibility to train their sons and daughters to obey. ( Ephesians 6: 1- 3) Remember that partial obedience is total disobedience, and good motives do not make disobedience right. (pgs. 49-50)

Does expecting your newly bought house to sell immediately when you place it on the market after your husband's tragic death count as "what I want when I want it"?  

How about moving from near family in Montana to Texas as a widow for no known reason? 

How about controlling your kids' lives to fit a predetermined mold so that people will 'see' that God takes care of widows and orphans exactly like Mrs. Sears wants people to see?

Guess that behavior isn't limited to wordly folks after all.  

If Mrs. Sears is a stickler on Biblical worship, she'd better be instructing her kids in playing flutes, harps, tambourines and drums so they can dance in front of the Ark of the Covenant.   The kids should be in 4H; raising animals correctly for sacrifices takes practice.     

That's not true worship?  The Bible says otherwise.

Children are solid at rationalizing the truth - but adults are better.  Why did Mrs. Sears pick Ephesians 6:1-3 instead of Deuteronomy 5:16?   Ephesians 6:1-3 enjoins children to obey their parents because the commandment to honor thy father and mother is the first commandment with a promise - but that comes as a Pauline pro-family addition.   Compare that with some choice views about family life from Jesus himself like Matthew 8:21-22 where Jesus tells a disciple to follow Jesus and leave the burial of his father to someone else.  Mark 3:31-34 has Jesus denying the power of his biological family to stop him preaching and claiming his followers as his real family.   Really, that's a section of the Gospels that catches short shrift from CP/QF followers since it undermines their entire rationale for child raising.

While we're talking about Jesus - he spent most of his ministry running around breaking the Sabbath.  Like all the time.   Oh, we dress it up by explaining that Jesus just couldn't let the person with a paralyzed arm suffer one more day - but does that make sense at all?  Most of the people who Jesus healed were not in immediate danger of dying.   They were suffering - but they had been suffering for YEARS at this point.  Twenty four hours more of paralysis or a damaged limb or a missing sense - that's child's play for these souls - and healing them on Sunday morning would have avoided the entire shit-fit the Pharisees threw afterwards!  Hell, the blind from birth guy got to listening to the disciples discuss whose sins caused his blindness prior to being healed on a Sabbath.  Super-awkward - but not nearly as awkward as the grilling of the guy and his parents about the entire episode that happened because - you guessed it! - Jesus decided to heal him on the Sabbath.   

Jesus's motive was to infuriate the Pharisees by thumbing his nose at their beliefs.  Is pissing off your enemies a good enough reason to disobey God's Laws?   After all, the Bible says "Yes!"

After that train of thought petered out, Mrs. Sears explains that Saul made a rash vow that none of Israel would eat during one day under pain of death - but forgot to tell Jonathan.  Jonathan eats some honey.   Families cast lots and Jonathan was picked by lot.  Jonathan 'fesses up.  Saul refuses to admit he was wrong - but Israel was so angry that they saved Jonathan!   

At the end of a pretty solid buildup, Mrs. Sears gives us this quote which causes me to laugh every time:

Oh, that fathers would understand the great position they have in the lives of their children. For Saul to commit himself to kill Jonathan for a prideful, selfish order must have greatly the damaged the relationship between father and son. (pg. 50)

*Snorts and wipes eyes again*

No, no.  Being offered up to God as a sacrifice for wrongdoing enhances relationships!  Just ask Abraham and Isaac!  They get along great - and their families are completely functional!  Multiple generations of completely mentally healthy non-psychopaths from that line, yup, yup.   

But seriously - Mrs. Sears had to do a number on 1 Samuel 14 to make Saul's stopped execution of Jonathan seem like a life-changing event for Jonathan.   

First, Jonathan didn't hear about Saul's vow - but he was extremely dismissive of Saul's vow for being stupid when he was told of it in 1 Samuel 14:28-30.   Dare I say that Jonathan was not honoring his father?   

