Thursday, February 13, 2020

Joyfully At Home: Chapter 12 - Part One

There's been a rough cold going around West Michigan.  I was hoping against hope we could miss it if we all washed our hands enough - and ignore the fact that my husband and I work around large numbers of people and have a preschooler.

We got the plague last week.

Everyone has survived - although one more day with a crabby preschooler may have changed that.

The little guy may have gotten Fifth Disease...or rubeola...or maybe the cold caused him to develop the viral rash colloquially known as "Slapped Cheek Rash".  He looked a bit like a garden gnome.    I took him to the doctor when the nurse line* let us know that we needed to bring him in since he had a rash.  Turns out the receptionist forgot to hit the "Patient Ready" button and we ended up in the waiting room for an hour.   The Garden Gnome Preschool Edition was good company, though, and we met a very nice resident who managed to examine the Garden Gnome without too much fuss.

That was my first experience with viral rashes.  I found myself wondering idly if Jasmine Baucham, Jana Duggar or any of the SAHDs who raised multiple younger siblings had more experience with childhood rashes - and how depressing if the answer was yes.

We're into Chapter 12 of Jasmine Baucham's "Joyfully At Home" titled "Why Do You Live At Home?"  Essentially, Jasmine attempts to walk other SAHDs through an apologetics course to teach them how to answer crazy questions like "Wait....you are doing what?" and "Shouldn't you attempt to get some career training?"    The issue is that 19-year old Jasmine is really sheltered from the harsh realities of adult life - like the fact that some men leave their wives and children - and so her answers manage to be both idealistic and fantastic at the same time.

Here's a great quote demonstrating how strangely sheltered she is:
One hand, a blog is a public forum-- those who write do so at their own risk. However, it never ceases to amaze me how people who are diametrically opposed to my lifestyle curiously peruse what I write. I always liken it to a young conservative evangelical like myself religiously reading the blog of a left-wing homosexual college student. Frankly, that's just not something I would ever do. My curiosity has its limits. (pg. 137)

Well, the interest in her blog isn't based on the fact she's an evangelical SAHD; it's because she's the daughter of Voddie Baucham and received a lot of publicity thanks to Vision Forum and her father's self-promotion.    Believe me, there are plenty of SAHD blogs that probably get a few hundred views a year - so SAHDs don't need to worry about being flamed by liberal visitors because most will never have a visitor comment.

Or the girls can pull a Maxwell and close down all comments on posts with material more controversial than "Here are photos of kids!"

I am curious, though; where is the line where a blog becomes off-limits for Jasmine?  Is it based on political views, religious views or sexual orientation?  Would a right-wing heterosexual LDS BYU college student blog be too scary?  How about a right-wing evangelical college student who is homosexual? What about a left-wing evangelical heterosexual who lives at home right now?

I find the flip comment about limiting curiosity weirdly unattractive.  I can wrap my head around not reading blog that are of a different viewpoint because of personal comfort.  But claiming that she's literally not curious - not even a little bit - makes her sound either dull or boring.

This next quote is out of the mouth of a thirteen year old visitor when she found out about Ms. Baucham's current life as a SAHD.
" Wow. I didn't know some 20 year olds weren't out on their own making something of themselves and going to college-- you're just living at home!"

I didn't flinch, although I might have three years ago. I'm used to that reaction. (pg. 139)
Honestly - the kid's not wrong.

The average SAHD is living like a young teenager until she gets married. 

Let's look at Anna and Mary Maxwell.  Anna works part-time as a customer service representative for her brother; I worked as a grocery store clerk starting at age 16.  Anna and Mary run a Bible club for kids at a local apartment complex; I ran CCD classes at my church starting when I was 16.  They babysit for their expanding set of nieces and nephews who live on the same block; I was babysitting local kids starting when I was 14.  Anna wrote a weirdly passive-aggressive post about how more people should use Google than ask the Maxwells questions about computers or for recipes.  That level of self-important obliviousness is classically found in young teens who don't recognize that employers give them trivial jobs to do because the teens are unready to do anything else.  Mary wrote a post about how to start lettering that has a disorganized first paragraph followed by "Practice a lot?" without any useful examples.  That post gives me flashbacks to reading high school rough drafts - and not the rough drafts from successful students.

