Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter One - Part Four

We've had a wild and crazy week here in Kidlet land.  The Spawn has started weekly outpatient PT to help him learn to walk.  Spawn has unusually flexible hips and has used that super power to learn how to sit and crawl using minimal abdominal muscle support.  It's a good trick for army-crawling, but a weak abdomen is keeping him from learning how to pull himself up into standing and remain standing.  So...we're learning how to use bicycle shorts with the inner leg seams sewn together to make it nearly impossible for him flex his hips into a large support base for three 20 minute sessions a day to let him start getting ripped toddler abs. 

Spawn's pretty accepting of the modified bike shorts - also known as Hip Helpers - and absolutely diametrically opposed to the existence of the PT gym  up to and including Dr. Robin who is his current PT.   While Spawn vocally disagrees with me, Dr. Robin is awesome and so good with Spawn.  Having a toddler who screams and cries for 20 minutes out of an hour session (albeit in discrete burst of baby anxiety or rage) is emotionally exhausting for me.  The physical exhaustion comes having a 21 pound tot clinging or wrestling with me for 60 minutes plus carrying him to and from the car.  (Spawn's also in the middle of a stroller strike that causes him to scream or cry when placed in his stroller.)

At the same time, I'm gearing up to begin subbing a few days a week while Spawn is with his doting grandparents.  I love the idea of being in a classroom again - but those whom the gods wish to destroy are first sent to get a substitute teaching licence in Michigan.   I feel like I've jumped through nearly as many hoops to get a substitute licence as I did to get an unlimited teacher's licence way back when during a time where Michigan is frantic because of a lack of full-time teachers to fill classrooms now that school is starting.

So that's the lowdown on why my posting schedule is all over the place again.  The good news is that I have one last dialogue in the first chapter of "Making Great Conversationalists" by Steven and Teri Maxwell.  In a change of pace, both dialogues sound plausible in this example.  The reason for this influx of reality, I suspect, is the fact that the Maxwells have actually been in this situation AND are freed from their previous obsession with how their children's conversation reflects on their parenting.   Today, we listen in on a fairly newlywed couple - April and Ryan - who have a eight month old son named Joseph.  April is a stay-at-home mom and Ryan has just come home from his office job.

At six-thirty, April hears the garage door go up, announcing Ryan's return home from work. She picks up Joseph and hurries down the stairs to greet him. " Ryan, I hope dinner isn't spoiled since you had to work late. It's your favorite - chicken enchiladas. I sure wish you could have come home on time. It's been a long day. Joseph has been extra fussy today, and he only took two half hour naps all day! Because it was rainy, we couldn't even go for our morning walk. The day seems so long, and now I have a terrible headache. I sure hope you are planning to spend some time with us tonight."

Ryan is checking his emails and text messages as he emerges from the car. " Sorry, April."

"Joseph wouldn't eat his sweet potatoes. He kept spitting them out. Then he took his cup and threw it on the floor every time I put it back on his high chair tray. I think something is wrong with the washing machine. It is making a funny noise that I haven't heard before. I tried to write a check for the electric bill, but I couldn't find the checkbook. Do you know where it is?"

" No." Ryan hugs the two of them while reading his phone over their shoulders. " I really want to get changed. Why don't you put Joseph in his pack-and-play while you get dinner finished up?"

So many stay-at-home mommies with little children are starved for adult conversation when their husband returns home from work. Like many of them, April blast Ryan with all the problems of the day, while he remains engaged in his work issues either mentally or through his phone. They are not building the kind of relationship that they would like to have: a relationship that is developed through good conversation. (pg.16-17)

As a stay-at-home mom to a toddler, I have far more sympathy for April than I do for Ryan in this situation.  At the end of exasperating days, I've referred to my son as a nonverbal capricious tyrant with inscrutable whims.  Being stuck at home with a crabby baby who refuses to nap and is creating a mess every time they are fed is exhausting and monotonous.  Adding in the fact that a critical piece of equipment for household function is making weird noises makes the day longer from background worry - and that's not taking into account the frustration of a missing checkbook.   I also understand the habit of sharing important pieces of info - like "the washing machine might be on the verge of breaking" - pretty quickly after my husband comes home.  I do that because I may not remember if I put it off any longer and my husband gets that.

April does do three things that I find off-putting.  Chicken enchiladas keep well in a warm oven; it's not like she's serving a Yorkshire pudding or a chocolate souffle that will be kinda off if it gets cold.  The only issue I can see with enchiladas is that the bits of tortilla that aren't covered in sauce could dry out a bit in a warm oven over time.  Thankfully, the magic of aluminum foil can prevent the really minor inconvenience of overly dry tortilla bits.   That's the only issue I can think of - and it is not worth passive-aggressively complaining to her husband about. 

Similarly, the complete lack of a backstory makes April's comment that she hopes Ryan will spend time with April and Joseph tonight seem passive-aggressive or needy.   If Ryan does extra work at home or tends to veg out, some description of his previous actions would ground the story more. 

Finally, did April and Ryan adopt Joseph last week?  April's concerns about Joseph's eating habits are really strange for the mother of an infant that age.  Eight-month old babies reject foods all the time.  Hell, my son would scarf a puree one day and behave like it was poison the next.    He'd only eat purees some days if I let him hold the spoon the entire time.  I tried letting him hold two empty spoons - one for each hand.  No dice; he wanted to have some control over utensils going near his mouth.  (Can't blame him for that, really.)   Likewise, an eight month old will treat any object they can reach in a high chair as a potential projectile.  Even at 17 months, my son is equally likely to toss a sippy cup onto the floor as he is to drink from it.   Eight months also feels really young for a kid to handle a cup; my son's OT/Speech therapist was happily surprised when I told her that Spawn was starting to drink slightly thickened liquids from a cup I held and guided at ten months adjusted age.  The Spawn really only got good at drinking straight liquids from a sippy cup at around 15 months of age - so April might be worried over a milestone Joseph is several months away from being ready for.

April's got her quirks - but I'm hard-pressed to find anything likeable about Ryan.  He can't detach from his phone for thirty seconds to greet his wife and child?  He literally cannot complete a hug without reading from his phone.  Does Ryan multitask having sex with his wife while reading his emails?  (I don't really want to know the answer to that.) Why can't he say "April, I'm sorry, but I've got to wrap one business thing up before being done for the night." ?  April may still be tired and wound up - but at least Ryan would be respectful of her attempts to communicate with him instead of being completely checked out.    I might be reading overly much into this - but the fact that Ryan recommends April drop off the baby in his pack n' play while she finishes dinner makes me wonder if he was listening to her at all.  April said she's finished dinner a while ago.  The process of sticking a serving spoon into a dish of enchiladas after pulling it out of the oven takes less than 30 seconds even if she's got a baby on her hip.  Conversely, perhaps the writer of this section isn't a cook and has no idea how strange Ryan sounds.....

The advice section feels a bit overly harsh on April - and way too permissive on Ryan's behavior.  I can see how April might come across as overly intense when Ryan first came home - but she's not being rude, just tired and overwhelmed.  Ryan, on the other hand, is being damned rude.

The ideal conversation, on the other hand, is two people alluding to events in their day without actually discussing them:

Let's see how that conversation could have gone if both April and Ryan had learned to be loving conversationalists.

At six-thirty, April hears the garage door go up, announcing Ryan's return home from work. She picks up Joseph and hurries down the stairs to meet him. " Joseph, Daddy's home!" she bubbles to the baby as they move into the garage. " Ryan, I kept dinner warm in the oven since you had to work late. We have been so looking forward to having you home."

" Me too. It was a rough day at work. I will tell you all about it when we eat dinner. How was your day, sweetheart?"

" My day was rough too. I'll tell you more about that later. Would you believe Joseph sat up all by himself after his nap when he was playing on the floor? I hope he does it again tonight for you. He was so cute, and I think he actually was proud of himself."

' Yeah! Another milestone for our little man," Ryan hugs the two of them and takes Joseph into his arms. " Hey, Joseph, Daddy loves you so much, and I am so glad to be home with you."

April says, " I made your favorite for dinner tonight. Chicken enchiladas. I'll go put the food on the table while you play with Joseph." (pgs. 17-18)

See, life is so much sweeter when you sweep the frustrations and irritations of family and work under the rug while focusing on the strangely angelic baby!  Ryan's in for one hell of a shock when he starts playing with Joseph and Joseph devolves into a sobbing pile of eight month old baby because he's teething or afraid of sweet potatoes or really wanted to live in the garage.  (Seriously, it's not kind to hand off a crabby, sleep-deprived baby to a spouse without fair warning.)   April, who still has a headache, a washing machine that is making foreboding noises, and no checkbook in sight, is going to be super-happy when she is ready to relax only to find out that Ryan needs to finish an urgent matter from work tonight.   Will anyone be happier when the washing machine throws a bearing in the middle of a load tomorrow morning and April can't hire a repairman because Joseph ate the checkbook and so a frantic phone call arrives in the middle of Ryan's meeting that he's spent hours prepping for last night?

There is a happy medium.  When my husband comes home, we both make a good faith effort to greet each other warmly and express happiness that the baby is alive and well.  Next, we dump all of the assorted household and work baggage that we need to discuss and get those things squared away.  That way we are less likely to forget something important like "I think Spawn is teething again..." or be emotionally unavailable because one of us is distracted by something that happened. 