Second, divination by lots was a big, important group activity of the Old Testament - and God Himself was pointing at Jonathan as the person who had incurred divine wrath by breaking a vow made by Israel.   Jonathan knew this - he's quite ready to die as a sacrifice for breaking the vow.   Mrs. Sears makes a song and dance about how Saul could have backed down by telling everyone that Saul made a stupid vow - but that's not how divine vows work in the Old Testament at all.   No, the only way out was by a sacrifice of some kind - and the people intervened to ransom Jonathan because the Lord clearly favored Jonathan because of a crazy incursion raid Jonathan made earlier in the day which caused a mass Phillistinian self-annihilation. 

Third - and last - the Israelites objected to Jonathan's death because of his victory earlier in the day.  How would they have responded if he had lost?  I doubt that Saul's vow would have been looked at as rash if the battle had been a rout - and Jonathan would have been sacrificed for being a father-hating vow breaker.

In any other book, this would be the place where the author explains how Jonathan's dysfunctional relationship with his father makes his relationship with David different.    Too bad Mrs. Sears skipped the wrap-up all together - because I have no bloody clue why being Saul's son makes Jonathan's friendship with David different.   

Next up: confusing King Saul's descent in to blasphemy with child rearing advice.

Babbling Botkin: "What If My Husband Dies?" - Part 5

 Hello, dear readers!

Fall is creeping into West Michigan.   Days are still warm, but the nights are getting a little chilly.  

I was unexpectedly busy this week because the paint department at the hardware retail store I work at decided to run the first paint sale since COVID-19 started.   The customers have been pretty good - but we are still getting slammed.  The staffing hours seem like our schedules were made when the store was assuming that the sale was canceled - but since the sale is on - we are just short on labor most of the time. 

Add in the fact that a simple majority of our staff is new to paint and that's lead to more work for the experienced members of the team like me.   I'm one of three people in the department who is licenced to run an electric ladder - think of a really small scissor lift - so I've been moving 100 or more gallons of paint from the overhead storage down to floor level each evening then stocking the shelves.   The nice bit is once I've put up gates I can work without wearing a mask.   The downside is that gallons of paint are shipped in four packs that weight around 40 pounds so I'm in anaerobic burn most of the time even without a mask.

On an unrelated note, my shoulders and upper arms are getting toned and I have no idea why.  :-P

We are 4.5 minutes into Geoffrey Botkin's YouTube video "What If My Husband Dies?" ,  So far, he was waxed poetic about the good old days when tons of people died young while being chary on sharing any practical advice for the mother of four boys whose husband has COPD in the middle of a respiratory virus pandemic.   At the end of the last post, he promised that if she writes after her husband dies, he'll give some targeted advice - but until then - he'll stick with broad musings.   Broad, marginally effective ramblings like these:

[00:04:28]   And here's what these are: number one is inheritance; number two is character; and number three is business.  And this I've talked about this with my boys.  I've got five sons, have two daughters, and we've talked about these things.  I'm relatively healthy and so is my wife. We're still around.  Our children are now grown, but it's been really good to talk about these things.  

 Pssst!  Pssst!  Earth to Botkin! Psst!

What you talk about with your male offspring right now is of no importance to this conversation.  Why?  Your sons are fully grown men.  The oldest son is around 40 and the youngest son is in his mid-twenties.  The oldest three sons are married fathers.   One son has managed to raise his family while working as a freelance composer - which means he has utilized his skills, hard work and connections to make a career in a very tight field.   The older unmarried son started a CNC weapon accessory business that seems to be keeping the other four brothers financially stable.   What you talk about with them today is moot; they are living the lives of financially independent adults.

I might be more interested in listening to what you told the boys when they were the same age or younger than the LW's sons - but we'll never know if that advice alone would have launched all of your sons' careers.   

