Babbling Botkin: "What if My Husband Dies" - Part Fifteen

Hello!

I'm sorry I disappeared for a week and a half.   I had an unexpected outbreak of atopic dermatitis and needed to go on prednisone.   Normally, prednisone doesn't bother me much - but I was nauseous, jumpy and an insomniac this time through.     I mostly feel like myself again finally.

During the same time, Spawn's had another big jump forward in his confidence in walking by himself.   Like a lot of kids, he doesn't like to try a skill in a new place or in front of people until he's comfortable - and he's started walking short distances in new places.   At the local restaurant he waved my hands away when I reached out with the statement "Leave it alone.  Maybe do it later!" as he started walking towards the exit.   The regulars were so excited for him - and so was I.  

Thankfully, we are close to the end of Geoffrey Botkin's video titled "What if My Husband Dies?"   He's spent a lot of time rambling about how important he thinks a family-based business is and how important it is for a father to plan out exactly how he wants the kids raised - but none of that's particularly useful for keeping a roof over the heads of a family if the business is not profitable.

He's just finished encouraging women to figure out how much more money they could make in a family business rather than in low-wage jobs - of which I am skeptical - when he launches into this major subject change without any transition:

[00:15:02]  Part of life is protecting life the best you can and sometimes.....sometimes men....sometimes men are required to go off to war to protect homes and families and nations.   During those time periods, everyone knows they can die and maybe never come back.  And small boys know this.  It's a reality that they face, they talk about, they kiss their daddies goodbye at the train station when their dads are going off to war.  They know about this.  There's no reason why young boys shouldn't know about this kind of probability right now and talk about it.

Wait - are we talking about family businesses, foreign wars, or risks of death during a pandemic?   

I'm assuming this is an attempt to bring back the idea of the letter writer and her husband talking to their sons about their father's COPD and the increased risk level he has if he gets COVID - but what a strange way to re-introduce the topic.   CP/QF families are so staunchly individualistic that they don't join organizations where someone else would be able to give them commands like the military or a police department which makes Botkin's willingness to trot out military families ironic.

I think being open with the boys as far as their age allows about their father's higher risk of death due to COVID is a good idea.   I would also talk about what the entire family is going to do to help keep Dad safer like wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands.

I think it would also be a good idea for the sons to be aware of how much their life will likely change if their dad dies as well.  I don't see a way for a family with many small children with presumably limited assets to have a mother who is a full-time stay-at-home mom who homeschools especially once the youngest child is old enough for full-time public schooling.

[00:15:40]   I mean , these are the truths and realities of real life.  Life is short.  Life is fleeting.  We may not be around tomorrow.   If, if, if Dad's gone tomorrow, what would life look like?  Boys, would you be able to take care of your mom? Would you know what to do to take care of your mother.?"

Throughout this video, I've often felt enraged on behalf of Victoria Botkin. 

Like a lot of CP/QF moms, she's done the heavy work in her family for decades. 

She's given birth to seven children.  When she was hemorrhaging after having a home birth with Anna Sofia,  Geoffrey's response was to pray over the ovaries of her newborn daughter.   Geoffrey's told that story so many times publicly that  it's the opening vignette of Joyce's book on Quiverfull.   

She homeschooled her large family while Geoffrey was busy playing religious leader, lobbyist, media mogul, religious leader and pretend advisor to the president.   She's created plenty of media about homeschooling and worked the homeschooling conference circuit for decades.   I'm sure the income that she's brought in has equaled or exceeded the amount that Geoffrey brought in in certain years.    

And yet, when a question comes in about how a woman could support a smaller family after her husband's death,  Geoffrey never bothers to loop his wife in.   

Would Victoria Botkin be devastated if her husband died?  Of course she would.   

Would she have been able to take care of her family?   I believe she would.   She was already pulling more than her fair share of the responsibilities in the family between child-rearing, homeschooling, keeping up a home and running a small business while  Geoffrey dabbled in whatever new brilliant plan this year brought.

Would she need her sons' help?   I think that depends entirely on how many small children were in the house more than anything else.    Her oldest sons' ability to work part-time jobs as teenagers would have been a large help when there were still elementary school aged kids to be supported.    In one of those ironies that point out the flaws in the idea of "every man should own his own business" the son whose business is supporting most of his family members is the second youngest kid in the family.   To my way of thinking, that would mean that most of the family would have needed to get jobs as teenagers to help keep enough income coming into the family.    Geoffrey Botkin would be horrified at the idea of his precious, super-sheltered children mixing with the common riff-raff - but the kids would have likely benefited from that exposure.   

If nothing else, the Botkin offspring would have picked up that the family's habits of photographing the unmarried daughters and sons cuddled up together accidently sends a message in the US that those people are a romantic couple rather than available adults to be courted.    Different families are comfortable with different forms of affection - and that's great - but the conventions of formal family photographs in the US are that single adults stand without anyone's arms wrapped around them.  Married and committed couples stand together and are usually either turned towards each other or have some visible contact.    When Anna Sofia and Elizabeth sent an overwrought letter to Cindy K. years ago bemoaning how many romantic relationships never happened in their family due to her blog, I remember thinking that the family had probably had more damage done from friends of friends seeing the family Christmas picture and thinking "Oh, how nice that all of the Botkin kids are married now!" instead of "Huh, that cute Botkin girl or boy is still single.  I should mention that to so-and-so."

Such is life - and I've digressed a bit.

We are almost at the end of this series and I've not heard from the one person who could probably give actual advice - Victoria Botkin.

Maybe ask her for advice next time?