The end of each chapter has a series of questions for families to go over as they read the book.   In CP/QF writing tradition, the questions range from painfully dull to horrifying.  I've picked out the ones that amuse me or provide unintentional glimpses into how dysfunctional the families really are:

1) Read the good and bad conversations in this chapter as a family. Discuss them. Can your children discern the good ones from the bad ones? What do they think makes the good ones good and the bad ones bad? (pg. 19)

Well, the entire book follows the pattern of topic A bad conversation,  topic A good conversation, topic B bad conversation,  topic B good conversation ad nauseum.   Assuming the children have moderate skill in pattern recognition, I'm pretty sure they'll get the pattern even if they have no idea of the difference between the two conversations.   Be sure to give them full credit if they answer "The good conversations come second!"   Oddly enough, another correct answer would be "The good conversation conceals more information than the bad conversation" - and I'm not sure that's a lesson I want my kid to learn.

2) Sit down individually with each child with the state of purpose to talk. Go somewhere private in the house where there won't be distractions. Tell the child you want to be able to talk with him, and let him know he isn't in trouble. Ask your child some questions then evaluate his conversation with you. Here are some suggestions for questions you could ask. Ask if he has anything pressing he wants to talk to you about. Ask if he is having any problems in general, any problems with you, or any problems with other family members. Ask him how he is spending his time. (pg. 19-20)

*blinks*

"Hey, Billy.  Sit down.  We have the stated purpose to talk.  Yeah, here's your blanky.    No, the stated purpose to talk means that we're going to talk.  Not porpoise - purpose.  We are purposing to talk.  Please don't jump on the bed when we're purposing to talk.  I need you to use your words.  I need you to use your English words, not dolphin squeaks.  I know that dolphins jump in the air - but you need to stop jumping on the bed even if you are a dolphin."

"Hi, Leslie.  We have the stated purpose to talk....why are you crying?  No, you're not in trouble.  Why would you think you were in trouble?  I do not only talk to you one-on-one when you are in trouble.  You are not in trouble.  Great.  So....do you have any problems with me?  Wait, why are you crying again?  Look, you are not in trouble."

"Hi, Jana.  We have the stated purpose to talk.  You are not in trouble.  Did you think you were in trouble? Why does everyone think they are in....nevermind.    Are you having any problems with any family members?  Jessa's keeping you up at night by kicking your bed.  How do you want to solve it?  No, having her switch beds would be too much work.  What's another solution?  Eh...me talking to her is too much work.  How about you give her your prized jewelry box?  Why are you objecting to giving someone who is harassing you something you love with no promise of stopping the behavior?  You are in trouble, missy."

*sighs*

Look, I've spent years learning how to get teenagers to talk to adults.  The only bit of the second question worth doing is trying to find a time and place that is conducive to talking without interruptions.   If the purpose of this exercise is really to evaluate the conversational skills of a kid or teen, make sure you give them an easy, light topic that they can talk about without bringing up a welter of  hard emotions.   While the Maxwells abhor the following topics, most kids will respond to a chance to discuss their favorite TV show, movie, book, sport or sports team.   Giving them a loaded topic like "let's talk about things I do that frustrate or anger you" especially when the topic is thrown at them cold AND there's no promise of immunity from punishment if the adult doesn't like the answer will likely shut the kid down.

3) After the discussion evaluate your child with the following questions. Make sure you write down your answers and any other pertinent information concerning your child's ability as a conversationalist so you can compare it to a conversation you will have with your child after finishing this book.

• Were you able to spend 15 minutes talking with the child?
• Did the conversation flow between you?
• Was it give or take or one-sided?
• Did your child listen?
• Did he seem interested?
• Did he answer with a word or two or with whole sentences?
• Did he ask you questions?

(pg. 20)

Reality check: not all verbal kids can pull off a 15 minute conversation on command.  Small kids and elementary school aged kids might well wander off course before 15 minutes even if they have excellent conversational skills for their age group. 

Reality check two: The skill of the parent in eliciting conversation from a given child will greatly affect whether or not the kid can do the first three criteria as well as the fifth and sixth one.    Compare this example:
Q: "If you could go anywhere in the world - and money's no limit - where would you want to go?"
A: "Disneyland."
Q: "That's interesting!  I'd like to go to Disneyland, too!  What would you do at Disneyland?"
A: "I'd really like to meet Belle and go on the........"

Now look at this example: 
Q. "Do you have any problems with me that you want to talk about?"
A: "No." 
Q. "How are you getting along with Alice?
A: "Fine."
Q: "Do you have any pressing issues we need to talk about?"
A: "Nope."

Did you notice that I gave the "good" example before the "bad" example?  See, authors can break up monotonous patterns in their writing by reversing the order of examples!    That's a freebie for any CP/QF self-help authors who wander onto my site. *curtseys*

The next chapter shows that the Maxwells haven't taught their kids to read body language and that they pick medical professionals in a very different manner than I do.

Dominion Orientated Femininity: Part Five

I apologize for the late post. My husband was injured in a workplace accident and burned his arm. He's doing fine, but the burn got infected so he's had a lot more doctor's appointments than usual so I've had much less free time than usual. Thank God for antibiotics!

This post covers the seventh and eighth points on the topic of dominion-orientated women.  When I was in junior high, I was really into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  In DS9, a massive interstellar federation that could be contacted by traveling through the wormhole was called the Dominion.  Bluntly, I'd prefer to listen to a podcast of fanfic surrounding women from the Dominion than having to listen to the Botkin Sisters blather on about womanhood.

Number seven is a dominion woman thinks like a shepherd. Jesus said, "Do you love me? Feed my sheep." And this is a basic Christian duty that we have to make disciples of all the nations. And this for many of us young homeschooled girls this is going to involve overcoming obstacles like shyness and timidity. This can be very hard for us. I used to be extremely shy. I used to be so shy I had a hard time talking to a person one-on-one let alone even thinking about standing up on stage and speaking to over 500 people like I'm doing right now.

I have a mental block when thinking about how CP/QF adherents are going to make disciples of all the nations.  So many of their beliefs are interwoven with white middle-class values from the 1950's US that they struggle to convert new members and lose a good number of children born into CP/QF homes to other belief systems.   When they struggle this badly in their homeland, I can't imagine how this could spread to other nations.   Derick and Jill Dillard's abortive attempts at missionary work in El Salvador demonstrates many of the issues.  The Dillards had energy, youth and enthusiasm on their side.  Unfortunately, their lack of fluency in Spanish, minimal cultural appreciation, and absence of previous training or experience in launching a mission doomed their venture. 

The Gothardite/Vision Forum/ IBLP/IFB belief system has two separate issues that doom missionary work.  First, cults work best when members are highly indoctrinated in cult materials and marginally educated in other ideas.  The Wisdom Booklets are constructed to indoctrinate by exposing adherents to the same ideas repeatedly while selectively demonstrating outside facts that "support" the cult ideas.   The problem is that these ideas won't hold up well when adherents are exposed to a wider education which happens when people are immersed in a foreign language and culture.

The second issue is the idolization of large families of closely spaced children.  In my church, missionaries are primarily single adult men and women - generally priests or sisters.  Simply, single adults are easiest to embed in a new culture.  They are able and willing to focus intensely on determining the needs of the community, searching out culturally and economically sustainable solutions, and are able to bring specialized skills in medicine, education, engineering or agriculture.  They strive to be a benefit to their new home.  The issue with missionaries who have huge families is that supporting that many kids is a drain on the new church mission.  Additionally, the medical needs of actively reproducing women and young children are much different than a celibate men and women.   Jill Dillard faced an unenviable choice of traveling repeatedly between the US and El Salvador for prenatal care and delivery or utilizing a scarce resource in a developing country that was facing difficult times.  As her sons grew and became more mobile, they would need a series of expensive vaccines for typhoid and rabies.

Changing subjects abruptly, a lot of kids are shy especially around new adults in groups.  Being so shy that you remember struggling to talk one-on-one to other person sounds agonizing.  I can't help but wonder how much kept away from other people through homeschooling along with exclusion from community activities worsened the issue.  Thinking back over my campers when I was a counselor, I always had a few shy or introverted campers who needed a bit of help breaking the ice with the other girls - but that wore off pretty quickly both in the cabin and in workshop groups.

And I realized after a while that my shyness was a result of two things: excessive focus on self and fear of man. That's what shyness always is. And my father helped me understand that this was something that I needed to get over. And so he told me, "You need to focus on other people and when you do that, your shyness will go away. And he was right. It did. But if we're going to be shepherds, we have to learn to stop thinking about ourselves and we have to learn to love the other people we are supposed to be ministering to. We can't retreat into ourselves. We have to ignore our comfort zone and reach out to others.

My method for helping shy teenagers is to pair them up with friendly teenagers.  I'm going to stick with that method over telling the teenagers that they are being self-centered and need to get over themselves.   The Botkin girl who is speaking in this section clearly believes her father's method is great - but the story is creepy as hell to me.

The exhortation to reach out to others and avoid retreating into a personal comfort zone is surreal coming from a pair of sisters who have disappeared for months, if not years, from their website and social media.  They've withdrawn from all sorts of potentially discomforting arenas like advanced education, starting a career or forming their own family.  If they cannot branch out in the first steps to becoming independent adults when they are in their early 30's, how do they hope to convert everyone on the planet?

And the good thing is when we're thinking like that it gives us boldness in how we interact with people. Some girls have told us that they panic or they break out in a cold sweat when someone asks them, "So what do you do?" I'm sure you've all gotten that question and I'm sure you know it's an interesting question to be asked and I'm not sure why it's frightening for some girls. I guess because they're afraid of disapproval or confrontation. But instead I think we should look at this question as an opportunity to talk to people about the beauties of God's design. Why should we be ashamed? We have nothing to be ashamed of. God's ways are wiser than the heathen's ways and we should be happy whenever someone gives us the opportunity to explain that. Here's a verse I love in Deuteronomy 4. Moses has just given the Israelites several of God's Commands and says "Keep them and do them for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely, this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' For what nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord Our God whenever we call on him? Or what nation is there that has statutes and judgements as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?" Honestly, what nation is there that has statues and judgement as righteous as the law which we have?