No, the only bit that's marginally more useful would be a discussion of how Victoria along with Anna Sofia and Elizabeth will be able to support themselves if Geoffrey Botkin died today.   Victoria has at least 20 years of life ahead of her based on her age - and the two daughters have five decades of life to have financial plans for.  How will inheritance, character and business help them?  After all, their lives far more closely mimic the wife with four dependent children than the grown brothers's lives do.

[00:04:57] So, what inheritance?  You know when you think of the first one - inheritance - are your boys getting from their dad.  You know.  Maybe you are totally broke because of medical bills, right.  So it's a non-material inheritance but that is totally ok.  Wisdom from the past can be worth a whole lot more than currency and money and houses and lands etc.  Stories and lessons from a grandfather and a great-grandfather can be a vast form of wealth.  I mean, I hope you've been hanging on to some of these things these stories and this.  It's part of the inheritance, part of the legacy that you have.  And if you have a library, which you know makes use of it, talks about the great wisdom from the past stored in books, conversations with so many great men and written down; you can have it when you are in your house and that can be part of the legacy. 

Only someone who is completely divorced from financial want can blithely declare that stories about Great-great Grandpa have the same value as money, houses or lands.   You can use assets to provide food, shelter, clothing, heat, medical care and schooling for four sons.   Stories about their ancestors can certainly provide moral support during times of want - but most mothers would honestly prefer a healthy insurance payout or a house to sell when their children need support than a good story.

On a more philosophical level - why wait to share those stories until after the father dies?  Women tend to be given the job of keeping family stories alive - but the father presumably knows more about his ancestors than his wife has memorized during their time together.  

On a more practical level - the United States has a world-class library system.  Residents can sign up for a library card for free in the municipality in which they live and receive a treasure trove of supplies.  Libraries run free classes for babies through elders on every topic imaginable.  Patrons can borrow books from all over the state and country to read - or audiobooks to listen to.  Librarians become experts at knowing how to access a wide range of support systems within their local area.  The closest library to us provides free high(ish) speed internet access and computers to use in an area where many families lack internet access.  They also help people fill out various forms to access social services.   My previous library specialized in helping people find jobs and providing access to English language learning materials for adults.   

My two-cents to the LW is to start visiting her local library alone or with her kids in tow.  Libraries have been a cornerstone of lifelong learning for three generations in my family - actually, four if you count my son and niece - and giving your sons familiarity with public libraries is a useful long-term gift.  While there, tell the librarian that you are concerned that you might have to re-enter the workforce and could use some help with writing resumes.  Read the resources the librarian suggests and write a practice resume.  Your first draft will suck - but that's ok; everyone's first draft sucks.    Ask the librarian if they would be willing to read your resume and give you some pointers.  You might feel self-conscious about that - but librarians enjoy being able to help out patrons.   

Good luck - and as always - don't ask Geoffrey Botkin for advice.

Babbling Botkin: "What If My Husband Dies?" - Part Four

I'm in a busy time again here in Michigan.  After a cold, wet spring, we are having a wave of produce come in all at once.  That means I'm in the middle of harvesting or sourcing crops, processing crops and dehydrating them all at once.  Plus, Spawn's started preschool this week.   I've been sewing tiny little masks for the preschool - early elementary crowd for his school when I'm not processing corn, tomatoes or green peppers.

I won't belabor the point - but if all of the SAHDs who should have much better sewing skills than I do were spending their free time sewing masks for families who don't have spare cash right now, they could be making a real difference in their community.  