Here's the problem - and the overarching theme for my response to the next two chapters.  Living at home isn't a problem; refusing to gain any marketable skills and employment references is. 

Imagine that something happened that required the Maxwell girls to start careers right now.  They have NO non-family references.  They have no post-secondary education or vocational training.  Anna's work for Nathan is a starting point - but only if she can hide the Maxwellian disdain for anyone who has the audacity to use the customer service provided as a term of being a client of Nathans.  Sarah and Mary....I've got nothing.   

If I pushed, I could probably get them retail or fast-food jobs - but only because the unemployment in my neck of the woods is at historically low levels and employers are struggling to fill positions.   When unemployment increases, the Maxwell girls would rapidly be blocked out of those positions by people with references and previous job experiences who are applying for the same jobs.

Looping back to Jasmine, she spends this chapter and most of the next chapter dancing around one major difference; she's attending college online while at home.   Entirely online college degrees are not something I recommend for a variety of reasons - but Jasmine has managed to get and keep teaching positions in home-school extension groups using that degree.   Why is she dancing around that?  Well, a truly good SAHD must be childlike - and children don't take steps to become financially independent.

Thank God Jasmine's family didn't live by the ideals in her book - and I'm terribly sorry for the daughters whose families did.

*Seriously, I called because my kid had a rash - but was hoping that if I described it as superficial, non-blistering, lacy and not petechial I could get a "keep on giving him Tylenol, Motrin and fluids until he's fine".   Dragging a three-year old into a medical setting in the middle of flu season was NOT my idea of a good time.

6 comments:

  1. I bet for most early teens staying at home doing nothing once they are adults is unthinkable. It's not normal to want that. If my teen wanted to stay and not get a job or go to college or something I'd seriously suspect depression or anxiety.

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    1. I had pretty bad anxiety while I was a teenager. I still figured I was going to college - but the thought of moving away to attend college scared me.

      I've known a few other young teens who really didn't seem to care what they did as they got older - but, yeah, that tends to take care of itself once they get interested in independence.

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  2. Yeah the whole "I'm too awesome to be curious about your life" thing is very off-putting. So.... you're not empathetic or a learner or interested in other people's lives? Way to make us not like you.

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    1. I agree. Yeah, I occasionally run into bloggers I find dull or repetitive - but most of the time I find at least one post that speaks to me or shows me how they live even if it's very, very different from my way of living.

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  3. PS about the Maxwells' posts:
    I'm not sure I understand why anyone would think to ask them about blocking pop-ups. Do they position themselves as IT experts or something? I just wouldn't think to ask that of some christian ministry family. And... yes, it's a mean and condescending post.
    Secondly, the post about lettering... see, it's stuff like this. Only a family that has a loyal following and lives in a bubble could post things like this and have it read. Mary has some nice fonts she's created, but if she took even one graphic design course she could learn about spacing and proportion and sizing and what makes something pleasing to the eye.
    We all have things we like to mess around with for fun, but that doesn't mean we need to blog about it as if people need to follow our example.

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    1. There's some background with the IT thing. Nathan specializes in computer security. He's got some actual skills in the area thanks to working for a real for-profit company not run by a Maxwell back in the early 2000's if I remember correctly. It was one of those kind-of flukey things where he timed his entry perfectly because the field was young enough that he didn't need a computer science degree or outside IT experience - but that door locked down pretty quickly.

      Anyways, he eventually rolled out his own computer company that was based on the weird beginnings of Steven Maxwell's printed forms company. One of the benefits of using his company is free customer support - and the person you get on the phone (at least some of the time) is "Why didn't you Google it, freak?" Anna Maxwell.

      With Mary's post, I was more amazed at her total lack of ability to do task analysis for writing the post. I have a huge bias because I'm a teacher, but if you are going to wade into trying to write posts about arts, crafts, or any skill, you really need to think out a step-by-step way for a new person to finish a basic project.

      I like quilting. If I wanted to write a post on how to quilt, I'd include a very basic, easy starter project for someone who is interested - but has little to no previous experience in quilting and presumably no equipment more specialized than a needle, thread, fabric and a pair of scissors. From that, I could make a fairly quick project like a 9-patch pot holder. To do that, though, requires looking at a task from another person's point of view - and that's an area that the Maxwells struggle with severely....mainly because most of them are kept under minimal socialization outside of their family during childhood and adolescence.

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