 *waves*

Hi!  I'm one of those people who cannot entirely hide my disapproval of young women who leave education and career in order to "train" to be a wife and mother before they are married or pregnant.

I understand that sometimes people need to take time off for health or family reasons; that's part of life and NOT what I'm talking about here.  After all, I took time off from college to receive treatment for depression and anxiety and suspended my graduate school program to care for my premature son.  Sometimes life throws a curve ball and we just have to do the best we can to get through the tough times.

No, I'm thinking of the 17-year old woman who I met at a young adult Catholic event when I was 19 or so.  She had just graduated high school after being homeschooled and we were excited to hear about what she was planning to do next.  She replied that she was going to live at home until she got married and started a family.  Someone asked when she was getting married because we assumed that she was engaged.  She was not engaged.  In fact, she wasn't dating anyone.

The response of the rest of us was that being a wife and a mother was a great life goal - and one that she was very likely to achieve.  In the meantime, though, she should probably do something or learn something.  Most of us were concerned that a very young woman who was on the sheltered side who was focused entirely on marriage and motherhood would be far too likely to marry the first man who displayed any interest in her - regardless of if he was a good match.  We also worried about how boring living at home without any stimulation from a job or education might be for a young woman.

And we need to not assume that the other nations are going to be hostile or look down on us. Because they don't sometimes. A lot of people have responded very interestingly when Anna and I tell them what we're doing and why. A lot of girls actually.have responded very wistfully and said, "You know what? I wish I could do that. I would love nothing more than to be able to do that." A lot of people can see the wisdom in what we're doing but we have to be bold in our witness.

Let's discuss for a few minutes why those wistful girls can't stay home.

 If I had bounced that idea off my parents, they would have rejected it immediately.   There was no one in my home who needed me to give in-home care to and I was healthy enough to restart college within a few months after I was diagnosed with depression.  All of us kids had the option of working after high school or receiving advanced training.  Sitting at home for years while waiting for someone to marry sounds irresponsible from a parenting point of view.

The other issue I see is that the stay-at-home daughter movement expects parents to financially support unmarried daughters forever.  Most of the CP/QF families in my area are working-class families that won't be able to provide much more than room and possibly board for their adult daughters.  Paying for clothing, computers, travel, and all of the incidentals for a middle-class lifestyle is beyond these families unless the daughters are working.   I've never heard a coherent plan for how a stay-at-home daughter will be supported once their father has died.  Sarah Mally and Sarah Maxwell are in their mid-to late 30's.  Both women have income streams from self-published books and Sarah Maxwell does some work for her brothers' businesses - but I doubt the income for either woman is enough to support themselves independently let alone at the socioeconomic standard that they are used to.  Steven Maxwell seems to be withdrawing from at least one of the Maxwell Family businesses as he approaches retirement age while Anna is now prominently displayed as a call-service representative for Nathan's business.  The darkest outcome I can imagine for the Maxwell family is that Sarah, Anna and Mary's incomes are used to support the Maxwell parents during their retirement - and then the women are left without career skills or a nest egg when they are suddenly without a male income source when they are in their 40's, 50's or 60's.

Moving on to number eight. A dominion woman strengthens her arms and trains her mind. Now, one of the things that our family has been accused of is that we don't believe that women should be educated. I don't know how many times we can say this but we said it as many times as we possibly can. We believe that Christian women... Christian young women need to be the best educated women in the world in the right ways and for the right reasons. And a useful woman a dominion woman the kind we've been describing here today is one who has been equipped for the battle is ready for all the duties of life is ready for anything that life might bring her. She's ready to live in a 400 sq ft. almost finished house or she's ready to be the president's daughter or she's ready to live in a mud hut in Africa. She's ready for anything and everything.

The Botkin Sisters believe women should be highly educated - then immediately demonstrate their ignorance.   First, they highly qualify the standard of education to "the right ways" and "the right reasons".  They might as well just say, "We should be highly educated in cult materials." 

No one in their right mind should try and have two people living in one "almost finished" 400 square foot house.  That's a tiny space for two adults with all 400 feet being usable.  There's no room left for areas under construction.  Since people who are not using birth control have a 50% chance of getting pregnant within 3 months and 90% within a year, the family had better have have a plan for expanding that house rapidly.....

Let's not fall back on primitive stereotypes about Africa, ok?    Go read about 5 different African countries on Wikipedia.  Write a comparative essay on your findings. 

If the Maxwells and Mallys are looking down the barrel at future poverty, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth should be extremely worried.  Near as I can tell, the Botkin family has most of their income coming from the younger brother's T. Rex Arms.  That's not a lot of money to support six adults on let alone save up money for the Botkin parents' retirement or a nest egg for the girls.  I hope they are ready for that.

One thing that we need to be asking ourselves is "What is the goal of our education? What are we really preparing to do?" And here's a quote by William B. Sprague in a letter to his daughter that I really like and he says, "The object of education is two-fold: to develop the faculties and to direct them, to bring out the energies of the soul and to bring them to operate to the glories of the creator. In other words, it is to render yourself useful to the extent of your ability." So the purpose of our education is to equip us for the great assignment as women: to be helpers suitable to brave dominion men who have the task of discipling the nations and to be the mothers and teachers of the future generations of Christian warriors. And if we want to raise our sons to be the next presidents, preachers, filmmakers, writers, culture-changers, we're going to need to have an excellent education.

I agree with Sprague that education is about training people to be useful to society at large.  I don't think Victoria Botkin managed to do that with her daughters.    I was thinking about Anna Sofia and Elizabeth's lives while I was mowing the lawn.  They are in their thirties and have achieved none of the milestones that mark adulthood in CP/QF or wider society.  They've never held a job let alone a career.  They've never lived outside of their immediate family.  They've never had a long term romantic relationships.  They've never married.  They have no children.   I suppose they remain busy cleaning up after their two brothers who still live at home and I'm sure their sisters-in-law are grateful for the help they give in childcare - but is that really the fullest extent of their innate skills?  They update their website on a yearly basis.  They've written two books in 15-odd years.  They produced a thoroughly odd movie about stay-at-home daughters.   I'm not impressed.

Now, the question is, " Well, how do we....how do we go about that? How do we educate ourselves in these ways?" And I have another quote here that I really like by John Taylor Gatto who's a former New York Time Teacher of the Year . He says, "Close reading of tough minded writing is still the best, cheapest and quickest method known for learning to think for yourself. Reading and rigorous discussion of that reading is a way that obliges you to formulate a position and support it against objections. It is an operational definition of education in its most fundamental civilized sense." And I might say even better than reading books is writing books [laughs].

*cringes*  The self-referencial praise of people who write books grates on my nerves every time.

I find Gatto to be a bit iconoclastic - but I completely agree with his quote.  My high school English courses along with a phenomenally good Morality course my senior year were based around reading difficult material and discussing it at length with other students and the teacher.  This followed through into my (unfortunately few) college level Humanities and Arts classes.  Based on my memories of  "It's (Not) That Complicated", I doubt either of the sisters was reading at the depth or breadth expected in a college preparatory education.  I know I've forgotten a few novels we read, but I remember reading "Red Badge of Courage", "Lord of the Flies",and "The Odyssey" along with a large research project on a composer, sculptor, painter and in 9th grade.  The next year we read "The Crucible", "The Great Gatsby", "Grapes of Wrath",  "The Education of Little Tree", and "To Kill A Mockingbird" along with a research project on any topic relating to TKAM in American Literature.  Junior year we read "Beowulf", "Macbeth", and "Jane Eyre" for British Literature.  My senior year we read "Utopia", "Hamlet", "Beloved", "Jazz" before diving into cinema classics like "Citizen Kane", "Amadeus", and "Casablanca".    On top of that, we were reading scads of short stories and poems between each of the novels.   Heck, two of my friends and I made a rather horrible, but accurate film version of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" for extra credit.   

I don't believe that the Botkin sisters have been exposed to close readings of works that would be critical of American exceptionalism or patriarchy in general.    I'm sure they've been kept carefully away from any feminist literature (well, except maybe "Jane Eyre" or "Little Women").  Have they read anything written by a person of color?   Have they really participated in an intense discussion where the outcome is not necessarily in line with their family's beliefs?

The self-serving reference to writing a book as a sign of education screams that the Botkin family doesn't really educate their children.  My project related to TKAM was on the Nazi Olympics of 1936 which was an extravaganza of highly organized propaganda for the Nazis.  The Nazis produced plenty of books and articles on why genocide was not only needed, but beneficial to humankind at large.   IOW, writing a book does not prove that the author is thinking critically at all. 

Let's be honest.  The Botkin Sisters two books are awful on so many levels.....

One thing that I think that I mentioned in the last part was novels and fiction and how young ladies can read too many of those and they can escape through them and they can become enraptured by them and that's not the only reason I would caution girls not to read them. The other reason is that there are so many other books that need to be read right now. Elizabeth and I have a reading list that's about a mile long and I don't know if we're ever going to get through it. Some of the subjects that we're studying right now are theology and worldview, writing and communication, history and understanding the times. There's so much to study. There's so much to learn. And I do believe that reading books is the best way to do that.

Mmm-k. 

"Worldview" and "Understanding the Times" are not exactly tricky academic subjects - and I really doubt either of the Botkin Sisters are digging deeply into authors who have any opinions that diverge from the party line. 

Theology, writing, communication and history are genuine areas of study - but it's rare that someone would be able to combine all four of those topics and study them deeply enough to be a real expert.  Perhaps if they were studying a specific theological doctrine and how it changed over time....that would lead to a paper of some sort....and I guess that the presentations on the final topic would be a form of communication...but I'm never going to see that from the Botkin Sisters. 