We are three and a half minutes into Geoffrey Botkin' YouTube video "What If My Husband Dies?"  So far, we've learned that Botkin is uncomfortable with talking about death in the present but waxes poetic about how many more people died in the good old days.    The next quote treats us to a reaffirmation of how awkward Botkin becomes when discussing a currently living wife to a man with COPD during a respiratory virus who is concerned with the future of her four sons if her husband dies:

[00:03:36] We just things have changed now and we don't have these realistic discussions of the shortness and the brevity of life.   you know it's uh.....  What does the Bible call the (stutter) the silver thread can be broken.  The fleeting nature of life (laughs).  It really is fleeting for anybody.  Even in a modern day when our life expectancy is going from 70 to 75 to 80 to and beyond.  We still need to think about these things and talk about these things and so if you can do this it can make any horrible transition in life like widowhood a lot more manageable if it happens to you

 For anyone who has forgotten, the realistic discussions that Botkin misses consisted of taking children through cemeteries while pointing out graves that were the same age as the kid to make death terrifying and real.   Added bonus if you could share stories of mothers who died in childbirth or dads killed by festering wounds.

Botkin flubbed a Bible verse - which threw me a lot.  From a public speaking perspective, Botkin should know  to practice a direct quote until he can recite it smoothly or insert a paraphrase rather than stumbling around through a verse.  From a public relations perspective, isn't smoothly memorized Bible verses a major selling point of primitivist Bible believers?   

The verse Botkin was trying to bring up was Ecclesiastes 12:6-7   "Or ever the silver cord be loosened, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain or the wheel be broken at the cistern. / Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."   

Or - as Catholics recognize a close paraphrase - "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust".   That's probably forbidden to a good Calvinist like Botkin, though.....

Fun fact: one of the main drivers of life expectancy increasing longer and longer is that so many fewer children die in infancy and early childhood.   I doubt Botkin recognizes the irony that the same medical advances that made it possible for him to be vital enough in his sixties to expect 10-20 more years of life are the same advances that reduced the number of children and young people who die.

Personally, I get irritated by people who catastrophize about my life.  Since Spawn was born, people occasionally respond to a discussion of his life history with "Oh, I couldn't deal with that!"  My completely straight-faced response is "Well, I suppose you could have given your kid up for adoption instead...." which shocks them.  The person is shocked by my reply because their initial response of being incapable is a form of superstition where the person hopes to avoid a bad outcome - not a well-thought out response.   

Botkin's throw-away description of a "horrible" transition to widowhood has the same feel to me.  All marriages end by divorce or death.  Because women tend to outlive men nowadays, many women have survived the death of their husband.   The painful part is the death of a loved one; surviving without that loved one is outcome of the painful event - not a separate horror.

I do wonder, though, if Botkin fears being a widower.   Victoria Botkin strikes me as a woman who would grieve the loss of her husband - and then continue on in her role as a homeschooling voice, conference presenter and grandmother smoothly enough.  Geoffrey Botkin, on the other hand, needs an audience - and his receptive family size is shrinking.  His sons have started their own lives through marriage or running a business.  This change means Geoffrey is revered - but not all-powerful anymore.   Botkin would still have his two daughters to listen to him - but as we've seen with Sarah and Grace Mally - a late marriage may well remove those audience members, too.  

Botkin's "horrible transition" speaks more to his fears than anything else.

Here's my new Botkin catchphrase:

[00:04:17]If you do lose your husband, go ahead and write to me for more specific advice and ideas, but for now let me give you three general concepts that will help you if you become a single mom with four boys.

Wow.




He really said that.   

Look, if the letter writer's (LW) husband dies, she's got a huge pile of urgent responsibilities.  
She has to tell her four sons that their father died.   She's got a visitation,  funeral, and internment to plan.  There are relatives to inform and issues of transportation to smooth.   There are grieving children to care for.   There are scads of financial entities who need to be notified of her husband's death.  The family still needs food, shelter, clothing and schooling.  The family needs money.   

She's got a massive heap of responsibilities to take care of - and she's grieving the loss of her husband which saps every bit of energy she has at the same time.  

You know what she doesn't have time for?

Writing Geoffrey Botkin for a follow-up list of ideas.    

In fact, only a complete idiot would think that a widowed mother of four would have time to email a random stranger who couldn't be bothered to send detailed plans prior to her husband's death for plans once he was dead.  

