The Battle of Peer Dependency: Chapter Three - Part One

In working on a post on Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" a few days ago, I recognized that CP/QF life advice for young women is "Be someone else!".  Young women are supposed to mold themselves to be the perfect wife for a future husband.  Because they are so young and so inexperienced, those young women don't recognize the impossibility of preparing to be a perfect wife for a man who doesn't exist yet.   I also doubt those young women can conceptualize that the process of finding a spouse and settling into married life changes both parties.   That's looking at the short-term; trying to become the woman your future husband needs 30 years down the road rapidly descends into chaos.

Now, at least young Jasmine was keeping her audience somewhat confined by focusing on the needs of a future husband with glancing references to the completely imaginary children of that marriage.  Marina Sears joins Geoffrey Botkin and Steven Maxwell in thinking far more radically about what one human being can plan.    Why limit control to conforming yourself to a future husband when you can control your children forever?

This quote from Chapter Three of "The Battle of Peer Dependence" clarifies the goal of parents - and the bolded section is from the original:

As the years have passed, I know why many parents are broken-hearted after giving their lives to see their children to follow the Lord. These young people have grown into adults grieving in spirit for their failures and living with the consequences of poor choices they made as teenagers. Sadly, they grow up, marry, and have children of their own, still locked in peer dependency. Many are not understanding that they have a greater desire to please others or to be like others, then the individual God has created them to be. It is tragic that young people do not understand that their identities must come from God, his word, and their families, instead of their peers. (pg. 29)

In the United States and most of Europe from the Middle Ages onward, a nuclear family created at marriage gained the largest degree of freedom that any person received during their lifetime.    That nuclear family was deeply interconnected with obligations to their parents, their siblings, their neighbors and the larger society - but each nuclear family unit was allowed to make decisions.  Because of this, men and women both received greater levels of freedom upon marriage.  Men's freedom came from becoming the head of the household.  Women's freedom came from being the right-hand of the head of the household.

That is not the only family system, however. 

A different system that was prevalent in Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and many civilizations in Asia places the responsibility for all family decision making on the eldest male in the family.   In this system, all males, their wives and their unmarried children are under the authority of that eldest male - whom I am going to refer as the paterfamilias from the Latin term - until he dies.   At his death, the power passes to the next eldest male.  In this system, marriage does nothing in terms of raising the amount of freedom for young men or women.  In fact, marriage timing and partner was generally decided by the paterfamilias based on the needs of the larger family.   Let's say that the family would benefit from a connection to the Smiths.  The paterfamilias for the two families meet and decide that the younger daughter from Family A should marry the Smith's middle son.    Neither of the people involved in the wedding are consulted for trivialities about personal preferences because neither of the people have any level of freedom over marriage choices.

Marina Sears works under the assumption that God expects children to remain under the parents' authority forever.   Now, Mrs. Sears - and Geoffrey Botkin and Steven Maxwell who espouse similar beliefs - would never be so crass as to declare themselves the paterfamilias of their children and grandchildren.   That would be too obvious of a power-play in the United States where people expect grown adults to show certain levels of independence from their parents.  Instead, the paterfamilias wannabes support keeping children and teenagers isolated from pretty much everyone outside the immediate family so that the family members never see any other options for living during their formative years.   By the time the now-adult kids are looking to marry, the kids should have internalized the family culture perfectly and live exactly like their parents want them to live.

Does it work?   Well, I have no idea how well Marina Sears kept her kids under her control as they got older - but the outcome has been decidedly mixed for the Botkin and Maxwell clans. 

The Botkin clan married off the three oldest sons who have had a few kids each - but the Botkin daughters are well beyond the expected age of marriage for CP/QF girls and the two youngest sons are unmarried in their late 20's.   The middle son Benjamin seems to be supporting himself by composing music; the remainder of the family works for Lucas' T.Rex Arms business of producing specialized weapon accessories by CNC machine.   That sounds nice enough - but nine grandkids from three sons is hardly the massive brood of Botkin grandchildren Geoffrey envisioned in his 200-year plan.

The Maxwells have certainly succeeded in that they've managed to land all four married sons in homes within 0.7 miles of  Steve and Terri's home and have so far produced 17 grandchildren with one more to be born next summer.  On the flip side, the families of Nathan, Joseph and John Maxwell seem to be much more relaxed in clothing styles than Steve and Terri were at the same age.  (Meanwhile, Christopher Maxwell's family is now more conservative in clothing than the remaining unmarried Maxwell kids.)  Similarly, Joseph and John Maxwell's families appear on the blog much less frequently than the other two married brothers and the unmarried sisters.  Those two brothers might simply want less internet exposure for their children - or they might have carved out slightly more space for their families from the clan.

"The Battle of Peer Dependency" is cult-speak for "No one can question the will of the parents".

That's going to make for some fun reading, I'm sure.

*Speaking of the Maxwell Family,  Anna Maxwell - wife of Christopher Maxwell - could use some thoughts and prayers right now.  She developed a breast lump during her most recent pregnancy that was managed with imaging until the lump grew rapidly in her third trimester.  There is a very high likelihood that the lump is cancer based on the imaging done when it began to grow.   She was induced at late 36 weeks or early 37 weeks of the pregnancy and delivered a healthy baby boy.   They've got six kids under the age of 8 and she's facing some combination of surgery, chemo and/or radiation.  Our lives are very different - but no one ever should have to face cancer - let alone while having large, young family to care for at the same time.*