I feel sad reviewing this section because I know how much the Botkin Sisters have missed.  Imagine if they had attended a college or a seminary.  Imagine if they joined Toastmasters.  Imagine if they took a few community college classes on public speaking.  Imagine if they acted in a community theater or started a book club that read works by women, LGBT+ or people of color.  Imagine if they flipped burgers at the local greasy spoon or joined a literacy outreach to their local community. 

Imagine if they lived fully.

Dominion Orientated Femininity: Part Two

The first part of Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin's podcast "Dominion-Oriented Femininity" was a fun little ramble through their minimal understanding of the lives of Pilgrim women interspaced with fantasies about how much everyone will adore them when the US is destroyed by God.   In my Bible reading right now, I just finished the major prophets and am moving into the minor prophets of the Old Testament.  Unlike Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin, the prophets were not excited on any level about the suffering and destruction that comes when their people were conquered.  I assume the prophets felt fear and desperation about the judgement that God told them was coming because the prophets did not want to see the people they know go through pain and fear.

Anna Sofia/Elizabeth Botkin  (AS/EB) shares their views on the effects that feminism has had on women...kind of...sort of...

Feminism has separated us from the historical legacy that we had and has left us desolate and confused. Two or three hundred years ago a young lady would be taught to act like a strong woman by her great-great-great grandmother, great-great grandmother, great-grandmother, mother. We don't have that legacy any more. Feminism just broke that link. So now I kind of feel like we're living on an island. We don't have examples to look to; we have our mothers but most of our mothers did not have examples to look to. They didn't have mentors. They didn't have grandmothers and great-grandmothers that they could look up to.

I've met very few young women in their late teens or early twenties who are desolate  and none of those were desolate because of a lack of female role models from their own family line.   I've met far more who are confused - but I think that's a normal state of affairs when people are actively deciding important items like who they are attracted to, what they want from a career and what they want from the world.

"Two or three hundred years ago" is a huge time period.  That's the difference between 2018 and 1918.  If the Botkins sisters had even a rudimentary understanding of American history, they would recognize that the US looked very different in 1600, 1650, 1700, and 1750.   And, you know, some women lived to be great-grandmothers in 1600 or 1800 or 1900 - but a lot of women counted themselves as blessed to survive to be grandmothers.  Many more women died in the process of becoming mothers or before their children were grown.   It's been quite rare in human history for a young woman to have an unbroken line of three older maternal relatives alive - let alone an unbroken line of 4 or 5 women.

Huh.  I missed the geography module that discussed how islands lack cultural continuity.   That's really ironic from two young women who lived in New Zealand.  Under that model, I would expect that Iceland, Japan, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, England and Ireland all have identical cultures - and yet 30 seconds with an encyclopedia shows the Botkin girls to be wrong.

I actually see this as a great opportunity because when you think about it it's going to be up to us to rebuild the culture of strong, real womanhood in the world. And we have the chance now to build it afresh on the foundations of sola scriptura. And this will require examining every stereotype, every picture, every example, every image. We can look at them. We can disregard the bad and learn from the good but this really is an incredible opportunity and when you think about it when we live in a culture that doesn't understand what womanhood is you young ladies are going to be the models of this next generation. They're going to be looking to you to set the new standard. This is an incredible opportunity. And what Elizabeth and I will be doing in this lecture is that we will be examining 10 characteristics that constitute the kind of strength and character that our generation will need to face the hardships that are coming and we'll need to rebuild what we've lost.

Well, I now understand why Anna Sofia and Elizabeth have dropped off the face of the planet.  They are cataloguing every stereotype, form and example of womanhood from all of history.  Every_single_one.  This means that we will never see them again.  Becoming comfortable with one much more narrow humanities subject at the PhD level takes an average of 12 years to complete.  If AS/EB started on all cultural images and stereotypes of white, upper class women who lived in the US from the time of the Pilgrims to modern day, they would each use up their entire (God-willing long) lifetime and still not be done.  Multiply this by each socio-economic status and each minority status in the US - then by all of the culture in written history. 

Vaya con Dios, queridas.....

Number One: A dominion woman is a woman of God.

When it comes to becoming the sort of woman that we want to be the first thing that we need to understand is that what we want really doesn't matter. Around the time that we started writing our book - and I'm sure that you young ladies have experienced this as well -people would be asking us, "Ok, so what do you want to do? What are you going to do with your life? What do you want to do?" And I actually know that that's a loaded question. It... it doesn't just mean what kind of career do you want to have; it really means what causes will you be giving your life for? What God are you going to serve? What are you going to live and die for? What is your life going to count for? That's really what the question means. And it comes down to this ultimately: are we going to pursue what we want for our lives or what God wants for our lives?

There is nothing that I enjoy more than when young people inform me that a question that is truly a form of small talk is actually deeply loaded.   When acquaintances ask, "So what are you going to do now that you've left school?", they are simply giving a young person a chance to discuss their near-to-the-future plans.   Believe me, responding with "Well, I've decided that God has called me to protect the future of narwhals.  I'm certain that that's the cause I'm supposed to live and die for" will stop the other person dead in their tracks - and not only because they're not 100% sure what a narwhal is.

Most religions do not imbue using the aptitudes or skills given by God as being selfish or turning away from God.   Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin have abdicated all responsibility for choosing a career onto their father.  Oh, sure, they wrap the idea in a lot of flummery language about authority and protection - but they've essentially decided that they have no responsibility to determine how their skills could be used to further God's kingdom.  Likewise, the girls behave like girls in that they will not challenge their father on his failure to find them a spouse.  The Botkin family believes in a courtship/engagement/marriage series that is much closer to an arranged marriage than couple-initiated style of the US.  That's fine - as consenting adults, if the Botkin sisters want arranged marriages, I support their right to do so.  The problem facing Elizabeth and Anna Sofia is that the trade-off in an arranged marriage is that the children give their parents the right to arrange a match in exchange for being presented with one or more suitable option of spouse.   Geoffrey Botkin has utterly failed to hold up his end of the bargain and needs to either find spouses for the girls or free them to choose their own spouses.  That will not happen unless the Botkin sisters stand up for themselves.

There's an ancient saying that I first read in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" which goes like this, "What every woman wants most is to have her own way." I think that's true. And I think this statement captures the essence of feminism. It's a desire to be a law unto ourselves. It's a desire basically to usurp God's authority and to determine what is right and wrong for ourselves. It's a desire to be God. Or to be a goddess. And it's stands against God's Law his law of hierarchy and authority and ultimately against God Himself. And the dominion oriented woman is submitted to God. And she's submitted herself entirely to what his will for her life will be. She said, "I am not God; you are God. Not my will be done but your will be done." And the way that she know what His Will is is that she seeks the Scriptures diligently on her own for herself. She doesn't wait for someone else to tell her what to do or how to live and the principles that Elizabeth and I are about to bring to you today really aren't going to make sense and they're not going to work if you don't have this attitude.  If you don't fear God. And they might sound like good ideas, they might sound romantic, they might sound practical, but if you don't have the right attitude, if you don't truly fear God as your sovereign, as your head, then they are really not going to work for you. So dominion oriented femininity requires understanding that we've been bought with a price we do not belong to ourselves it's not our way it's God's way. And now I think Elizabeth's bringing us number two.

I hate how the Botkin Sisters drop quotes from famous works into their speeches and books.  The intended implication is that Anna Sofia and Elizabeth are educated to standards that far exceed public school education.  The problem occurs when someone who knows the work hears the quote.  Anna's point in this section of the speech is that feminism over turns God's Divine Plan for humanity which is that women are subservient to men.  To support that theme, she picked lines 111-112 from the Wife of Bath's Tale which I have as "Some say the things we most desire are these / Freedom to do exactly as we please".  (I'll assume that they have a very different translation that ignored meter and rhyme....)  And that's the issue.  If Anna Sofia had really read "The Wife of Bath's Tale", why didn't she pick lines 214-216 " A woman wants the same self-sovereignty / Over her husband as over her lover, / And master him; he must not be above her." Those verses are spot-on for the overall theme - but they would require having read the work since the second set of verses don't have the wide appeal that the first set does.

What really kills me is that "The Wife of Bath's Tale" is an easily accessible piece of literature.  It was written in Middle English so reading a Modern English translation is perfectly acceptable outside of advanced post-secondary studies.  The story is relatively short and snappy.  There's not a lot of obscure references or ideas that need to be ferreted out; the Wife of Bath is a breezy, bawdy old woman who is reminiscing over her husbands, her choices on who to marry and how to live in marriage, and what women inside a patriarchal society really want.   It's an easy, fun read for high school students - so why didn't the Botkin Sisters read the Tale?

The idea that a dominion-oriented woman doesn't wait for other people to tell her what to do is deeply, though unintentionally, ironic.    A dominion-orientated woman will spend her entire life doing what a man tells her to do.  She will follow her father's orders prior to marriage and her husband's orders after marriage.  Sure, AS/EB will expect women to so completely absorb their father's or husband's goals that the women can act independently to fulfill that goal - but that's not really the sign of independent thinking. 

I think I'm going to start adding the caveat that any advice I give other humans will only work if the other humans are right with God.  That's such an amazingly universal cop-out that it will cover any horrible advice I give.  My advice caused the engine of your car to seize into a ton of solid metal?  No, that happened because you weren't right with God.  Your boss fired you when you responded to a normal office request by screaming, "I am not in submission to you!  THIS is the hill I'm going to die on!" as I told you to.  No...you'd still be employed if you were right with God.   

The next post on this topic is long - and it's not my fault.  From this point on in the podcast, AS/EB are expounding on the 10 characteristics of dominion women.  The issue is that point number two is discussed for an insanely long period of time....and in the process they skip point three entirely.  Whoops.