Dingbat.   

Babbling Botkin: "What If My Husband Dies?" - Part Three

I'm enjoying the last week or so of summer vacation with my son.   He's grown so much over the last year that I honestly can't believe it.   

For one small example, our house and land is carved off of a larger dairy farm operated by my in-laws.  Because of the location of our well, the fuel depots for the farm are all located on the farm behind us rather than the main well.  We live on a clay hill with a 'deep' well which means a fuel spill would take much longer to contaminate groundwater than it would on the main farm which is sandy and has a shallow well.  What this means for my small son is that we have an ever-changing and fairly random assortment of farm vehicles that drive by our house and park at the fuel cell.   

Spawn LOVES looking at vehicles up close - but the distance is around 1.5 city blocks from our house.  When we got home from PT, his legs were exhausted; his legs would shake when he walked.  He really, really, really wanted to see the small combine that was gassing up - so I put him on my shoulders and walked with him hanging onto my head.  

That's a small thing - but it's huge.  When he started PT 2 years ago at 18 months, his muscle tone was floppy enough that I couldn't carry him on my hip easily because he couldn't keep his head and chest up without my arm locked across the middle of his back.  I essentially carried him like a sack of potatoes or a paper bag of groceries with his legs dangling free.  This bothered Spawn none at all - but it was rough on my back.    Last year, I could carry him on my hip with my arm slung across his hips - which was so much easier - but to have him on my shoulders, I had to give him support by locking my hands behind this back to form a seat back for him to lean on which was rough on my shoulders.   Now, he can essentially ride piggyback  with me occasionally steading him by having him grip my hands as I held them up above my temples when we were moving over unsteady ground. 

And - because good things happen to little boys and their mamas sometimes - we also saw the gasoline truck come to refill the diesel AND a small haybine working in a nearby field!   

Now, I'm taking a few minutes while someone eats lunch to punch out another set of awesome Botkin quotes from "What If My Husband Dies" on Geoffrey Botkin's YouTube Channel titled "Stand Up And Lead":

[00:02:17] So.  Alright.  Let's talk about three practical things to be thinking about and talking about with your husband and even with your boys together.  I mean, this is, you know, COPD is a very serious thing.  I mean, you know, any chronic illness that could lead to death is something that should be talked about in the family.  It shouldn't be just brushed under the rug.  It should be brought out into the open and talked about in the future. 

We're a few minutes out from when Geoffrey Botkin brings up the three practical things and I feel like this section was a poorly thought-out ad-lib.     He has far more filler phrases than he's had in a few minutes - and I don't know if that's because he's uncertain of the value of his advice or he's flying by the seat of his pants.

Either way, I'm struck by the complete and total lack of practical advice for introducing the concept of death to four boys whose ages we do not know.   Botkin, after all, is the father of seven adult children so he must have done this at some point with his kids.  Right?  His adult kids know death exists.....right?  Presumably so.

Introducing death to little kids is....fraught.  My son got a crash course in death this summer.  My husband's grandfather died a few days before my parents' dog died.  Spawn didn't know Opa at all - but he saw a lot of adults in his life were sad.   Spawn was very aware of Maggie Dog - and hated her and her barking ways.   I quickly read some best-practices for introducing little kids to death and came up with a standard spiel that Maggie died.  When someone dies, their body stops working and we put their body in a cemetery.  We won't see Maggie anymore.   

That was the easy part.  Now, we are figuring out what that means.  It doesn't mean she's on a long car ride.   Or at work.  So far, no games that Spawn has started have involved dead animals - but that may come next.   

I think there could be some use of discussing Dad's COPD if it makes him visibly sick in some ways - but jumping to "Dad's COPD is gonna kill him!  Death is real and coming for Dad!" is too much unless his COPD is very advanced.  If the family is entirely of preschool kids, maybe wait until they are old enough to understand time because none of this will make sense to them.   