Preparing Sons: Chapter Six - Part 3

I'm back!  I'm sorry for the longer than expected break.  Our trip to Pittsburgh was one day longer than I had planned for and traveling long distances with a 12 month old adjusted baby wiped me out. 

I realized when we arrived in PA that my long-suffering laptop power-cord had finally died from an internal wire break so I was sans laptop until a replacement cord arrived today. 

Pittsburgh was amazing and my niece is the brightest little thing ever!  She and my son had a standard toddler-old baby love/hate relationship.  My favorite moment was after one of the adults made her relinish one toy for my son to play with she muttered "Baby bye" which I translated to "Time to get rid of the baby, people!"   Watching her at the Aviary and the Botanical Gardens was so fun; she wanted to look at everything.  My mom, my sister and I introduced her to the joys of swimming; she was hesitant at first but soon was putting her whole face in the water to try and blow bubbles.   We watched the Winter Olympics together and she learned the words "hockey" and "curling".   Unfortunately, she also screamed "NO!" everytime we tried to convince her that the hockey team she liked was the Detroit Red Wings rather than the Pittsburgh Penguins.  :-)

It was a great weekend - and a weekend filled with activities that the Maxwell clan forbids.  Modesty guidelines prevent them from swimming.  Professional and amatuer sports are out.  Heck, television is out.  Technically, the Aviary and Botanical Gardens aren't entirely forbidden - but I've never seen a picture on the Maxwell blog of family members visiting any cultural attractions outside of agricultural fairs.  Most places frown on patrons attempting to convert other patrons on the sly; it changes the experience of the patrons in a negative way.

This section of the chapter focuses on the horrors of youth team sports.  I am biased strongly in favor of youth and adult league sports.  I played soccer, softball, volleyball, and basketball as a kid and pre-teen.  In high school, I played one year of soccer.  During late high school and college, I acted as an assistant coach for girls soccer at the elementary school because I enjoyed teaching girls how to goal-tend.  Athletics taught me how to use my physical strength while compensating for my undiagnosed exercise-induced asthma and low flexibility.  I learned how to communicate effectively with others on the fly.  I learned how to motivate others and how to accept support from teammates. 

I loved to play positions that required aggressive physicality; I led my team in rebounds in 5th-8th grade mainly by being willing to do whatever it took to get a hold of the ball once it hit the rim or backboard despite the fact that I reached my adult height of 5'3" at age 10 and was shorter than average by age 13.  I loved diving for shots in soccer especially the ones where someone was running at me on a breakaway; it was the best game of chicken ever!  I played catcher in softball and lived for runners who tried to go through me,  I played rough and tumble pick-up games of basketball with the boys at recess during 7th and 8th grade.  Looking back, I've always felt constrained by societal expectations that girls were supposed to be non-aggressive, passive and weak.  Sports were a place I really be myself long before I knew how to bring assertiveness into my day-to-day life. 

I benefited as well from my lifelong issues with cerebral palsy, too.  I've spent most of my life tripping over my own feet because my legs don't always move like I expected.  Because of that, I learned how to fall in ways that minimize injuries to myself and developed a high pain tolerance for bruises on limbs.  To this day, my husband will ask me about a nasty looking bruise on a leg or arm and my response is "Oh, I smacked my arm with the car door last week.  Huh.  That looks more ugly than I expected."

I love sports.  Steven Maxwell abhors team sports - and goes into amazingly wound-up hyperbole right off the bat:

Team sports are generally accepted as a good, proper, and beneficial activity for youth. What about Christian youth? A child only has a limited amount of free time in a week. Have the parents evaluated what the best use of this time is? (pg. 95)

*rolls eyes*
Yes, Steven.  Parents evaluate activities for their children all the time.  It's the reason that many parents choose traditional schooling; they feel that their children will receive the best return on the amount of time spent on education.  Other parents choose homeschooling for the same reason.  

Ironically, I live within a short distance from three colleges founded and run by Calvinistic-Baptist denominations.  All three of them have competitive sports teams - so Steven is moving in his own realm of crazy here.

After a workshop one evening, a man discussed with me his son's involvement in team sports. He wanted his son to learn to work hard and with others on a team. I asked him whether he could think of no better way to accomplish these goals.

I have not observe team sports building the proper spirit of teamwork. Rather they foster a spirit of pride. If you want to develop teamwork, have your son work with his siblings on some projects. If he can work with them, he can get along with anyone. If you want him to learn to work hard, take him with you when you help a widow with some home repair. (pgs. 95-96)

For any poor soul who decides to have a conversation with Steven Maxwell in the future, keep in mind that anything discussed is fodder for his next book.  Maxwell is not listening to your argument; he's simply waiting for you to stop talking long enough to interject why your choice is completely wrong.    Likewise, when he seemed to be watching his young sons play sports he was really judging the amount of "teamwork" compared to "pride" shown by the kids.  

The argument that working alongside siblings under the eyes of parents is identical to working with random people assigned to a team under an assigned coach is palpably absurd - and tired.  For the vast majority of parents in the USA the goal is to raise independent adults.  Independent adults can support themselves financially independently of their parents.  They choose to set boundaries between their family of origin and their immediate family.  Adults can behave morally without having their parents overseeing their every move. 

Steven Maxwell's goal is not to raise independent adults; he aims to keep his children dependent and under his control. 

How has his plan worked out for his kids? 

Well, his oldest four sons are married - but his oldest two daughters are unmarried at 36 and 25. 

Christopher and Joseph each had a failed engagement prior to meeting their wives. (This explains why Steven was so irritated when John's now-wife Chesly's family announced their engagement before the wedding; twice bitten, thrice shy.)  By comparison, I've never had a wedding called off after a publically announced engagement in my extended family of 50+ adults.   

Nathan's running a successful business; Nathan, Christopher, Joseph and John have each had a business fail.  

I would need a whole lot better set of outcomes to deprive my son of sports.

Maxwell attempts to explain what a massive time commitment sports were on his family:

Nathan and Christopher were great Little League baseball players. They loved baseball, and we love to watch them play. Going to the games was fun and a real family affair. Practices will begin in late February, and the games will continue into June. Then if you were " fortunate", your son would be chosen for the All-Star team and participate in another couple of months of practice and games. The end result was an incredible amount of time invested for the whole family. (pg. 96)

I went down a rabbit hole after I read this passage and tried to figure out how old his kids were when they were playing Little League.  I stopped because Steven Maxwell has bent or mangled the truth so many time previously in the book that the ages of his sons are moot.  This passage could be describing Nathan at 12 and Christopher at 10 or they could have been 6 and 4 years old; Maxwell would write the same story either way.   

The amount of time invested for a family with two kids playing Little League is not as massive as Maxwell makes it sound.  We usually practiced 2-3 a week and had a game once or twice a week - and often the game replaced a practice.  Maxwell wasn't a coach - and a careful read implies that he and Teri didn't stick around for practice times.   Assuming that the boys needed to be driven 15 minutes each way to three practices and played one 90 minute game a week, that's an investment of 6 hours of driving + watching games total.   Remember, the Maxwells had a total of three kids when Nathan was at the maximum age for a Little League with one stay-at-home homeschooling mom. 

The Maxwells clearly lived somewhere a lot warmer than Michigan; our outdoor sports season doesn't begin until early April which caused the season to be run pretty tightly. 

If the Maxwells hate the All-Star team so much, they don't have to let their son try out.  It's not mandatory.

The next section makes Steven Maxwell's main reason for removing his kids from sports clear: he cannot deal with losing control of any aspect of his sons' lives.

What did allowing our sons to play baseball cost us? We could no longer set our own schedule. We were at the mercy of the coach decide where we had to be and when. We were no longer controlled whom our sons associated with. They were part of " the team" and were to bond with each other. The greatest price we paid was at our family evening altar time.

Family Bible study is very important to me for the development of my family. I value it next to importance to my own Bible reading and prayer time. I was now forced to sacrifice our family altar time to the god of sports. I was choosing to give up my opportunity to teach my children God's Word - - the one thing that would have the greatest impact on my son's ability to lead and provide for their families. Finally, this realization hit home! (pg. 96)

My first response was indignation; Maxwell's in la-la land if he thinks the coach has control over practice and game times!  

My second response was bemused recognition of Maxwell's privilege as an male engineer if he's up-in-arms over losing control of his schedule.  Welcome to reality!  Try balancing practices and games with a guest service job, a demanding college schedule and using limited public transportation - or two adults working 5 jobs.  Try keeping a homeschool schedule with a difficult baby and a sick toddler.  Heck, try keeping that same schedule in the year Mary was born.   

The Maxwell kids might get to know other kids!  Kids who have not been pre-screened to avoid single-parent families, divorced families, ideological disagreements with the Maxwells or mothers who work outside the home!  Oh, the horrors!  The other kids might.... I can barely say it.... they might discuss a TV show!  Oh, the humanity!

No, really.  That's humanity.  We're a jolly mess of differences - but most people can work together long enough to play 7-9 innings of baseball. 

That whole "altar time is sacrificed" spiel?  Completely made up.  Here's how I know: The Maxwells included their family schedules in "Managers of their Homes" and family evening prayer time was scheduled for 30 minutes in the evening.   In a traditionally schooled family, the athletes would need some time before or after sports to do homework, but the Maxwell Family homeschools - and didn't have any evening homeschooling blocks in any of the schedules in "Managers of their Schools".    Teri Maxwell is a bright cookie; with only three kids at home, I'm sure she could prep a dinner during the early afternoon that was ready to eat by the end of the game.  If altar time was truly a priority, the Maxwell Family would be able to fit 3.5 hours in a week pretty easily around sports.