On the flip side, a preteen or teen can probably understand COPD when it is explained to them.  If the COPD is limiting his activities, it is past time to discuss what is going on.    In terms of death, I'd be honest about what the doctors know - and don't know - about the husband's life expectancy.

Notice how much Botkin's fluency improves in the next section where he spins his version of history:

[00:02:44]  I mean, families you know so used were so used to doing this because life used to be really short and you could be cut down by almost anything any given week or month.   You you go to church and a typical church was surrounded by a church yard that had gravestones in it and the family is going to church passing through these gravestones. Seeing the dates on them seeing the many different little children would die at age 1, age 2, age 3, age 5 age 10. And young mothers would die in childbirth.  Fathers would die young.  You know, chopping an axe if you if it slipped and you cut your cut yourself on the shin and you got an infection.  And there were no antibiotics in those days.  Yeah, you could be gone in three or four days.  And so, you know people understood that life was short back then.

Botkin is really into harkening back to the historical glory days of the past when the Puritans ran everything the right way.   

When he brings those days up, remember that those days also came with heartbreaking death rates.

Those good old days when a man who was 80 might be married to the wife of his youth - or he might be married to his third wife after his first two wives died.   My maternal great-great-grandmother married in her late 20's to a much older man whose first two wives had died.   He died while she was still raising their children (with the help of her step-daughters who were the same age as she was) - and then she raised five grandchildren after one of her daughters died during the Great Depression on a failing farm.   Thank God for those step-daughters; they worked in Chicago and brought home produce, meat and clothing for their step-nieces and nephews.   

The fact that women died in such high numbers because of the dangers of pregnancy, childbirth, epidemic diseases, and accidents is part of why relatively few daughters were lifelong stay-at-home daughters.   The deaths of married women caused a much larger pool of widowers to be available to single women who were past ideal first marriage age than exists now.   

The ironic bit is that Botkin ignores how amazingly oblivious humans can be to obvious things.  I've met plenty of people who grew up on farms and saw animals mating - but were absolutely horrified when they learned that humans have sex too.   The dangers of drinking and driving or texting and driving are not a secret - but every year people choose to drink or text and drive and die - or kill an innocent victim.   Riding a motorcycle without a helmet is a great way to get a fatal head injury - but various groups worked to overturn a law that required everyone riding a motorcycle to wear a helmet.

The reason is simple: humans compartmentalize.  Bad things happen - but not to me.   This is not a new trend - there are plenty of sermons reaching back to Puritan times of pastors telling their congregation to go look at the graves in the churchyard because any congregant could be next.   That sermon only makes sense if the pastor thinks that many - or most - of the congregation is ignoring the specter of imminent death.  

Fortunately, far fewer people die in midlife.  Ironically, this makes the letter-writer's life a lot harder.  In the good old days, she would look around at the older bachelors* or widowed men and take note at who was looking back at her.   Because of the impossibility of doing domestic chores while earning wages, a healthy widow with a solid track record of pregnancy would be remarried within a year.   With luck, she'd be married to a good man who would raise his stepsons well.  If not, hopefully there is some extended family that could raise the boys to keep them out of harm's way.

None of this helps the letter writer, though.   Too bad Botkin doesn't seem to notice.

*I first read Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" when I was in college and was twenty-something.  Last year, I watched the movie version with a high school class as a sub.  When I was a youngster, I was disgusted that Janie's grandmother arranged a marriage between teenage Janie and an elderly church member who owned 40 acres of land.   As an adult woman, I watched the teenagers express the same disgust - and told them that I'd arrange the same marriage because I'd be leaving my granddaughter with a roof over her head, food in the pantry, a good-enough position in society, and financial freedom once her husband died.  I left out the fact that I'd also be hoping that the husband's age would keep Janie from an endless cycle of pregnancies and births in her late teens and twenties - but still leave her a young enough widow to have a few kids with a husband of her own choosing.   I'm not much of a romantic, I guess.....