The next quote demonstrates how little of a priority emotional regulation is for Steven Maxwell:

Teri and I knew it would be the last baseball season for our sons. After the final game of the season, I took Nathan and Christopher out for a soda. With tears running down my cheeks, I explain to them why we are ending team sports for our family. I shared with each of them how much team sports was costing our family and that we could bear it no longer. To my joy, they both accepted my direction. I firmly believe that as a result of this decision, we have seen God pour out unimaginable blessings into our sons lives. (pg. 96-97)

I have a very dark sense of humor.  In my mind's eye, the two boys are in slightly dirty baseball uniforms including hat and stirrups enjoying root beer floats at Dairy Queen when Steven Maxwell starts visibly crying over the fact that "God doesn't want you to play sports anymore!"  The boys exchange slightly worried glances at each other - is Dad ok? - before saying something like "That's ok, Dad.  We're ok with that."  Both boys are a bit relieved; after all, they're not great players and watching Dad glower every time the coach talks to them has gotten old.  (Did I mention I suspect that some of Steven Maxwell's disdain of the All-Star Team is because Maxwell didn't make the team as a kid and his kids didn't either?  Hmm.....)

Just imagine.  If Steven Maxwell had never entered his oldest boys in team sports, Nathan and Christopher might have been spared the pain of two failed businesses and one failed engagement.  How did Steven Maxwell make such a grievous mistake?  (I'm being sarcastic, of course.)

A few pages later, Maxwell throws in one last horror story of how team sports can lead directly to porn:

I know someone who was introduced to pornography by his own father. The father had the magazines in his home, and the boy found them. How horrible for a father to cause the entrapment of his son. I know another young man whose baseball coach introduced him to pornography. The team went to another city to play a championship game and stayed overnight in a hotel. The coach " treated" the team to a stack of magazines for their entertainment. (pg. 101)

I can't imagine handing a stack of porn magazines to the teenagers; it's such a gross idea. 

 Obviously, I can't rule out that the story is true; there are sick people in the world - but I'm boggled at how this coach handed off a stack of porn mags to his team.  It's pretty rare for a coach to travel with an entire baseball team alone; normally there would be other parents in the hotel staying overnight before the game.   How did the team keep the parents from hearing about the great porn award?  Teenage boys talk a lot - and they are not great at keeping their voices down.  I have a mental image of the Bela Karolyi knock-off Simpsons character standing in front of a bunch of teenage boys and saying "Good job.  You get porn mags.  Make you men." 

Now we are all up-to-date on how youth team sports will destroy parental leadership and lead directly to porn.   Remind me to sign my son up for tee ball and U-5 soccer in a few years. :-)

Preparing Sons: Chapter 6 - Part Two

Welcome back to the second installment of Steven Maxwell's chapter on "Appetites"  in his instructional book "Preparing Sons to Provide for a Single-Income Family"! 

In the first section of the chapter, Steven lovingly detailed how childhood card games, downhill skiing and flying private planes will lead a person into financial ruin.  Ironically, the only example he gave of someone spending money irresponsibly was his anecdote about how he passive-aggressively convinced Teri to let him continue flying private planes when it was negatively affecting their ability to provide for their children.  Clearly,  the problem was with the desirability of planes, Steven's dad's choice to take little Steven flying, and Teri for letting Steven fly rather than Steven acting like a spoiled brat.

This section covers three known evils of modern America - movies, television, and professional sports!  Parents, guard your children!

The section on movies was brief and wonderfully filled with hyperbole.  I have chosen two delectable quotes for our discussion today:

Parents will spend money they don't have to go to movies they shouldn't see, setting a horrible example for their children to follow. (pg. 92)

Truthfully, I'm more concerned about Steven Maxwell's random comma placed after the word "see" than I am about my husband and I going to a movie a few times a year.   I don't view myself as being overly obsessed with commas but reviewing CP/QF books where commas are slung around all the time is starting to get to me.....

I'm curious how people buy tickets to the movies with money that they do not have.  Perhaps Mr. Maxwell is confusing the fact that many middle-class people use debit-credit cards in lieu of cash with the idea that people are using a line of credit to buy movie tickets.  More likely, Mr. Maxwell is struggling to find an argument that sounds plausible to a larger audience that bans cartoons, IMAX explorational films and biopics of exceptional people.   The standard cannard about avoiding swearing, violence and sexuality leaves flicks like "Moana", "Sherpa", and "Hidden Figures" available for families.  Trying to justify sheltering your kids from fraught cultural interactions or positive role models of African-American women is hard and highlights the isolationist, xenophobic and racist contexts of Maxwell's theology.  It's so much easier to blame money as the root of evil in movies.

Create a passion for entertainment in your child and it will be a lead weight, strapped to his back, keeping him from God's best. Give yourself and your children a life-long gift of extra money by starving the appetite to see movies. (pg. 93)

Maxwell has a weird assumption about human nature that he starts to elaborate here.  In Maxwell's worldview people will only do "good" things if they do not have access to "bad" things that will give them more enjoyment than the "good" things.  In MaxWorld, there are three classes of acceptable activities: working (which includes learning for the purpose of a career, housekeeping and childrearing), religious activities (including converting people and reading the Bible), and spending time with close relatives.  That's it; there are no other acceptable activities.    Apparently no one - NO ONE - has the maturity or willpower to do needed activities before doing fun things. 

That life-long gift of cash from not seeing movies is a whopping total of $30.00 dollars in the last two years for my husband and I.   The saddest thing is that $30.00 is make-or-break for a lot of CP/QF families because large to massive family sizes on a single income earner who has not attended college makes budgeting really hard.

Maxwell moves from movies to the next humbug of very conservative Christians: the television!  He regurgitates the standard fears of violence, nudity and bad language before launching into the next quote.

Let's look at one seemingly harmless aspect of TV -- watching game shows. Could it be that the game- show seeds planted through the years are now sprouting into the gambling and lottery craze that has swept our country? The thrill of seeing people "come on down" and win truckloads of wonderful items without having to work leaves a powerful impression. Might a son's desire to work for his needs to be replaced by the fantasy of winning the jackpot? (pg. 93)

*snorts*

I have to give him credit for originality; I've never heard anyone link game shows to the decline of the American work ethic before.

On the other hand, Maxwell has no support for his hypothesis at all.   "The Price is Right!" - alluded to by the "come on down!" reference - has been on the USA since 1972.  If it is causing the amount of gambling and lotteries to increase, that should be easy enough to prove.  A basic graph of number of people watching game shows compared with the amount of people gambling would do the trick or a study that connects the two.  There would also need to be a graph of number of people gambling combined with local unemployment and welfare rolls.   Since all of this is missing, my assumption is that the data doesn't support his hypothesis.

This is an example of a disturbing returning theme in Steven Maxwell's writings.  He consistently devalues the work of women.  Oh, he mentions helping out around the house  but in a later chapter he implies that his sons will not need to do household chores once they are married.   Steven Maxwell expects sons and daughters to be home-schooled by mothers but implies that the real manly work of career training is more important than the useless domain of academics taught by women.  How does this fit in this section?  "The Price is Right!" rewards people for being able to correctly estimate the price of various items from groceries to living room furniture to vacations.  Women in CP/QF families often do the majority of budgeting and shopping for their families.  Steven Maxwell is  so oblivious to the skill set involved in estimating prices on the fly that he claims "The Price is Right!"gives prizes away for free.

If he's really worried that his son is dreaming about making a ton of money off game shows for no work, there's a fine article from "Cracked" that will set the kids straight.  Problem solved.

The last pet-peeve o'Steve for today is professional sports.  This first quote shows the danger of uncontrolled hyperbole:

Sports seem to be the number one passion of the American male, in and out of the church. Is there anything truly beneficial about spectator sports? It is extremely hard to come up with any benefit gained from watching sports. At best sports are an absolute waste of the precious time we have on Earth; at worst, idolatry. (pg. 94)

Here's the issue.  The Maxwell Clan has all sorts of shticks for luring in people to convert. 

They use the tried-and-true "Bother Service Workers Who Can't Get Away" method.  (As a former cashier,  I hated people who used the fact that I couldn't run away or cuss them out to give me tracts or lectures on being saved.) 

They hit up the neighbors yearly under the guise of caroling - but at least they bring baked goods, too. 

Their youngest daughter helps children worship idols.  No, seriously.  The fourth picture from the bottom is of Mary with her arm around a boy who she painted KC Royals logos on each of his cheeks.   The caption states that those logos were really popular. 

Apparently, supporting idol worship in children is a minor price to pay for the off-chance that face-painting will morph into a chance to share Jesus with people.

This last quote is amazing:

By watching and attending spectator sports, consider the appetite you will be giving your son to want to be a sports star. He will spend his time dreaming towards and perhaps even preparing to be a professional athlete. His hours could instead be used for learning productive life skills and in Christian service.

If you shelter your son from alcohol at home, what happens at sporting events? Your child will watch those around him enjoying their beer with great gusto. Might he possibly develop a secret appetite for what is "forbidden" as he quietly observes his fellow sports fans? Consider what such an appetite will cost him financially should he indulge it once he is no longer under your authority. Would a Christian father really want to expose his son to the possibility of developing this appetite? (pgs 94-95)

Maxwell wants parents to save their children from the pie-in-the-sky dream of being a professional athlete!  I never dreamed of being a professional athlete because when I was a kid there weren't any professional women's sports teams - but I did dream about playing sports in high school and college.

 Take a wild guess what cured me of my athletic dreams.

If you answered "playing sports" - you're smarter than Steven Maxwell! 

Playing team sports tends to give most people a realistic ranking of their skills compared to other athletes the same age.  I learned quickly that in middle/junior high school sports my absolute lack of natural athletic talent could be overcome through extra practice, determination, and working as hard as I could.  By 7th and 8th grade, I realized that my volleyball, basketball, and softball skills were not strong enough make a high school team even if I trained year round.  My soccer skills were good enough for me to make the freshman soccer team but I was weak enough that I would need to focus solely on soccer year-round and retrain as a defender instead of a goalie to make the junior varsity or varsity teams. 

Why doesn't Maxwell bring this up?  Mainly because he hates kids playing team sports with a passion better reserved for real issues like poverty . 

Maxwell's horror story of how professional sports will lead to alcoholism and financial ruin is wonderfully overwrought.  The family I grew up in made a 6-pack last for months.  My dad would grab one when one of his brothers was coming over for a weekend visit.  Each adult male would drink a single beer while watching a football or hockey game, then fall asleep in their chair.  Occasionally the women would drink a beer or a wine cooler but they'd often be off looking at antiques, quilting or simply making fun of the guys for falling asleep after part of one beer.  Eventually, my parents would use the remaining 4 beers while cooking or another family gathering would roll around.

We were also exposed to professional sports.  My parents also took us up to Muskegon once or twice a winter to watch one of the Red Wings' feeder teams known as the Muskegon Fury play a hockey game.  We had so much fun!   I suppose there were people drinking there but I don't remember anyone getting drunk near us - mainly because I wouldn't have known what a drunk person looked like until I was in high school.    I do remember seeing drunk guys at the Fury or the White Caps when I was in high school - but honestly they looked more gross than anything else.

Long story short:  I'm extremely skeptical that kids coming from a family that drinks little or no alcohol are suddenly going to take up drinking alcohol in copious amounts simply because they saw people drinking at a sports event.

For our game:
3.Movies = D. Bankrupting, Terrible Example to Children;
4. TV Game Shows = H. Undermines US Work Ethic;
5. Professional Sports = F. Leads Children to Drinking and Financial Ruin

The next post in the series will be devoted to exploring the soul-sucking ruin that is youth team sports.

I am going to be traveling with my son to see family in Pennsylvania this weekend so my posting schedule might be disrupted....or not.  It really depends on how the baby travels :-).

Preparing Sons for Single Income - Chapter Five

The fifth chapter in "Preparing Sons to Provide for a Single Income Family" by Steven Maxwell is mostly a chance to explain the steps to being "saved" to any readers who have bought this book without being saved already.  I don't much to say on that point except that the idea of having a born-again moment is really bizarre to people who grew up in non-Evangelical circles.  As a Catholic, we view salvation as being the providence of a merciful God whom we show gratitude to by behaving in a moral manner.  We believe that baptism is a rebirth in Christ - and we are very much in favor of baptizing infants.  We believe that we receive the Body and Blood of Christ at the Eucharist.

Coming from that background, the idea of a single moment where Christ is invited into someone's heart is....a bit jarring, really.  From my background, the fact that Christ is the Savior of the World and the fact that you personally need salvation is a basic given that we've accepted since early childhood.  The real challenge is living a life that reflects Christ's Love for all - and we don't find asking people about their salvation status to be a good way of doing that.

Anyway, the Maxwell thesis on salvation is book-ended by a slap at a early mentor of Nathan's in the beginning and the story of Nathan's purchase of a home as a reward for Nathan, Steve and Teri's prayer life at the far end which will be the crux of this post.

The chapter begins with the horror story of "Mike".

Nathan, my oldest son, worked with Mike for a number of months. Mike is single, good-looking, extremely talented, and makes an enormous amount of money. He lives the " fast life", drives high-performance German vehicles, and goes from one fun experience to another. Do Mike's parents consider him a success? Very likely! Most people evaluate their children's success by the amount of money they earn and whether they stay out of trouble. Unfortunately, Mike doesn't know the Lord Jesus as Savior, and unless something changes, he will spend eternity in "the lake of fire". (pg. 62)

Adoption Issues: Communication between Home and School

Well, the baby is feeling a bit better today - but I caught his cold.  I'm running far enough behind that reading in a chapter of either of the book reviews will have to wait until the weekend - but I have a blog post review waiting in my back pocket.

I wrote a previous blog post about the Corkum family: two parents, two biological kids, one adopted son adopted in accordance with best practices followed by the adoption of three unrelated teenagers who were substantially older than the other three kids.  The last three adoptions have been a complete mess and by 2016 all three of the kids were living in other placements.

Prior to the oldest adopted kids leaving, the most disruptive kid was placed in public schools.  Melissa Corkum had previously home schooled all of the kids using the classical method so this was a hard transition for her.   She wrote a post about things that the kid's teacher has said that are emotionally devastating to her.   The post made me laugh because I've said all of these things to parents (or something pretty close) before and I can promise that the teacher did not mean what Mrs. Corkum heard.

Statement One:

“She has been super cooperative for me.”

Maidens of Virtue: Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten builds on Chapter Nine's theme of "siblings are the only friends worth having" by telling the moralistic story of Lydia.   One day, Lydia sees a group of public school kids bullying a little girl.  Lydia intervenes causing the bullies to scatter and she comforts the little girl by telling her a Bible story.  When Lydia returns home, she tells her mom about the encounter with great indignation - at which point her mother reminds her of how much she hurt her sister's feelings when they fight.  Lydia is overwhelmed with remorse at her cruel ways and apologizes to her sister Jennifer.   Everyone presumably lives happily ever after surrounded by fresh-baked, home-made cinnamon muffins. 

After my first read-through of the book, the only things I remembered about the story were the strange inclusion of ecstasies surrounding the scent and taste cinnamon muffins at random points in the story and that Stacy McDonald managed to write a dead-on (and damn funny) teenage sister - to - sister insult around cooking.

All of the quotes from this chapter are from the conversation between Lydia and her mother; the rest is dross.  The first quote is Lydia and Jennifer's mother deftly turning the conversation away from bullying of a stranger to fighting with a sister:

When we imagine sins of the tongue, we tend to think of gossip, cursing, or lying. What you witnessed today was an example of purposeful verbal nastiness. But sometimes our careless words are just as injurious within our own families - maybe more so. Sometimes the careless remark to a sibling about some physical feature or a hasty joke about a particular habit or personal quirk is harmful.

Do you remember last week when you and your sister, Jennifer, were arguing? She pointed out your unmade bed and lack of diligence in keeping things as neat as you probably should. When your feelings were hurt by her drawn-out rebuke, you said some rather unkind things about her cooking skills. (pg. 97)

Preparing Sons for Single Income: Chapter Four

Chapter Four  - titled "What Does It Take to Make Ends Meet?" - is Steven Maxwell's fleshing out of how life choices affect budgets.   The chapter presents obvious, basic budgeting advice, potentially ruinous financial advice, judgmental condemnations of people he knows and family stories into a fun read.

The first anecdote shames a random couple that Mr. Maxwell knows:

I know young wife, Beth, who acquired a taste for nice jewelry. Tommy, her husband, loves her very much and wants to please her. Guess what Tommy buys Beth? Jewelry - - beautiful, expensive jewelry. Even though Tommy earns a good income, it isn't sufficient to support extravagant purchases. The couple has chosen to rely on credit cards to feed Beth's jewelry appetite, and they have amassed thousands of dollars in high-interest debt. (pg. 39)

Preparing Sons for Single Income: Chapter Three

The title of this chapter is "What is his REAL earning potential?" - but an equally valid title is "Find out what Steven Maxwell REALLY thought about his co-workers - and how greatly God favors him!"

The gist of the chapter is that a son's earning potential is mainly affected by his view of work, his character, his willingness to learn, God's Blessing and God's Discipline.  A hard-working, ethical, eager man will make more money than a lazy, cheating, dullard will - unless the eager beaver is being punished by God.

Since three sentences do not make a chapter, the rest of the section is fattened out with anecdotes about co-workers Steven Maxwell disliked and vignettes from his life.  To keep readers' eyes on the final prize - and shove some more humble-brag down their throats - the chapter begins with a reminder of how great Nathan is:

Who would have ever believed that a young home school graduate might make as much money as his college degreed father? Who might guess that the same son would be paid to write an instructor's manual for college professors teaching computer security? This is exactly what happened in our family! (pg. 29)

Nathan has had a remarkable career trajectory, but we don't need to be reminded of it every chapter.  Nathan did successfully write a book about computer security - but that was a one-shot deal.

I've noticed an interesting paradox in the Maxwell Family writings.  Steven Maxwell is extremely against college education for his children - but he brings up his college degree frequently and brags about Nathan making money by writing a college textbook.  No matter how far he's turned away from advanced degrees for his offspring, he continues to use the prestige of colleges to showcase his family's achievements.

The next anecdote is where Mr. Maxwell shares his dislike of a former co-worker named "Jerry".  Hopefully, that's a pseudonym.

When I worked for Boeing, Jerry was on my team. He was close to 60 years old and held a four-year engineering degree. Jerry was a genius. Unfortunately, no one wanted him on their team, as the man would not complete a task. Normal, mundane work was an incredible bore to him because he had a multitude of side interest that were always more important than his work. As a result of his poor work habits, Jerry only received token wage increases. He viewed work as a necessary evil to be put up with in order to receive a paycheck. His check was a ticket to the toys that made his life worth living.

At one point, it sounded like Jerry was going to be fired. However, as a last-ditch effort, Boeing transferred him to a job that involves solving problems for production lines. Finally, they found a job that interest Jerry enough to keep him motivated. As a result, Jerry and everyone around him were happier. If Jerry had viewed work is a gift from God and something to be greatly prized, he wouldn't have come so close to being fired. Plus, he would have been receiving pay increases through the years like others. (pg. 30)

How close did Jerry really come to being fired?  If he was as completely useless as Mr. Maxwell portrays him, I highly doubt he would have been employed for Boeing for any period of time.  I'm also curious how Mr. Maxwell knows all this information about Jerry.  Was Jerry a coworker on equal footing - and the gossip mill kept everyone up-to-date - or was Jerry Mr. Maxwell's subordinate?  The fact that Mr. Maxwell knows that Jerry received "only token" raises is a bit strange if they are coworkers.  How embarrassing would it be professionally if a worker who has been branded as unenthusiastic and problematic under Maxwell turned into a shining star in a different department?

Most likely, though, Steve Maxwell and Jerry were coworkers.  In that case, Jerry's biggest sin in the eyes of Maxwell is that he had the audacity to have enjoyable hobbies outside of work.  On page 44, Jerry's hobby purchases include "rifles, pistols, cameras, metal working machines and amateur radio equipment".   Later in the book, Mr. Maxwell discusses some of the hobbies that he's renounced over the years and at least one is more expensive than any of the items that Jerry bought.   On a side note, a skilled metal worker with engineering background may well have a side career making specialized parts for custom orders.  Which makes me wonder again - is Jerry's sin sloth - or making money in an enjoyable fashion without "God's Blessing"?

Men who are diligent, honest, resourceful, dependable, and responsible workers will do well. These days there are so few such people in our society that employers are hungry for them. From talking with several employers, I have learned that character is often more important than skills and qualifications. Employers are willing to train a person who has good character as long as certification and degrees aren't a mandatory requirement for the job (for example, an engineering job). (pg. 31)

I love that qualifier of "excluding jobs that require degrees and certifications" attached at the end of an ode to the importance of character.  Let's see, that caveat includes all but the lowest levels of medicine, education, law, engineering, social work, most professional ministry positions,  and science/technology jobs.  Jobs that do fit that criteria include food service, hospitality, entry agricultural jobs, customer service jobs, and janitorial work.   For men who are planning to be a single-income breadwinner for a large family, the careers that require degrees or certifications have a larger income as well as more constant availability of jobs. 

Eddie had worked with Tommy for about a year. Eddie was aware that Tommy fraudulently recorded his time on the job, and later Eddie had to confront Tommy on some other ethical issues. Eddie naturally assume that Tommy would have some hard feelings towards him after the confrontation. Tommy ended up leaving the company and going to work somewhere else. Months later, Eddie was totally amazed to receive a job offer from the new company for which Tommy was working. Even more surprising was the story behind the offer. Tommy's new boss asked him to recommend a person who the boss to be able to trust explicitly. The job would involves sensitive computer security, and ethics were a great concern. Tommy told the boss that he could wholeheartedly recommend Eddie as that person! (pg. 31)

I'm willing to bet one Whopper Junior that "Eddie" is actually Nathan Maxwell - and that the actual situation was completely different than reported here. 

My assumption that Eddie is Nathan Maxwell is based on the fact that Eddie's career revolves around computer security. 

For the rest of the story - none of it matches good business principles.  Eddie's not describe directly as Tommy's boss so I don't understand why Eddie would have to confront Tommy about ethical issues; generally, co-workers report job performance issues or crime including time fraud to their supervisors.  Confronting a co-worker about ethical lapses is treading on thin ice; that's moving close to harassment if the accusing person is wrong and shows questionable judgement in failing to report the issue to an actual manger if the accused person is doing something actionable.  Tommy heads off to a different company and offers up Eddie's name as a good hire for someone who is highly ethical.  I suppose that is possible - few things are truly impossible - but that doesn't mean it is prudent for Eddie to take that job.  In this situation, Tommy is BAD NEWS.  He's shown previously that he's okay with time fraud and some other workplace issues - and now Eddie is connected with him because Tommy recommended him for a job.   All of this is assuming that Tommy is acting in somewhat good faith - Eddie might be being set up as a fall guy for the next scheme that Tommy's running. 

I'm often skeptical as hell - but I bounced this story off of a lot of friends and colleagues; there was universal agreement that Eddie should run away from that job offer as fast as possible.

This next section was memorable for me because Steven Maxwell was trying to make his new home business sound like a major risk:

After 20 years of corporate engineering work, I came home to start a family business. It was an agonizing decision because I wanted to be certain it was God's will. As much as I desired to work from our home, I was scared to do it if it wasn't God's explicit will for my life. When I was confident it was His will, I came home. At first I only had a vague idea of what I might do. I felt God was leading me to sell printing and computer forms. Christopher, who was 18 at the time, was going to work with me.

We knew absolutely nothing about selling computer forms and printed materials, yet God led and blessed us as we went. The Lord provided a friend in the same line of work who is living in another city and was willing to give us some ideas about starting a print brokering business. He also provided us with a list of companies that did wholesale printing for him, something of great value to us. Then we were on our own and probably should have failed miserably. We have no training, no experience, and no skill, but God blessed mightily by bringing work. We have now been in business four years. There have been many changes since we began. We experience times without abundance, but our God has met every need. What a wonderful testimony to God's faithfulness! Yet, if we believe his word, it should not be surprising at all. (pg. 33)

Starting a new business takes guts - but not all new businesses are equally risky.  Steven Maxwell did plenty of good preparatory work by talking with someone in the same field who wasn't a direct competitor.  He also had a deep network of contacts from his years of corporate work and could tap into Nathan's budding contact network as well.   The fact that the company that employed him had reduced its workforce by 75% in two years could potentially be beneficial to the new business as well since the movement of coworkers to different companies would increase the number of companies that he had contacts in.

I find his attempts to argue that they were untrained, inexperienced and unskilled disingenuous.  He was not a Daisy Scout selling cookies for the first time; he was a mature, experienced businessman with previous job experience in marketing, sales, and engineering.  That doesn't guarantee that the business will succeed - but it reduces the risk of failure greatly.  He also had a huge benefit in that he had a young adult son who was willing and able to work with him as well as Sarah who was scheduled time to do projects for his company as she got older.

Finally, the relative risk of the times where the business wasn't making money isn't the same for all families.  Maxwell had been working in the corporate world for 20 years and as an electrical engineer should have been making above average yearly salary.  Yes, raising eight kids is expensive - but I've had extended family who raised larger families on much smaller incomes.  By the time Maxwell started his first business, he most likely owned a home, owned one or more cars, and had most of the clothing/home goods as well as home schooling materials for his family.  Compare that with a CP/QF couple who are in their mid-20's with two small children and a third on the way;  a time where the business fails to support the family is much, much harder.

In 1985, we moved to Washington so I could become a salesman for my company. My previous job had been at the company's headquarters doing marketing, but I wanted a sales position because the money was far better. However, after a year of hard work, everything that could go wrong had! I began calling out to the Lord to show me what was wrong. Out of the blue, a vivid memory popped into my mind. It was of the test I took to qualify for the sales position. This test was designed to compare my personality with the profile of the company's top salesmen. I recalled asking myself, as I completed that test, how the ace salesman would answer each question. Then I would write that answer down. It never occurred to me that I was being dishonest and, in effect, cheating.

My heart sank at the realization that I, as a child of God, had lied on a test. I felt awful and ask the Lord to forgive me. I knew that I needed to resign, because I had obtained the job deceitfully. Immediately I began looking for another job, but God soon convinced me that I needed to quit my sales position first. I definitely did not like the idea of being without a job but knew that I had to obey and told my manager that I had to quit. It brings tears to my eyes as I remember her looking at me and saying I could take two full weeks with pay to look for a job. I didn't even need to come into work! I was flooded with such incredible joy and knew in my heart that I was back under God's provision. Within a short time, I was employed by Boeing and again experiencing God's blessing in my vocation. (pgs. 34-35)

Well, I guess blaming "God's punishment" for lying is one view of the story.  My view is slightly different.  Lying on a personality test is a bad idea; the company thinks that certain personality traits make good salespeople and apparently Maxwell didn't have those traits naturally.  Having said that, Maxwell was going into the new position with his eyes open; the company gave him a test that laid out what skills make conventionally good salesmen.   The net outcome was that Steven Maxwell was a poor salesman - regardless of how God felt about the situation.  To me, blaming God for the natural consequence of a series of poor career choices is immature and childish.

Likewise, "God's blessing" of his manager allowing him two weeks of paid time to look for another position reads a bit differently for me.  The details of his position are missing, but most sales positions have a combination of salary and commissions as income.  For a skilled salesperson, the ability to earn commissions greatly increases their income; for an average to middling salesperson, the total income is around average for a person of their educational level.  A poor salesperson has little income - and is a financial burden to their company if they are not making enough sales to cover their salary.  Presumably, his manager was under pressure to keep sales up and costs down.  If a weak salesperson came to her and offered to quit, covering two weeks salary to encourage them to find another job is a winning proposition for the company.

The last oddity that I've noticed about the Maxwell family is that many of their financial and in-kind benefactors over the years have not been described as saved Christians.  The simple fact that his manager was a woman contradicts CP/QF teachings that all women should live at home under their parents until marriage and then raise a flock of little ones at home.  With the exception of Titus 2 Ministries and portions of Christopher Maxwell's photography business, the Maxwells work in secular industries.  One foray into online technology education that was geared toward helping home schooled, Christian students study for technology certifications failed miserably; combining test prep with an exhortation of how exactly to be saved would send most potential clients running. 

Economics is one of the structural issues that I am not sure how CP/QF society is going to manage.  Adherents are asked to separate themselves from non-believers except for when they are converting them so that leads to businesses that serve other CP/QF members.  The problem is that CP/QF theology rejects most advanced forms of education while advocating very large families which greatly limits the amount of money available for commerce.  I don't see how that's going to work out - but human creativity is endless.